I read another blog about this just a few minutes ago, and it really got me thinking about things that I had blocked out in my memory.
I was one of those kids that was just troubled. Many people said that I had an old soul…..I think they just meant that I had more issues than a child my age should have. I wasn’t a girly girl. I would scream, kick, and pitch a fit if anyone in my family tried to put me in a dress. Unfortunately, because my mother was determined to keep me out of my overalls and t-shirts when I was a toddler, she bought me this super frilly terrifyingly pink disaster of a dress. This started a long standing tradition of my mother forcing me into outfits that I absolutely hated for the rest of my school going life.
I was a geek from the moment I stepped into kindergarten until the moment I stepped off of the stage at graduation. And I still am. I was bullied from as early as 1st and 2nd grade. I was destined to not be one of the “popular girls”. In elementary school, kids would steal my food, pour drinks over my head, call me all manner of silly little kid names. As I got into Middle School, things just got worse. I had a small group of friends, but sometimes, even they couldn’t be trusted. Almost every time I confided in someone, all the sudden the whole school knew, and I had a new nickname. Hell, I was sleeping with people out behind the school when I was still a virgin! Amazing trick, that.
I started my periods early, and they were extremely heavy. I know, now, that I have endometriosis, which would have made them horrible, even as a teenager. I always had to stay home at least one day during my cycle, and at least once, while I was in school, I would bleed through my pad. For *years* I got “Bloody Mary!” shouted at me in the hallways. It followed me all the way into high school, among other nasty nicknames.
I was smart, once I hit High School, I made sure that I made friends with some of the bigger, more scary boys around. If I hadn’t, I would have gotten the tar beat out of me on several occasions.
When I was in High School my disorder kicked in. I became the little creepy goth girl in the corner that no one wanted to have a thing to do with. I got called everything from slut to Morticia. I weighed 115 lbs, but that didn’t stop every girl coming or going from telling me I was morbidly obese and I should kill myself because I was too ugly. Or that I should have been aborted.
My school life was hell. I even going picked on by the *teachers*. I was so scared to even move that I just sat in the back corner of my classes and buried my nose in a book. One of my classes, I was so afraid of the teacher I went and helped the lunch ladies clean just so I wouldn’t have to face her, and I still made a B in that class.
School failed me. The marked me as a bad kid for one reason or another, and so I didn’t get the help that I needed to get away from the bullies. No one understood. Even my parents thought I was an awful child, they never believed me when I told them what was going on.
I still have the scars from those days. I don’t think that bullies understand the extent of the damage that they do to the people that they pressure. Or they do, and they just don’t care.
I have had a few of the girls that were awful to me in school come back and apologize. I just shook my head.
Teachers and school staff need to do a much better job at taking care of the kids that are in their charge. You never know what they might be having to deal with.