Prewriting-ish
I remember my senior year of high school perfectly. It was based around senior projects, portfolios, prom, and turning 18. The most important of these was turning 18. Turning 18 marked the time for independence, the time to break free of parents and to be yourself. That year I heard so many stories hinging on becoming an adult; ranging from “I’m going to get my eyebrow pierced and a tattoo,” to parent’s insight upon turning 18. Here is what the parents said:
“Once you turn 18 you can do whatever you want. We can’t stop you anymore because you are an adult. You make your own decisions.” Endless freedom and no boundaries? As teenagers, we are there. But little did our parents know was that we were becoming adults long before our 18th birthday.
Teenagers have grown up on the internet and I can say that from experience. In fifth grade I got my very first email account, in seventh I began to instant message, and in ninth I made my very first webpage. I was about as connected as someone could be. I was consumed in the internet every day, for hours on end. I updated my Xanga webpage daily, even though I only had a few friends registered to my page. I felt like myself online. I felt like I was really being me, a me that no one really knew outside of the world I had created for myself. I enjoyed the cyberworld more than I enjoyed the real world. Being online was an outlet for me, an outlet that satisfied me but began to create a rift between me and my family. The only way that I got “unplugged,” so to speak, from the internet was the moment that I realized it betrayed me.
My freshman year of highschool was spent with my two best friends. My two best friends that hated each other. Half of the time that I spent one-on-one with them was time for them to badmouth the other friend. So it was only natural for some kind of fight to brew between us. The fight that killed on of my friendships was not a verbal fight, not a physical fight, but a fight online. I was a victim of cyberbullying. If someone has never been cyberbullied before they will never understand the emotional diress it puts a person under. When I stumbled onto my “friend’s” website I was shocked, there were all these accounts of me being mean to her – hurting her feelings. I never thought that it was true but I would constantly check her webpage. I checked it at night so that my parents wouldn’t know and they didn’t find out until I told them that I was being attacked.
Telling them was both a relief and an embarrassment. I was relieved because they stepped in to save me. They called my best friend’s parents and had her take down her webpage, although another one soon popped up, they also called the principal and discussed the problem to them. I was embarrassed that I was living this undercover life, that I seemed completely different in front of them than I did in front of my friends. That this girl painted such a negative picture of me that I wondered if they would believe.
This could be anyone. It really could. But so many suffer in silence. Ryan Halligan, a victim of cyberbullying, killed himself after being hurt too much. His parents never knew. Megan Meier, also a victim of cyberbullying, killed herself after being tormented by a mother posing as a teenage boy that liked Megan and suddenly hated her.
Turning 18 marks us as adults but even adults need to be saved.