October Is National Anti-Bullying Month

STUDIO CITY (CBS) — October is National Anti-Bullying Month.

Inspirational speaker Gabriella van Rij visited the KCAL 9 studios Tuesday to talk about her new book, "With All My Might" and bullying.

"With All My Might" is an autobiographical account of her enormously challenging cross-cultural journey from the Pakistani orphanage where she lived as an infant and toddler to her new affluent adoptive Dutch parents.

"I was a very tiny, brown-skinned Pakistani three-year-old with a lazy eye, and when I met my parents for the first time I could see that my new mother was quite disappointed with what I looked like," says van Rij. "I thought she might send me back to the orphanage, and I lived with that fear for many years while growing up."

As a child forced to suffer the taunts and bullying of her white-skinned European classmates, and later coldly shunned by her husband's parents due to her dark features, van Rij says she decided to write about her experiences and what she learned from them to challenge others to start thinking about the lingering existence of cultural intolerance.

For more on the book, click here.