It's #StandUpToBullying day and I wanted to write a blog post and I wanted to talk about my experiences and show that is possible to work past the experiences you are going through. I was badly bullied for 4-5 years between the transition from primary school to high school. I was pushed over in the playground, called names and mentally torn down. I quickly became isolated and started to hate myself. At the age of 11 I became suicidal and remember thinking about different ways to end my life, but was always put off at the thought of my family having to find me and what that would then do to my younger siblings.
Sunday nights and the mornings before school were hell as I battled the anxiety and how ill that was making me. I felt super poorly every morning and would try and work out ways to not go to school because I couldn't face what was going to happen to me at school every day. I would spend hours in my room just crying and struggled to sleep with the fear of school. I never felt like I was being listened to by the teachers at school and was constantly told that the main bully was only picking on me because he liked me. I felt like the teachers were trivialising the mental damage being done as a playground crush. I felt like I was just becoming a joke to everyone and didn't fit in anywhere. I remember at one point being sat down in an empty classroom and asked to write a list of all the names I was being called. The teacher pushed me to come out with a long list and I remember getting upset because that wasn't the worst part of the bullying, it was the bits around the name calling that was traumatic, the things he was saying to me about my personality and my appearance.
I was constantly made to feel like I was lying and making things up, which is something I still struggle with ten years later. These things were happening to me daily and yet I felt like a joke amongst the teaching staff and the adults at school that should have been responsible for helping me. Teachers would refuse to let me go to the nurse when I felt poorly and even the nurse begun to talk down to me when I was being asked to be sent home. The main bully was never punished for what he did and when he was excluded for a couple of days he would celebrate that he had extra days to play on his video games. In fact I was the one that was punished, I was put into isolation rooms to "help me" and made to sit through hours alone without any school work. A couple of months into Year 8 (age 12), the bully threatened to kill me with a weapon he brought into school, nobody searched him that day and several days later when they did search him, they of course found nothing. This was the last straw for my parents and took me out of school to keep me safe, both from him and because mentally I was getting worse and rapidly becoming more suicidal.
I then spent the following four years being homeschooled and became more and more isolated. I watched lots of people from school fade away and started to feel like I was missing out on "normal" life. I rarely left the house and I found it hard to talk to people my age. I spent years struggling with feeling like I was not normal, that I didn't know how to communicate with people my own age. When I started college, I really struggled to fit in and didn't know how to talk to people my own age. I then started to get bullied at college and yet again found that teachers didn't know how to deal with what was happening and found that I became a joke with my peers. As the years progressed, I moved to a different class and the bully was excluded. Although my mental health got worse, I decided to go to university. This was the best decision I ever made and I finally found myself and people who would support me, instead of tearing me down.
University saved me, it showed me that I can be myself and that people would still care. I found somewhere where I fit in and made friends who love me for who I am and in a month, I am graduating from a course that I've loved. I'm happy and although sometimes I still have wobbles, I've come a long way from what happened to me 10 years ago. I'm still here and I'm so grateful for my parents for helping me through the darkest of times. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't from them and their love and support over the years. It is possible to get past bullying and it's important to remember that this is never your fault. Find a good support network, someone you can talk to and know that you are never alone. Time makes things easier and although sometimes these things can still haunt you, it is possible to get past what has happened. It's important to keep pushing forward and know that you can get through this.
If you would like any help and someone to talk to about your experiences then The National Bullying Helpline is really helpful: http://nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/
Thank you for reading,
Rebecca
xxx
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