Content warning: This article discusses topics like self-harm and suicidal thoughts that may be triggering to some readers.

Bullying. It's everywhere. It's in every school, on every social media platform, and almost everywhere you look. In our day and age, we no longer tell kids to 'toughen up and get over it'. Instead, we do what we can to fight it. But what about when it's not another student who's doing the damage?

That was the case for me. The not-so-average girl who battled with chronic illness ever since the third grade. Most people are shocked to hear that the worst experiences of bullying I encountered in school weren't from other students. In fact, my fellow students were practically angels compared to the hellish wrath that my teachers reigned over me. That's right, you heard me correctly. It was the teachers.

You see, when we enter a new school year or a new semester, we're told that if we're bullied that we should go tell a teacher or a staff member. I can't help but ask myself, who do I go to when it's the teachers who are the ones acting like children? Snide remarks and uncalled for comments. Unfair treatment and singling me out because I missed school due to my eighth doctor's appointment that week? As if it were something I had any control over.

I understand why you were frustrated with me. I wasn't just missing class, but I was dealing with a debilitating anxiety disorder and so many other things that you had no clue about. I know you didn't like that I needed an extra copy of the homework that I missed or that I needed to go to the nurses frequently, but I was trying my best.

You only knew me from the 45 minutes a day you would see me. In those 45 minutes, you gathered what you thought about me and saw it as my overall reputation. You didn't know me when I'd go home and spend the night curled up in a ball from being in pain. You didn't know me when I'd go home and slit my wrists because I felt like I'd never been able to escape the anxiety and depression. You didn't see those moments, and yet you thought you knew me well enough to judge me.

There are so many things I wish I could say to your face. Some of which my lawyer or my mother said to you on my behalf. I guess there is some relief in that, but I really wish I could look you in the eyes and tell you what you did to me. How you changed me as a person. How you took the light out of my eyes. High school is supposed to be where the best memories are made. For me, that isn't the case. Now I can barely drive down the same street as the entrance to campus.

The things you did and said to me may not have been big to you, but they were detrimental to me. You were the ones who were supposed to help grow my intelligence in a safe environment. You were the ones who were supposed to root me on and help me achieve my goals. You were supposed to be my teachers, not my bullies.

There are days, some worse than others when I'm so mad that the simple thought of you makes me physically ill. I think of the things you said about me or my family in front of the entire class. I think of the ways you treated me like I was less than a human. Because you were the ones who held yourselves up on a God-complex pedestal, I'm the one who was left with the wounds.

Teachers are supposed to be the helpful adults guiding you, encouraging and trustworthy. Instead, you drove me as far as to drop out of high school because if I had to spend one more day around you, I would've rather died. It's even worse to say that it nearly came to that on more than one occasion.

Sometimes a friend or family member will mention something that you did to me and I won't be able to remember it. My therapist says that was probably my way of coping. Literally banishing it from my memory so I wouldn't have to suffer the thought of it anymore. I mean, we all have some crappy teachers that we don't like, but this isn't the same.

Every once in a while I will ask myself if I'm just being dramatic, or if it was really that bad. On those days, I think back to the things you did to me and realize that I have every right to be livid with you. If that makes me sound like a big cry baby, who cares?

You see, it would be different if you had just picked on me a little bit from time to time. I've got enough thick skin to deal with that. But what you did was far from just a little bit of criticism. How about punishing me by not letting me go to the bathroom when I suddenly got my period while I was also battling kidney disease and couldn't afford to hold it. Or maybe when you said just a little too loudly in front of the class that my father was a drug addict. Hiding my literature book from me all year, making me buy a new one, just to put my old one out in plain sight on the last day of school. Telling me "I should've come to school if I wanted to know the homework assignment," after I had missed class due to a doctor's appointment.

You act like you are so much better than everybody else. What I can't seem to understand is why you did it. What could've possibly been so bad in your life, that you had to go and make mine a living hell? Did I do something so terrible to you that it made you want to treat me like I was less than human? I may never get the answers to those questions, and I'm learning how to be OK with that.

A version of myself from many years ago would've prayed for an opportunity to have an equal shot of hurting you as you hurt me. The person I am today does not want that at all because I wouldn't be who I am if I ever sunk to your level. My virtue means so much more to me than revenge ever could. In fact, the only thing I want is for you to never treat another student the way you treated me. Your words hurt, and your actions hurt. What I want for you is to own up to it, admit your wrongdoings and stop treating your students as if they are beneath you. They are not subhuman garbage, they are people.

Shame on you.