Bullying Ends Here | Tad Milmine | TEDxWestVancouverED

[Music] this is me when I was only five years old and even to this day I still remember three really big things about myself being so young I remember the first one being this little boy and having a dream I had a dream that I so badly wanted to grow up to be a police officer and if you would ask me when I was five why why would you ever want to grow up to be a police officer I would have stood there with a little boy grin would I look up to you and I would have said because when I grow up I want to be able to help people the second thing I remember is that my mum and dad they were not getting along so they got a divorce and the way divorce worked in my house very straightforward as five so I stayed in the same house I grown up in and I stayed there with my father it was my mother that was the one to leave she left and I didn't see her again for the better part of the next next 15 years or so well I was left there with my dad my dad's an alcoholic and I know that sometimes when we hear that word we have a pretty negative understanding of what that means and yes there are some people that do things that they shouldn't but not my dad my dad's still a very caring kind loving individual but the problem is however is that when there was something going on in his life where he should have been talking about her - communicating or addressing those issues he wasn't comfortable doing so so what he would do instead is he turned to the alcohol and he'd hoped that those problems in his life was just like magic somehow disappear so you'll see very soon how that played a very negative role for me growing up but the last thing I remember about being five and don't be fooled is what you see in front of you this morning is the fact that I was slowly growing in to be a horrific ly introverted young person I used to be so shy that if someone had walked up to say hi or be kind or be my friend I wanted no part of it so I'd put my head down turn around and just walk away but you see being that shy wasn't my only challenge because in my mind if I was ever feeling any type of perverse emotion whether that be anger sadness disappointment fear anything along those lines my body was always gonna react by crying well you see it was just after that divorce my dad felt it so he had met the new woman of his dream so he invited her come and live in my home but I'm only five I'm basically waiting at the front door hoping mums gonna come through that door at anytime yet this stranger has now moved in and I knew at five years old as I know to this day that when that woman moved into my life she absolutely hated me and I know that because when she moved into my life she had some extreme rules the first one it was to be the biggest the one that would last the longest and still affect me to this day and that one was gonna be that from that day forward she was gonna lock me in the basement of my house well that's my house looks pretty nice on the outside except the four walls to that home hid of deep dark secret and that is that basement because the basement that I was locked in had four cement walls a screw and light bulb in the ceiling for Windows but three of which were normally either had the growth outside of the plants or maybe they were boarded up the fourth one always cemented over there was no heat there was no air conditioning I wasn't allowed ties the only thing I could have is a small little black-and-white television with a couple of antennae on top and on a nice day I might get lucky to have one maybe two channels that would come in so there I was locked in that basement but I can't even say hi to people anyways so I'm already suffering inside but what would happen is she would also catch on very quick I cried all the time and you see it wasn't just the fact that she clued in to that it was the fact that she she really manipulated it it started with with calling me names but it didn't take long before she'd start to yell and scream but it was the words that she would tell me at a young age as I grew older the words of I'm never gonna be light no one's ever gonna be my friend no one's ever gonna love me I'm just forever gonna be worthless because I'm not good enough those words would keep being but then the screaming so what would happen every now and again is my dad he would know that she's screaming so he'd come down to that basement he'd find wherever I was more often than not just curled up in a corner just trying to stay warm cuz that basement was always so so cold he'd come he'd find me he put his arm around me with his drink in his other hand and he'd look at this young person and just say to me tad just ignore her just ignore her she'll stop she'll stop and those would be the words that he would always do instead of going in addressing the problem which is what he needed to do he would go to the young person and just tell me to ignore her but you see what was happening is that I was only allowed to leave that house for two circumstances one was either to go to school and the other was every now and again my dad would come to me and say tad you know do you want to come with me on Sunday morning to go and see this family friend of ours so I had that option I could either go with my dad or stay in that basement alone with that woman well what my dad didn't know is that when I was going to that house I was being sexually abused by an older man at that residence my dad would never know because I didn't tell anybody but every Sunday I'd still have that option do I want to go with my dad where do I want stay at home in that basement with that woman every single week I still chose to go with my dad knowing full well what was going to take place but I did it because that is how afraid I was of that house the other time has allowed to leave to go to school but as I stand in front of you today I can assure you there was not a single day of being at school that was ever any better than being in that basement it was just different and the reason being is because kids that school also figured out the fact that I cried all the time and they honed in right away and they knew that the way to get me to cry was all you need to do is just call me just a simple of a couple of bad names and I would cry no matter what but again just like bullying that started with the names but for me that didn't it didn't stop there because it went from something simple maybe like knocking the books out of my hand or hip checking into the locker tripping down the stairs beating me up so bad I don't even know what my name was when it was over chased home from school you name it it happened it happened every single day but I didn't do anything about any of this I held everything in and what I would do is every night I'd put my head on a pillow and I just simply hope and wait and maybe wish that tomorrow was gonna be better but for me growing up tomorrow was never better tomorrow at very best was only a repeat of what just happened today and there was once a time my life I couldn't stand today but I continued to hold everything in it was when I was 17 years old that I don't I can't even explain why it happened but I ran away from home I had a ten dollar bill in my hand and the clothes on my back in fact the photos that I've shown you up here the only photo that I even have of myself under the age of 17 years old I ran away from home I never looked back and I started to