I’ve been in private schools since pre-school, I went to about three different pre-schools. One Methodist based school, one Episcopal based school, and one non-denominational. Starting there I was bullied there to, not just the breaking crayons and taking toys, but getting sand thrown in the face, my hair pulled. Yeah, those things don’t seem all that bad anymore; but at the time they were traumatic. The last pre-school I went to before Kindergarten was the best ever, I wasn’t bullied, I was happy there. Until the next year, when I went to another school for Elementary school.
During my years at my elementary school, I was bullied. Not the typical bullying either, sure I was called names, but I was also pushed around; by some of the middle to high schoolers as well. Not just those near my grade. I was called names; including: loser, scaredy cat, cry baby, etc… At the time I didn’t think much of it, I was always told that if I ignored them they wouldn’t see the fun in bullying me, but it didn’t work. If I didn’t react they would keep at it until I did. I couldn’t just block out my entire being at the time.
Kindergarten and First Grade were the easier years, we were little, there wasn’t really any major bullying then. We had fun then, the teachers were great, they didn’t put up with any name calling or pushing and shoving. In Second Grade things started going downhill slowly, the name-calling got worse, and I was just kinda ignored. A couple times in Spanish class the guys in the class would start name-calling fights, and I would always wind up in the middle of it. Not because I wanted to but because all the names were sent my way. Including: Stupid, ugly, crazy, retarded and cry baby. (That one came up a lot, probably because it was mostly accurate.)
Third Grade was OK to begin with, then one of my best friends got held back, and three of them left the school altogether. By the time I reached Fourth Grade, I was too scared to tell anyone about what was going on, about being shoved around, getting tire chips thrown at me. Being pushed off the slides etc…
Fifth Grade was where everything went down a very steep slope. I became slightly depressed; I was bullied because I wasn’t as “developed” as the two new girls who looked 16 at least. The teacher didn’t like me either, and would tell me I didn’t do my homework even when she was holding my paper in front of me; I couldn’t point it out either. I had only one friend that year, well I though I did, but I found out later that she wasn’t the type of friend I needed.
It took me five years to be able to open up to what all happened at that school. All of the bullying, getting pushed around by people older siblings. Name calling, etc…. I came home close to tears everyday. It didn’t matter what I did or what I said, I was never ‘good enough’. I always came short, never met the expectations. Later when I did tell my mom, she said if I had told her then she would have pulled me immediately, I wouldn’t have had to go through what I did, but I think if I didn’t go through that, I don’t know where I would be right now.
In a way it upset me that things were that bad in elementary school, when we should have been doing coloring pages and learning to add and subtract, I was dodging words, and sticks and stones. I was homeschooled in sixth grade, which was great, I could learn when I wanted to.
Then Seventh Grade rolled around; we decided to try a homeschool co-op; well, that was one of the worst years at any school type thing I had ever had; a close second to my Fifth Grade year. It was that year that I didn’t really see the point in even living; I was called names, the verbal abuse was worse than it was in fifth grade, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, we were older then.
One girl there must have set out to make my life a living hell there; and she was the “popular” one, the one everyone wanted to follow. So that is what they did, no matter the cost they wanted to be like her. Even someone I knew from my church turned against me just so he could fit in. I had only one friend there, and that was only because he was kind of made fun of as well. That year it also turned into some cyber bullying, I was bullied on facebook, in the comments of pictures I was tagged in.
I was called “gross”; “loser”, “disgusting”, etc… on Facebook comments.
I quit there as well, I just gave up became more depressed than I was already, beginning to feel worthless, my best friend had taken a separate path, one I didn’t want to follow, so I cut contact.
I was home schooled again in Eighth Grade. Which was an amazing break from everyone; except from family, but I could deal with them. For Ninth Grade I went to a school that was amazing in the beginning, my grades were decent, I had a couple friends, I even met my long distance BF online because of that school. I was happy, it wasn’t until Tenth grade, I got sick with a really bad cold and had to stay home, I lost so much time at school that I couldn’t make it up. I was failing most of my classes; people were ignoring me, talking about me behind my back. I only had two friends, one person acted like my friend some days, then one of his friends would show up, and I was out of the picture. Gone.
It was also Ninth grade that I was diagnosed with Linear Scleroderma, and I was put on medication that was not very nice to me. One was Prednisone, a disgusting medicine that can cause weight gain, luckily I was already way too skinny anyway. The other is Methotrexate, also not very fun, it made me sick while I was getting used to it.
So Tenth grade wasn’t fun, people didn’t outwardly avoid me, but they did ignore me. If I missed school at all, after I came back they would act like they missed me, even though they didn’t talk to me again after they said that. So near the end of my Tenth Grade year I dropped out and started home school again. It became too much stress, I couldn’t do it. I went downhill there to, because three months from finishing a years worth of school, I broke up with my long distance BF. I could barely function, I lost weight; became depressed, and reclusive.
At the beginning of Eleventh grade, I started at another homeschool co-op, this one is amazing, I’m still going there, it is made up of others like me, people that were bullied, or just didn’t do well in a school. They accept me for who I am, but I don’t know if that is where I need to be either. I m almost a senior in Highschool, and I have no close what I want to go to school for, I don’t have enough credits to do much college wise, but I don’t know what I want to do, so I don’t know where I need to expand my credits.
All I know right now is that I am OK no matter what I do. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me; I’m just trying to tell you who I am; the best I can anyway.
Sorry about the length of this one. Thanks for reading!
Signed,
Anonymous
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