Confessional: How I Overcame Severe Bullying

Growing up is not easy, and high school is brutal, and I had probably one of the worst high school experiences a kid could have. I was severely bullied in person and online, and I was a bit of a loner with only about two friends. I dealt with a lot outside of school, too, that not many people know about. Needless to say: there isn’t any amount of money in the world you could give me to go back to high school. That’s how much I hated it.

Now I know what you might be thinking: how could I have been bullied? It’s a question that I’ve been asked time and time again, and one I give the same answer to every time: bullies don’t discriminate. It can happen to anyone. Teenagers are vicious, immature, and don’t think long-term in how their words could affect someone down the road. There have always been bullies and there will always be bullies until everyone—including the kids joining in—put an end to it.

I went to a private elementary school and then a Catholic middle school, so I was the “new girl” when I started freshman year at my public high school. However, I wasn’t that “new” because I’d been cheerleading for the town for the past few years and knew a lot of kids from that. I started high school in 2009, so this was around the time of MySpace and when Facebook began gaining popularity, so I’d also made friends through social media. So, I’d say I was more of a new presence, not really a surprise, lol.

My high school was the smallest, most cliquey, and most stuck-up place I have ever stepped foot in to this day. My graduating class had only about 145 students—do the math, there were only around 600 students in the entire high school.

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The bullying started freshmen year, but it really peaked during my sophomore year. I was bullied constantly online through social media like Facebook and Twitter (Instagram wasn’t a thing yet), and at school people would come up to me all the time and try to find out what I’d said about them or if I did this or that; whenever that happened, I was confused 100% of the time. I’d never even had a conversation with half of these people and they’d dance around the actual subject, trying to see if they’d catch me in a lie. There were some days the bullying got so bad my mom would have me stay home from school. People whispered about me and laughed at me whenever I walked by, I’d eat lunch alone in the library—but that wasn’t even the worst part of my 15 year old life.

At home, my family was going through a lot. This is something that only few people know about and something I haven’t gone into much detail with because of the fact that I don’t want to talk about my other family members out of respect for their privacy. I can only share my story, this is what I can do. Long story short: my family was falling apart—big and fast. I didn’t have an escape to come home to after being bullied for six hours at school, I had even bigger problems to deal with. I remember crying out to my mom one time: “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy!” I was stuck in a revolving hell. I didn’t have my license, I couldn’t up and leave whenever I wanted, and cheerleading was only a few times a week. The respite I got from my home and school issues was fleeting.

During this time things at home came to a painful boil on Christmas Day. I don’t want to go into detail about it at this time, but needless to say that experience left me with one of the most painful and traumatic holidays I’ve ever had with my family. While this was going on, I was huddled in my room with my two younger brothers, and I got a prank call from a group of kids on a blocked number making fun of me. The only reason I answered it in the first place was because I thought it was a family member.

I handled this the only way I knew how: with my head held high, and moving forward. I realized very quickly that the school bullies were the least of my problems—I had real problems to deal with at home. I was looking long-term: I knew these kids weren’t even the smallest blimp on my radar for the future. A group of kids from a backwood town in Rhode Island weren’t even worth my time. They could start and believe whatever rumors they wanted to about me, but it didn’t affect me. I never wanted to be the big fish in a small pond. I didn’t allow myself to get caught up in it, I’d been raised to be kind and treat people the way I’d want to be treated, and I wasn’t going to suddenly put on people pleaser pants just so I could sit around with a group of kids gossiping about my classmates—that wasn’t my style then, and it most definitely isn’t my style now. I also learned very quickly that when someone truly believes in their heart that you did or said something, that there is absolutely no way you will ever be able to convince them differently. It is impossible.

If I’m being honest, I’m not sure why I was able to see the picture so clearly and not the let the drama affect me. I’ve had discussions with this my boyfriend a lot. Maybe it’s because I had something going on at home that was a bigger deal at the time, maybe it’s just my genetic makeup; who knows. It was so simple to me to be able to separate high school world from the real world. My time at school was not enjoyable, but I made the most of it and kept looking forward to the future.

