Waukesha North Senior Reflects on Empowerment Week

Waukesha North High School students took a stand against bullying and harassment last week with special walks and guest speakers.

Waukesha North High School senior Casey Holahan wrote about his experiences with bullying in his blog following Empowerment Week:

Throughout my time in middle school and high school, it is fair to say I have been considered a "popular" guy. I was fortunate enough to be crowned Homecoming King, captain of the football team, and well respected by my peers. However, the vast majority of people do not know that bullying has effected my life in multiple ways. I have been verbally bullied, as well as a bully myself. Many people do not know I have a lot of insecurities about myself. I have struggled with this for many years now, and have not known how to handle it. So I decided it was best to put down others. There was about 2-3 good friends of mine who were more vulnerable than me and who I viewed as easy targets. I routinely put them down in an attempt to build myself up. It seemed like the perfect way to cope with the pain, I would put them down, everyone would laugh and build me up, and since the victims were my friends, there were never any consequences. As you can imagine, this did not help me at all. My self esteem got worse over time because I eventually realized that it hurt me to know I was hurting people I cared about. After I finally realized what I was doing was so wrong, I stopped and tried my absolute best to make things right with those people.