I was bullied during my second and third years of school. My story isn't as bad as most peoples but it still made me feel like rubbish.
So...here it goes.
It all started in Grade 1 (I was 7 years old) and there were these two girls-let's call them girl1 and girl2. Girl2 was new to the school and I was asked to help her and show her around and girl1 asked if she could help me do it. Because I was way too polite for my own good (even now it's still a curse) I said that she could. We all became friends, and for a short period of time we all hung out together.
After a while though, things started to change.
Every time I went to the toilet (which was a lot because I had a very small bladder and couldn't hold on for long) they would pretend to follow me in and then leave me the second I closed the cubicle door. I heard them leave and the first time it happened, I thought that maybe they were just waiting outside. HA! Well. I had to go around the whole school looking for them. And this didn't happen once. Nor twice but many, many times. In the end I ended up just leaving them.
During the next year, I was hanging out with two other girls-let's call these two girl3 and girl4-and they loved to use peer pressure. They forced me to swear, saying if was cool and everything (and I know it's not that bad of a thing but I was only 8 years old and I had grown up to learn that swearing was bad) and they forced me to kiss (as well as go out with: which was obviously prior to the kissing) my so called "boyfriend" at the time which I found out later was a two year long joke.
Oh and to top that all off, one day I was walking onto the school's oval, so I was still near the edge of it, and a group of people who were friends with girl3 and girl4 formed a semi-circle around me but I didn't think much of it because they acted all casual about it. The next thing I know is someone has come up behind me (and to this day I still can't remember who it was) and pulled my pants down. But the thing is it wasn't just my pants. My underwear was also pulled down so therefore everyone that was looking at me as well as the other people who had probably turned their heads to wonder why these people were laughing, saw an area of my body that nobody, without any consent, should ever see.
And I laughed with them. Because I was so damn stupid and naive, I laughed with them because I thought that I was a part of a joke but instead, I was the joke and because of the incident, I cannot stand a person standing behind me.
But after Grade 3, my school life started to get better. I made a couple of friends who I still thankfully talk to now and through the years I gained a lot more who are all super amazing.
How old were you when the bullying started?
—I was seven years old.
Who bullied you (please be vague by using terms such as old friend, classmate, neighbor, etc.)?
—I was bullied by my "friends" at the time.
How did you feel while you were being bullied?
—I didn't fully understand that I was being bullied at the time but when I did realise what was happening I felt like absolute rubbish.
How did you feel after being bullied?
—I felt a lot better. Especially due to the fact that I actually found friends that cared for me and actually wanted to be my friends.
Have you told anyone you know that you were bullied?
—When I realised that I was being bullied, I told my teachers as well as my parents and they were thankfully able to work things out.
How long were you bullied for?
—I was bullied for two years.
Are you still being bullied?
—No.
ADVICE: You are all strong and things do get better. Things may seem hard right now but things will get better.
I promise.