With Pain Comes Strength

One; Beginning

Hello and welcome!

This is my crazy yet amazing story of finding myself through mental illness.

As far as I can remember I struggled. But it was the type of struggle that I didn’t realise was happening until it got really bad. So, at age 9 I’m walking around this playing area on my own; head bowed down and trying not to make eye contact. A football hits me in the head as I walk past the boys playing football. I brushed it off but my neck hurts so I go and speak to the teacher. She tells me not to walk around the playground because “it’s bound to happen”. I felt dismissed and lonely. Nobody seemed to care and people just didn’t want me.

Even though I was told to not walk around the playground I did anyway because I couldn’t play with the girls in my class as one of them was bullying me and didn’t want me involved in their game. I found it hard to talk about my feelings because I didn’t realise there was an issue. Yes, I felt sad and lonely but surely everyone feels like that sometimes.

Another vivid memory that I have was of during a PE lesson. We were playing netball and the teacher was handing out the positions. I didn’t want to be Wing Attack (WA) or Wing Defence (WD) as I felt that these were useless positions and that I was being tossed aside, just like in the playground. I was given WD and I immediately had an emotional meltdown. I went to the side of the court and began crying and shouting. I hated feeling like I was useless and rubbish; I just wanted to be appreciated for something.

Yes sometimes I had positive experiences at school but I would never want to relive the school days. My parents used to tell me to remember my school experience because when I’m older I’ll wish I was back in school. I’m now 25 and would never want to go back to my school days.

A positive experience that happened at school was when I was in my final year of primary education, aged 10. My mum was pregnant with my youngest brother and I was an inspiring midwife. One day a teach gave me a gift, and I said “Is this for my mum?” expecting it to be baby clothes or something. “No” she replied “It’s for you, open it when you get home”. I got home excited to find out what was in the gift; when I tore open the wrapping paper I found a set of scrubs, in my size! I was so happy that I put them on over my clothes and said “I’m a midwife!”

At that time I was yet to understand that life doesn’t always go to plan and although I would love to be a midwife, currently my back pain is too much for me to be able to do the long shifts that they do. I was lucky to start training as a midwife and although I enjoyed every minute, I found that the amount of pain I was in was too much and i had to leave the course. It was a hard decision as this was what I had always dreamed of doing, yet I was seemingly throwing it away.

Going back to primary school I would like to mention that I did have a best friend for a few years. She was amazing and was the kind of friend that would always stick by me. We used to sit next to each other and chat during lessons; the teacher would become annoyed that we were chatting more than listening and she would ask us to move our desks apart. It’s important to remember that when I was in primary school we had our desks with an open top that we could lift up to get our books and other school equipment. We still had lockers to put our coats and bags but the desks kept our books and pencil cases. Once we had been separated though, we would slowly move our desks back together because we preferred each other’s company.

I lost touch with her when she left the school a few years later due to the class bully making her feel like she wasn’t welcome in the school. The same girl bullied me but I stayed at the school. After that friend left the school, we saw each other a few times for play dates but that slowly stopped.

When I moved onto secondary school I entered the school in the middle of the years. This school started at year 5 and went up to year 8. I was in year 7. I found it difficult to make friends as everyone had already made their friendship groups.

I finally managed to fit into a small circle of friends, there were 4 of us but it was complicated. One was very shy and would focus on reading her current book rather than having a chat; the second was a lovely girl, squeezed in the middle of me and the fourth girl. The fourth girl was very assertive and dominating. I would soon unintentionally get on her bad side and she would become my bully.

I never seemed to go to school and not be bullied but over the years I learned to stand up for myself and fight back in some situations. At the end of the day all those experiences have made me the person I am today.

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