I Was Bullied.
In honour of Anti-Bullying Awareness Week, today I want to talk about what happened to me while I was in school, and the profound affect that it had on my life.
I know that I’m far from alone in the fact that I was bullied. SO many children and teenagers are bullied at school, and the long lasting effects of that are very real. The shame is something that’s difficult to shake off, and even now I still feel embarrassed to admit that I had a horrible time at school.
So, what happened to me? I had a really happy primary school life (for those of you not in England, that’s school for ages 4 - 11), a lovely little gang of friends, and really good grades. Everything changed when I left and began *secondary school*, AKA, a complete hellscape. Suddenly, the kids from my old school wouldn’t speak to me any more. I was quickly singled out as a ‘freak’: I was ginger, chubby, and a bit ‘weird’. Not particularly fashionable, and quite childish compared to my peers. Things, as you can imagine went from bad to worse.
Year 7 (ages 11-12) was a huge shock to the system. I was physical assaulted one afternoon on the way home from school, when a group of girls pushed me up against a wall and took a photo of me, and then ran off laughing. I immediately repressed this incident. The name calling was also horrific, big groups of boys would yell ‘ginger pubes’ at me on the way home from school, and I was basically just embarrassed to even exist. I remember lying in bed at night, wishing that I would wake up as a different person, with a different life. I had very few friends, and was dealing with my situation alone.
Over the years the bullying continued to escalate. Aged 14, I remember walking into my tutor group one morning and one of the boys yelling: ‘look how fat she is!’. Their whole table laughed. I had food thrown at me in the lunch hall, insults thrown at me in class, and at one point the kids made up a song about me that they would sing as I walked through the corridors. ‘Ginger biscuit, go back to your biscuit tin’. In year 11, aged 16, one boy used to tell me every science lesson that I was ‘a dirty ginger who deserved to be shot’. I don’t have enough space to describe every single incident that took place while I was in school, but in the popularity hierarchy, I was right down at the bottom. It was cool to hate me. It was fun to fling insults at me. I was publicly humiliated on a regular basis, and I hated myself.
I hated my body, and I hated my hair. My red hair, which I now love, and see as something that makes me unique. I didn’t see myself as a person who was worthy of love. Fortunately I did manage to find an amazing group of friends who’s friendship helped me to get through this time; we were a ragtag group of misfits who genuinely liked each other, and I’m so grateful that I had them.
I left my school aged 16 and began at a local Sixth Form College to study for my A Levels. It was a complete shock to the system because people here actually wanted to speak to me. They didn’t act like I was a disgusting excuse for a human being. No one complained when they had to be my partner in class. It was a totally new experience.
I was vaguely aware at the time that I had an issue with social anxiety. My school friends, who also attended the same college as me, seemed to easily make new friendships, and these people would join our little group. I made pretty much none of my own friends, but this wasn’t too much of an issue as I still had that expanding friendship group from school. Despite the anxiety, these two years were easily the happiest of my adolescent life. I hung out with my friends, loved my classes, and achieved good grades that got me into my first choice university. Here’s where it all started to go wrong again.
I didn’t know how to make friends. I was so shy that it was nearly physically painful. I spent 3 years at university and formed less than a handful of friendships - I’m actually no longer in touch with anyone that I met at uni. I didn’t have the skills, and I didn’t have the confidence. I felt like I was trapped inside my own head, and I was miserable. Now, it’s quite obvious that the social anxiety I was struggling with was rooted in my experiences at school. That, along with Clinical Depression, made university an incredibly tough time for me. I did seek help for my various mental illnesses but often, very little was available. I floated through uni life in a little bubble of shame and despair.
Let’s fast forward to the present day. Now I have the social anxiety under control, although I do still struggle with severe depressive episodes. Over the last 4 years my confidence has grown dramatically. The internet has played a big part in that; for me, it was a safe space where I could practise my social skills from the safety of my room. I have a wonderful career, a tight knit circle of friends that I love, and genuinely wouldn’t even describe myself as shy any more. I feel like a completely different person, and it’s amazing. I’ve learned how to love myself. My red hair is one of my favourite assets. I’m unashamedly quirky, and people seem to like me for it. And if someone doesn’t like me, then that doesn’t bother me either. I am free.
That, in a nutshell, is what happened to me as a teenager. It was horrific, but I do believe that I’m a stronger person for it, and actually, I now have this incredible drive to succeed that fuels me to this day. I have a burning desire to achieve my goals, despite what happened to me in the past.
I don’t have the answer for how we can end bullying in schools. They can be toxic environments, akin to prisons, where the inmates have very little autonomy over their own lives. Emotionally, pupils are very much left to their own devices, and, at my school at least, bullying wasn’t really acknowledged. I know that teachers witnessed my torment in the classroom, and sometimes they even laughed along as I sat there withering in a pool of shame. Bullying needs to be targeted more proactively, and systematically. There needs to be more emotional support in schools - teachers should be trained specifically how to identify the kids that are struggling with their mental health, and specialist counsellors need to be available for every child.
There is a lot of work to be done, but it’s my hope that through sharing my story, others will feel less alone and will be able to let go of the shame that they feel about their experiences. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you went through, you are deserving of love, and the people who told you otherwise, are wrong.
If you’re a young person in need of help or advice, take a look at the Young Minds website here.
And before you go, give this video a watch, which was my inspiration for this blog post.
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