Writing about the bullying I experienced at school will no doubt uncover hidden memories and be painful but I would really like to share my experiences with you. A few years ago I discovered that at school one of my childhood friends was bullying people behind my back, and even using my name to threaten people, saying that we would attack them if they didn't do as we said...I was horrified ! I am so anti bullying it's unreal and hate the fact I may have been perceived as a bully due to someone else's actions. I have recently read that bullying can leave an indelible imprint on a teenagers brain if it is experienced during a time when it is still growing and developing. The neurological scars it leaves are similar to those created in the brains of children who are sexually or physically abused in early childhood. There is also a prevalence of depression and anxiety based disorders in adults who were bullied during their childhood. I can relate to that information as I know many people can. The bullying I experienced started when I was 7 and lasted until I was 15 and I shall start with the problems I had at primary school.
As I child I lived in the same village I do now. I've been here my whole life.,It's a pretty average village with a row of shops, a few parks and two primary schools. The school I attended was pretty average too but with a good reputation and OFSTED results. I, however wasn't what you would call average. I was a girl who liked to dress up and make my presence known from a young age. Mum had been a model in her youth so she liked to make an effort with her appearance and I guess I followed suit. She said I would only wear what I wanted to wear. I was skinny and generally petite, I had waist length golden blonde hair which I usually wore wavy and I always insisted it was immaculately styled. I guess I always went to school looking neat and tidy. I loved fashion and clothes and I hated looking like everyone else. I was determined to be unique. I was amazed last year when I sat next to an old primary school teacher and she let slip that my nickname amongst the teachers had been 'beauty queen'. I laughed at this and felt really embarrassed but it really set me off thinking about my past and wondering why I had been picked on so much.
At school I was quite loud, quite giggly and a real chatterbox but I was a friendly child who didn't have a cruel side to me. Sure I could be a little bit mischievous but most kids are and it was always harmless fun, I never hurt anyone. However, at school I soon started to get a reputation for being a bit of a 'problem child' and this I believe was for a combination of reasons. Firstly my brother who is five years older than me and has always been a bit of a live wire had previously attended the same school as me. He too had been a nice boy with 'a bit of a gob on him' and I think the teachers were sort of expecting me to follow in his noisy footsteps. When it was confirmed that I too had a love of talking I started to get told off by my teachers on a daily basis. This provoked my classmates parents into asking for their children to be moved away from sitting with me as they felt I was a distraction. Looking back its laughable really as I was always in the highest scoring group for most subjects aside from maths and I wonder if I talked because I wasn't stimulated enough by the work. Whatever the reason I certainly remember helping other children with their work not hindering. Still, I was very aware of the fact that most of my classmate's parents had a really bad opinion of me. One particular family behaved very oddly. I would call up my close friend's house (let's call her girl A) and ask to speak to her, adding 'please' politely at the end of my sentence yet their Dad would sternly inform me that 'when you ring to speak to someone you should state your name so the caller knows who is calling'. From then on I did as I was told, I never questioned him, I certainly wasn't defiant. Girl A was highly highly intelligent and excelled at everything she did., they obviously thought I wasn't good enough to be her friend. Every time I went over to their house I got the feeling I was greatly disliked and that they, as well as most of the other parents saw me as a bad influence. The irony of the situation is in the present day I am someone who has only been drunk twice in my life, I have never touched drugs and I made the choice to stay a virgin until I was 25 (and to be honest even then I wouldn't say it counted !).
