Thoughts.com Blogs - Yerr, I was bullied once ...

I often wander around in thoughts.com visiting my friends and seeing how their lives are going.

I also pop in on new bloggers and take a peak at their worlds, and I am always saddened when I come across bloggers who write so beautifully, but hurt so badly. Some of these bloggers are often young adults who are torn by their feelings of unimportance, loneliness and are openly displaying their battle scars from the verbal/physical attacks from their peers.

Alot have been bullied at school, feel alone, ostracized and are still feeling this at the beginning of their working life.

I am not writing to discount how they are feeling. I am writing this to share with them my experience, to show them that life does get better, and what they are going through now is what will make them amazing strong people in their futures.

I was bullied/ostracized/teased by my so called group of friends in high school for 4 months of my High School Year. 4 Months!
I know, hardly years like some of these bloggers have been through. But those 4 months were the worst of my school life.

Those 4 months had a HUGE impact on how I interacted with people - and sometimes those insecurities still do impact me.

I no longer straight out trusted people.
If people were kind to me I'd wonder why.
As I built new friendships I'd always be waiting for them to let me down.
I became insecure in my looks, abilities and started to hide behind a smart-arse exterior .... this is a snippet of it.

I was always in the IN group, well at least I thought so.
My friends on the surface were kind, generous and the kind of friends everybody wanted.   A couple had older siblings at our school which was always a bonus, kinda gave you a ticket in with the older kids too - which was good and on the surface made us all so much "cooler".

There was 9 of us (Francis, Heather, Emma, Natalie, Amanda, Roslyn, Sharon, Christine & me).
Just like girls we all had our moments with each other. You know the good old she said, you said, they said. For reasons I no longer remember I got in the middle of an argument between the Alpha-females in our group, and somehow their disagreement became my fault.
They blamed me for things I'd said -that they'd told me!
I took the full brunt of it and ALL of the 8 friends refused to talk to me.
Well this escalated to nearly all of the other groups in my year level.

I would cry myself to sleep, I hid it from my parents because I was embarrassed to tell them I had no friends. I didn't tell my other friends outside of school - because I thought they would do the same thing to me that my friends had done. I went through it alone. That was the hardest thing, I had nobody to talk to ... there was no blogging back then to release it, even though I did keep a diary - I still felt alone.

The other popular group told me while they didn't "hate" me they didn't feel right letting me hang out with them.
I got smart comments thrown at me in the corridors, if I approached others, they'd walk off and tell me not to think about hanging around with them.

I got teased for having "red" hair. They even coined a phrase "Red Hair No Mates" which a local drama group was using this phrase - great timing huh! Consequently I died it "badly" to black ... just gave them another thing to tease me about!

Nobody wanted to go against the two popular groups by being seen with me.
For a few weeks I ate my lunch by myself, I walked to school alone and walked home alone.
I got teased by younger kids - others just said "Red hair no mates" out loud when I walked past them.
I played in the school softball team and one of my so-called friends, Amanda was in the team as well.
I was the strongest player in that team as I played outside of school - most did not. Amanda "sucked" up to me at every game and was so nice - but once softball finished she was back to being a cow like the others.

One day while walking around the school I came across three other "outcasts" in my year level. They invited me to sit with them. These girls were teased and ostracized because
- One was (Too) intelligent and considered nerdy because she was openly enthusiastic about learning,
- another had a hormone imbalance and was overweight and perspired alot
- the other was tall and gangly and stood out from others her age.

I'd never really noticed them before, I knew their names and knew why they were teased and until that point I had no idea what lovely people they were.    I spent a few lunches with these girls, and I was grateful for their friendship.

One of the older siblings of one of my "friends" gave me some advice, she told me not to show them that they've hurt me, hold my head up high otherwise they'll have it over me forever.
So I didn't not crawl, grovel or beg them to be my friend. I learnt to ignore them and hide my hurt.

Eventually they "forgave me" ... I remember on the day they did I was so happy and cried - they thought I was pathetic for doing that. . . But they let me back into their fold!

It was never the same, I now saw them for what they were - shallow, and not worthy of my friendship.
But I didn't have the courage to reject them. Like all teenagers I just wanted to fit in, but I never felt I fitted in with them again.

Now as a side to this story, I did have other friends other than my school friends - they were from the sports teams that I played with (Softball, Basketball & Netball teams), and that was where my social friends were derived. But I had an inferiority complex from my school experience, and it took me awhile to trust in my friends.

I still think about those girls from school and I am glad to say I have NOTHING to do with any of them. I now have a very sincere network of friends and it is because of those bitches at school that I know how important my friendships are.

I now have a daughter at school, and some days she comes home sad from the way her friends have treated her. I don't try to cotton wool her, I try to equip her with tools to deal with this.  Those of you sharing your stories are doing a great job - life does get better, you will find happiness you just have to believe.