"I'm standing here today, because I've got a story to tell. This week is the international week of the anti-bullying commission. I was chosen to travel around the world to tell a story. Not so people could pity me, laugh at me, but to show that there are more people in this world that are going through the same, in their own way. I didn't come here just to give some advice and leave again. Before the start of the lesson I asked the teacher to leave the room because, you are going to be one hundred percent honest about the school's bullying policy. That's not going to happen when the teacher is around. Or any adult for that matter."

"From the ages 9/10 until the age of 12 I was bullied. That may not sound as much, but I was bullied in such a way that it never seemed to end. I was always at the top of the class, always smiling, raising my hand, prepared to help any and able to talk with everyone. That was amazing, and got me some quite good friends. Until the age of 10/9. People started to realize I was very smart, and started to think my happy, bubbly personality wasn't something they liked. At first those people stopped talking to me. Slowly but surely however, I started to notice things in some of the people I knew but wasn't the best of friends with. They played with me less, hung out with me less. There was this one guy in particular, R. he used to be kind, although he was not very close to me. But he started trying to steal my friends. First my barely friends, then the people liked better and eventually my best friend."

"Luckily R. didn't fully succeed. Some of my friends saw through the act, and didn't give in. But people who I thought liked me, turned their backs on me. It started to dawn on me that they might not have been that good friends as I thought they were."

"It kind of went downhill from there. Those people who I'd previously called friends, were telling other people what I was like, but in a negative light. They would tell how I laugh weird, that I wear weird clothes, that I talk like I'm so much older then I really am. I was one of the smartest people in the class, and for the first time, teachers gave me special attention, together with the others kids that were in the 'smarter' group. The others weren't used to that. They picked the person they least liked, or maybe thought they could take down the easiest. It wasn't very obvious at first, but slowly I started to take notice of people excluding me when playing, or when going somewhere. Also they ignored me, like I didn't exist."

"I was not the only one who suffered from bullying. My few close friends, E. and L. were bullied as well, although L. not as much as me and E. They were bullied, simply because they liked me and were friends with me. They were bullied because of me."

"Now my school had what they classified as a 'no tolerance anti-bullying policy', but it was a lame excuse for a policy. Every year they told us to go to the teachers of the bullies and your own teachers to talk, but I had a problem. Those teachers were one and the same person. My bullies were also the people I was told to help if they didn't get the exercise. The people I sat next to in class. I felt like they studied me, to find my flaws and mistakes, things they could bully me with."

"It was all verbal bullying. They were not dumb enough to physically hurt me, that only happened twice, and outside of school."

"When I was 11, half way through my second to last year of primary school, I had trouble reading the board from my place at the back of the class. I never needed much explanation for subjects, so the back of the class was okay for me. But the fact that I couldn't read the board anymore, or street signs, made me unable to concentrate in class, or answer questions about the things that were on the board. I tried to ignore it, tried to convince myself that this was normal. I asked my classmates to tell what was on the board, and relied on anything other letters when trying to find my way around somewhere. I was so smart, yet I didn't realise that it was in fact not normal to have such terrible eyesight. Until one day I let it slip to my mom, that I couldn't read the subtitles on the TV. We went to the optician and it turned out I needed glasses." .

"A new reason to bully me. Look Nico now looks even uglier and like a nerd then he did before. The bulling would've got worse, if not for my teacher. So when the school said they didn't accept bullying, what they really meant was that if you had a teacher who could handle bullies, they would handle it. If not, well then you got to hold on till you have another teacher. But the teacher of that particular knew what to do with bullying. Even better, he didn't tolerate it at all. And my bullies knew this. The bullying died down for the rest of the year, kind of. It didn't stop completely, but mostly."

"Then my final year of primary school arrived. A new teacher, so a new try for the bullies. The point was, they wanted to make up for a year of almost not bullying me. And the teacher, did nothing. I had braces, glasses and was a smart-ass. Every time I would go up to the teacher, he would tell me it must have been a joke. When he did speak to the bullies, he did it in class. The bullies would never admit in front of the entire class that what they did was true. They denied everything. And my teacher believed it."

