For some people, Pink Shirt Day is a day of the year where everybody is supposed to wear pink. Simply that. Most people participating in Pink Shirt Day also know that the day is an anti-bullying event.
However, for too many, the topic of bullying isn’t just about a dress code for one day a year. For way too many people, especially youth, bullying is a weight on their back throughout the years. For way too many people, bullying feels like chronic torturing, both externally from others and from inside themselves.
We’ve all heard the childish saying “Sticks and stones will break my bones and words will never hurt me”. But guess what? Broken bones can be put into casts and soon they heal. Broken spirits? Now those aren’t so easy to fix.
I think sometimes we put bullying aside because our image of bullying is something along the lines of Mean Girls, a fist fight, or online stalking. The truth is, bullying doesn’t just show itself in those big, dramatic ways. Bullying can be the side comments you make. Bullying can be the insensitive jokes you think are funny. Bullying can be simply excluding someone. These (and other) more hidden forms of bullying can be difficult because the victim feels like they shouldn’t be upset and that there isn’t a problem and that they’re just “whining”.
To anyone out there who has been (or is being) bullied: you deserve love. You ARE loved. You are allowed to be struggling, and you are allowed to seek help.
To anyone out there who has been (or is) a bully: I’m sorry that you have to resort to those methods. I understand you might have underlying struggles that prompt your behaviour. But guess what? It’s time to seek an alternative. Talk to someone who can help. Fight with kindness. Not only will you make others happy, you’ll be happy yourself too.
Pink Shirt Day is a great initiative to gather support against bullying, but we can’t let it be about one day. I challenge you to go out of your way to be the light at the end of someone’s tunnel. To be the reason someone smiles that day. To be the reason someone doesn’t take their life that night. I challenge you to make the world a better, kinder, happier place.