My name is Olivia Emerald. I was born in a small town on Cape Cod and grew up with the ideal life any child could have asked for. Outside of school, I had so many truly irreplaceable friends. In school however, I wasn't so popular. I have always been a very unique person, especially from my classmates in middle school. In middle school I spent a lot of my time expressing myself. I did this in a large manor of ways from how I dressed to the art I created. My fixation on artistic expression always overpowered any interest I had on being team captain in sports or class president on the student council. I didn't really fit the mold of the expectations of the people around me. I was brutally ridiculed for every aspect of who I was. From my hair being to curly, being to tall, not having a chest, and wearing to much black. The label "Goth" or "Emo" was thrown at me so much, towards the end of the year in 7th grade I started really becoming depressed with my surroundings. My eighth year in Middle School was the hardest on me emotionally. The bullying started to sky rocket and it got to the point I didn't want to go on the bus anymore and had my mother drive me to school. The girls were brutal, but the boys were even worse.
Among the many, there is one incident that I will never forget.
One day walking back from health class with my classmates from gym, a boy started to harass me. He started calling me all the same old names, "Goth", "Emo", etc. Nothing original. All because I was wearing black. Not any excessive amount, just black. Then he began to pick on me because I answered a question in health class about how many packs are in a carton of cigarettes correctly. The teasing ensued by him and all his friends and I tried my absolute best to ignore it and carry on to my class. Then we approached the stairs. As we approached, the boy began chanting over and over again that my shoe was untied. I was coming up on my last nerve but bent down to tie it so he'd shut up. As I stood, he stepped on the laces and untied it again. I knew he would just keep doing it so I continued to the top of the stairs to head down. That was when I felt two hands on my back, and before I knew it, I was toppling down the stairs at full speed. On my way down, I had bashed my knee on the railing so hard that it had torn the tendon in back of it and my knee cap was hanging off. As any person would, I began to cry curled up in a ball at the foot of the stairs, screaming for help. The boy just laughed as he passed me with every single one of my classmates in toe. Not ONE of them stopping to assist me as I couldn't move. The hallway was completely empty and not frequently walked through, so they literally left me there alone. Through the tears and pain a spark of rage ignited in me I hadn't experienced before. As the door shut, I leapt to the knob, dragged myself through the door, and literally fell right on top of the boy who had pushed me. I was furious. I began to punch him over and over again in the face, screaming at him and not holding back an ounce of my aggression. When he managed to escape me, he and all my classmates left me in a crying heap on the floor until a friend of mine from another class assisted me and brought me to the nurses office. When they called my mother, they wouldn't even tell her what happened they had me tell her. I was a balling mess so my mother was unclear to what happened until she got there. When she saw the condition of my knee and asked the nurse what had happened she said, "She fell." I immediately screamed at her, "I WAS PUSHED."
I felt like even the school faculty wasn't on my side. I'd later find out how right I was.
When I explained what happened to my mother, her lip curled into her mouth and I could see the maternal instinct festering in her. My mother had to take me out of the school in a wheelchair that day. It was incredibly embarrassing and the snickering wasn't making it any easier. When she loaded me into the car to take me to the emergency room, she turned tail and went straight back into the school to find our vice principal. She told me that when she went into her office, the boy was sitting there alone rolling his eyes with a smug look on his face. She had never met him before, but instantly knew who he was. She went right up to him and said, "Are you the one who pushed my daughter down the stairs?" He then told her "She fell." My mother bent down to his level, looked him straight in the eye and said, "I JUST HAD TO WHEEL MY DAUGHTER OUT OF HERE IN A WHEEL CHAIR AND YOUR GOING TO TELL ME SHE FELL?!" she was outraged. Before she could say anymore, she came back outside, took me to the ER, and we got the diagnosis. He had torn a ligament in my knee and badly bruised, possibly cracked, my knee cap. My field hockey season was over along with any hope of pursing sports in the years to come.
Field Hockey was the one sport I truly loved.
On top of everything, the school only gave him 2 days suspension with no mention of the incident on his record because his mother was a substitute teacher and he was trying to get into a private school. I was given a lunch detention, in addition, for losing my cool. He gets two days off, I had to spend my lunch isolated from the few friends I had. I didn't think things could possibly get any worse. They did.
When I finally returned to school on crutches, a few days later after my lunch detention his mother was substituting one of my classes. She was not suppose to be. I had never been bullied by an adult until that day. The whole class I kept to myself out of fear. She shot me glares and was intentonaly making me feel uncomfortable. At the end of class as I was going to pack up my things, I was taking longer than usual. It was to be expected, I was carrying all my books and myself on crutches at the time. She came right up to me and told me to "Hurry up." Standing right in front of me as I packed my things. A classmate offered to help carry my books and she told him, "Shes got it." and followed me out the door to watch me limp down the hall. I went immediately to the principal who did absolutely nothing.
When I went home and told my mother, she sat down in front of the computer, typed up a police report, and brought it directly to the station. Even THERE they dismissed it because his family was friends with a majority of the officers. My mother threatened to press charges and that was when they started listening to her.
After another incident with teasing AGAIN in my gym class, they finally decided to switch our classes. However, they thought I should be the one who moved.. Seeing my mothers frustration as she fought to defend me to no avail, was the most heart wrenching part of it. Being a mother myself, I could not imagine what I would do in that situation but I do know if I was her I would have done exactly all the things she did. She fought so hard for me but ultimately, the bully won out while I endured a year of physical therapy.
Returning to school after the dust had actually settled was an absolute horror show. I was mocked, teased, ridiculed, a girl smashed a door in my face, and everything was a thousand times more intense. It got so bad I started having to see a counselor in school to cope with it. Often times I would have to leave class to go to her office. In her office I felt safe and she truly did everything in her power to make me feel that way. I couldn't have made it through that last year without her. Things were so bad that she told my mother there was no way I could go to my Public School. So they found an alternative that would change my life.
For my high school years I attended Sturgis Charter Public school and it made all the difference. I was finally able to express who I was without the slightest bit of judgment. It was unbelievable. I made life long friends in that school. People that no matter how far apart we are, we're always able to come back together like no time has passed. I am so thankful for that event, because it lead me into a school that changed my life.
Looking back now on all the cruel things the girls would tell me about my appearance, I smile. They so feverishly ran their mouthes to rip down my self confidence, but little did any of them expect that today I would be the one laughing. I laugh because of how truly wrong they were. I could accredit my profession as a model and say "I proved them all wrong" with that, but that wasn't it! I proved them wrong because inside and out, I am a genuinely beautiful person. I am ambitious, motivated, creative, and loving of all things good. I am grateful, loving, caring, kind, and confident enough to tell you that these are the things that make me beautiful. Beauty is not a thing, its a feeling. Its something that emanates off you and spreads to people with the same lust for self acceptation. We aren't beautiful by how long our hair is, how big our chest is, how tall we are, or our weight. We are beautiful when we feel like we are finally happy with ourselves. So my advice to kids being bullied is not to let people who don't feel they are beautiful dictate how you feel about yourself. Keep dreaming, laughing, loving, and expressing exactly how you want because that is the most beautiful thing of all. A very wise friend of mine told me that "Beauty is Alive." The quote has stuck with me a very long time, and followed me through thick and thin. Its what I live off of. When I think of beauty, I think of my son and the way he makes me feel. He is my living beauty, the thing that makes me feel beautiful, and the force that pushes me to succeed. All the beauty in our lives are different and thats what makes everyone unique.
- Olivia Emerald
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