The bullying has seriously affected my life and to this day it still does to some extent. I can't remember precisely how old I was when it started but I do clearly remember someone calling my Mum a 'tart'. I didn't really know the true meaning of the word as I was only about seven but at that age my Mum was my idol and I knew by their tone that it was offensive. Of course my Mum wasn't a tart, she was just unique. It was the eighties and my Mum dressed pretty cool and had massive permed hair. As I previously mentioned she used to do some modelling, so she was pretty confident in her denim shorts and boob tubes. She always had made up eyes and her lips painted with lipstick, no matter whether it was the 8.30 am or 3.20 pm school run. Nowadays nobody would bat an eyelid at someone who wanted to dress hugely fashionable but obviously back then I can only assume it was talked about because it was different and she stood out. For some reason or another it became an issue for two girls in particular who constantly made negative comments about her. Throughout my school life I was often teased for my clothing but let me be clear it wasn't the fact that my Mum 'dressed' me, as I have previously said I made my own choices from an early age and my Mum always allowed me that freedom (obviously with sensible restrictions). I would also like to state that I wasn't outrageously clothed or anything like that but sometimes I would choose bright colours and I remember a few floaty, hippy style skirts and beaded necklaces. Anyway, it didn't take long before i too started to get called a 'tart' and people started laying the blame on me for things I didn't do. I remember getting in serious trouble for writing 'PISS OFF' in a library ticket. Of course it wasn't actually me, but it was in the same pen and it was written under my name and It was assumed I was the culprit because everyone thought the worst of me.
Apart from Girl A I struggled to really bond with girls and some days nobody wanted to hang with me at lunchtime. I have vivid memories of sitting on my own on the cold concrete floor around the side of the school where nobody was supposed to be. I remember the copious amount of daddy long legs there and the rapid clicking of their wings as they flew around me. Lunchtime dragged and became a very lonely time but in class was worse. I was often the subject of social exclusion and 'the silent treatment', where girls would totally ignore me for a whole day and speak around me as if I wasn't there. I was ostracised, they refused to even acknowledge my presence and it felt very degrading. Other times they would stop talking whenever I entered the room or continue to talk in whispers whilst shooting furtive looks in my direction and laughing as though I was the butt of their jokes. One of the girls (Girl B) hated me for no apparent reason and told her Mum I had called her a 'fat slag' (this was a word I had never even heard of before and it had certainly never left my lips) and the girl's parents stormed into school to confront my parents. That was a meeting I definitely won't forget, I remember running away crying as they shouted at my Mum and Dad and said my Dad thought he was superior to them because he wore a suit to work!.
I found solace outside school by becoming friends with a couple of boys because they shared my interest in nature and science and we would collect ladybirds and butterflies and get all muddy which I loved. When it came to the parents though it still felt like I was viewed as not good enough to spend time with their children. I made a new friend in years 5 and 6 (girl C) but in my therapist's words, 'it was a manipulative friendship'. She liked to play with my emotions and I let her. One day she was my friend, the next she would fall out with me. She loved to bring another friend right up to my face and say loudly 'We are no longer your friends'. The following day she would be my friend again and fall out with the other girl and it continued on like this for a long long time. Very odd, but at the time I obviously never questioned it as I was a child and I didn't know better.
Anyway when I moved up to High School I wasn't in her class but I was in a class with Girl A. I was quite wary of going to the new school as three girls who were two years older than me had randomly called me a 'bitch' outside the shops a week before the term was due to start. I was right to be cautious as within weeks those girls along with at least ten others in their 'gang' started to verbally abuse me with words such as 'slag' and 'bitch'. One of them pushed me down a few steps in a corridor and another pushed me pretty hard into a door in the toilets. I think this is when I started to feel self conscious and scared of being alone. I told my parents and my teachers, there was no way I wasn't going to say something and it helped a little but it didn't stop it. These girls had loads of friends and they were pretty intimidating when they were all together but luckily I managed to avoid bumping into them as a whole more than once. I learnt to stick by my friends sides whenever possible but going to the toilet on my own during class was really really scary. I would hold on as long as I could but when I could no longer hold I would have to take a deep breath before opening the door to the ladies. It was a horrible feeling like a cloud of fluttering butterflies in my stomach desperately trying to get out. I was just so glad that I only had to cope with this for a year, until they moved up to the next school. When they left it was such a relief and even though I would occasionally get called names or teased about my clothing by random girls I would say I really enjoyed the last two years at that school. I did however continue to get called 'tart' or slag by various random people such as my friends younger brother and a guy in my class who took a dislike to me. It was the next school that proved to be my downfall .....
