I was bullied in 2nd grade, and even though I was young, I will not forget it any time soon. One of my best "friends", who was popular, was a winner in a contest that was happening in our classroom. What happened was if you were good and stayed out of trouble, you got Trojan Dollars. Well, there were different things you could do with Trojan Dollars, one of those things being you get to eat with the teacher and a friend in the classroom. She chose me to eat with her. A few weeks after we ate with my teacher, I started to notice that my friend was beginning to boss me around. She would tell me what to do, and get mad at me when I wanted to do something she didn't. I just brushed it off at first, hoping she would stop. But after a while, it just got worse. She was mean to me, and didn't care about what I had to say. I'd finally had enough, and started hanging out with an unpopular girl instead of my other friend. When I stopped being friends with the popular girl, her other friends got mad at me, along with her. They started saying that I was only being friends with her to take advantage of her, and they spread other lies too, right in my face. Pretty soon, I didn't have any friends except for two girls who I played with. The "populars" have never really shown any interest in me anymore, and I'm thankful. I don't hang out with girls like that now, and I have a bunch of great true friends that love me for who I am, and know I would never take advantage of them. I'm very blessed to have such good friends now, and I know what to look for in a friend.

ADVICE: Just know that there will always be people who talk about you and don't like you. You just have to realize that that's okay. As long as you know what's true, hang on to that. I'm not going to say that you should ignore the bully, because that didn't help me when I explained what was going on because I still felt the hurt. Just know that there's always someone out there that loves you and cares about you, no matter what you've done or people have said you've done.