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Yak Exclusive: A Video Message from Survivor’s Gillian Larson about Bullying


Anti-Bullying week continues here at YakkityYaks where we have teamed up with past and present Reality TV Stars, our Forum members, and fans on Facebook and Twitter to bring an awareness to the anti-bully movement. Hopefully together, we can help put a stop to it, and help those currently stuck in the situation and in dire need of help or just someone to talk to.

Below is a video message from none other than Gillian Larson. You may remember Gillian from Survivor Gabon, the 17th season of the Survivor Reality series. Gillian is one of the most adventurous, tireless and tenacious women we have ever known, who has led her life always trying to help others. A retired nurse of 41 years, wife and grandmother, Gillian spends her time traveling and just hanging out with family and friends. Gillian’s motto? “Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything!” Heck, she applied for Survivor 15 times! How is that for being tenacious and believing in yourself! She certainly fits the bill as role-model!

She is currently participating in a 60 mile walk for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure this weekend! You can keep up with Gillian at her website HERE.

Listen to her video message below:
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Anti-Bullying Week: “Triumphs Taste So Much Sweeter”

As you already know, YakkityYaks has joined forces with past and present Reality TV stars and fans just like you in honor of Anti-Bullying Week. We continue to feature stories from Reality TV personalities, members in our YakkityYaks forum, and fans from Twitter and Facebook. In an effort to join forces and increase awareness, we encourage you to share these stories with your friends and family and encourage continuous efforts to make a difference! We all are capable and we just hope that this motivates and encourages each and every one of us to take a stand and put a stop to bullying once and for all. YakkityYaks, don’t talk smack!

Read on below for another personal accounts from a fan on Twitter who felt so moved to submit their own personal and touching story, in addition to all of our other coverage today. Names have been changed to protect identities, but the stories are straight from the heart and unedited.

If you are interested in participating in our anti-bullying initiative by sharing your story, please contact JDMontgomery@yakkityyaks.com or ShellyBB13@me.com (Big Brother’s Shelly). Each and every story can bring about great change.

We also want to announce an exciting addition to our special features this week. Everyone who submits a story will be eligible to win a phone call from a reality TV personality!

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“When I was a kid, and perhaps my young adult life, I assumed bullying had to do with being gay. I thought, only gay kids get bullied. Kind of like, how some associate racism only having to do with African-Americans. We all know both aren’t true. While many gay youth experience bullying, & many African Americans experience racism, we’re actually all prey to the predator we call, the bully.
Growing up in football loving- Midwestern Ohio, and attending private Catholic school, I experienced bullying at it’s worst. I remember what I just called “the 6th graders” (God they still scare me and I’m 30). One day running late into school I got stopped by one. The BIG one. Why the heck isn’t he in class already I thought? I’ll never forget his words that day, “listen you little faggot, we’re all watching you, if you run around here acting like a faggot or try out for basketball, I will bash your fucking face in, & kill you”.

Wow, right? Needless to say, I didn’t try out for basketball till 7th grade (when this 6th graders were 9th graders & I felt the coast was clear). Ironically one of our basketball practice drills were called ‘Suicides’. Where you ran the court back & forth four times till you just drop. It wasn’t so much my bullies words, or threats that scared me. It’s how I knew the teachers turned a blind eye, how the parents did nothing, how there was NO ONE to go to that made me feel hopeless.

On a side note, it’s a common misconception that gays, especially men, don’t like sports. Ever think we were scared or threatened out of playing? Funny how our military JUST repealed DADT, trying to scare people out of serving & protecting our great nation.

This leads me to my conclusion, that is, we are all bullied in some way, shape or form. Maybe we are the bully.  I recently read that as a child, Eminem was so severely beaten by bullies as a child he was in a coma for 5 days. I think it’s why gays were never offended by his lyrics, we knew it came from a source of pain. Heterosexuals are called faggots everyday. Young girls, who don’t even understand sexuality are called sluts & whores. I’d rather be the bullied than the bully. In a bizarre way it built character & strength, & made all my successes and triumphs taste so much sweeter. My face was never bashed in, but somewhere, lingering in the back of my mind I still think it could be.

Talk to your Mom, or Dad, or neighbor, someone you trust. Dont take matters into your own hands. It really does, as they say, “get better”, and think of things from someone else’s perspective. Who or what is that bully scared of that he or she is taunting you? That kid that threatened me? He was BIG. Overweight actually, for a 6th grader. I wonder how many times he was called ‘Fat’ on a daily basis. I wonder if he has kids now, & how as a parent he feels if his kids are being bullied. Remember, we all grow up eventually. The person you want to outcast, could be the very person who saves your life. I hope by writing this piece, I saved yours.

Ps – I grew up, have tons of friends & those days I was bullied seem like they never actually happened, but they did, & I survived.

~D.”

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Anti-Bullying Week: Yakster’s Share Their Stories

As promised, throughout the week, we are featuring stories from our very own members in our YakkityYaks forum. These stories are volunteered from people who call our website their internet home and it is just another example of our personal feel and family attitude we pride ourselves in.

Just a reminder, the stories are unedited and real truths. We have only changed the names of those involved to protect their identities.

Here are two different accounts from Yaksters, both who wished to remain anonymous.

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Okay, so here’s my story.

