Nicole’s Story
When I was in first grade, I started this Catholic school. It was fairly small and my class was only about 20 students. I had befriended almost everyone in my first 3 years at this school. One girl in particular, who I got close with in about third grade, became my best friend. We definitely had a rocky friendship, with fights here and there, but we normally came out of them pretty well, or at least I thought.
Everyone always used to say how much they hated grizzly bears and I never understood until the end of sixth grade when somebody told me that it was a code that they hated me and they used a grizzly bear because I was “ugly, scary, and fat”. The girl who I thought was my best friend made this code up and had the entire class in on it but me.
I spent the beginning of that summer pretty lonely. I just felt like everyone hated me. There was a friend of mine who I met in fourth grade that also went to that school but in a different grade who I hung out with a lot though. She was so good about everything. She made me laugh so much and always kept my mind off of how scared I was to go back to school.
Going into the next school year wasn’t as bad as I thought because I had made up with the girl who made the code up (not sure what possessed me to do that). That turned out to be a bad idea because about halfway into the second quarter we got in another fight, and this time she had the whole class turn on me. Everyone hated me. They would mock me, laugh at me, call me names, and pick on everything I said and every flaw I had. And then the texts started. Even after school when i thought it was over, I would get nasty texts just picking every flaw I had and tearing me apart.
Then it got bad. My parents had been divorced since I was in first grade and my mom told me she was getting remarried, we were moving out of my birth home, and I had to move schools. The worst part was that the only friend I had (the one I talked about earlier) would no longer be living across the street from me. As happy as I should have been about switching schools, I told my mom that she had ruined my life. I was miserable because I knew that school and everyone in it like the back of my hand, and i was going to have to go to a public school with almost 1,000 kids.
On top of that, the bullying only continued to get worse. My family had never seen me so upset and depressed. My dad told me that he had finally reached his breaking point with the situation and if I didn’t tell my teacher what was happening then he was going to call the school. I went to my teacher and told her every bit and piece and finally felt relieved, like it was over. But little did I know. My teacher did nothing about the situation. She didn’t talk to anyone about it, and all the kids knew I had told her so they picked on me for not being able to fight my own battles.
All I could do was look forward to summer. Things just got worse. I was so miserable and insecure I couldn’t stand myself. I wanted to self harm so bad and I was so close to it many times but decided not to do it because it wouldn’t make them go away. Also, my friend that lived across the street really just helped me so much. She is probably the reason I made it through that.
The last day of school finally let out and as thrilled as I was, I was still very depressed and nervous for the upcoming school year. When the school year came, I made friends so easily. Things were so good with everyone and everything. It took me so long to figure out who i was at that school though, I went through a lot of groups of friends.
I am currently in the 9th grade at the high school with the same kids from my new school. My group of friends is the best, they make me feel so good about myself and are so understanding and accepting of my past, present, and future. That friend though, from across the street, never left my side. Although now living miles away from each other, we still manage to keep in touch and hang out often. She is my best friend and truly proved to me that she will stick around in my deepest and darkest times.