I was always bullied in elementary and middle school because I was a little on the "odd" side. Come to find out, I had ADHD which made it difficult for me to do my school work and connect with other "normal" kids my age. But even after I got control of my ADHD, the teasing continued because the kids I went to school with didn't give out second chances. Once you were labeled a freak, you were always a freak. But my struggles with bullies didn't end when high school came around. In fact, things got worse for me. I was eventually diagnosed with major depression and a mild mood disorder. 

When I was a freshmen and sophomore in high school, I was a goody two shoe and very straight edge girl. That spring, I was part of the drama club musical and one of the lead boys was removed from the show right before production week because he was caught with marijuana. Fifteen year old me couldn't keep my mouth shut and I expressed my frustration with this boy's behavior and how he was not going down a good path in life, and how his actions affected everyone. Now, I understand that I should have kept those thoughts to myself, but the bullying that I received after that comment was uncalled for. That boy's group of friends made me scared to go to school. They gave me dirty looks in the hall, called my phone on restricted and left mean messages, hacked my school account and wrote a very inappropriate message to me in a Word Document and saved it, and they even wrote my cell phone number on a poster and hung it out the bus window advertising it as a prostitute's number. As you can imagine, my phone was blown up with many disgusting calls. I cried silently in my seat the entire bus ride. Now, looking back...I don't regret being a goody two shoe. It set me up for success and avoiding trouble in high school. As I got older, I learned how to have more fun. But at fourteen, fifteen and even sixteen years old, I'm glad I didn't caught up in the partying scene. But I do regret opening my mouth in that particular case. However, I do not believe at all that I deserved the constant harassment from that group of kids. Not to mention they were all eighteen years old at the time and in their senior year, while I was barely fifteen years old. They should not have been ganging on up on a little girl like that.

Then one girl in particular had it out for me because she was convinced I tried to steal her boyfriend which was far beyond the truth. She and I had been friends at one point so I casually knew her boyfriend, but and he and I were never what I would call "friends". Eventually they broke up and he sent me a message where he admitted that he had a crush on me for a very long time. But we never even hung out together let alone date after that. How could I have "stolen" him? I did nothing to provoke this crush, he said he just saw me and felt that way. But this girl flipped out and made my life hell whenever she could for the next two years. She found my personal blog and twisted posts I had written to make it look like I was a lesbian and went around broadcasting this to anyone that would listen to her. She tried to make it look like being a lesbian was "disgusting". First of all, I'm straight. But second of all, what is wrong with someone who IS a lesbian? She told people that she had been waiting for something like this to happen to me so that she could "annihilate" me socially. Yes, those were her words. In the past, this girl had sent me harassing text messages calling me a whore just because I had slept with my long time boyfriend and she was "proudly still a virgin". She told me to go jump off a bridge and die because nobody liked me. My family threatened to file legal charges if she didn't stop the harassment. Eventually, she backed off when our school administration stepped in. But to this day, I don't believe she feels bad for the torment she put me through. She doesn't believe she was in the wrong because no matter what I say and she will never believe that I didn't try to "steal" her ex boyfriend. To this day, she is convinced that anytime she breaks up with a guy that I will go after him. Three ex boyfriends later and I haven't tried to talk to a single one.

There was also one girl that I had been best friends with since seventh grade. Junior year, we both kind of went through a difficult time. But instead of doing what most friends would do, she took out her hurt and anger on me. She betrayed me by telling the whole grade a very personal piece of information about me. She and my old group of "friends" spent the next six months spreading this rumor and making fun of me. They harassed me with phone calls where I was called the c word, with a Facebook photo album that was full of pictures that were staged to make fun of me and I was even laughed at directly in the hallways. I basically had no friends at school my junior year. I felt so alone and that's when I cut for the first time.

More recently, I was in a pretty severely emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. He made me feel terrible about myself, and I wish I had realized sooner how that kind of relationship was unhealthy. Love is supposed to build you up and make you feel good, not tear you down and make you feel bad. The things that guy said and did to me drove me to self harm for a short time.

There were so many smaller incidents through my four years at high school that it would take a book to write every single specific occurrence, but those are the major things that stick out in my memory. The message I want people to realize is how destructive your words can be and how hurtful your actions can be. If you rely on tearing other people down just to feel better about yourself, well then I think you have issues of your own that need to be worked on. Treat other people how you want to be treated because I do believe that karma is a b****.

- Anonymous