From Weakness Comes Strength: Part One

I honestly couldn’t even tell you how long I have wanted to tell my story. The full version, unedited, uncut, wholesome story. I’d be lying if I told you this is going to be easy for me write, and even easier to share. There are parts of my story that not even my own parents and closest friends know of. (If you fall into those categories, don’t take offense to me hiding certain things; I did this to spare feelings and emotions while I also prefer to cope with certain things on my own.) I am finally telling everyone everything to symbolize me going into my adult life with a clean slate: no secrets and no bottled up stories and hidden emotions. I hope me sharing this can help others going through similar situations.

I’m starting this off by saying I have an amazing family and some amazing friends. Some amazing friends have turned into family, and other friends joined my life at a point where their friendship meant more to me than I can ever explain. Both my family and my friends have gotten me through every rough time and were there for me with unconditional support. However, the type of person I am does not allow me to share every detail with other people. Mostly, I prefer to keep things bottled up so I can deal with them at a later date and by myself. This is a habit I am desperately trying to break as it has caused me much inner turmoil throughout my life. This all being said, I’m diving right into the hardest year of my life. Eighth grade.

Yes, eighth grade was the hardest year of my life. Maybe I just think this because no other bad years after could even come close to breaking my spirit as badly as this year did.

Imagine losing all but two friends, being constantly harassed at school and at home, people wishing you dead, telling you that you are worthless, and having 35-40 of those people standing on your front lawn trying to jump you while your own friends, whom you were entertaining, go out to say hi to the same people trying to beat the shit out of you.

That was my life, everyday of it, for ten months. This did not end until I went to catholic school for high school and completely blocked myself off to these people in my past.

It started when my so called “best friend” at the time thought I was dating her “ex boyfriend.” I was not. She was a triplet, so she instantly had an advantage. I remember the night so clearly. I had recently become close with one of my cousins again, and we shared some similar friends. My cousin and I decided to go to the park nearby to meet them. Of course, my “best friend,” lets call her Maya, who I was on the outs with was there with a bunch of other people from our town. They were from the south end of town, so I didn’t really know them (born and raised on the north side). There was tension is the air, throughout the whole park, but no confrontation, until we were leaving. The friends that came back to my house, my cousin, and I made our way through the back of the park. We would always cut through the back baseball field, which is where my cousin and I exchanged words with Maya while a few girls stood behind her screaming slurs at us. The guy friends we were with pulled us away and we continued our walk home. I thought that was the end of the issue, I was soooo wrong.

We were hanging out in my house, just like any other typical weekend, with my parents and brother upstairs. My parents were even entertaining some of their own friends that night. All the sudden, my phone was blowing up with threatening texts, followed by a text from a friend who I wasn’t with telling me to check my Facebook feed. I logged on and saw Maya, her sisters, and other girls she was friends with before we started middle school instigating a fight. I am not playing innocent here at all. I completely fed into their statuses and egged on a confrontation. Maya had written about wanting to fight me, and I told her she was more than welcomed to. My exact words, I believe, were “Feeling froggy? Then leap.” (Silly I know, but this is how we spoke in 2009.) I am totally not a fighter, never was. I always had a ton of the BS girl drama when I was younger, but I would never even think of taking it to a physical level. But I was so angry at this point that I didn’t even care.

Let me backtrack a little. A week before this all began, Maya and I were fighting over a rumor that I liked her ex boyfriend (yes, the same one). I told her no, that I wouldn’t lie to her, that I cared about her as a friend too much, and she apologized for believing it would be true. I was friends with him, I had “dated” some of his friends, but that was about as far as anything went. Maya and I were back to normal following that week, then this whole issue had re-emerged when I posted the current date as my BBM status (Blackberry Messenger app, this is 2009, remember) for something to do with my cousin (I seriously do not remember, it was something dumb) and put a heart next to it. This was when it was popular to post the date you and someone else started dating, so everyone assumed that Maya’s ex boyfriend had asked me out that day and that’s why I posted it. I had several people question me on it, all of which received the same explanation that it was something for my cousin. However, everyone chose to push the story as it being my new relationship date, causing complete chaos, which would ruin my life for the next nine months.

