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I was bullied almost ten years ago and it still affects me today
6 years ago · 2 · Bullying, +4
1534
First of all, let me preface this by saying that I am a sixteen year old secondary school student from England. I went to one of the best primary schools in the area, and yet throughout it, I was bullied. No, not the kind of 'You're not coming to my party, stinky head' kind of bullying. I mean the kind of degrading, horrible, nasty kind of bullying. All at the age of 11 years old and younger.
First of all, I didn't have much of a normal childhood. I didn't make friends easily at school and my siblings all seemed to hate me — something I still don't know the cause of today. At every chance, my siblings would ruthlessly pick on me. My brother would say I was 'adopted', 'I make babies cry', etc... my sister told me to 'go play in traffic' once, my other sister once strangled me and on another occasion punched me in the head. Of course my parents did everything they could to stop this, they knew it wasn't right and they loved me dearly, but my dad worked long hours and my mum was frustrated at the fact that she didn't know what to do, often resulting in her withdrawing herself and screaming at us. They couldn't help the situation.
School wasn't much better. In year five, I was pushed into the boy's toilets and everybody ridiculed me for ages. When I went home and told my parents, they were livid. Nothing seemed to be done about it at school though so they were either never told, or the school didn't care enough to sort it. There was a girl, Sam*, who sometimes pretended to be my friend, only to go and completely stab me in the back later. From this, I now find it extremely difficult to trust anyone to the point where I don't even believe they're telling the truth about anything or even like me at all.
Sam was popular. Sam had friends. Sam was quiet in class but awful outside. Sam was just one of the bullies. We had a complicated relationship. Sometimes we were friends, sometimes she hated me for no reason and I would soon end up with no friends at all. More often than not, she hated me. She would often ridicule and embarrass me at every available opportunity, leave me out of games, alienate me from my friends. Her friend was Lily*. She often aided Sam in her efforts to ridicule me. They were the perfect pair, both popular and both completely awful people. And when I complained about them, they made me feel like I was lying. They made me feel like I was stupid for thinking they were bullying me — of course they weren't according to them. They were perfect, I was just that weird little girl who cried a lot and was often sat alone on the benches in the playground.
Another bully was Jake*. In year four, he told me he liked me and when I told him I didn't feel the same, he seemed to make it his mission to bully me even worse than Sam and Lily did. He would often threaten me, sometimes push me around, and make me feel worthless. He was almost like a child version of Jay from The Inbetweeners, he lied about everything, he was an attention seeker basically. Jake didn't alienate me from my friends, but instead made me feel like I was nothing, like I was a tiny speck of insignificant dirt that didn't belong anywhere.
Then along came Dan* and Aiden*. You may think this one is nothing, but they were two of the most popular people in the school, and — you guessed it — they made fun of me. They called me 'monobrow' and said I looked like one of the boys in our year (this led to me being pushed into the boy's toilets) and they soon got everyone calling me the same names. Not only was I tortured at home, alienated and made to feel worthless at school, I was now called names by everyone as well. Then when I told my teacher about this when they changed all of my named parts on the class assembly script to 'Joe', I was told off for wasting time. I could still read the parts and I knew which parts were mine, so what was the problem? He said he was going to speak to them as soon as I almost started crying because it was all becoming too much, and it helped slightly but it didn't stop the name calling. By this point, I was sure they all hated me and could not at all figure out why. What did I ever do? Why did I deserve this?
Of course, at some point I began to develop feelings that I knew weren't normal. I began to feel withdrawn, hopeless, like there was no future in sight. And soon enough, the suicidal thoughts crept in. I then began thinking of and planning ways I could die, then it progressed to writing a suicide note, and then it finally got to the stage where I attempted suicide. I began eating less and sleeping less, I began to fear everything, I was now severely depressed even if I didn't know it at the time. In search of answers, I created a Yahoo! account to ask questions on the forum. Once I'd posted one and received answers of 'Get help, you're depressed, nobody should have to feel this way' I began posting multiple questions of the same nature. I refused to believe it was true and at the same time I knew it was, but I couldn't take it. Endless questions had the same endless answers, I was depressed and suicidal at 11 years old and I couldn't see a way out of it.
Then I left. SATs were over, year 6 was finished, it was off to secondary school. And just my luck, Sam and Dan followed me. However, they calmed down a bit. I made a few friends and only had trouble off of Sam, Dan seemed to stop caring. Then when she left in year ten, I finally managed to relax. After 11 years (3-14 years old) of torture, it was finally over.
But my mental problems weren't.
I still get the occasional suicidal thought, I still think about what the world would be like without me sometimes, whether it would be better or worse, whether people really would care. Despite this, I have dramatically improved. From the suicidal 11 year old loner in primary school to the more socially outgoing 16 year old teenager I am now, life has gotten better even when I thought it wouldn't.
But I still haven't told anybody I know, and I don't know if I ever will. I used to try when it was all happening, but the words of Sam and Lily would echo in my head and I would feel like I was being stupid, so I would chicken out and say 'I love you' instead. Instead of embracing my past, I feel ashamed of it and the way I felt. What normal child feels that way? I felt that way, so I wasn't normal, and I was always told by my peers that abnormal is bad. Now I fit in with others and I'm 'normal', now I have their sense of humour and the personality they wanted me to have, and I've pretended for so long that now it's just who I am and there's no way out of it.
It doesn't have to be that way though. People said stuff to me because they didn't realise how much it really affected me, they didn't know what was going on behind closed doors and that I had no escape from the bullying, they didn't know what they were doing. Don't be mean to people, don't say things when you don't know how it will affect them, don't degrade others or make them feel worthless. You don't know how they could react, or how it will make them feel. Nobody, especially not children, deserves to be bullied. Be nice, you could save a life.
*Names have been changed
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Wow. I am deeply moved by your story and I could feel your pain. I had a painful past as well, somehow just like yours. If you wanted a friend to talk to, feel free to contact me through email.Always here if you need to vent or need help.oliver98.yin@gmail.com
ReplyThank you so much. If I ever need help and I can't speak to anyone else then I'll come to you, I appreciate this so much.
Reply