I was bullied from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of year twelve.
The first thing I remember from kindergarten was a girl holding up my exercise book and saying how terrible I was at writing and I used stupid colours; the whole table agree and berated me as well. I remember once my kindergarten teacher told me I was fat.
In year one we had an electric pencil sharper and the teacher said to use it sparingly; I never sharpened because I could still write with my extremely blunt pencil. The teacher saw this pulled me up in front of the class and said how stupid I was and this was appalling, then preceded to sharpen my pencil, smack me on the hand and send me back to my seat.
In year three my mother was deathly ill in hospital for six-months, I would tell my teacher after school; one day she just screamed “I don’t care!”
I never spoke to her again.
In year four a girl in my year called me “a fat pig” for no reason, then later in the year a boy in year six said I was fat and useless and broke my nose. Even though there were witnesses, the teachers did nothing and claimed he only ‘pushed’ me. Even though my nose was broken there was blood all over my uniform and I had a fist size bruise on my face. Mum made me go to school the next day; I’d never realise until now how strong of a person that made me.
I changed schools in year-five to a very religious Baptist school, because I watched Buffy and Charmed the kids called me ‘evil’, a ‘demon’ and bullied me relentlessly because I was fat and bad at sports. Three girls particularly kept calling me a ‘lesibian’ because I already had a C cup by the age of twelve. I remember dreading school, always tried to make myself late so I wouldn’t have to socialise in the mornings, and would ‘savour’ the time in the car before school because at least that was a few moments before I was there.
I tired to kill myself twice in this period; the only reason I think I survived was because a very good friend from my old school I kept contact with.
High-school was just as bad, but there were other misfits. Both of them also tried to kill themselves a few times because of the kids and teachers there.
I developed serious major depression as my mother’s illness progressed. When I was 14 she lapsed into complete kidney failure and has been on dialysis ever since.
Jump to year twelve, by year eleven the kids had matured and stopped most of the teasing but I was still ignored by them and I ignored them. The benefit was that I never knew if anyone would say anything terrible about me because I just didn’t speak or associate with them at all. That year we had to do secret Santa. Everyone ended up knowing who had who, the person who had me didn’t give me anything. I was the only girl in the entire year who didn’t receive a present.
That was the last time I was ever bullied.
Enter university. I have lots of friends, everyone respects each other and I enjoy every single minute of it. I’m highly regarded by my lecturers and the best thing of all I NEVER have to see those people who made my life a living hell ever again. I’ve kept two friends from high-school and my very good friend from my original primary school and we all don’t miss it at all, enjoying our tertiary studies and actually enjoying life.
The bullying I think turned out as a good thing as through all that I’ve been able to cope with the stress of caring for my mother. I’m able to stare adversity in the face and resolve it. I would not be the strong person I am today if all of this had never happened.
So chin up; things get a lot better after high-school. Just get through it and then forget it!
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