Hello. My name is Jennifer, and I am a thirteen year old girl from England. I have decided to write this piece to give you a brief insight into what my life has been like so far:

I am considered to be quite a nice person, and extremely shy and reluctant whenever it comes to meeting/socializing with people i haven't met before. Many people tell me that me have a lot going for me in life because i'm clever, but I lack a lot of self confidence, and self esteem therefore I don't go as far as I can in various subjects.

I was not always like that. I didn't always have such a low opinion of myself, but gradually, as I went through my school years at my old school, my self confidence and self esteem slowly decreased, as well as any positivity and hope i had left in me.

It was absolutely flabbergasting how in such a short period of time somebodys character could change so quickly, and in such a bad way too. my attitude did not suddenly change just because I wasn't bothered about making new friends or because I was lazy, but because I had been bullied very badly most of my life, from age five until very recently. This bullying had never stopped, but ever since I had changed schools, things had become better than they previously were.

I was bullied in many different ways: verbally, physically and sometimes (but very rarely) I was even cyber bullied. To me, the thing that left me with the most scars was not all of the physical pain that people had caused, but the horrible things that people had said and done to me. It was especially painful and scarring for me because for somebody to get bullied when they are as young as five years old is simply horrible and it leaves the poor child with horrible childhood memories that stick with them for the rest of their lives, making it very difficult for them to feel good about themselves and have more self confidence when they go into their teenage years, go to new schools and try to make new friends.

Even though I seemed to be very thick-skinned and did not look as if I took much notice in what the people told me, underneath that fake smile that I always put on, I was forcing back the tears,trying not to make a scene in front of everyone. I especially knew that if I started crying in front of them, they would think I was weak and they would also know how to upset me, and think of more and more insults based on the same subject and become worse and worse. (I learnt that the hard way) (I even made one of the strictest and most horrible teachers I had ever had cry once just by telling them ONE of the horrible things that a person had told me).

As far as I could remember, things really started getting from bad to worse when I was about nine years old, in year 5: I used to have two (twin) best friends. We were the least popular people in the class because I was (and still am) not very pretty, and I was also quiet fat. The twins were also considered to be the weirdest people in the school because they smelt really bad and never brushed their teeth, but as they were a lot prettier and thinner than i was they weren't bullied as much.

At the beginning of the year in year 5, one of the most popular girls of the year (she shall remain nameless) told my two best friends to hang out with her and dump me (She said that in a whisper but most of the people heard it), and because that girl was so popular, therefore very influential, they just went along with her, and just like that they just left me. I still remember seeing them leave me, with that horrible grin on their face, and i just felt like crawling into a ball and dying. I was obviously extremely upset with them. Afterall they were the only people i could confide in, and when they left me, for about a year, i could not confide with anyone anymore. That was when i started reading so many books-because the books took me into worlds that i knew i would never be in, like in one of the books i had read there was a story about a girl who moved to a new school and made a lot of amazing friends who were always sweet to her and never backstabbed her. I knew that wouldn't happen in my case, so i enjoyed fantasizing about it.

These types of happenings carried on for about three years, but after i had changed my school, things became a lot better, my whole life changed. I became much happier and a lot more disciplined in my work.

When i had first moved to this new school of mine in year 7, there were two girls who were kind enough to show me around the school and help me when i needed it. One of them always behaved very sweetly towards me most of the time, but a lot of the time the other one was horrible to me, and as a result of that i used to cry all the time because i hated the school so much because of her, and i tried to go away from her as much as possible. Whenever i tried to keep my distance people used to get upset with me and used to tell me that i had to socialize with people a lot more often, so i had to stick with her.

Right now it's about a year later and A LOT of things have changed: I met a really kind girl from Spain. She has helped me out a lot through all of this drama, and never failed to put a smile on my face, she was always there for me, and to be honest, she is the first friend i have ever had that hasn't just used me to get what she wanted. It was a real shock to me how nice people can be (i know it's because i am still thinking in the past, but i really still don't believe that people can be that sweet, so i am still mesmerized.....that's why i am going into counseling in September-so that i can help myself to become a better person).

Throughout the course of the year, the meaner girl that had shown me around the school when i first came had become much worse than she was before. At the beginning of the year she used to use her physical force to hurt my friend and I, and as we didn't do much about it she carried on until about January, when she started insulting us. She was always and still is more insulting to me than she is to my friend because she doesn't look as if she cares about what she says but i do look as if i care so she carries on doing so to me.

I went with my friend and told a teacher about the mean girl and asked the teacher if he/she could tell her to stop. Frankly i was not very happy at being forced to do this because after all i don't want to make a big deal over something so small, but i only confessed these happenings to the teacher because i don't want my friend to get bullied. If it were only me i would not have said anything.