Bullying

To begin, all names used in my writings are not the real names of the people involved in the problems discussed; for the safety of myself and others, I use different names. Also, the schools where these events took place will not be said. I would like to say that this bullying has been going on for a long time and still goes on to this day. To fully explain the problems I am now facing in the school system I must start with where the bullying began.

Let’s start with the first time I was bullied. Back in the 3rd grade I was physically bullied every day. I came home every day from school with bruises covering my body. My parents talked to the school multiple times but the problems were never resolved. I went through major depression, I didn’t eat, talk to people, and I tried my hardest to avoid going to school. I lost most of my friends as a result of this and only had three good friends after the issue was resolved. This also caused me to have to see a counselor on a normal basis to talk about the problems. Two years later in the 5th grade, I finally stood up to Ty the bully and we fought. After that we became friends. That story may have had a happy ending but my other encounters did not.

I would have never believed the events that would take place in the next few years even if you had shown me beforehand. I had made friends with some people who weren’t very good people at heart but I didn’t really have any friends to begin with. My best friend at the time was Jay. Jay was my friend since kindergarten, he knew everything about me even things most people didn’t. He started to go down a bad path of drugs and breaking rules. I realized this and being a “goody-goody” as they said and not wanting to break the rules, made me uncool to hang out with so he dropped me as a friend.

A year before this he had introduced me to two of his best friends named Anthony and Bruce. Both people I “dated” in the 6th and beginning of 7th grade. Both ex’s were jerks but asked to stay friends, but once Jay dropped me so did they. Three other people I had been introduced to were Donna, Zane, and Chris. All were not so nice people so I avoided being friends with them, but I would still be nice to them.

One day I had just gotten home from school and was doing homework in my room while listening to music. I looked down at my phone and saw a friend request from a page on Facebook. It was nicknamed after my ex Bruce so I clicked on the page. What I saw was horrifying. They were pictures of me photoshopped on different things. The pictures include me photoshopped naked, with my ex Anthony cropped between my legs and me in bikinis. I looked at the profile picture and it was a picture of my face zoomed in and the name was a nickname for my ex Bruce and a cruel nickname that Jay and Bruce used to call me that would, in short, call me a pussy.

I was upset with the page and ran down the stairs and told my mother and stepfather. They both contacted Facebook reporting the page. I then found that not only had they friended me but they had friended half of the 7th grade. I was upset and didn’t wanna go to school the next day but I went anyway. My father told me to pretend like it didn’t bother me and they would stop.

I walked into school and my friend Aren told me she needed to talk to me. I followed her into the auditorium and she told me that the day before Jay, Bruce, Donna, Zane, and Chris were all on her bus going to Jay's house. She heard them say very cruel things about me some examples were:

“Oh my god what’s wrong with her hair?”

“She’s such a slut.”

“She should kill herself.”

Many more things were said and my friend Aren decided to ask them what they were talking about since she had been somewhat “friends” to Donna. Donna had made fun of me to Aren, not knowing that we were close and they showed her some of their crappy photoshopping of me on various things. Aren told me all of this not knowing about the page that had gone up the day of them saying all of this. I asked her to write it all down and sign it. I then went to the principal's office but I was forced to see the assistant instead. I told her about what was going on, showed her the pictures, and showed her the proof of what they said and my witness. She told me she would see what she could do and later I would be called back.

When I was called back she said that all of the children had denied any involvement and that it was all hearsay. I asked her if she could look at the cameras and possibly look at there phones and she told me that the cameras did not work. I was asked to leave and not speak about it again otherwise I would have detention. So I called my mother and my father and both agree they would go to the police station.

I was told that no report could be made because they were under the age of 15 and cyber crimes are only illegal if you are over the age of 15. I was sad and did some research. I found out they had lied. The people were friends with Jay's father who was a lawyer with a lot of influence. I also later found out that the assistant principal was a close friend of Jay's mother.

Luckily, Facebook had taken down the page and we had thought it was over. 7th grade had ended and it was the summer, then I started getting things left at my front door. Packages with smoke bombs which didn’t work and notes. Most of the notes were signed at the bottom by my ex Anthony, Bruce, or by Jay. The notes said things about how I should kill myself and make everyone happier or how I would pay for making their parents angry. Most of the notes were death notes but I threw them away thinking they would stop and they did soon enough.

I became depressed again and entered the 8th grade. My sadness became usual to the people that were close to me. Then I started to become happier and as I did my life got flipped upside down again. Another page got put up, this time on Twitter and Instagram. The Twitter page was being tweeted on every few hours making comments about things that no one knew about in my life; they posted as if they were me tweeting myself. The other page was on Instagram and it was a page mourning me. The page said I was dead and used pictures from my Instagram that had been screenshotted and edited a bit. My family and I contacted Insta and Twitter and they removed the pages. But the other issue in school was the rumors; some were stupid and others were horrible. Things like I was cutting or I was having sex with Zane in the bathroom after school. Both ruined my reputation and so again I had to talk to the school. I told them again what was going on and brought up what had happened last year and they again told me they couldn’t do anything but they asked me to delete the pictures off Twitter and Insta because they were not appropriate. I gave up attempting to solve the problem and went back to my normal life.

It was almost summer vacation but then a page went up and Bruce had been taken away by the police. He had posted something talking about how he was going to blow up the school to kill me and his other ex who was my very close friend, Irean. This scared both of us and we didn’t see Bruce for a while and things stopped for a while.

I got into the 9th grade and my parents told me not to worry anymore. The kids should have grown up by now and stop the stupid stuff. I was on my way to the bus with my best friend Mark leaving the school and Zane came up to me. He walked behind me throwing coins at me. Me and Mark ignored him thinking it would stop but then he walked up next to me and punched me in the face. I ignored it and continued walking with my head held high. I got on the bus and made my way home trying so hard to not cry. I told my mom and called up my dad and they both told me to go to the principal the next day. I went to school and went straight to my vice principal. Since you weren’t able to talk to the principal you needed to see one of the four vice principals if you had a problem. I went to my vice principal and he told me that the cameras were not working but he would talk to Zane. He told Zane later that day and he was supposed to take a different exit out of the school but that didn’t help me at all so I had to change my entire route out of the school.

I thought at this point it was over, it was nearing the last two months of 9th grade. Nothing had happened for a while and it seemed like everyone was doing their own thing now. Then another page went up named Bruce bomber on Instagram. There was a picture of me and it had something weird written below it. It used a nickname and it said that I would be killed in the next week, that I had to be executed. The other picture was of Irean and it said something about her being whipped. I didn’t know how they got my pictures because my Instagram page was private and I only allowed six people to follow me and all of them were really close people that I trusted.

Me and Irean went to the vice principal after I had convinced her to go. We told them about the posts and showed them. They told me not to worry about the post, it wasn’t a big deal but Irean's threat was a lot more important. I was kicked out of the office and they kept Irean, they said they would call me down later but they never did. I was confused, upset, and terrified to go to school. I found out my school had to deal with Irean’s problem first because it was a hate crime and if nothing was done they were held accountable. Also, Irean told me that’s what they said.

I went weeks and was never called down so I stopped by the vice principal's office. I asked him why I was never called down and he told me the case had been dropped. Irean dropped the case so they didn’t have to do anything. I asked him if he was gonna do anything about my problem and he said no because no kid would actually go through with the threat even if it was real. He said my imagination was running wild and I was reading the message all wrong. So, in the end, they dropped everything and because I was not Black my problem was never resolved. I never understood why the color of your skin would determine if you could get help in your school system with bullying.

Later that week, I was in my choir room with Irean and she told me she had to talk to Jay. I was really confused because they weren’t friends but one of my old friends Aren was in the choir room. She eavesdropped on Irean and Jay's conversation which had been about her sending him pictures off of someone’s Instagram that he couldn’t access and that she had told the vice principal that I was crazy and she was friends with Jay. She told the vice principal that Jay meant something else completely about the message that had been posted on the Instagram page. I felt so upset and betrayed when I talked to her later she said she did it for some money and said she was sorry. That week I almost took my own life but something had changed that saved me. If I had ended it, the bullies would have won and this would just be a stupid solution to a big problem. I don’t know what stopped me in those moments but I am so happy it did.

I do not enjoy how the school system solves issues with bullying. How they don’t care because it’s too much work for them. It’s upsetting that they really don’t care even though they say they do. This story wasn’t just about the bullying I dealt with but the school and how everything almost led to the end of my life. My only hope is to the people that read this might be able to get something from it. That maybe someone is a parent or a person in school who is also being bullied and they read this and know that it will get better. Yes, people may not help you through things and a lot of people may turn against you but it will be okay in the end. It’s been two years since I almost took my life and I am a lot happier. I still deal with bullying but not as bad anymore and I have amazing people that help me through everything now. This is my story and hopefully, it helps someone that’s reading it.