My bullying wasn't what most people would necessarily call a "bad case". Sure it happened a few times throughout my educational track, but it did screw with me. Permanently.

When the bullying started, I was this happy go lucky kid with a best friend. I expected fourth grade to be as great as third, which meant I would be excited to go to school and see my friends, classmates, and my teachers. I never knew I could be more wrong.

The biggening of the school year rolled around and I happily skipped into class with all the required materials and crap. I ended up in the same class as my best friend, who was also in my Girl Scout troop. I was excited to start the school year anew, and learn even more things (yeah, I was that kid).

Anyway, the first day of school was when I got the first rude remark. I'm pretty sure it was about either my weight (I was a little bit of a chubby kid, but still healthy chubby) or how I dressed. I didn't really understand what was happening, I have older siblings who tease me, but they never had teased me like that. I just moved on, assuming it was a one time thing.

The year slowly goes by and this one girl keeps saying these terrible things to me. She also made fun of my drawings and publicly humiliated me in front of the class. She becomes "friends" with these other girls who also get in on calling me awful names, or saying I'm obsessed with my best friend, or saying I was stupid and couldn't read because it took me awhile to return a library book I lost.

To make things worse, my teacher not only did nothing when she knew what was happening, but she added on to it as well. She made fun of me and publicly ridiculed me and it was a terrible time period. I was sick all the time, I felt that I was alone, and this is where my anxiety got bad enough to be a problem.

I had made a new best friend during this time who was also being bullied, and her bully went and added on to the gang who already hated me. I wasn't really physically abused, but my new friend was, which I didn't know until a few years later.

Fourth grade moved on out and I was more than relieved to start fifth. I would be in the middle school and an older kid, hell, I was excited. My class was alright, only a few kids I didn't like in it, but we made sure none of my bullies made it into any of my classes. But we didn't even think about what would happen in sports.

I played soccer at the time and there was this mean girl at tryouts, but I got over it and kept going, just ignoring her and her petty jibes. We ended up on different teams, but she made a reappearance on my basketball team. There she constantly made fun of how I played or that I was terrible and how I couldn't be remotely smart because of how dumb I was on the court. It was everyone's first year playing, so we all were pretty bad, but I guess there's something about being a gently ginger giant that gets a target on your back.

These kids kept with the mean remarks for another year or so, until the finally stopped. But now I was left with this anxiety I'd feel whenever I'd see them because what if they pick on me again? What did I ever do to them? Why me?

But that wasn't the only thing those little monsters did. They taught me how to bully, but instead of turning on some other helpless kid, I turned on myself.

Self deprecating thoughts became my forte, and I used to be disgusted by the mirror. This is where the depression that had slowly been making itself known started to fully appear, and the happy go lucky fourth grader was gone.

Seventh grade rolled around and I never really liked my Spanish teacher. He was always mean and he picked on my constantly for not understanding the language very well. I had had a concussion so my memory is not the best, so memorizing vocabulary terms has always been a struggle for me, and it still is. Anyway, there was this one day. I had made up a test (I was at the doctors the day of the test originally, which got him upset) and I had forgot to accent the letter "a" in the word "está". You wouldn't think it would be a big deal, maybe ten points off, right? It was actually thirty that he took off. The regular ninety I would have had became a sixty. I was sitting at my desk, holding back tears as I looked at the test, so disappointed in myself. But, to make it worse, this teacher went on a long rant about a student "not trying" and "not working hard" and other really harsh crap like that. I assumed he was talking about the kid next to me with a literal thirty, when I heard him spit my name out of his mouth. I was shocked to say the least. As soon as the bell rang for lunch I bolted out of there and texted my mom begging her to get me out of his class. But she couldn't. There was a month of school left.

I later had a breakdown at home and my mom got the principal involved and things worked themselves out (kinda).

I swapped schools the next year, where my now terrible anxiety problem worsened from stress and a private school I had to succeed in and my depression also worsened to the point where I was suicidal. I still bullied myself for not being able to do things, and for thinking about suicide because how messed up was I that I wanted to kill myself? I was detested by who I was and I didn't know how not to be. A full year later I still struggle with similar problems, however suicide is no longer on the front part of my mind, instead it had been replaced by the thought of self harm.

This past year my club volleyball coach also bullied me. He called me awkward and unsociable, both of which are true, but I didnt need to hear that from someone else. I managed to deal with it for the rest of the season, but I was still pretty sad that this would be the last year of seeing and playing with my friends because of that jerk.

I always get anxious and scared and overwhelmed when I think of getting help, thanks anxiety, so I have yet to try to receive treatment for this mental disorders. It also makes it almost impossible for me to tell any of my friends. But for those of you who are reading this, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I literally couldn't.

Basically, my mind has realized that it's fucked up, and it's okay with that. It doesn't mind.

My bullying still follows me around, years after my last incident. And I figure it has to be the same with someone else too.

~ brie_weasley ~