I am one of the luckiest women in the world, and I know it. I live on a farm surrounded by rescued animals who love me, a husband who thinks I am a goddess (no, really, just ask him) children whom I adore (both my own and my "borrowed" kids,) and due to this year’s heavy rainfall, more glamour* than I know what to do with. Way more.

As a child, however, things weren't so rosy. In fact, it was a terrifying childhood, and I spent way too much of it running from bullies and curled up in a ball, sobbing. I read thousands of books to escape, and I went back and forth between wanting to “show them all!” and wanting to end it all. I survived, but more than anything else, the bullying shaped my life, and oddly enough, in a positive way. To this day, if I see anyone, whether it is a child, dog, horse, bug or jellyfish being tormented, I’m in the attacker’s face ordering him or her to back off. I became tough as nails and totally intolerant of bully behavior. It’s the reason I work to rescue abused and slaughter animals, and the reason I bring bullied kids to my farm to improve their social skills while working with horses.

A few years ago when gossip blogger Perez Hilton was still a “bad guy,” I used to write to him regularly telling him to knock it off.  I was disgusted by the derogatory nicknames he gave Rumor Willis and Kirsten Dunst. I told him he was a bully and said if any of these girls killed themselves (or even mutilated themselves with plastic surgery) it would be his fault. He never responded, but he later experienced bullying from rapper Will.i.am's possee and repented of his evil ways. One time was all it took . . . hmmm . . . not much of a bully in the end. Anyways, now that Perez is a good guy he’s on an anti-bullying campaign, and recently posted a video done by a 14-year old named Jonah Mowry who had been bullied beginning in first grade.

I watched this boy’s video as he held up cards with his message printed on them, one at a time, and it all came flooding back to me. “Suicide was an option, many times,” a card read. (Yes, I remember feeling like that . . . ) “A lot of people hate me – I don’t know why.” (I would think the same thing – “why”? But before Jonah held up his next card I thought, yes, I know why . . . I was ugly, my hair was frizzy, I wore elastic-waist polyester pants, I was very, very odd . . . ) and Jonah’s next card echoed my thoughts with, “But I guess I do,” it read, “cuz I kinda hate me too.”

And then came the list of names they called him, different from my list, but just as horrible. Card after card, each one flashing on the screen exactly in the order of my train of thought, and I realized that no matter how much time passes, bullies stay the same . . . more so than most people realize.

Yesterday Perez Hilton posted on his site that people are harassing Jonah online (anonymously,of course - all bullies are cowards) claiming he made the video for attention and accusing him of making up his story. Wow. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to rush out and find those scumbags and get Johah a little revenge. But only for a moment. Because the truth is, for Jonah and every victim, the bullies will always be with us and beating them up doesn’t help. And unlike Perez Hilton, the bully is a breed of leopard that does not easily change his spots.

Early this year I wrote about being bullied as a child. For some reason, it really angered some people and they attacked me online. One of the first to leave a message was one of my childhood bullies. Yes, she was anonymous, but her language and words were exactly the same as they had been 40 years ago. And then the rest of the anonymous Internet bullies came out of the woodwork, calling me every name they could think of, but mostly a liar for “making up” my story. Hundreds of comments.

I read a few but they didn’t hold my interest – I’d heard it all before. My older brother, John, read a lot of them and was enraged as he'd watched me arrive home from school beat up and crying almost daily. He wanted to post a comment to back me up, but really, it didn’t matter to me. I didn't even care enough to read if anyone had stood up for me; I'd moved on and grown into exactly the life I'd always dreamed of. However, somewhere out there remained a 51-year old woman who was still precisely the same small, bitter, angry and sad bully she’d been as a child. And all I could feel for her was pity.

So Jonah, I know you are young, but at 14 you are wise beyond your years in many ways. Looking back at my disaster of a childhood, I now know that the pitiful human being who wrecked each day of my life for so many years is now the one who is pitiable; she has yet to move past sixth grade. Just as I knew what each of your cards was going to say almost before you held them up, I also know what you will write on the cards that follow; if you stay strong and believe in yourself and the value of your experiences, you will not only survive, you will thrive. The tormenters of your childhood will grow up to troll the internet at night, looking for victims they can anonymously bully . . . oh, wait, they already do that . . . sad, huh? But chances are excellent you will grow up, forge out into the world and make your dreams come true.

That’s when you won’t care anymore what the bully’s have to say, and that’s the sweetest revenge of all.

*Editor Kathleen Schurman owns Locket’s Meadow Farm in Bethany where she lives a life filled with “glamour” which is her cute little euphemism for “manure/mud/slime, etc.” When she is not writing for the Bethwood Patch she is shoveling glamour, teaching therapeutic riding and occasionally writing a book. But mostly, she’s shoveling glamour . . .