build my life I turned to the government to get some assistance they got me a youth shelter to move in too along with that financial monthly monthly check to help me through somehow I managed to finish school but I'd always held on to that dream that one day I am gonna be worth something I'm gonna achieve my dream of be a police officer but as I was growing older I had not yet addressed the mental health issues I was experiencing and that when I late teens that's when everything caught up to me the words that I've been told for all those years because it was one night I decided I was done with everything I attempted suicide I took every pill that was in my house I'd locked the door behind me I went to bed I never left the note I didn't call anyone I truly wanted to die I went to sleep and then I woke up the next morning and I can tell you I've been an entirely different person from that morning moving forward because when I woke up that morning I realized that I was very very angry with myself I was so upset that I would even dare do something like that because I had so much more to give the fact that her words of putting me down for all those years it wasn't me that was wrong it was her that was wrong so I started to do something pretty impressive with myself and that's I started to believe in myself and because I did that I can tell you that by the time by the time I was I was starting to grow a little older that's when I because I did believe in myself it's that when I started to work really hard I I gave it my all and then I tried and because I tried I can tell you I grew up to achieve my dream because I am a police officer now as I had been for the last ten years my patrol zone is right downtown Calgary I'm very proud to represent the Calgary Police Service I started Mike policing career with the RCMP in Surrey BC and I could tell you that my life was perfect I'd achieved everything everything I could have ever wanted it's I love the job more than words itself can ever say but there was still something that I didn't realize and that is I had a different journey that was coming my way because on one night October 2011 I was laying a bed reading the news going through the headlines as I do every night and that's when I saw this article about this young man that's our article headline says Ottawa teenager takes his own life because of severe bullying and that's the night that I started to read about Jamie hubely 15 years old commits suicide because at five years old the kids realize that he's a figure skater and not a hockey player and later in life he came out is openly gay the family totally accepted that except the kids at school they did not at 15 years old Jamie had been struggling with mental illness and he did take his own life but when I finished reading this article that night I remember to this moment that has absolutely frozen paralyzed in bed I thought wow I I felt in in a way I was almost reading about myself five years old the challenges with mental health the bullying that was going on holding a lot in and then the suicide attempt but that's when I realized that I'm not going to be a person anymore that's gonna sit around reading these headlines and just hope and wait and wish for the world to change I realized that if I want positive change in this world that positive change has got to start with me and Jamie and I had an awful lot in common not only with the mental health as I said but also the fact that we're both gay and that is when I decided I am gonna do something about this I decided to create a program that I call bullying ends here I didn't realize it was gonna turn into something like this because I am still a very very shy person but what it did start with is just me going to a classroom I wanted to know what is it like to be in school nowadays obviously with what I went through is a long time ago and there's a lot of differences between then and now but yet there's so many similarities so I thought okay well I'm gonna open up and I'm gonna share because there is nothing wrong with talking about mental illness there is nothing wrong about speaking about our innermost thoughts and what we've gone through but I didn't realize that the connection was going to be made because although I started with a single classroom back in 2012 was my first presentation that since then I've now done almost a thousand presentations all across this country spoken the more than 350,000 young people I can tell you that the connection is being made because of the simple fact that on my website the bullying and searcy a website that now the kids are having that connection and they're reaching out so when the last two years alone I've received more than 30,000 emails from our young people telling me exactly what's going on how they're feeling sometimes I'm the first person they've ever shared the information that they're putting out there I should also tell you that I do all of this on my own time I don't get paid I do it on my days off because this is how passionate I am about carrying on Jamie's message of acceptance and understanding I think the biggest thing I should share with you about the program is the fact that I have been credited there the program at least has been credited with saving 43 young lives because what happens after the presentation is the kids are inspired to go home they realize they have never ever been alone that they're everyone has a story and by simply sharing those stories that's when we realize how much empowerment we can actually do just starts with one person sharing letting people know it's okay to be who you are and what you're experiencing and we are all there to help but we can't help unless we know there's something that needs helping with so I I thought okay so I created the website I wrote a book and I thought well now what do I do and that's when I decide I'm just gonna stand back and let things happen so now the requests come in from all over the world tomorrow I leave for Palm Springs to go and speak down there and again just continue doing it on my own time I wouldn't choose anything else anything better in life than to continue on this journey I've got my dream come true but now I've got this journey that's kind of like a secondary dream come true so I'll leave you with this when you go home tonight take a look at the mirror and look at yourself and ask yourself a very simple question that is why is I the very best person that I could have been today because when you answer that question you're truly honest with yourself that's when you're gonna remember the things that you said the actions you took the people that you know full well God harms are abused in some way today and that's when you challenge yourself that tomorrow tomorrow I'm gonna be better tomorrow I'm gonna lead by example tomorrow I'm gonna start a legacy for myself to where I'm gonna reach out I'm gonna be someone's voice maybe just maybe I'm gonna be somebody's hero and when you start to think like that that's when you'll truly understand why I do what I do because I am absolutely convinced that together we can not only change lives but we'll save them thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 35,335

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Bullying, Childhood, Choice, Education, Impact, LGBT, Personal growth, Relationships

Id: CADxv-HAnIg

Length: 12min 18sec (738 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2017