The past is NOT the past

I was emotionally bullied. My story starts in 4th grade, and ends in 6th grade where I changed schools because of “my grades.” Growing up I had a severe overbite. Since I was born with it I prefer to think of it as a malformation or a facial deformity. It is fixed now with surgery but that is beside the point. This made a very poor social life, and as that innocent easily manipulated 4th grader who was naive about a lot of things back then, I was the perfect target. I went to a private school with a class size of 16 kids total. There was always an odd number of girls, and people liked to pair up. I don’t know why, it just happened. A girl, who I will call Sam, which is not her name, was the start of the whole experience. Some days were worse then others and it started with rejection. Sam was a girl I hung out with, but after 3rd grade, something changed. She shushed me when I tried to speak to her. She told me the conversation was “private.” Then, my other classmates started to take her lead. I would flee to the girls bathroom on the other end of campus, and hide and cry, because a different pair told me it was “none of my business.”. But it got worse. Soon, I was excluded from every single activity. It didn’t matter if they needed an extra hand with a fort, mine weren’t good enough anyway. This is around the time my grades started to slip. The next year, my reading level went down. I skipped school, faked headaches in class, hid in the bathroom (a lot), and did anything to get me out of school. I spent time in the art classroom. It was either this or picked dead last for a sport, excluded from things my classmates were doing, couldn’t join a “private” conversation or a conversation that was “none of my business,” which seemed to pop up rather often. I could barely read then. I was in 5th grade and my reading level was consistent with my 2nd grade sister, who was starting to read chapter books and I was stuck reading children’s books with lots of pictures. My self confidence went down – it’s still down to this day. I became angry at home. So I was hurt at school and angry at home. I took things out on my parents, I started to see a therapist, who dealt with kids like me. She suggested that I read at lunch. I tried to pick up a book, but each time I tried, I felt bad about myself, those big words didn’t make sense to me. Rumors were spreading around about me, and as a result, I became extremely paranoid. My mom said that a parent once asked her if I was “emotionally disturbed,” she had heard that from her daughter. After my grades started to slip, and my teacher developed this famous saying when I finally got up the courage to tell him I was having friend issues “not my problem!” My parents started to look at other schools. So I changed schools. My classmates were so sad to see me go. No they actually weren’t. My going just confirmed what they had already decided I was, “emotionally disturbed.”

In 7th grade at a new school, my self esteem started to go up. I didn’t have many friends, but people spoke to me, and let me speak as well, which made all the difference.
I continue to have a low self-esteem problem, but I have made friends who support me no matter what. So, happily ever after? Well, after I started at a public high school, and managed to get a 3.5 GPA, I would definitely say so! Still, even though this sounds mild compared to a lot of stories, repeated exclusion from activities, picked last at every single PE game, rejected when talked to, ignored and forgotten by people, rumors that I was “emotionally disturbed”, after 2 years of this, every single day, and lasted long after Sam left, it does take it’s toll on my emotional state, and still does. Emotional bullying has it’s permanent problems too.