Together, we are MSD strong.
* * *
I will never forget that day either, or the youth-led movement that arose from such tragedy. Thank you, Jessica, for sharing your story. Jessica and her story represent the resilience of the generation that drives the Channel Kindness movement and our work at Born This Way Foundation. We know that in the aftermath of tragedy, there is power in community building. If you or someone you know is struggling with post-traumatic stress, please call the Disaster Distress Helpline for 24-7 assistance, and for more resources as to how to help those impacted by gun violence, visit Brady: United Against Gun Violence or Everytown for Gun Safety.
27
CHANGING THE GAME ON BULLYING
ABBEY PERL
At first, when I became a gamer, I wasn’t so different from a lot of the other kids who are drawn to online gaming. A lot of us know what it feels like to be bullied, picked on, teased, or even harassed. Bullies are pretty predictable with the things they target about you—including whatever your perceived weakness or strength might be, how you look, talk, or walk, where you live, how much money your family has, or who your friends are or aren’t.
Bullying has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. No matter where I went, it seemed like I never had a safe space to go. The only place where I could feel comfortable—and relieved—was in the world of online gaming. Whenever I played online video games, I felt at ease, knowing my fellow gamers and I had a lot in common. They were my friends who cared for me and loved playing as much as I did. But the more I played, the more I began to detect the online version of bullying.
How did that work? Well, most of the video games I play have chat options—either voice chat or text chat. This helps smoothly coordinate team-oriented games. Unfortunately, it’s this part of gaming culture that gives rise to the same kind of bullying that can happen on the playground, in the halls of school, or on the street. If you’re good at the game or you’re different from other players—watch out. Comments, digs, and questions can become unavoidable if for some reason you find yourself the center of attention.
How old are you? Where do you live? What do your parents do?
As anonymous or low-profile as I try to be, eventually I’m thrust into the spotlight—not because I want to be there but because my fellow gamers realize that, yeah, I’m different from them.
Oh. Yeah. Got it …
Are you a girl?!
It is a little rare to find a girl playing video games, especially the few of us who have the courage to be proud of who we are. In the world of online gaming, though, that immediately changes how you are treated. Once my gender was exposed, the next thing I knew, even more inappropriate questions started to come up—including questions about my relationship status. You would think it would have stopped there, but nope. Once it was out there, I was treated differently all because of my gender.
You’d think that this wouldn’t happen with gamers, a lot of whom were bullied themselves, but in a world that’s unsupervised, where there are no rules and where it’s easy to do and say things without being identified, it happens often that former victims of bullying turn into bullies.
Finally, I came to a crossroad after a very scary incident, when someone tracked down my home address along with the names of my parents, and posted the info online for everyone to see. It made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
This was a breaking point for me. After dragging myself through pain and suffering, I decided to make a change. Not just for me, but for all the gamers out there who were being made to feel unsafe while doing something they otherwise loved.
In a reality check moment, I thought long and hard and realized, I had a choice: Leave the game, or change the game.
My answer was easy. No way was I going to be pushed into leaving. So my next question was to figure out what I could do to promote change in my online and offline communities.
Hmm. That’s when it hit me:
Why not start a movement?
As simple as it sounds, I wanted to be different from other movements and organizations. I wanted to connect and relate to my peers in a way that would attract them to want to do more. After months of hard work and planning, my organization emerged to pave the way for kindness and compassion among all.
Kind Mind Collective—originally Diverse Gaming Coalition—provides kindness curriculum to students and adults across the country. As an organization, we do it this way to get people involved in the movement, without preaching or lecturing but still getting them to think about the values and codes of behavior they might not have considered before. In a space where we all have so much content and so many voices grabbing for attention, it’s important to find a way to give people reasons to relate and want to be a part of what you’re doing. And we are always coming up with new and exciting ways to do that.
You know I love video games, right, Abbey? I love your story. I love how you took your own pain and experiences and channeled them into creating a world in which you—and so many others—could feel safe. I’ve also been confronted with the question of leaving the game or changing the game, and I’m grateful you and I both chose to change it. For more resources on how to combat online harassment, check out HeartMob or Kind Mind Collective.
Our recent project involves an antibullying comic book that follows Asher, the main character, whose gender is deliberately nonbinary and who is a person of color—two aspects of identity increasingly subjected to bullying these days. With this comic, we hope to tackle such issues that need more attention while promoting mental health, self-care and, most important, kindness.
Overall, I am proud of where I have come since I was a victim of bullying. Unfortunately, bullying does affect people every day. The nonprofit StopBullying.gov asserts that kids who are bullied can feel like they are different, powerless, unpopular, and alone. My feeling is that we need to come together and be stronger than the bullies. Never let a bully drag you down from what you love doing most, because that means the bad guys win. Don’t let them stop you from pushing yourself to do what can fundamentally change the game—and the world.
