Bullying

Hi everyone :)

As it is Thursday and I try to have some stories from when I was younger on here I thought why not try it with something that is also quite serious.

As the title of this post already says: Today's post is going to be about bullying.

I feel like it happens to a lot of people for various reason, most of them as small as not wearing the most fashionable clothes or not having the newest phone. 

The reason for me getting bullied was a little worse as it actually had something to do with my personality. 

I am in no way saying that people who get bullied for not having a lot of money have it better as any form of bullying is bad but I feel like kids who get bullied for who they are take a lot longer to recover. 

Because someone saying mean things to you because of your old cell phone actually doesn't have anything to do with you in the greater sense. It is about material stuff than about your personality and it is a lot easier to distance yourself from being criticized for money than it is from being criticized for your personality. Although both things are equally as horrible from the people who do it and absolutely unnecessary. 

I have experienced both as I used to wear hand-me-downs from cousins and family friends when I was a kid. I didn't really care but one girl in my grade did. That was in primary school and I didn't really get it back then as I had enough friends who were the same and so we just weren't friends with her. It didn't affect me as much I don't think. I still wore hand-me-downs when I went to grammar school and never really thought about it twice as the people who I was friends with didn't seem to mind, and there were people with a lot more worn out clothes than me.

But starting 10th grade things started getting a little rough for me. I don't remember it all to clearly, that whole year is sort of a blur for me as I am quite good with blocking bad memories out. I guess it was sort of a defense mechanism. I do remember how I felt about it very clearly though and I never want to feel that small again.

Basically what happened is that we had one girl in my class that everyone liked simply because if you didn't you were f*****. She talked about her friends behind their back and generally wasn't a very nice person. I used to be quite good friends with her but than I had a boyfriend and after we broke up he told her about all the things we had and hadn't done (sex wise). It felt like the biggest violation of my privacy when everyone started asking me about these things and I knew she had told them. All of them were making fun of me for not sleeping with him, I was 15 and not ready but none seemed to care. I was embarrassed and felt cheated on in the most terrible way and I made that known. I told her that I wasn't okay with her telling everyone about my private things which only made it worse, as she soon started to make all the things I had told her in confidence known as well. 

I didn't have a very strong personality back than and was very insecure about the way I looked. 

In addition to that I also wasn't a very sociable person and only kept a view close friends, because I always liked having a view good ones than a dozen that didn't really care about me.

But soon even those view didn't talk to me anymore in fear of getting bullied by her as well. I could absolutely understand it but it hurt even more to endure her mean comments alone. For about half the school year I sat alone, ate alone during the smaller breaks and walked to classes alone. I only really had friend left in the grade above mine but they couldn't really help. All that was left fro them was trying to make the bigger breaks as fun as possible so I could forget about all the other stuff for at least 20 minutes.

I felt like I total outsider and alone. Going to school soon became a nightmare as I had to endure her snarky comments even during class. I had been pretty good in everything regarding literature and poems but whenever I answered one of the teachers questions right I would get a mean comment, whispered but made sure I would hear it. 

She was very adamant in her quest of making me feel miserable about myself. She was a right brat, but without anyone that could help me stand up to her, all that was left for me to do was just make myself small and hope she would leave me alone.

10th grade ended eventually and I spent a summer break away from all this mess at school. I didn't recover however and I didn't really enjoy the break either as I knew there was another year of school that I would have to go through alone most likely. 1 more year of being her punching bag until I would most likely not share a class with her anymore as my subject interests for my A levels were much different from hers. 

Against everything I believe however, she seemed to have forgotten about me over the break. 11th grade started and I was invisible. I still had no friends or close to none but I was left alone. 

What she had ruined for me though was a lot more then being left alone could fix. For the rest of my time in school I questioned if people who I was friends with actually liked me or if they were just pretending to do so. I began wanting to please people and forgot to take care of my own happiness, just because I wanted to keep the view friend I had made so badly, that I would do everything for them. They didn't know that that's what I was doing they thought that's just who I am but if I am being honest I wasn't myself till I got out of school. Hell I am pretty convinced I still wouldn't be myself had I not gotten away from it all and gone to New Zealand.

New Zealand was the place that healed me. I started coming out of my shell and for the first time had people who liked me for me. 

I didn't have to pretend to be someone I am not as those people I met there didn't know who I was. They had no expectations towards me and I was finally able to be free.

Being away from it all for one year taught me that me being happy is most essential to making other people happy. That me being myself and standing up for myself doesn't mean that people will like me any less. I have made so many more honest friends down there in a year then I have made in my whole life. I am friends with 2 people I went to school with and that is literally it. 2 people out of over 100 people that were in my grade. 

Being who I am and getting shown that I could be loved and liked for who I am was the most important lesson I learned in my life so far. And I had to wait till I was almost 20 to experience it.

I don't think anyone should have to wait that long to figure out that being who you are is essentially all you need to make yourself happy, it all starts there. Loving yourself and being confident enough to stand up for yourself is so so so important and yet 1000 of kids get bullied into believing they are not okay the way they are.

Who gave you bullies the right to downgrade people like that?

So if you see someone getting bullied you doN#t even have to necessarily step in and say stop if you don't think you are brave enough for that. I can tell you from experience that being a friend for someone who goes through bullying might even be more important. 

It would have made my life so much easier if one person had stood up for me. One person is really all it takes. And it is a hell of lot easier to brush nasty comments off if you have someone who is standing behind you and who supports you. 

I felt like I was falling and falling and falling and there was no one there to help. One person to catch you is all you need really.

And if you, who is reading this, are getting bullied all I can tell you is : It will get better. It will end and you will get out of there. Surround yourself with people who pick you up and sustain you. It will not be over and you won't be fine straight away but you will have someone to fall back on. 

Never try to make it on your own!

x

J.