I was bullied in middle school. It started, I think, in fifth grade – before then the other kids didn’t really care all that much about particulars. In fourth grade, I wasn’t actively excluded from friendships, I just wasn’t all that good at making friends. After fourth grade – from fifth to seventh grade, in particular – I might as well have been a leper. To be teased and ridiculed would have meant I was worth spending time on. I wasn’t. Ostracism isn’t pretty, folks.

Bullying takes many different forms.

I would rather have been beaten up. Maybe then, my parents would have seen the marks. Instead, I spent the better part of four years of my childhood with -one- friend – a friend that was just as awkward and ignored as me, who didn’t know how to treat her friendship well, who was also bullied. I am so grateful, even now, that there was someone else to be there. Would I have made it to adulthood without her? I don’t know. It was that bad. I wanted to die. I was a cutter, and the only reason I didn’t go all the way was because something – the fear of pain? an animal deep sense of self-preservation? held me back.

At the end of eighth grade, I did something different. I gathered up my bravery (which was in short supply, by that point), and I asked my mother if I could switch schools. She shrugged and obliged – no skin off her nose!

Things got better at that point. I ended up with a clean slate, and absolutely no idea how to make friends. It took a full semester before I started opening up and talking to other people, because I’d been so afraid of being ignored or ridiculed that I was constantly waiting for the emotional blow.

It never came. Taking control of my own circumstances made the difference.

Sometimes it’s hard to talk, to ask for help, or to come up with a solution. Just remember though – if you’re unhappy with the status quo, what do you have to lose?

The ability to get away is so important to a bullied kid. Maybe that’s what is so unnatural about our society. Most of the time we can’t flee our tormentors. As kids, we are trapped in the school. As adults, we are often trapped in the job. I guess that’s why so many people find release in books: It’s the only way to escape.

@Jess: *hugs* Thanks for sharing your story.

I myself have been bullied by several people between the age of 6 to 18. After that I think people have tried, but by then I had learned to tune insults out, close myself off to everyone and not give a damn.
It took me years to learn how to open up again to the people who deserved it.

I just wish that there had been adults who would have listened to me back then, but no one wanted to have to deal with it and they always belittled the bullying.

A big thank you to you and the other authors for telling bullied people they’re not alone and that what’s being done to them is wrong!

Thanks for sharing your story. Like you, I was bullied. I had a really bad time during school and I’m still struggling. When I finished High school, just after I turned 16, the bullying stopped but the damage was already done.

I found it very difficult to make friends because I was always bullied of the way I looked and that I managed to hurt myself very easily. My classmates thought I was an attention seeker and so the bullying escalated. But you know what the worst part was? I told people what was going on, even about how I thought I was depressed but they didn’t do anything. I even went to a GP about my depression and the bullying but his answer was, “Yeah, so? What do you want me to do about it?” So I stopped talking about it. I even went through periods where I just stopped talking altogether. It was obvious nobody cared so I left it at that.
At 13, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which explained why I looked the way I did and why I was feeling so much pain. But I kept feeling worse and worse about myself.

I wish something had been done sooner about my depression because in my final year at college, I went into total meltdown. Since then, I’ve had a year of counselling and lots of anti-depressants and I’ve got through the worst of it. It still scares me how bad I was and yet I slipped through so many times. I actually had to tell someone that I was going to kill myself before someone intervened, and even then the correct procedures weren’t carried out.