May 19, 2016: Del Rio News-Herald * OPINION * Letter to the Editor *Beauty and the bully




Letter to the Editor,

Beauty and the bully

Julie the Bully: “You're fat and ugly.”


Judy the Beauty: “No I'm not! I'm pretty.  I have lots of friends. I'm intelligent, athletic and artistic. Everyone likes me and thinks I am very nice. I am beautiful inside and out.”


That's what Judy secretly wished she would have said back to Julie, but she just remained silent.


Judy was intelligent and received very good grades, but Julie said she wasn’t smart.


And when Judy did struggle to learn a new concept, Julie told her she would never get it.

Judy liked playing sports, but Julie told her she wasn’t good enough to make the team and didn’t even know why the coach put her in to play.


Whenever Judy got a part in the school play, Julie told her she needed voice lessons to be good enough to be on stage. What was the director thinking?


Julie told Judy that she didn’t have any friends, no real friends, anyway; that if anyone seemed to be her friend, it was because they had pity on her.


After a long time of being bullied, Judy began to feel worthless, alone and sad.


She believed Julie more than she believed her friends, her family or even God.

Judy's father told her, "You, my daughter, are a beautiful, intelligent, and talented young lady."


Julie's father told her, "You, my daughter, need to try harder to be good enough."


Everyone thought that Julie was a very good girl, the perfect daughter, the exceptional student, everyone's friend; except, Julie was a bully.


No one really knew it because she quietly bullied only Judy.

She picked on Judy mercilessly and relentlessly but only when no one was looking or listening.

Julie's father would continuously tell her, "You have to prove yourself good enough to your friends and teammates. You have to prove yourself good enough to your teachers and coaches. You have to prove yourself good enough to your mother and me and even to yourself."


Judy's father told her, “God loves you, my daughter, just the way you are, right now, in all your brokenness and pain. He will heal your broken heart, bind up all your wounds and restore you. Let Him. Let yourself feel His love. And let Him teach you to love yourself again. Know this, too, my dear beloved daughter, I love you more than I could ever express, just the way you are."

Marian Casillas, Ed.D.