I was bullied

I didn't realise for a while after it happened that I was being bullied. I was in year 11 and had only been at this school for a year. All the girls at school wore really short skirts, heaps of makeup and jewelery, smoked after school, most had had sex and had boyfriends.  I wasn't like that. I wore my skirt longer, had plain hair and spent my time after school going to dance classes- I was thinking about becoming a professional dancer. I was into other stuff. I was into punk music and indie rock, got my nose pierced and then later put my hair in dreadlocks. On days when we could wear what we wanted at school, the other girls wore skimpy skirts and I wore tie-dyed second hand dresses. I was interested in Buddhism and cult movies,  they were interested in Cosmo magazine and TV soaps. The often got drunk at parties and didn't really do well at school. I did pretty well at school too.

There were times when I made friends with the "cool" people, and other times when I felt completely alone. I ended up making friends with a couple of girls in my maths class who also put their hair in to dreadlocks and died it rainbow colours. Because us "weirdos" were different from the "cool" people, they picked on us. If I was alone girls would call out names like "weirdo", "freak" or "bitch" from classroom windows and then hide while I walked through the empty playground- they thought I didnt know it was them. It hurt that they could be so cruel but at the same time I knew what they were doing was dumb and boring. I thought, "what a boring life they must lead if they enjoy spending time being mean to people and thinking up the nastiest things to say."

I was really surprised that some people were admired because they judged people. It's like the ring leader had power because she/he could criticise someone they happened to not like, and then other people would agree with them so they could be the friend of the ring leader and share some of this power.

What helped me get through it was finding that people outside of school were cool because of the things I was interested in. And I thought I only needed one or two friends at school anyway. I felt I'd become stronger by sticking to my values rather than trying to fit in and do things that might hurt others. It annoyed the "cool" people that I didn't want to be like them- and I realised they are just as afraid as me of not being accepted. So I would try to be nice to them even though they were mean to me. Its funny- a couple of years after I finished school, I saw one of the "cool" girls and she was really nice to me. Maybe she didn't think she had to try so hard to be "cool" and maybe she didn't have to be mean to be "cool" after all. It's funny that when this was happening at school I understood the feelings of what bullying means, but I didn't use that word at the time. I just thought of the people who were bullying me as mean and bored and just different. But now I can see that they were bullies. I don't think they were bad, maybe just having a hard time themselves and made themselves feel safer and secure by hurting others. It's sad because I didn't get to have some of their fun, but I learned to make my own fun. My self esteem was hurt, but I've learned a lot about myself in trying to work out how to rebuild it.

For more info on bullying and how to cope, why not check out some ReachOut.com fact sheets and stories...

• What is Bullying? (Fact sheet)
• Bullying - what to do if you are being bullied (Fact sheet)
• Pure emotional hell (Story)