28
THE GOLDEN RULE
PEIGHTON MCROBIE
“Kelly Brush…!”
During commencement exercises for Middlebury College’s class of 2008, the announcement of Kelly Brush’s name was received with an instantaneous standing ovation and such thunderous applause that the ceremony had to be paused at length. It was a moment that few present would ever forget—especially Kelly, her family, friends, coaches, and her fellow members of Middlebury’s ski team.
Just over two years earlier, on February 18, 2006, during Kelly’s sophomore year, a very different kind of moment took place that she would also never forget. As a fierce competitor and an elite athlete in the speed events of alpine ski racing, Kelly had always excelled in a number of sports—gymnastics, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, softball, ice skating, swimming, waterskiing, and, even surfing.
Athletic activity, said Kelly, “was something I loved to do … It was a huge part of my life.” Competitive skiing was also in her blood, a sport in which her parents and her sister had made names for themselves, too.
As a little girl of seven, Kelly had been termed a “tiger”—so called because of her confidence and hard-charging style on the ski slopes. It was that same grit that distinguished her from the moment she arrived at Middlebury; she was a key contributor her freshman year and already a standout early into her sophomore season. At the Dartmouth Winter Carnival (college ski meets are called “carnivals”), Kelly earned the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) career-best eighth place ranking in giant slalom. She went into the Williams Winter Carnival with even higher expectations.
After an impressive finish to her first day, all proceeded promisingly on the second day’s race. That is, until the critical moment when she sped over a knoll before catching one ski’s edge on a patch of ice. This precipitated a nightmare scenario
in which she was catapulted off the course, striking one of the stanchions for a ski lift tower. The accident left her with a collapsed lung, four fractured ribs, and a fractured vertebra in her neck. She was paralyzed from the waist down.
Her lowest point, she recalls, was when news came that she would use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Kelly immediately thought she would never be able to ski again, which she says “was sort of terrifying for me, when I felt like that was the case.”
When Kelly’s name was announced at graduation, the uproar and standing O was not one of pity but rather of admiration and inspiration. Somehow, in the midst of her fear, at her lowest point, she summoned the tiger within herself to make it through the horribly painful process of recovering from hours and hours of surgery, months of physical therapy, countless hospital visits, and having to miss an entire semester of school. Her grit was fueled by the love, kindness, and support of family, friends, and her college community.
Kelly applied the same discipline she’d used in training for sports to her rehabilitation process. “I wasn’t really discouraged,” she explains. Her focus was always on what was the next thing. As in: “What do I have to do next?”
While Kelly was in rehab, she was introduced to adaptive sports—competitive sports for persons with disabilities that have modified rules and equipment to meet the needs of participants. She remembers, “I was able to get my hands on a hand cycle for the first time when I was in rehab. And it was amazing, I felt so great…” Her eyes were opened to the reality that her life wasn’t over and her dreams, while maybe in need of some adapting, were still attainable.
There was a problem, however, that she was frustrated to discover: Adaptive sports equipment is extremely expensive. “After you have an injury like this, you already have a higher cost of living, and then the idea of having to spend a couple thousand dollars to get a piece of equipment you really need is so hard for so many people.”
Knowing how important adaptive sports had been in her recovery, Kelly was adamant that all injured athletes should have opportunities to compete and access to equipment while on the road to regaining an active lifestyle. Her desire to help led to the launch of the Kelly Brush Foundation (KBF), which has a mission of “empowering those with paralysis to lead engaging and fulfilling lives through sport and recreation.” The KBF provides grants to injured athletes who demonstrate financial need for the purchase of equipment for adaptive sports. The foundation also provides grants to ski clubs around the country so they can purchase the necessary safety equipment to prevent ski accidents. On top of these grant programs, the KBF partners with competitive adaptive sports programs to encourage participants to take their talents to the next level.
After rehab, when Kelly returned to Middlebury College in fall 2006, she entered her junior season as an active member of the ski team, training to compete in a monoski on the same slopes she had raced before. She finished out her senior year and raced as an adaptive sports athlete as part of the Middlebury Carnival. After graduating in spring 2008—on time, despite missing a semester due to her injury—she was honored the following year with the highly lauded, rarely bestowed NCAA Inspiration Award.
Ask Kelly Brush about her life today and she shrugs off the challenges. She doesn’t set herself apart from others who must learn to adapt in the wake of difficulties or from those who live out their dreams without challenges.
“I don’t think my life is any different … I’m married, I have a baby, I work in the field that I wanted to work in, I graduated from Middlebury.” Her field is nursing and, even between her job and juggling time as a mom and wife, she still has not lost any of her passion for the work of her foundation.
When asked to define kindness, Kelly answers that, though her definition may be cliché, to her, kindness is the time-tested principle of doing to others what you would have done unto you.
True, many of us have heard the Golden Rule since we were kids, but that doesn’t make the cliché any less true or important. Kelly embodies this definition of kindness to its fullest extent. She’s also an example of a lesser-known piece of wisdom: The only way to learn to treat others the way you want to be treated is by embracing the experiences, moments, and events that make us who we are … no matter how difficult.
We can borrow from Kelly Brush and choose to bring out the tiger in ourselves, getting back out on our own slopes after learning from our difficulties. With that empowerment, we can thereby treat others with the kindness and love we all want and deserve.
Kelly, you are so determined and courageous—a tiger, indeed! Thank you for embodying the Golden Rule and finding a way to do what you love and help so many others in the process. I am so glad that this foundation exists to help others feel the transformative power of being active and free. If you or someone you know has experienced a spinal cord injury and are looking for resources to help you lead an active lifestyle, check out the Kelly Brush Foundation.
29
KINDNESS COSTS NOTHING
SARAH RYAN
Imagine you’re going through a rough time, walking down a dark alley in a strange city, late at night, with not one light on to make you feel a little less desperate and alone. And then imagine how you would feel if you turned a corner and saw a well-lit storefront with a welcome sign and friendly-looking faces inside. They might be strangers, but wouldn’t it ease some of your distress to see a smile or two, or just to read a sign that lets you know you won’t be turned away?
In 2011, fourteen-year-old Carrie Shade was thinking along those lines when she decided to create an online movement to encourage kindness and perhaps inspire fellow teens and young adults to identify themselves as being willing to be supportive and helpful of anyone going through a rough time. She thought in particular about mental illness and the level of loneliness and desperation that could lead a person to take their own life.
How powerful can mere kindness be? For Carrie, the answer is that it’s more powerful than we often acknowledge. Her feeling is that small acts can have a greater impact than grand gestures.
“I make an effort to smile at people as much as I can, even if I don’t know them well or really at all,” she says. “People who are struggling are not worth any less. It’s important to take care of others—and yourself—whenever necessary. Just showing a little compassion for other people can do wonders.”
Fourteen years of age might seem too young to launch a movement that starts small and grows into something much larger, but Carrie had deeply held personal reasons for wanting to try: She had lost her best friend to suicide. Her way of grieving was by learning all she could about mental illness and the causes of suicide. Believing that everyone has the power to make a difference, Carrie established the Against Suicide movement. As a young mental health advocate, she feels uniquely positioned to encourage peers to become informed about how they, too, can help others seriously struggling to seek professional treatment.
Over the years, Carrie has found that creating support for openly talking about mental health issues goes a long way in tackling the social stigma that prevents people from seeking help when they are most in need. “Anyone can be affected by a mental illness, either their own or that of someone they love,” she says.
When Carrie made the decision to mount her campaign for mental health as a virtual movement without a brick-and-mortar counterpart, there was no one main reason. She just wanted to put something positive into the world, and she never actually expected it to take off the way it did. For her, Twitter was “like a blank canvas” where she could create and advocate for a cause she believes in.
When many teens and young adults in the community and elsewhere, via social media, chose to be a light in the darkness and to identify themselves as being willing to welcome those looking for support, the movement took off dramatically, eventually winning the Shorty Award for Best in Activism in 2013 and 2014. This award recognized Carrie and her movement for starting social media campaigns such as #ToTh
oseWhoNeedIt, #StayingClean, and #ProjectLG.
Stories like Sarah’s highlight the bravery it takes to ask for help. If someone hasn’t told you yet today, please let me be the first and repeat these words to you: You matter, and we need you here, friend. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal ideation, please reach out to someone you trust. It might be one of the hardest things you ever do, but it will also be one of the bravest. Check out Against Suicide on Twitter; and please reach out to Crisis Text Hotline to talk to, message, or chat with a trained crisis counselor for 24-7 assistance, or visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to learn more about the signs and symptoms of suicidal ideation.
The latter hashtag stands for Project Life Guard, which is an online support group that stemmed from wanting to show compassion online. It aims to help people get through the hardest parts of their lives. To participate, people just write #ProjectLG in their social media bios, which shows others they are there to help.
Against Suicide has also opened a small online merchandise store. The shirts are meant to show the world that people shouldn’t be afraid to talk about depression and that all mental illness should be taken seriously.
Through social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, this movement has reached more than 250,000 people. Over the years, the overall message has stayed the same, but the tone has shifted. Carrie says that it has “transformed from cheesy and cute inspirational quotes … to relatable messages that will leave you thinking for a while.”
Now in her early twenties, Carrie says, “While it’s important to remember that mental illnesses can’t simply be cured by spreading positivity, being nice to people can make someone’s bad days more bearable.”
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