So back to where I left off, I started receiving calls from Maya of her screaming, telling me to meet her at the grass fields down the block from my house to fight. I didn’t want to get in trouble with cops, so I said no, that she could come to my house so we could one on one resolve the issue. She agreed that she would come to the house so her and I could speak one on one. I waited by my front door, and asked my friends to stay in the basement while I talked to her upstairs. I asked my cousin to stay near me for moral support.

My cousin, Erica, and I stood by the front door waiting, when we suddenly heard what sounded like a group of thirty people, and much to our surprise, it actually was a group of thirty people. I opened the door and said, “Maya, are you coming in?” Immediately after I spoke I had the same group of girls yelling at me before yelling at me again. They screamed words like bitch and whore, telling me to come outside to get my ass beat. This went on for what felt like two hours. Erica jumped in helping me scream back at them, but our screaming was actually logical. I kept speaking directly to Maya, still trying to get her to come inside so her and I could squash the problem. I was extremely angry with her, but I’m not the type of person to easily give up on friendships or relationships.

The screaming went nowhere. Maya wouldn’t even respond to anything I said to her and had all the other girls screaming for her. They continued on calling me ugly, fat, braceface, pizza face (I used to have really bad acne during puberty) and a bunch of other low blows that haunted my mind for years. My friends must have heard what was going on outside because they all came up from the basement. I figured they were coming up to help me calm everyone down to make sense of the situation, but instead, they walked past me through my front door and onto my lawn to go greet the people they knew. Only one of my friends completely avoided the situation, by walking around the block where he lived and ignoring everybody. At first, that annoyed me that he would just leave, but later on I appreciated the fact that he didn’t feed into the drama.

I had a lump in my throat the size of my fist. How could my own friends go and give hugs to the same people who are telling me I’m a fat, ugly, whore? I felt so much betrayal. These were friends I had all of elementary school, and they had no problem picking the side of people they had only known for a few months. I even had one of my closest friends at the time hiding behind a car, pretending she wasn’t even there. After about an hour of fighting, she left, running back to her house a few blocks away and bringing Maya and her sisters with her. Even though Maya had left, the other girls continued yelling at me. It made no sense, it wasn’t even their issue. But I guess they wanted to spend their night telling me what an ugly and worthless piece of shit I was.

Everything ended when the cops finally showed up. My parents didn’t know how else to handle the situation aside from having the cops come. No one got in trouble, but the cops were able to get everyone to leave.

I walked back into my house, shaking. I refused to cry in front of anyone. My friends who had come to my house with me left when everyone else did. Despite me being angry towards them, I didn’t want to acknowledge that in that moment. I sat on my couch, quiet. The friend that had left came back, and was actually super comforting. He hugged me and told me everything would be okay, and that it would blow over sooner than later. I so badly wanted to believe him. I think part of me even did believe him.

As the night went on, I remained pretty quiet. My parents kept asking me if I was okay, and Erica kept telling me they were just crazy, jealous people who had nothing better to do with their lives. Maybe that was true, but I felt too stunned still to really understand what just happened. I remember worrying about school on Monday, and wondering how long it would take for everything to blow over.

School on Monday was the start of a year long hell. First period I got called down to the security office, where a real police officer from town worked. Maya was there too, along with both of her sisters. He pulled up our Facebook's and read our posts. I remember in that moment thinking I was so dumb for giving into the drama they created. I knew I couldn’t take anything back, but I did try to explain myself and make it very clear that I was not the one who started this problem. I pulled texts up on my phone along with the call long, and even a few threatening voicemails they had left me while walking to my house (I was waiting at the door and left my phone in the basement). The officer took us to the dean of discipline, which resulted in a whole day of explaining the issue and taking in other kids who were involved for questioning on the situation. The whole day was exhausting, and this process would only continue for the entire year.

