I Was Bullied In School & I’m Still Dealing With The Consequences

Bullying is a serious issue for young people in today’s world, but it’s hardly a new trend. It’s so serious that it nearly ended my life 15 years ago. I was in high school from 1998-2002, but my problem with bullies began long before that, all the way back in second grade. From that very first experience, my classmates latched onto the “fun” they were having bullying me and it never went away.

By the time I reached high school, I was used to being treated like a piece of garbage and accepted that as my fate, hoping the bullies would just go away if I didn’t fight their abuse anymore. Instead, they just got worse. By the time I was a junior, I had quit all extracurricular activities because I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was completely shutting down in a world of despair. The effects didn’t end once I graduated, either — they changed me forever. Here’s the harsh truth of what bullying did to me:

1. I was severely depressed and only one person knew. I had one very close friend in high school, and she was the only person who knew what I was going through because she was going through the same thing. Unfortunately, that meant she couldn’t help me much except for just being there. The only solace I had was knowing that I wasn’t completely alone in this dark unfair world.
2. I was suicidal and started to self-harm regularly. I hid a razor blade in my room and spent my days after school listening to angry music, writing angry and depressing thoughts in my journal, and cutting my arms. One time, I wanted more than anything to die that night, so I cut deeper than usual until I passed out from the pain. I was really disappointed when I woke up still alive and had to go back to that den of abuse. Only one person in the world knew why I was wearing long sleeves even though it was 60 degrees.
3. I inadvertently developed an eating disorder. The cafeteria was my own personal hell. The group of loser jocks took great pleasure in throwing food at my friend and I throughout the entire lunch period, the messier the better. Around the middle of junior year, in a move of desperation, I asked if I could spend my lunch period in the library instead and was granted my request. Since one of the bullies’ top priorities seemed to be my weight, I noticed when skipping lunch led to weight loss, and thus an eating disorder was born. I barely ate for over a year, and I was skin and bone by the time I went to college.
4. I asked for help and got in trouble instead. When the lunch fiasco was in full swing, I tried first to get some help from the principal. My friend and I told him about the jocks throwing food at us every day during lunch period, and he honestly didn’t care because they knew how to throw a football, too (apparently that skill gives you the right to do whatever you want). After that attempt, we got frustrated and started throwing food back at them. Guess who got in trouble? Yep, it was us.
5. I lost my religion. There was a song in the late ’90s by REM about losing my religion, and it became my anthem (still is). After being raised to believe that God was watching over me and protecting me, then seeing first-hand that God was either unwilling or unable to protect me from the bullies who made me wish for sweet death, I decided he wasn’t a character I wanted to keep in my life. What kind of monster allows someone to be abused to the point of attempting to take their own life? Since I was about 17, I’ve identified as agnostic/atheist.
6. I found my work ethic, and it saved me. By the time I made it to senior year, miraculously still alive, I only had a couple classes left to qualify for graduation. I discovered a work/study program that allowed me to leave school as soon as my classes were over as long as I had a job, so I started working at McDonald’s. Joining the world of working adults helped me find my remarkable work ethic (one of my best qualities to this day), and it helped me gain my independence, as well. When I transitioned to the working world, I didn’t want to die anymore, and that was a victory.
7. My dad almost died of cancer. While I was climbing out of a hole of depression during my senior year, I found out that my dad was suffering with throat cancer and he had only a 25% chance of surviving. While I was finishing high school and working, my parents spent five days a week in Cleveland at the hospital, and I was preparing myself for the possibility that my father might die. I’d always identified with him because I got my wild, nuts personality directly from him. Miraculously, he went into remission thanks to the wonderful doctors at The Cleveland Clinic, and that ended all my thoughts of death as a positive thing because I experienced the fear of loss that death brings as a loved one.
8. I went through a phase where I tried to be a likeable stereotype. Like I said, my eating disorder lasted from junior year until I went to college. Even though I was working at McDonald’s, I rarely touched a French fry and basically lived on one side salad a day. I got so skinny I didn’t even recognize myself, and then I decided to dye my hair blonde and pretend I wasn’t incredibly smart because I thought that would make people like me and not bully me anymore. I was miserable and hungry all the time, but the only comments I got were the destructive ones about how good I looked with my ribs sticking out.
9. I found my first serious boyfriend. Towards the beginning of my college years, I left McDonald’s and started delivering pizzas for Domino’s. That was where I met my first serious boyfriend, and he was the one who encouraged me to eat real food again for the first time in years. I slowly recovered from the mindset that every calorie I consumed made me less valuable, and I fell in love for the first time. Unfortunately, that relationship ended up being really bad for me in the long run, but in the short term it did help me transition from the mentality of an abused child to that of an actual adult.
10. I met my best friend and support system for life. We met by chance, my sophomore year of college when I was at a bar with my boyfriend. We started hanging out, I met her young children, and we were best friends quickly. I like to think that my worst years ended when I met her, and that friendship completed me in a way because I’d never known the kind of love she showed me. To this day, we’re still best friends, I was the maid of honor in her wedding, and I’m the cool aunt to her 3 amazing kids (all of whom are taller than me now).

It’s really hard for me to talk about these events, because they changed me forever. Because of the bullying I endured, I still suffer from severe social anxiety and trust issues, but I decided to share my story because I hope it can help someone out there. Whether it helps in the context of knowing that you’re not alone, or it helps you to intervene when you see your children engaging in bullying, I just hope I can help make the world a better place so that all the abuse I suffered wasn’t in vain.