Dear Iris: Under The Rader

For the past couple weeks people have been bullying me online. My boyfriend broke up with me and told everyone that I'd been cheating on him with three different guys. We're both kinda popular, Well I was popular, But he still is popular. After he told everyone that I cheated people have been inboxing me, calling me all kinds of names and threatening me with violence and humiliation. They told me not to bother showing up to school because they will beat me up, My former friends have said that they are going to reveal secrets that I told them. I just want it to stop. What should I do? 

Sincerely, 

Under The Radar 

Dear 'Under the Radar', 

  A situation  like this is very hard and is likely to cause you a great amount of emotional stress. But despite the stress you have to remain calm and alert. The most important thing to do is take screenshots off all of the threats especially the threats of violence. Make sure that you show an adult your parents, Your school administrators and the police. The most important people to contact are the police, Making a threat to commit a violent act against someone is illegal.Make sure that you file a police report.  Also make sure that you tell your school administrators so they can protect you in case they decide to make true on their threats of violence. They also will likely take displinary action against them. 

  You may consider deleting your social media deleting your social media can have many benefits. However deleting your social media could be seen as a sign of defeat. You have let them win by taking away your online presence. They don't deserve the power of telling you were you 

can be online or in person. 

You need to stay strong don't give them the power of seeing that they have destroyed you. A good thing to do for yourself during this time is to focus on self love do things that make you feel happy get takeout from your favorite restaurant, buy something nice for yourself from your favorite store. Treat yourself extra special because at the end of the day the number one person who needs to have your back is you. You need to let yourself know that even when nobody else is there for you, you have the strength and confidence to there for yourself. If you you stay strong and you don’t let those former “friends” drag you down then they will see that they lost because they did not destroy you and that you are doing just as well without them. 

  I know you probably feel sad about losing those friends but those were not real friends. Real friends would not have believed those lies about you. Real friends would have supported you during this.  Real friends would not have turned against you. And Real friends definitely would not have started threatening and harassing you. Maybe it’s for the best that you found out who these so called friends really were so that you can move forward and have a better life without backstabbing fake friends. Sometimes it’s better to have no one than have a bunch of fake people hanging around.