After that first day though, school was a whirlwind of people barking comments at me. I couldn’t walk to a single class without being shoved against lockers, called a fat whore, or harassed in some other way. This torment didn’t end when the school day did, though. I would go home to Facebook or ask.fm (a website where people could anonymously send you questions about yourself) to tons of hate. I’d have messages, statuses, and “questions” all very detailed in how much I was hated by our school and how disgusting I was. This all killed my self-esteem, but was nothing compared to what I would be told in the next few weeks.

The hate remained at the same level for maybe a month. The same comments of “you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re a whore,” only satisfied people until they realized those words would eventually lose some of their meaning, as I got more used to hearing them.

The new comments began one day in the hall. Once the whole situation started, I made sure to keep my head down in the halls. One day, I bumped into this girl who made it abundantly clear that she hated me. She literally would growl and hiss at me in the halls. This day, she decided to stick a pencil through my skin. It had broken the surface, I bled, and even had a scar for a few years. I’m not sure if it ever actually faded or if my tanning habits I developed later in my teen years covered it (I have never been not tan since I was 17, legal tanning age in NJ). I went to the bathroom nearby to clean it quickly. I didn’t want anyone to notice it and was worried about getting lead poisoning.

When I got home, I tried to kept my arm hidden from my mother. I don’t think she ever noticed.

Like any normal teen, I jumped right onto my computer once I got home from school (this was before the iPhone was really popular, and you actually needed a computer to go on the internet). The usual hate comments were on Facebook, but there was a whole new level of hate in my ask.fm messages. Of course, there were still a bunch of messages reminding me that I’m fat and ugly, that I have braces and that nobody likes me, but this time there were messages so mean, I cried the second I saw them. People were telling me to kill myself. That the world as a whole would be better if I did not exist. That my presence was nothing but a burden to everyone around me and that my life was worth nothing. This became a subject I began to think about more and more everyday.

I think I told my parents people were saying these things, because the next day at school I was called to the crisis counselor. She sat me down, telling me what she had heard of the situation, then began asking me how I was feeling.

Could you really put your feelings into words at that point? People are telling you that your existence is nothing, and that was exactly how I had begun to feel. I was nothing. My feelings were nothing. I stared at her blankly, answering with a mere ,“I don’t know.”

She continued on asking tons of questions, and having me recap events and reiterate comments people have made at me. I think I was in there for an hour. I barely recall any of my responses.

When I finally left I was late for gym. I ran to the locker room to change so I wouldn’t be late to the gym activity and receive points off. I opened the locker room door to hear every girl in my class speculating that I might be late because I “finally killed myself.” It actually felt like someone punched me in the gut. They were all laughing at the thought of me taking my own life. I even heard a girl say, “if she finally killed herself, she must have learned how to do the whole world a favor.” I couldn’t walk in. I walked into the bathroom and sat there the whole period. I had never skipped a class, and felt guilty about doing so, but there was no way I could walk into that locker room while people were hoping I was dead.

As the days continued they were all just a blur. All I could recount for are the moments I felt like I was dying. One day in chorus I wore a skirt, and while I was singing, girls next to me “whispered” about my fat thighs and fat gut, saying I should cover myself up before people began to vomit while singing. Childish, yes. But being a 14-year-old hearing this, I felt like a disgusting cow being judged by every person in the room. Another day, while presenting in class, I had a girl and a boy make comments about how it's “such a shame” that I had “such an ugly, pimply face” to distract from my “huge, nice boobs.” I began crying while presenting. And when I asked my teacher if I could finish my presentation at the end of the day just in front of her, she told me in front of the class that I “needed to learn how to deal with ridicule and rude comments.” She didn’t report the students, or even scold them. I went on giving the rest of my presentation with a shaky voice and hot tears streaming down my face. Even worse? Later that same day, while on my way to the guidance office, two girls walked into the same stairwell as me. Making their, “ew, look, she’s so disgusting” comments, I finally spoke up.

“Why don’t you focus on school as much as you focus on being mean to me? Maybe then you’ll actually get something above a D.”

They both looked at me with a “how dare you” look. I stood still, looking at them. I don’t know why I thought this would intimidate them enough to leave me alone and get all of their friends to do the same, but I did.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” one of them responded.

“I think I made it pretty clear. Plus, you two are the only ones in here.”

They turned to walk away, so I went to do the same. But the second I turned by back I felt a push, and down the second part of the stairs I went. I’m lucky I got my hands out in front of me before I hit the floor. I think I sprained my wrist and my elbow hurt a lot, but nothing serious thankfully.

I was already headed to see the school officer, and I couldn’t wait to tell him this. There had to be a punishment given for this. Finally, someone who did something to me would get punished, and that would end everything. No one else would want to get in trouble, so they would all start to leave me alone! This was the most hopeful I had felt in a really, really long time.

I got to his office, told him what happened, and his response was simply, “Well what did you do to deserve that?” Excuse me? I just got pushed down stairs and you’re asking me what I did to deserve that? Where does that even make sense? I already felt like everyone was against me. Like nobody wanted to help me. This was my breaking point. This confirmed that not a single person at my school gave a flying fuck about what I was going through. They wanted to place the blame on me. They wanted me to deal with this on my own. God forbid they actually did their jobs properly; this would’ve ended by now.

My school was always aware of everything, and did nothing. I had countless meetings with every school official and nothing ever happened. I think they all were hoping the issue would eventually go away, but it only got worse and worse the more they waited.

My family and I had grown so tired of this. My mom was constantly on the phone with the school, even though she worked, trying to get them take care of the situation. It was almost the end of winter, and nothing had been resolved. It was emotionally draining and time-consuming dealing with everything. There wasn’t a single night I didn’t lock myself in my room to cry. My parents were so overwhelmingly stressed, and I felt like more of a burden to my family than anything else. I felt especially guilty for my little brother. I had taken so much time and attention away from him. He was only ten, living in a house that constantly was full of tension. All I could think of was how happy my family could be if they didn’t have to worry about my problems. They could focus on my brother. They could focus on themselves. They wouldn’t have the constant headache of what people are saying or doing to me when I’m at school, and no parent should ever have that type of stress.

One day, I was at the same park where the issue had first happened, this time watching my brother play in a little league game. I was with one of my friends from school. I was standing next to both my friend and my mom when I got a restricted phone call. I answered, they screamed “fat whore!!!” and hung up. They called again, saying “You’re still alive? That’s sad.” Then hung up again. They called a third time, this time I answered and started screaming, “Leave me alone! Get a life! Find a hobby!” The girl on the phone didn’t acknowledge anything I said but continued on saying “What’s wrong, pimple face? Did we anger you?” I hung up and fought back tears. My mom and friend heard them, the looks on their faces so sad.

“Anne, just ignore them.”

Yea, like I have been for the past few months? That’s really helping, isn’t it?

My mom reported this to the school, like any other incident that happens at home. The next day at school, I got called to a classroom filled with every single teacher I had that year, the principal, vice principal, school officer, guidance counselors, and crisis counselor. I wanted to die. They were addressing comments they heard students make about me in class, including comments such as “Anne has to have a boob job, there’s no way that you can be ugly and have big boobs.” I wanted to hide when a male teacher said that he heard someone say that. I spoke of the locker room incident, the online comments, and how the issue initially started. This meeting only lasted through one class period, and left off with a, “Thanks for cooperating, we’ll keep you updated with further action.”

Disappointed as usual when I leave any meeting with a school official, I went to the bathroom before going to lunch. While in a stall, I heard girls taking about me.

“I don’t understand why she hasn’t killed herself yet. We’re all waiting for her to do it. I’m sure her family is, too.”

Later that night was the first time I cut myself, direct result of those comments.

As everything dragged on, it became harder for me to try being in a pleasant mood at home. I started fighting more and more with my family, which only made everything everyone was saying make more sense. I truly believed my family would be better off without me.

I went into the bathroom, grabbed scissors and opened them. I stared at my skin. If I make the cuts on my hip, I can still bleed out, but if I don’t die, I can easily hide any mark left there. I pulled down my pants enough to expose my hip bone, and went to town. I was crying so hard I didn’t even notice the blood dripping down my leg. I panicked and immediately tried to stop the bleeding. I couldn’t let myself die, even though I wanted to, I just couldn’t. I grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it over the cuts. It took a while, but the bleeding eventually stopped.

I hate even saying it, but cutting allowed me to release what I was feeling. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but after cutting I felt so much lighter. This became a vicious habit of mine for the next four years.

This is this first time a lot of people who know me will find out that I used to cut.

Days continued by, and so did the bullying. I never wanted to admit that I was being bullied, but that’s what it was.

They bullying became so bad I couldn’t take it anymore. I was so done with the situation. I had lost all my old friends. They didn’t speak to me anymore, or even acknowledge me. They became friends with the people bullying me. They became the people bullying me.

Let me take a second to appreciate the five people who actually stayed friends with me or became friends with me while this all happened. I am BLESSED that I had these people in my life. One of these people I am still best friends with, and I can never thank her enough for sticking by my side through everything I’ve gone through. Chin, you truly are someone with such a clean heart and I owe you so much of my life. Another person I want to individually mention is Natasha. She passed away a few years ago, and I know for certain she is up in heaven. She was one of the most popular people in school and she became my friend and defended me. She included me in weekend plans and walked with me in the halls. Small gestures that made a world of a difference to me. Of course, my cousin Erica stood by my side through everything and is also due for a huge thank you. I can’t even tell you how many nights and days I spent with her. Even if you are not mentioned in this paragraph, if you stood by my side through this, thank you. Believe me when I tell you you are a significant part of my heart.

This one day at school, people kept coming up to me telling me I was a “balless bitch” and a “pussy” for supposedly not showing up to fight Maya the night before at that same park. Fed up, I told each person coming up to me that I was never informed of a fight (which I really never was) and that if Maya wanted to fight so bad, she could fight me in the hall after lunch. In lunch, a girl who was friends with Maya came over to me and said, Maya wants to fight after lunch, in the hall, just the two of you. Perfect. I slung my hair up in a pony tail and was so ready. I didn’t care if I was going to win or lose, I just wanted to shut her up. I figured if I won, people would stop bothering me. If I lost, people would see I at least defended myself and would drop the issue since I lost the fight. I was so ready.

The bell rang and I went out in the hall. I spotted Maya, making direct eye contact. A circle of people quickly formed around us to watch. The same girls she brought to my house were standing behind her. A kid from one of my classes was behind me. He whispered in my ear, “You’re brave, fighting with all her big friends behind her. Do what you have to. If it gets really bad, I’ll pull you out.”

We both stood there for what felt like five minutes, just staring at each other. Maya whispered to one of her friends, who announced that Maya said she wanted to be the one to throw the first punch.

“Okay,” I said. “Then throw it. You’ve been waiting for this, right? Then do it.”

She stood there, still, when suddenly she ran through the circle of people and down the hall.

“So now you all see who the real pussy is, right?” I shouted at everyone, especially her friends who stood behind her talking her up. Everyone slowly walked away, and went to class, except her friends, who came up to be and told me, “You’re still a worthless whore, and everyone still hates you.”

When would this end? I was so desperate for everything to just end that I didn’t care if it was the situation that ended or my life, I just needed everything to be over. I saw Chin in the hall, grabbed her and ran into the bathroom crying. She hugged me so tight.

“I don’t know why this is happening, Chin.”

She actually teared up, looked at me, and said, “I don’t know why everyone is so mean to you, Anne. You don’t deserve it.”

We both stood there until it didn’t look like we had cried anymore, then went back to our classes.

Later that day back at home, I went onto Facebook to see a post written completely about me, by Maya. I don’t have the exact post anymore, but it was a detailed post about how I was a whore and how sad she was that I wasn’t listening to everyone telling me to kill myself because “the world will be a much better place” once I finally did. She went on to say how everyone should continue reminding me of this and maybe then I’ll finally “get rid of God’s biggest mistake.” I continued scrolling down to see that the boy I had really liked at the time had joined forces with Maya (screw the power of social media) and wrote his own post about me, saying I needed to get some Proactive for my “disgusting ass face.”

