being bullied and falling out with friends - life story
I was the opposite of popular in school. I could say that I was picked on and teased to no end, but in the end it all falls under the bullying category. No one ever beat me up and demanded my lunch money, or flushed my head in the toilet or locked me in a locker. In a way I put it down to my father and him not sticking around. My mind rationalises it as if we had had money I would have had nicer things, I would have found better friends based on those nicer things. I’ve been somewhat friends with a few of the popular crowd, enough to know that the only thing separating us is money.
I was bullied in primary school, mostly by boys who picked on me. I don’t remember anything substantial, but I remember threatening a boy in my class with a pair of scissors because he wouldn’t leave me alone. That only actually made things worse. I was glad when that boy went to a different highschool.
Highschool was a little bit of hell for me. I started highschool with a few friends that I’d carried over from primary school. One was a girl who went between us and another group of girls, and whenever she fought with them she was friends with us. They didn’t like me very much, we kind of had the same relationship; sometimes we were friends but most times not. Eventually it got to the point where I fought with this middle girl for some reason I can’t remember, and the other girls wouldn’t leave me alone because I’d upset her. One day after school one of the girls came up to me and said something, so I hit her. It was the first time I’d ever hit anyone, but no one saw and nothing happened about it. As much as I hate to condone violence, this girl didn’t speak to me for years, so I guess it worked.
In the first few years of highschool I jumped from friend group to friend group, but no one really suited who I was. I made friends with some girls that would later cause me hell in year twelve. We first fought over something so trivial that I don’t even remember. When I knew this group of girls I dated one of their friends. He had a birthday party and we slept in his caravan on his property. A month later a rumour went around school about me that I’d been felt up in a caravan. I got the label “tickle me Elmo” because apparently I’d said “that tickles” in my sleep. The girl who started the rumour wasn’t even at the party.
This girl that started that rumour came to my school in year eight and caused me hell for over two years. She took an instant dislike to me, and befriended the above girls that I’d just fallen out with. I was dating a boy at the time who had his own issues with depression and we had a fragile relationship. We went out for about five months, but we broke up every second week. Eventually she decided that she wanted him, simply because I had him. We were all in the same music class, and she would make up stories about them being together and him telling her things. He would neither deny these stories or say that they happened. I think I may have actually loved this guy, and this just broke my heart. I wasn’t in a good place because at that time I was friends with girls in the year below me, and I’d fought with them a bit too.
There was this one week where my best friend was on holidays, I was fighting badly with this girl who took an instant dislike to me, things with this boy weren’t going well and the girls in the year below me were fighting with me as well. I felt so alone that week. Me and the girls in the year below me had a letter book that we wrote to each other in. I must have said something about hurting myself or suicide or something because one day I was sitting in the school counsellor’s office talking about how suicide wasn’t the answer. I don’t remember if I even meant it, but there was times in that week where I found myself scratching at my wrist with something sharp, just to get the pain out. Mum was called and we had a conference and she was upset. The only thing I can remember her saying was how stupid I was for even thinking about it; how I had everything to live for and how selfish it was for me to even think of such a thing. This week was also the week that I developed a liking for tempering with my eating. There was one day where all I had to eat was a Mars Bar that my year coordinator had bought me and watched me eat. He told me about how when you don’t have breakfast your body goes without fuel for far longer than it should, and how eating is necessary. I’ve never thought I was fat, but I guess undereating has just been another way to hurt myself. In a sick way I like being lightheaded.
It was also around this time that the boy I was involved with at the time managed to express his wishes to commit suicide. I don’t know if that’s what he actually intended, but that’s how we took what he said, so we started our own suicide intervention. We talked to the school counsellor who called his parents and, I don’t know if he ever got the help he needed. We started our love affair after that. Eventually my school counsellor gave me an ultimatum relating to him. He was distressing me so much because he was quiet and reserved and hardly said anything, and he wouldn’t deny or confirm what this other girl was saying about them. He told me to go two weeks without initiating a conversation with him, because it was obvious that he didn’t want me, so I shouldn’t want him. I did it, and it was hard, but after that the relationship was off and I was a bit happier. The other girl won, but after I was finished with him she didn’t want him.
While all this was happening this girl and I were having our own out with each other. Mostly it was private. There were a few emails exchanged that were very nasty. She threatened me and I threatened her. The year was divided, and it changed all the time as to who sided with who. I remember once being chased into the library because a girl that I was sometimes friends with wanted to hit me for something I’d said to this girl. I didn’t want to hit her because I knew she could take me in a fight (she was the sporty type) so I hid, which then made me a coward. I never wanted a physical altercation, I was fine with words.
This girl stayed at my school for a couple of years, slowly stealing my friends. No one really liked her, she was a compulsive liar, but maybe they just disliked her less than they did me. Maybe while she was picking on me and ruining my life it was easier for everyone else to follow suit because I was the vulnerable one.
Eventually this girl left. They announced it over the speakers at school because she was “active in the school community and well known” (she sang - badly - at school assemblies from time to time). I let out a cheer in my home class, because it was common knowledge that I hated her. My best friend at the time (who I was in the middle of silently and slowly falling out with) made a disgusted noise and told me how rude I was being. I guess she wasn’t the one being picked on everyday. My happiness was shortlived because she was back shortly after, but she did leave again for good around the end of that year. I remember getting an email from her that said that she’d be back. It’s nothing now, but back then it was really nasty. I cried and shook for hours afterwards, scared that she’d be back and ruin me all over again. That was year nine.
In year ten I fell out with my best friend, who basically called me a slut. It was relatively quick and painless when I decided that she was no longer worth my time, probably the cleanest falling out I’ve ever had. In year ten I started being friends with the people I am still friends with now, with a few exceptions. A few girls couldn’t handle that we were very open about sex in year eleven, and one couldn’t stand the fact that I was bisexual so we fell out.