#BeKind

I’m sure alot of people are wondering why my hashtag most the time is #BeKind. Well theres a long story behind that, but lets make it short and simple. I’ve told you in my first blog post that I lived in several countries due to the demand of my dads work we always had to move a lot, which meant I never really had long time friends or childhood friends. The moving caused my brother and I to sometimes enter the school year half way through, it being an international school they would allow that and that’s where it began. The bullying.  I’ve never really talked about this issue until now. I was severely bullied during my elementary days and high school days, it really just stopped when I joined showbiz. 

I was the type of kid that would come up to you and say “Hi, my name is Melissa, whats yours?” then I’d have a new playmate and have a blast. As I grew older that all changed. The first time I was bullied I was very young and was in Kindergarden, this girl would just start going at me saying “ewwww’ or “you cant play with us” and made funny faces at me, I'd just eat my sandwhich during recess and let it go. That was very minor but as a child it had such an impact on how I became towards other people. I became quiet.
During elementary it got worse, living in a different country I spoke two languages which are English and Tagalog. When I would speak tagalog or they would hear me, they would make fun of me and laught at me, they would call me “China!” then run away, others would just scream on the top of their lungs “Felissa!!” "your smelly" or whatever mean thing they can think of or absolutely ignore me and I'd sit alone somewhere with my bestfriend who would tell me to just ignore them.

           During  high school things got real. Bullying went to the extremes, I wouldn’t eat in the cafeteria because I was too scared to. Before a group of girls would always follow me and made sure I had a hard time. They would even follow me into the bathroom and talk about me laughing and saying nasty stuff while I was in the cubicle and couldn’t go out because they were there. They would also glare into my classroom, smiling at whispering things that just made me even more fearful to leave my classroom. I would ask my fellow classmates to buy me may snack or buy my lunch the same time they did, so I would just eat in the classroom. Going to school everyday became a challenge. There came a point I told on these girls and when I did I was crying because I couldn’t take it anymore, when they were called to the office they just smiled and said “no, that’s not true we like her nga eh, shes pretty” My bestfriend Geraldine had more tears than I did she saw how mean they have been but nothing happened from that confrontation. nothing was resolved, it just made things worse.

after joining SCQ, things got better, I guess I met people who understood me and had the same likes as me. I started home schooling and finished my highschool that way. I missed regular school but not the bullying definitely. I guess all the bullying made me a better person. As I grew older I learned to be kinder than I had to, even if some people didn't deserve it. I never want anyone to feel left out or hurt in any way. Sometimes I would get burned, burned meaning sometimes i would have to pay the price of being kind, i was taken advantage of. I’ve had friends stab me in the back, make up stories just so I would get my happy ending, which for me was unacceptable. friends are supposed to be happy for you when your happy and when you succeed, but I guess those people weren't really my friends after all. they would use me for my kindeness and get me in trouble. Ive had to let go of some of my good friends because they weren’t good for me anymore. It took a long time for me to recover, I kept asking myself “how could they do that to me” “what did I do to deserve that” but I never got an answer to that, I just moved on and wished them the best. I believe kindness goes a long way. If people aren’t kind to you, hayaan mo sila, ikaw, you did your part and your the one that sleeps better at night because you have no bad intentions. Kindness will come back to you one day, in a million folds, I believe in good karma. And I believe in karma as well. God has a plan for all of us, everything in our life happens for a reason. I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now without all I've been through. Lets stop bullying, lets stop all the nasty talk about our neighbors. We don’t want our children to grow up in that kind of world. We should set good examples and the rest will follow. Being kind isn’t hard, but remember, it takes soo much effort to be mean. #BeKind

Love,

   Mel

BE KIND