I ran into my room, and had my first panic attack. I was in a ball on the floor on the opposite side of my bed, hidden from the door. I sobbed, gasping for air, wondering “Why is this happening?” I don’t know how long that panic attack actually was but I swear it felt like it lasted for hours. When I was finally able to catch my breath, I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face and immediately retraced back to my room, where I stayed the whole night, crying. I think I even skipped dinner.

I was so sick of my life and knew I couldn’t continue any longer. I remembered that when I was younger I hid a big kitchen knife in my American Girl Doll’s bed (out of fear someone would break into my room, I don’t know). I grabbed it and held it to my chest. I began to press the point into my skin, when suddenly….

…This night was when the most heartbreaking thing that I have ever heard in my entire life happened. I don’t know what triggered it, but my brother came knocking on my door. He came in, looked at me, and said “Anne, please don’t kill yourself.”

I don’t even think I responded, but I remember crying a lot when he left my room. That alone gave me all the strength I needed to push through everything. I couldn’t stand the fact of negatively impacting my brother’s life. Why should he go through life being the brother of the girl who killed herself? He deserved better than that. Still to this day when I think of that, I tear up.

The finals weeks of eighth grade are a huge blur. Nothing had changed, and only continued to worsen, as per usual. My days were filled of struggling to get out of bed every morning, hiding cuts from my family and friends, and sitting through meetings with school faculty. I was counting down the days until promotion (eighth grade graduation).

The school officials decided to hold a meeting between Maya, her parents, myself, and my parents. We had piles of papers with Facebook posts and texts I had received from Maya and her sisters. I thought there would be some sort of revelation where Maya’s parents would punish her or something. Upon showing her parents, all they said was “This is a typical girl issue, you know? But your daughter shouldn’t have started dating her ex boyfriend if she couldn’t handle some simple name calling.” Appalled by this statement is something I will be for the rest of my life. In that moment, I swore to never be the type of parent who can’t admit that their kid can do something wrong. How poorly were you raised to have such a mean child, and then defend them?

The school finally decided to suspend Maya for a whole three days! But the harassment continued despite her absence. I became so numb, that everyone’s words didn’t hit me as hard as they used to.

Once we were in the home stretch of promotion, my old friends started apologizing to me. They were genuine, and although I was still hurt by them, I forgave them. After all the hate in my life that year, I need to let go of some, and what better place to start than the get rid of the animosity between those who used to be such good friends of mine.

Later that summer, I received a text from both Maya and the boy I had liked that she had taken away from me. At the time this happened, I told them both they would regret it. I told her that he was clearly an ass who didn’t care about anyone but himself and I told him that she was a psycho only out to make me miserable and would only make him lose hus mind. They both in their texts told me I was right, that they were sorry, and that they felt bad for what they had done.

I guess that was when everything ended. I remember feeling so proud of myself for being strong, and knew I never again would let anyone make me feel so bad about myself again.

There are many other gaps in this story, but I found it most important to tell the main points and events that bothered me the most. I have held this story for too long to not tell at least some of it, which is why I decided to release this version. I hope that through this condensed story you may understand me better, and understand bullying better. It is so easy to be a nice person. Don’t take someone else’s’ life as an opportunity to add entertainment to your life. If you see someone being bullied, speak out. Do not let the fear of being bullied too stop you from being a good person. Be the one who stops the bullying, who is friends with the victim, and fights for a generation of nicer people. God knows we need that in this world.

I decided to go to a private high school. I today am so thankful I made that decision. Not that high school wasn’t filled with drama (because believe me, it really was) but my wellbeing and sanity were never put in the position that they were in eighth grade. I feared that continuing in the same school system as all the people who bullied me that I would eventually end up killing myself or seriously addicted to drugs. I made the best choice for my well being and I will stand by that decision always.