My Experiences being Cyberbullied

I know it's halloween and most people are celebrating but i have something a bit more serious to talk about. There are two movies I make a point to watch at certain points every year and one of them is Cyberbully from Freeform during October. October is anti-bullying month and I have been cyber bullied not once but twice in my life. If you don't know anything about the movie and assume it's over dramatized and unrealistic I can tell you from experience that yes it might be a little dramatic but I wouldn't go so far as to call it unrealistic.

Here is at least part of my story(sorry if it gets long)

In middle school I was bullied online by a close friend and in late high school found out they created a fake account to impersonate a classmate on AIM at first to look good and then to add to the level of harassment towards me. Neither time I was bullied was it as public and open as in the movie, but that could've just been luck. First time it was mostly through fb messages and AIM and in school. Second time it was through a game and a facebook group, also by someone I previous called a friend. In middle school I did bring it to the office and the guidance counselor and I was told there was nothing they could do about online and I could have falsified the chat logs that I had printed. (I save(d) everything from both times) In college I could have reported it but I was afraid of feeling even more isolated. I was already dealing with feeling alone and afraid to go to the dining hall. I spent the rest of my sophomore year checking snapchat to see if it was safe to go down and just get a soda refill without having an anxiety attack. In club i had to send people down so I wouldn't have a break down until sometime junior year i think. It is true that you feel you can't get away from it, it's even worse in college when you're basically living and sharing dining areas with the bully for the next 2-3 years at least in middle and high school you go home and meals are safe but in college you share those areas with them and then it's also online. I may not have attempted suicide but I remember taking a candle knife to my wrist in middle school attempting to cut but never being able to, in college I woke up with scratch marks on my legs that I didn't remember making but I had been thinking that I was tired of fighting and it would be easier if i just gave up. Hell, I remember my autobiographical professor wanted me to talk to someone two years later because it seemed so raw and fresh to him. When I watch this movie it still feels raw to some extent, it is something you never really let go over and get over, at least not for me. I have been stabbed in the back and abandoned by friends more times than I care to count but it's the friends and family that stuck by me that have kept me going and kept me strong, that and my slytherin attitude haha. I watch this movie every year since it came out to remind me what I went through, what I survived...I am strong, I am stronger for what these bullies put me through. Bullying is still a problem, cyber bullying is still a problem. I hear kids joke about it all the time in school...I remind them every time it is not a joke and that when I was their age nothing was done about it, especially not when it was done online. I have never once heard the same kid make jokes about bullying, least not around me. They do not realize how new these protections are and how lucky they are to have them.