BULLIED

Story 166

I was bullied fairly badly through fourth and fifth grade. There was this one girl who came to my school and turned everyone against me. All my friends started hating me and shutting me out, my 'Best Friend' even started to date her.

Anyway, I got through those two years and switched schools. Things were a little better but a lot of the girls still hated me. I know it was because I had money and could talk to boys with out getting flustered, such stupid reasons to hate somebody, but no one ever said bullying made sense.

I really started to hate myself and especially became angry with God. (I am a Christian so that is a part of my story.) Actually, overall I became angry. I didn't know how to process how I had been treated and it came out sideways.

My sister is probably one of my closest friends and I started emotionally beating down on her because of how I was feeling. It really put a strain on our relationship.

I didn't know where to turn. My parents knew about the bullying I had experienced at my old school and they had gone to the school 5 or 6 times but the teachers had absolutely no power over these girls. My faith was very weak and was starting to break to so eventually I turned to a boy instead.

I thought I had finally found someone I could trust and confide in, someone who would care for me and be on my side. At first, things seemed to be going really well.

The Euphoric Stage: EX used to put me on a pedestal. He would shower me with compliments and affection. I mean the first time he told me he loved me (Which was before he ever told me he liked me, this is a bad sign for all you girls and guys out there, people shouldn't just rush into relationships!) he said, "I love how you love the fact that I love you." That's fairly poetic for an 8th grader. He was smart and funny and had all these friends, plus at least half of my grade wanted to date him. I felt so special and wanted.

Things with my girl friends got worse and I got singled out because of it, but I had a boyfriend now! It didn't matter what they thought.

Well EX wasn't actually my boyfriend, oh no. He wouldn't date me and made everything completely secretive. He forced me to lie to my friends about the relationship even though it was so blatantly obvious that we had something going on. He kept promising me, "Oh freshman year we will date, and Oh sophomore year we will date, and oh..."

Then all of the sudden he pushed me off of the pedestal. BOOM! It was right at graduation he texts me and basically says, "We won't be able to hang out much this summer, I am too busy for you." He gave me absolutely no explanation. I was heart broken. When I tried to ask for more information he called me clingy and needy.

I almost broke up with him, I should have broken up with him but I was lost and stupid.

We did hang out that summer but something had really changed. Instead of that same showering of love affection he started emotionally beating on me. Suddenly my face "looked stupid like that, shut your mouth!" and I was embarrassing and ALWAYS wrong, I didn't dress right or have the right friends, I was the problem and never the solution, and I was emotionally draining on him.

I couldn't talk to any guy because, no matter how I talked to them, I was flirting with them. But I would also get yelled at if I didn't talk to his friends (guys) because that was "being rude."

That doesn't even begin to explain what he did to me in front of his friends, mocking me for my menstrual cycle, calling me annoying and stupid, making fun of me for everything I did and how I did it, yelling at me in front of them for doing the stupidest little things, glaring at me, etc. It went on and on and on. When he wasn't yelling at me he didn't want to talk to me, he was too busy with other, more important people.

Then there was the pushing. We were only freshman so things never got too bad physically but one day we were playing a game like hide-and-go seek tag. (We were such cool teenagers) Anyway I wasn't playing and so I helped hide some of the Hiders (He was the Seeker). When he found out I had been working against him he started yelling at me and telling me not to talk to him. I tried to make things up to him but in the end he ended up grabbing me arm and throwing me to the ground (To this day I have no idea who saw what or what they saw.) He also shoved me into a locker (This is what my mom told me I said he had done but I guess I blocked this bit out) in front of all his friends.

Then there was the constant texting. He needed to know where I was, who I was with, when I would be back... All the time.

One time I was in Florida on vacation, this is when things stared getting really bad and he was pushing me around a little, and I was tired of texting him and being around him. I actually was starting to get scared of him. My sister and Is relationship had been getting better and we had been watching Psych. I had told him that I had wanted to stop texting so I could spend time watching TV with my family. He proceeded to tell me that TV wasn't distracting enough and that I could text and watch TV. We argued. I told him I had to go. He then had his mother and his brother text me asking what I was doing and where we were staying. It was one of the scarier things that's happen to me! He literally had his family stalk me (Who was also in Florida a few hours away)

Then there was the physical pressure. Things never got too far but there definitely was a push for it and I did things I never wanted to do. But I had my beliefs and so I stopped at a certain point, but still when I was tired or not in the mood for making out on his coach he would get angry with me and start being passive aggressive and mean to me. That's when I would try to placate him... He would use excuses like "I hate to say this but things are just better when we are physical." Disgusting.

It was my faith and God that eventually saved me from that relationship. This has now become my testimony. I was sitting in English class watching him blatantly flirt with another girl (Which was something he did often especially when I called him out on it) and all of the sudden I could see how much of a complete looser he was and how awful he had been to me. It was like something fell from my eyes and I knew that the relationship wasn't safe for me.

My dad sent me an article with questions you could answer to see if you were in an abusive relationship. I answered yes to like 7/8. I broke up with him before finals week.

A few months later I was scrolling through Facebook and I came across an article on Abusive Narcissist. Again, as I was reading it, I began to realize that it was all I had gone through.

It's been a healing process but through friends, family, and my Walk I have begun to heal. The healing began when I first realized who he was, what he was like, and what had happened to me. I accepted that I had been a victim but now I was a survivor.

Before my relationship with EX I had never believed that Emotionally abusive relationships were a real thing, I always thought people were just complaining about nothing. But this put me in a serious danger and I spent two years of my life in depression, anxiety, insecurity, and self-hatred, which came out against the people I loved. Emotional Abuse is real and it is an issue that I feel is often ignored. Always protect yourself and if you think you or a friend are in an abusive relationship, seek help and/or research online to find more information. Find those questions and ask yourself. Its better to be safe than sorry, because some emotionally abusive relationships don't always stay emotional and even if they do they can often be more dangerous then abuse that leaves visible bruises.