Victim

If Only I Had Known

My name is Isabelle.

My little 11 year old, happy-go-lucky sister, Emily is dead. Why, you wonder? Because of bullying. 

'I am constantly bullied at school because of my big glasses and my love of books. I love to read and they keep wrecking my books. There are never people nearby to help me, and when there are, they don't do anything.' This is a direct quote from her diary.  Emily always had a book with her on the go, no matter where we went. She's the reason I love Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and a whole bunch of other books. 

I think the reason Emily loved reading so much was because when she was reading she could escape into her own little world and forget about reality. Forget about responsibilities, chores, homework, bullies, and just life in general. 

After she committed suicide, I found her diary hidden under her mattress, and I also found the reason she loved Harry Potter. 'I feel like I am back at school being teased when I read about Dudley and Draco bullying Harry. I can relate to the Harry Potter series in one of the worst ways possible, and I think that's the reason Harry's my favorite character. Because I understand him, and I understand what he's going through with Dudley and Draco.' That is the direct quote from her diary.

Emily committed suicide in December, just before Christmas. That Christmas was low-key and almost didn't happen for my family. I don't think her twin, Eliza, wanted Christmas to happen without her other half. We were all grieving and Eliza and Mom were nearly drowning in tears for a few days. 

My reaction was to go through Emily's things-with permission from Eliza, of course-and remember a bright, happy, smiling girl who never really got a chance in the world. I picked up the wand she had ordered online-a replica of Harry Potter's wand-and remembered when she had introduced me to his world. It had been just a few years ago, but it seemed like a lifetime ago now. I did the same with her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. 

In her diary were the names of the kids who had bullied her. We found them and they admitted to bullying her. They were also very apologetic and their parents came in. Their parents were horrified, and the four kids got their phones taken away and were supposed to talk to a counselor every day for the rest of the year as to why they thought they had to bully Emily. 

Eliza and I were anti-bullying before this happened, but now, we hate bullies. Bullying is terrible and the bullies can make people think horrible thoughts and kill themselves. If we had known before Emily committed suicide, we would have done something about it. If only I had known.

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Emily was just one of the many, many kids that commit suicide yearly because of bullying. Please, don't be a part of bullying and help me to end bullying permantently. Watch the video above. WE will stop the bullying. 

This is a true story and it was very hard for me to write, so please don't make any offensive or rude comments.