My Experience with Trolls

     Throughout my years as a high school student, especially one with a troubled past trolling or cyber bullying is something I am too familiar with. When I was a freshman I wasn't exactly the same person as you see today. I would like to not go into deep details as I want to keep my past hidden. Anyway, due to these events a good amount of people didn't like me.  At the time, I only had Instagram as my only source of social media but I didn't realize how bad the online insults were. They spanned several platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat, and especially Ogle so a large number of people from school could see everything. I would see a bunch of messages of others calling me a "b****" or coward. Some people even made rude questions about my masculinity. Honestly, being a freshman and seeing that stuff being posted online literally destroyed almost everything I had like my reputation, friendships, and my ability to talk to other people. Every day I would try to find excuses to tell my parents to call me sick just to avoid school. When I would go to school I would be really paranoid, because it could be anyone who could be talking trash about me. It was a really difficult time. However, during sophomore year I got fed up with all the ridicule and I tried to fix my mistakes that led up to the harassment. Instead of focusing on social media I just did my own thing for a long time and tried to remain anonymous as possible. The number of changes I went through my Sophomore year and Junior year was massive. Although, I couldn't change my faults I worked on keeping them in check so they wouldn't hurt me or anyone else again.  During my Junior year I "reappeared" as a more confident and carefree person. Thus, I was able to regain the friends I lost as well as partially fix my reputation. Although there are people who still believe that I am the same person since freshman year and to be frank, I don't care. What I learned from my experience is that if you are being trolled just don't give a damn. They are all people who have nothing better to do so they just try to make others miserable. Meanwhile, I have progressed in my life and I didn't let any of them break me. A famous quote once said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Besides, the fact that they have to hide themselves to insult someone already proves that they are below you.