Being bullied is a very hard thing to deal with. You get made fun of constantly, get physically hurt, you even have to read mean comments online and you often deal with problems at home.

But what if you had to go through this torture every day from the moment you started elementary school. For senior Deidra Wetter, that’s been her life.

She’s tried to stop her bullying many times. She’s informed her counselors and the best advice they could give her was just to ignore them. Ignoring a bully is much easier said than done, but she has made that her biggest defense.

“If you let them get under your skin, they win,” Wetter said.

Wetter has become a wallflower. She stays as far away from the big crowd as she can. She stopped being involved in school to avoid getting teased. But her bullies are never just one specific person. Throughout her life, they have varied from the popular girls to girls who keep to themselves, guys that think she’s weird to even athletes who we cheer on at games.

“They come up to me when I’m with a group of friends and embarrass me in front of them, they throw things at my face, I’ve been punched so many times, my Facebook has been hacked a couple of times also. They do just about anything,” Wetter said.

With suicide becoming a huge issue now a day, it’s amazing that Wetter has kept fighting on. She has found so much comfort in a band called R5. She says that they’re a band who strongly advocates being yourself and not to care what people think. They give her hope and she’s made their message her life motto.

“To anyone who gets bullied, just be yourself because that’s all you can really do. Don’t change yourself to fit in just do what you got to do for you,” Wetter said.

Wetter finds comfort in being at school and being with her friends. She has forgiven one bully and now that person is like a sister to her. Wetter jokes that she’s more of a bodyguard to her but she finds support in her group friends. They are the people that have learned to accept her even if she is different and she’s thankful to have them in her life.

Coming to school every day and having to deal with mean people is a hard battle. There are battles at home that Wetter also has to fight. We don’t really know what someone goes through when they’re not at school and to make their life even more difficult is an awful thing.

Bullying is becoming a serious issue that is leading to suicide in our generation. All it takes is one person to stand up for a victim to make a difference. We could be the generation to end bullying if we all get the courage to stand up against it.