I started being bullied in the second grade. For three years, I locked myself in the corner stall of the girls’ bathroom, to hide from the girl who verbally abused me each day at recess. After fourth grade, I transferred to a private Christian school, thinking that this would be a safe haven. I was wrong. I was bullied until I promoted to Jr. High. I endured a great amount of verbal and physical abuse from various girls in my grade.
It was an exceptionally difficult time for me, and it turned me into a different person. While I never, ever wish to relive those five years, they did help mold me into the person that I am today, and so (in a rather strange way) I am thankful for them.
Being bullied taught me how to stand up for myself. In the second grade, I let people bully me. When people pushed me around and said terrible things about me to my face, I just ran away and hid in the bathroom. I didn’t defend myself; I didn’t do anything. Because I was so passive, one girl kept on pestering me. As I got older, however, I began to realize that doing and saying nothing wasn’t getting me anywhere – I was still being beat up and verbally abused. Finally, my parents told me that it was okay to fight back. So I did. Rather than run away from the people who were tormenting me, I stood up to them. I told them to stop. In some cases, that just made them angry and they bullied me more. In the case of one girl in particular, however, it actually worked. From then on, I came to find that when you stand up for yourself, even if it doesn’t work right away, you are freed from people’s abuse. It doesn’t matter what they say to you, because when you fight back, they know that they are not the ones in control any more – you are.
Being bullied gave me confidence. Because so many people victimized me, even at two different schools, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought there was something about me, some kind of flag or sign or something, which made me an easy target for girls to tease and taunt. It made me bitter. I was mad all the time and didn’t really have friends because of it. Eventually, I learned that there was nothing about me specifically that made the girls target me, and even if there was I’d never be able to figure it out. So, I found that I needed to embrace and love who I am. I began to be less and less bitter and revert back to the happy person that I was. When that change happened, I was bullied less and made more friends. School was more fun, and I wasn’t on the defense all the time. I found that people don’t mess with people who are confident and comfortable with who they are.