"I remember one particular day, the day we were going to perform our musical. Every year the classes that were going to leave school, performed a musical. And the day we had to perform the musical, we had to be at school earlier than normal, so we would have enough time to set up, and practice one more time. Because the doors of the school weren't opened yet, so we had to go in through the emergency exits of the classroom. These only opened from the inside. My teacher assigned some people, who had arrived first, to hold open the door for everyone from our class. These people were my bullies, so when I arrived, they didn't let me in. the teacher wasn't in the room, he was fetching something. They made sure not to let me in, but did let in everyone else in. they had to let me in when my teacher arrived, because otherwise he'd get angry. When I told what had happened however, he told it of as a joke, and said he didn't have time to talk about a 'joke'. This is probably the thing that angers me the most."

"So we did the musical, then left to eat and be free for a little while, to return in the evening and perform the musical for the parents. In the hours between the performances, I was going to my new high school, to meet my future class."

"When I first arrived, I was afraid. What if they thought the same of me as those other people, what if they didn't like me? However, I was soon proven wrong. Because these people were all smart like me, and some even much smarter. They were like me. I wasn't the only one who talked like they were much older than they actually were. These new people, who I, still to this day, am proud to call my friends, gave me some hope. They showed me that there were people out there that didn't think about me like my classmates."

"The rest of the school year, which was only two/three months, I was able to get through the bullying. It did intensify, but I only recently found out why. The bullies had lost one of their targets. My friend E. had gone to the teacher we had had the year prior, and made the bullying stop, for him. So they focused solely on me. I, however, was able to pull through."

"And now we come to the part where I am going to give you advice, maybe partly standard bullying advice, but hopefully also something that might help you. I found something to look forward to. I found a switch in my head, and managed to flip it. I was no longer focused on the people that were judging me at that moment, but focussing on what was waiting for me in the future."

"Everyone has this switch. And only YOU are able to flip it. To change your outlook. Yes, you might need help from other people to find it, and encourage you to actually flip it, but it is worth it. It will get better. It might not seem like it, but it will."

"It might take more than just people, for me it cost a change of environment. A new school, a fresh start. Do tell your parents. They might be able to help you find the change that will make you flip the switch. Don't be afraid to express your true self, and certainly don't hide yourself from the world. I did that for 3 years. And guess what, three years after that switch was flipped, I still have to remind myself that I can be myself around my friends, that I don't have to hide anymore."

"I used to be a happy, extrovert person, who was willing to help anyone, trust everyone, and would talk to anybody. Now, I can barely talk when I meet strangers, am extremely shy, and have trust issues. They're not major, but if you want to become friends with me, don't feel offended if I don't trust you in the beginning, or that I don't tell you much. I learned the hard way that it's better to keep your secrets to yourself, than share it with every person who was nice to you. I built layers of 'onion skin' around myself. Anyone I had never interacted with was on the outside. Classmates were within the skin, but the less I talked to them, the further away from the centre, which was the unguarded me, being my full self, they stood. The skin was though, and not many people actually came to that centre."

"I have spent the past three years working down these layers from 50 to 15-20. I am now at like 30, so I am making progress, but it is a slow process."

"I still flinch internally at the word nerd. I still look behind me when I walk down the streets of my town, just to see if my old bullies are there. Teasing still gets to me more than anyone thinks, or knows. I get uncomfortable, or even slightly scared, in certain situations, that to the people on the other side look harmless and innocent. But I am still improving."

"My past will always be with me, and has greatly influenced me, but I gave my story a purpose. My anger towards bullying policies will always remain, and I'm taking it into action. I now travel around the world to investigate bullying policies, and make sure that NO school will ever let bullying go unpunished. So my question to you is, what do you think of the bullying policy at your school? Because it has been designed by people who might have never experienced bullying, so have no clue what it's like. Now it's YOUR turn to help them improve."

Twenty minutes later, I left the classroom. Outside stood Will. He smiled at me, and swiped a tear from my cheek.

"How did it go?" his voice was soft, and soothing. "It went great. They really had some opinions."

He smiled again, and pulled me closer. He kissed me, softly, like only he could.

I had found my switch. I had flipped it. And I had gotten more than I ever dreamed of in return.

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