Bullies

I usually try to do some form of recap of the reading, but after watching the emotional video about bullying, I have the urge to tell my story.

In high school, I was bullied very harshly by a group of girls. It was high school drama (over a boy), but she and her friends harassed me constantly.

I remember the first time I got bullied. It was the first semester of my freshman year of high school. I was taking French with this other young lady. We had to present dialogues. She sat a few chairs in front of me, and as I walked up nervously to present my first dialogue ever in French, she whispered, "whore."

I had no idea why she said that to me. But it turns out that "my boyfriend" was dating this girl over the summer too. Her and her friend in that class asked me flat out about him and I got scared. I felt like I had to defend myself. I never thought about standing up for that relationship like she was standing up for it. (And she didn't think about chewing "her" boyfriend out about dating 2 girls at once. Why do people always get mad at the OTHER significant other instead of the one that is two timing? I will never understand that.)

Anyway, that isn't the important part of the story. The important part is that every time I saw this girl or her friends, words like slut and whore were said to me at the young age of just fourteen. I was threatened with physical violence.

Maybe a year later, this girl was sent to an alternative school, and I was so relieved.

Then I saw her at the mall, and she literally screamed at me in public. Luckily my big sister was there and screamed back, but I was very afraid that this girl was going to kick my ass. She was bigger than me, and obviously held a lot of anger toward me.

Then she came back to my school. I was so scared, my mom called the school to make sure we weren't in classes together, and she allowed me to stay home for the day.

The harassment continued, and I begged my mom to let me transfer to the other school in Flower Mound. I had friends at Marcus, and it's exhausting to be scared every single day you go to school. I wanted out of Flower Mound High School SO BAD.

My mom contacted LISD to petition for a change of schools on the basis of harassment. The petition was denied because the infringement wasn't serious enough.

I guess what made me so upset watching the clip of City Council is that no further intervention is taken when kids tell adults that they are being harassed. My petition was denied, but no one from Flower Mound High School ever tried to talk to about what was going on. I talked to my mom about it today and told her in retrospect how that upsets me. (And as a future Social Worker I feel it would be extremely important to follow up on a petition to change schools that was denied.) She made the logical argument that I could have taken the initiative to talk to a counselor at my school. (But honestly, who wants to talk to a school counselor about being bullied because people are calling you a whore? Maybe some people do, but that was extremely embarrassing for me.)

That experience made me hate school so much that I graduated early and I didn't even apply to college. I wanted to do anything except for go back to school. I tried hair dressing, bartending, and getting an office job.

During this time, you'll never guess what happened. In an apartment complex of over 300 units, we moved in right next door to each other. She tried to hit me with her car, and she spit on my sister from the 3rd story when my sister was trying to walk upstairs. Her and her friends chased me up/down the stairs when I was leaving or coming home. Such an awful experience. I haven't seen her since then, but man, what a grudge over a guy who was obviously a total asshole.

Anyway, watching that video made me cry not only for people who are harassed just for being themselves, but also for the kids that get bullied that never get any help. I hope that things at Flower Mound High School have changed. Maybe bullying is another issue I will get involved in because of our class discussions and how emotional I became. I hadn't thought about this experience in a long time, but it is still something that I take with me. I am still terrified at the thought of seeing that girl because of the pain she caused me, and because she still hates me over a guy we both dated when we were 14. (Dumb.)