The craziest part of all of this was that during my junior year, all of the people who had started drama with me told me that they found out the things they’d heard had never been true; some even said that they thought one person or a bunch of people just chose me and made up a bunch of rumors about me the previous year and everyone latched onto it. I appreciated and accepted their apologies because I know that it can take a lot to apologize sometimes (and teenagers are especially petty), but I couldn’t help but think that if they’d just listened to me from the beginning all of that drama could’ve been avoided—but of course it couldn’t, because high school is a clique and everyone wants to be a part of something (unless you’re like me and could care less).

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There is one particular moment I will never forget during my sophomore year. I’d had an all star cheerleading competition over the weekend that my team had won, so that Monday two other girls and I on the team chose to wore our warm-ups to school. Our warm-ups were black and blue, and at the time bow headbands were popular, so I decided to wear a matching black and blue bow headband with my outfit. That night, I was scrolling through Facebook and came across a status a girl in the grade above me posted. I don’t remember what it said verbatim, but it was something along the lines of: “You really think you can talk about me and not get away with it? You’re going to find out tomorrow that you messed with the wrong person.” THAT wasn’t even the surprising part though—it was the comment underneath it that said: “HA! Go got ‘em, girl. Bitch is so ugly with her blue bow.” That was how I knew they were talking about me. After I read that I ended up texting my friend who was friends with the girl who thought I was talking about her, and I asked her if she could find out what exactly was going on. Long story short, she told me the girl believed that I was talking sh*t about her, and she was pissed, and she was going to confront me the following day. I asked my friend if she could let the girl know I’d never ever said two words about her in my life because I’d never even spoken two words to her and I was so over people coming up to me at school and yelling “wHaT dId yOu SaY aBoUt Me?!” My friend declined because she didn’t want to get in the middle (great friend I had! *eyeroll*), and she suggested I try approaching her first the following day.

I listened to my friend’s advice, and in between classes I saw the girl in the hallway and walked up to her. I was super calm and asked if I could talk to her, after her friends walked away I started telling her that I’d never said anything about her and I didn’t know how the rumor got started—but before I could finish, she cut me off. She looked at me and said: “After I put that status up I realized how dumb it was. I thought to myself: ‘she doesn’t even know me, why would she bother saying anything about me?’”

We need more people like that in the world. People who can step away from the crowd and think for themselves. People who can look at someone and possibly understand that they’re struggling. People who don’t get pleasure out of making fun of another human.

Only weak minded people will gang up and prey on one individual. There is no mental strength or intelligence in following a crowd. The ones who have the courage to break away are the strongest and will deal with the real world far better than any of those other people ever will.

We have to be better, we have to do better. I also think it’s up to adults—especially parents—to talk to their kids and others about bullying and the repercussions it can have. I took it and dealt with it, and the mentality I’ve taken away with it has served me well into my adulthood, especially on social media; but there are a lot young people out in the world who can’t. Children, pre-teens, teenagers, and even grown-ups—they all deal with it. Words have consequences. I wondered where the parents were when their precious honor roll student slandered me and tried to tear me down online; or when and if they’d ever instilled morals into them as they laughed at me for being different. My youngest brother is now fourteen and a freshmen in high school, and since he started middle school I’ve talked to him multiple times about bullying and the repercussions it can have. I’ve explained to him the importance of being kind, of never judging someone under any circumstances. I feel confident that he knows picking on and laughing at someone is never okay.

Bullying is never okay under any circumstance. You do not know the pain someone is going through, or the battles they have had to fight behind closed doors. There are reasons why people are the way they are, why they act the way they do. With all of the technology and knowledge at our fingertips today this is something we’re still so far behind on. It needs to stop. We need to make it stop. There is strength in standing up for someone who is being bullied, there is bravery in not joining in on gossip. It needs to change, it really does, because it’s only going to keep getting worse. To anyone who has struggled with bullying in the past or present: I feel for you. I have dealt with the same thing and I have survived. You will, too, if you can just be strong for yourself. It is all going to be okay in the end. To all of the people who have ever bullied someone or continue to to this day: think about what you’re doing. Putting someone else down because you feel insecure about yourself is pathetic, and a really unattractive quality. You will get absolutely nowhere in life trying to tear someone down.

I said this before and I will say it again: bullying isn’t okay under any circumstance. It is never warranted. There is no explanation that can justify it. There is nothing in the world a person can do that makes it OK for them to become a target. Nothing.