As a child I was and continue to be a bit hyper. I had some things happen to me that shouldn’t happen to any child and it affects me to this day. Made me very insecure with myself, who I was, what value I had as a person and whether or not I could ever trust someone enough to be intimate and not necessarily in a sexual way but moreso in a way that you fully expose yourself to a person (again, not that way) and trust that they wont’ belittle or make fun of you. I wanted to fit in with the kids at school but I never knew the right thing to do or say around them, couldn’t be myself really because I always thought that since things had been done to me I may not have been worthwhile enough to really like. I did have friends, but I was never popular or cool.

When I was in the fifth grade I went through a phase where I’d wear different color socks, swimsuit coverups as part of an outfit, and other oddities…thought that would make me cool but nothing ever seemed to work with the popular kids. They’d tell me I was weird, ugly, smelled….and the times they’d include me in things were the times they could use me for something I had. Such as, as stupid as this sounds, my collections of things like the California Raisins figures, Garbage Pail Kids cards, etc. They’d pretend to like me and because I wanted to be cool I’d give them some and then they’d make fun of me again afterwards.

It got worse in junior high. Puberty and body odor set in, B.O. was my nickname from 8th grade on. I had clinical acne in the 8th grade, and man they had a field day with that one. I’d get crushes on boys, and they’d ask me to “go with them” only to find out it was a joke. In the 8th grade I was out of school for a week due to an eye virus that nearly went through this paper thin bone that lies between your eye socket and brain, and when I went back my friends, fellow nerds, were concerned but many told me to my face I wasn’t missed.

I had I think a sum total of two or three dates in high school too and the thing is, I was a late bloomer. When I was about 16 I got a figure, in fact I remember one time I had to walk up to the teacher’s desk in high school and two of the popular guys said “She might be a freak but she’s got a great ass”…..but I still was so awkward, could never connect with a guy b/c I would always get a scared feeling in my stomach.

So while I was never told to kill myself or any of the nonsense you see today, I never quite fit in. The resonating effect of that hits to this day too. If you’re told over and over you’re not perfect, that you’re a dork, geek, spaz, ugly, you smell, acne face you start to believe it. I’m thankful I have a family who tells me just how wrong those people were, even without saying it, but showing it. But I’m still self conscious, still really want to fit in with people, and I still can’t trust some in certain areas b/c of something that happened, that should never happen and will I ever get past that? I don’t know.

But I will say this, for anyone that’s been bullied, or is right now. It gets better b/c all those people who made my life hell, who made me want to die and I did try twice and thankfully failed, have since grown and matured. All the “dorks” and popular kids now hang out whenever they can get together…..

~Anonymous Yakster

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I was in seventh grade, and an eighth grader was always pushing me into lockers, walls, anywhere else I happened to be at the time. He also called me every name in the book. Finally, I got fed up with it all. He came up to me one day and tried to physically push me around again. I got up into his face and told him if he wanted to push me around anymore, he would have a fight on his hands because I wasn’t gonna take it anymore. From that day on, this guy left me alone.

~Anonymous Yakster

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If you too would like to share your story with us, we would love to hear from you. You can contact us through the contact form at the top of this page, or send your story to JDMontgomery@yakkityyaks.com. The more stories there are, the more we can show others they are not alone in this fight.

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Anti-Bullying Week: When Teachers Bully


I don’t think there is anything worse than when a teacher, a person that is supposed to be a role-model, a person who is supposed to be a safe place to run to for help, are the bullies themselves.

I, actually, had the unfortunate experience in dealing with one such teacher when my son was in 6th grade. You know, the time when kids are going through one of their most vulnerable stages, puberty. A time when they are learning about themselves, who they are and who they wish to become. My son was new in the school, a very small school, with only one class per grade. The children there already had built their relationships with others, so it was already hard for him to try and fit in. Well, along comes the teacher to show the other kids how they should treat him.

I couldn’t believe it. The stories he came home and told me… the things she would say to him… the things other parents overheard her saying to him as they walked by… and the coverup and accusations the school tried to throw back at my son. It was an extremely trying time as I’m sure you can imagine.

He had forgotten to bring in a paper once and she would lash out at him, telling him she doesn’t “want to see his face” and make him sit in the hall. It was constant. According to other parents, they told me she was notorious for it and always had one or two students in her class she would lash out at every year. What I didn’t understand was why no other parents were in an uproar over this? A child in 7th grade, his parent once told me, actually had to see a therapist because he was literally pulling his hair out with stress. She told me not to worry, that it “gets better in 7th grade.” Wait, what? That’s it? It just get’s better in 7th grade? So I should just tell me son to deal with it, it gets better in 7th grade? SHE’S A TEACHER!

It all came to a head at one point, with the school telling me my son was a liar, putting in the school bulletin a warning to parents not to “gossip” at drop off and pick-up. He even got suspended for 10 days because of my complaints. No wait, the school didn’t call it that. The school put him on “leave” until the teacher was ready to “look at him again.”

We got through it all eventually, the teacher was eventually let go, but not for a couple of years. The Principal also “retired” the same year. Why any child should have to go through that from someone that is supposed to protect them is beyond me. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. A recent story on MSNBC (Video below) shows a Special Needs student being bullied by her Teachers. Why become a teacher if you don’t care for kids? There are no words. Do NOT stand idly by if you see or know of this happening, like the parents at my son’s school who made us fight this battle alone. There is a child that needs your help. Next year, it could be your child and you fighting it alone.