It took tears to write this op.... (Bullying in Schools)

Member Name: hugnluvable

Product:	Bullying in Schools
Date:	18/10/01 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: erm! pass!

Disadvantages: everything, destroys self confidence, can affect the individual in years to come, Can we give Minus stars?

She was a large girl, with ginger hair and freckles. She wasn’t that bright at school and her Mum was a teacher.

One day a girl was on her own she was everything that she wasn’t – slim, tall, pretty, smiley, confident, bright, talented, lovely, friendly to absolutely everyone, and she didn’t really mind sitting on her own on the school bus – after all, all her friends lived in the town a few miles away from her village. But what this ginger girl realised was this girl’s history, how she gave up certain things because of what people said to her. How she got upset when things didn’t go right. How sensitive she was to bitchiness and general nastiness in her direction.

She was late and there were no other spaces left on the school bus apart from at the back where all the ginger haired girl’s friends were. How dare she sit near us? She thought. So as the bus was moving she decided to take her clarinet box out of her hands, open the case up and start messing about with it. Now, this girl wasn’t too impressed about this – and she wasn’t the sort of girl to just sit there and watch it happening. That clarinet was like her child, one of her most prized possessions – so she shouted – “Give it back!” And that was probably one of the worst things that she could have done… retaliated.

“Oooohhhh, getting lary are ya?”
“Just give it back… please”
“Um… no” – and all her friends start taunting the poor girl about how cheeky she is to even think about sitting at the back with them. Then insulting her, saying how lanky she is, how crap her hair looks, how ugly she is… She finally gets the clarinet back as the bus stops at her stop in the village. The ginger girl decides to get up before her and goes directly to the front of the bus. The other girl feels a bit on edge about all this (this girl l
ives the other end of the village – what’s she going to do?). She edgily walks towards the end of the bus to get out. She feels a hard kick on her shin – she almost trips but a seat helps her keep her balance. She gets herself together quickly – she doesn’t want to show how upset and offended she feels so she calmly and yet hastily walks down the bus steps. She feels a kick. She falls to the floor. She looks up. She sees the ginger girl laughing at her near the doorway. She sees the bus driver doing nothing at all. She sees all the other school kids looking at her – laughing and pointing at her on the pavement as if she was some sort of freak. The bus drives on as she is still on the floor – almost in tears at this moment. She looks down. The contents of her bag all over the floor and part of her clarinet case chipped. Those who got off the bus before are walking ahead now – no-one doing anything to help, just staring and laughing. They did similar things to her when they were all at primary school and they frequently offered her the odd jibe on the bus and/o on the way home.

Words can’t imagine how this girl must have felt on this cold, autumn’s evening. She went home in tears. No-one was home – parents were at work and when they come back her tears would all be wiped away. All emotions and traces of that day could be hidden under the carpet.

Until now…

I was that girl: tall, pretty, lovely to everyone, confident, talented, and bright. But now I cant say those words about myself. People say these lovely things about me and yet I find it hard to accept them. I come across as a very confident person but when I pour my heart out to someone its clear to them that I’m not. But why?

Because I was bullied. And I am only just coming to terms with it now.

I was kicked off a bus, humiliated in front of 50 other school kids who did absolutely nothing els
e to help – not even frown upon what happened. They were laughing – every one of them – and every one of them was laughing at me! I felt so alone and miserable that I wanted to die for that split second. I didn’t know how I was going to carry on. I got home and dreaded it when my Mum found out about it. And needless to say she found out because I told her. My mum went to the school to get it sorted – it didn’t help – in fact it made things worse and I started to clam up about those sorta things that happened after school after that time. I thought I could get on with it, cope. I mean I’m not being heavily bullied am I? Just a few individuals calling me nasty names, throwing my bag, hair bands etc around the bus, taking the p*ss out of me singing and taking part in music, pushing me, spitting and in most extreme cases – kicking me off a bus! If I wasn’t such a strong person I might have thought that these cases were extremely bad – NO-ONE deserves to be treated like this – but soon my mind changed around, I wanted a reason behind it. Why were they doing this? And I believed that I deserved it. They didn’t like me – and I thought about all the negative points about myself and how all the good points could be bad as well.

And now, after two counselling sessions I realise why I have an eating disorder. Because my self-esteem has been almost destroyed by these – shall I say it? – Bullies. I cried in these counselling sessions – I wondered why I am so concerned about what people think of me and why people dislike me. Why I feel the whole world is against me because one person has given me a dirty look or a nasty comment. The image of this bus incident just reduced me to tears in this counselling session; it never crossed my mind before, until I had to give the counsellor an example.

You see, bullying has affected me in a number of ways. And it affects
so many others as well. My counsellor says that it’s surprising how many people are emotionally damaged because of bullying. I cried in the session not only because it upset me, but because I was embarrassed to be put through those circumstances. Think about it – if a child is taunted and teased frequently for around 11 years and attempts to bottle it in and then put a front on and pretend as if everything’s normal and ok (although its not) its plain to see that that person is going to go through a rough time when they are older. The freaky thing is is now I remember the emotions and gutt feelings I had back then when someone was picking on me and they are the exact same feelings I get now when I get a dirty look or a nasty comment. And I know that I shouldn’t worry about what other people think about me – not everyone is going to love absolutely everyone else, but I do – all because of the feeling of loneliness and shame when so many kids just looked on and laughed at what I was being subjected to. Kind of sad really, when the bullies saw the teasing and taunting as a bit of harmless fun.

Before I went to counselling it would have never popped into my mind that the things that happened years ago would have such an effect on me now. I saw these things as quite small, and minor. I was still myself all the time – but I know I over exaggerate the nice things about myself as a front still now. But looking back at things now I realise why my mum was so concerned when I told her what had happened to me throughout my day at school.

This is a really tricky subject to advise people about because people react to their experiences differently. Its been hidden in myself for such a long time that now its in the open I’m glad I can talk about it freely now. I don’t want sympathy; I don’t want an apology off these bullies, all I want is to overcome it and accept that its over and there’s no need to
feel the way I felt back then.

When I go home I hear of these bullies, some even walk up to me in the street as if they were my bestest friend back then. The ginger girl is now a single mum of two, loads are unemployed, pregnant or work in McDonalds and it makes me wonder what the whole fuss about was. They envied me. Remember that, if you are being bullied or have been – that a bully usually bullies because they are jealous – you are most probably everything that they aren’t. And this is the same when you get a nasty comment or a dirty look at work or university or anywhere else (this is more typical to girls) – they envy you and try to find your weak points that really aren’t that important.

But now I’m at university – studying music – a course that I ADORE! I don’t like admitting it but I am bright, popular, lovely to everyone, lively, bubbly etc and people regularly tell me about these qualities. And when I overcome my state of mental health at the moment I will be the happiest girl in the whole world. And you know why? Because I’ll accept myself as the lovely person that so many people think I am and I’ll be eternally happy with myself and with life itself.

HuGz
xxx

Summary: