by Band Back Together | Nov 4, 2015 | Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Emotional Abuse, Passive/Aggressive Behavior, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Teen Dating Abuse, Teen Rape, Teen Sexuality |
I remember my hair sticking to my lip gloss as we walked across the street to the courthouse.
I remember thinking that one day, I would start a story with this sentence. My mother added the following line: this isn’t where you think your relationship will end up when it starts.
What still gets me is that, deep down, I did know. I knew the entire time that things couldn’t end well.
I knew it was strange that he never seemed to have any close friends – and that he didn’t know anyone in my friend circle. I knew it was immature that he didn’t take our music teacher seriously; I knew that, eventually, he’d need to grow up. I noticed how it made me uncomfortable when he started asking me personal questions after we’d only known each other for a few weeks.
But I consciously ignored all of it, and thus began nine months that ended in that dreaded courtroom.
The first of those nine months was May, when we started dating. I turned sixteen the day after it was made “Facebook official.” He was seventeen.
I was happy; he was happy.
We texted and talked on the phone, we spent every moment of free time together. The warning signs seemed to fade away from my sights, and I enjoyed maybe a few weeks of bliss.
He took my virginity in either the late spring or early summer. He was gentle about it, and I was confident in my choice to give it to him. He was caring. He loved me, and I loved him. That’s how it’s supposed to be when you share something so intimate with someone.
I’m not capable of saying exactly when the abuse began, but at some point, it did.
He would pin me down and pinch the backs of my arms until he drew blood. He’d lay his 200+ pound frame on top of my 125-pound one, which bruised my hips and stifled my breathing. He got angry any time I told him to get off of me; that he was hurting me. He got angry because I was “lying” when I said those things. He could see things in me that I didn’t see in myself:
I was tough, he said.
I could handle him.
The emotional abuse started around this time, although it’s harder to draw a hard line around it. I will never know what our first fight was about – it was pure nonsense; they always were. What I do remember was the yelling, the way his eyes would narrow at me, his voice would deepen dangerously, the way he broke things.
But I wasn’t weak.
I could handle him.
Over the summer, I steadily learned to be afraid of him. I learned not to deny him sex, because if I did, I was rejecting him. I must’ve been in love with someone else. I learned not to wear skinny jeans to work, because that was the one place where he didn’t get to see my fine piece of ass.
I learned not to correct him about anything – whether it was whether green was a primary color or if being gay is genetic – he hated to be wrong. That’s why he was always right.
I learned not to fight when he held me down and pinched me, when he held me under the water in his friend’s pool. I learned to go limp and deny him the satisfaction of overcoming me. I learned not to panic, because that only made it worse.
I learned how to act like everything was okay in front of my friends. I learned how to let him pinch me and slap me in front of them, because I knew he wouldn’t stop if I told him to. It would only make things awkward to draw attention to it.
It would confirm what I knew deep down; something was terribly wrong in our relationship.
I learned to take out my frustration on my family instead of him. I learned how to yell at my parents instead of listen to them; I learned how to never cry in front of them, in case they asked questions.
My boyfriend didn’t like my parents – he blamed them for everything he didn’t like in me. If I let my guard down; if I acted weak, it was because I’d been raised that way. If I told him I couldn’t stay out past three o’ clock in the morning, he asked me if I always let them control me: when was I going to grow up?
When I told him my mom started noticing the yellow-and-purple bruises on my arms, he asked if my parents disapproved of harmless roughhousing. Did they coddle me? Was that why I was weak? This was why, in the heat of the summer, I didn’t wear tank-tops. It was easier to change my wardrobe than to change the way he treated me.
Late in the summer, I received the four scars that will stay with me for years to come.
The one on my forearm was from a ride at a county fair, when I was so offensive enough to “crush” him against the side of a spinning-ride. By this point, it was already established that I was weak, so of course, it would make sense that I was unable to stop physics.
And I was severely punished for it. He gripped my arm and refused to let go, tearing his fingernails into my skin and holding on until his hand was trembling. My arm bled, and for weeks after, it hurt to touch it and it turned a horrid color of yellow.
Now, I have a pretty little gray dot the size of my pinky nail to commemorate the event.
The other three scars are on my back.
They look strange, and for months, I was convinced that I would never wear a swimsuit again. There are three quarter-sized grayish-pink circles in a straight line.
I want to say two things before I go on.
One: it wasn’t rape. I never told him to stop.
Two: it was four letters away from being rape. I knew that he wouldn’t stop if I told him to. I knew that the moment I let my emotions take control; that the moment I felt the pain, that I would panic. I knew that I would try to get him off of me, and that he would force me back into it.
Call me naive for dating him, call me stupid for staying with him, call me whatever you want, but don’t ever tell me I didn’t know him. I knew what I was afraid of.
And I will never be convinced that it wasn’t four letters away from being rape.
We were having sex in his basement. He was on top. As soon as it started, I knew something was wrong. I could feel the carpet starting to rub against my back – and not in a good way.
I will never know for sure if this happened or not, but I swear I remember telling him something was hurting. Of course, I was tough. I could withstand the pain. So I waited. I closed my eyes, I gritted my teeth, I blocked it out like I always did. When he was finished, I sat up and saw what he had done.
My spine had rubbed against the floor like a cheese-grater, giving me three bloody, gaping holes in my skin. I was horrified to see it. I still have the shirt that has the blood spots on it. I had to hide it, should my parents find out.
Of course, he thought this was hilarious, and insisted that we have sex against a door right after. The next time you skin your knee, rub the bare wound up against a piece of wood. That’s more-or-less what this felt like.
When a boy pointed to the marks at the pool weeks later, my boyfriend laughed.
He made jokes about what the marks looked like, about how the scars would never go away. He humiliated me, showing me off to everyone.
But I didn’t cry; I never cried.
I was tough.
The only time I ever stood up to him about his abuse was when he hit me hard enough to knock the wind out of me – twice in a row. He slapped me in the back and taunted me when I sat down to catch my breath, because I was acting weak.
As soon as we got into his car and out of earshot, I told him to never hit me like that again.
He was quiet for a long time, but I could see the signs of his anger that I knew were only there to psych me out. He clenched his jaw, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to get us into an accident. But finally, the explosion came when I told him to man up and tell me what was wrong.
“It’s like you think I abuse you,” he yelled. “You know I would never hit you out of anger!”
And there it was.
There was the moment when abuse was defined by my abuser: If it wasn’t out of anger, it didn’t count.
All he’d ever done was foolishly roughhoused with me; all he’d ever done was belittle me to get his way. He’d never slap me across the face. He would only slap me on my legs, my arms, my stomach, my chest. But never the face.
Imagine my relief to find that I wasn’t in an abusive relationship; just a complicated one.
By the time school started again, my boyfriend came to me with news. He was in love with my best friend, Anna. He wanted to date us both and decide which one he loved the most.
I’d put up with a lot of pain at this point, but this was too much. As long as it was just the two of us, I could withstand any emotional or physical torment. I had given him my soul and the rights to use my body as he wished. But now, I was learning that it wasn’t enough. He still wanted someone else, and he wanted to share me with her.
So I said no.
He broke a window; he yelled at me, he demeaned me in every way possible.
But I said no.
And the feeling I felt after that; the pure, shaking abandonment, was the most painful thing that ever happened in our relationship. It felt like every bone was breaking.
Only when he left did I see what he had truly done to me; the destruction he’d caused in my life. In order to be with him, I’d silenced myself. I stopped standing up for myself, I no longer understood what it meant to have self-respect. I, as I knew me, was gone. He’d filled that hole for some time, but now, he was gone, too, and I was the only one left to blame.
All of this happened in late August, maybe early September. If you remember right, we still have four or five months to go. And any abuse I’d suffered from him couldn’t compare to what he did to me next; what he did to my family.
He decided he loved me more than Anna, but they were still “together,” whatever this meant at the time. So he cheated on her with me. I hurt her by doing it, and I knew it. I justified it by saying that she knew what she was getting into with him; that she’d hurt me first by dating him.
But I knew I was just being selfish; that I was intoxicated by him. Before this, I never understood why women stayed in abusive relationships.
As it turned out, that wasn’t the thing that destroyed my friendship with Anna. That came later, when the court got involved.
He wanted to take me back after he broke up with Anna, but he’d already made his mistake. He let me go for at least two weeks, maybe even a month, without him. It had been tough, but I had started to wake up and come to my senses. I turned him down; I told him I needed time.
That was when things truly got bad. He’d always told me when we were together that he had an ugly side he hoped I never had to see. I should’ve realized at the time that I one day would.
He threatened me. He threatened to ruin my life in every way he could imagine. He threatened my family; he told me that he didn’t know what would happen, but that I shouldn’t be surprised if his mom or dad showed up on our front porch one day and “did something.”
He told me that I needed him to protect me, because I would only fall in love with another abuser in time. He told me that I would get raped if I slept with anyone but him. He publicly humiliated me at school, yelling at the top of his lungs personal things that I’d only told him; how I’d felt broken after being diagnosed with ADHD years before; how I no longer felt like I could trust anyone.
At this point, I’d come clean about many secrets to my parents, and they stepped in. We went to the principal’s office and told my ex that he was no longer allowed to contact me. I’d wanted space before, but now I needed it. It wasn’t just for me. I knew what he was capable of, and I wasn’t going to let him hurt my family.
So he stalked me. He followed us home in his car, he skipped class and kept his eyes on me at all times during school. He ambushed me at our home and screamed at me in our driveway, blocking the door so that I couldn’t get inside. I had an anxiety attack after that happened.
In December, we had the first court date.
We’d filed a restraining order. Here’s a piece of news I didn’t know at the time: if you file for a restraining order and the defendant doesn’t show up to court, it’s immediately granted.
If he does show up to court, he has the choice to either agree to it, or to contest it, meaning he would come back at a later court date to dispute the charges.
Guess which one he did.
The next court date was set for late February. We hired an attorney and a private investigator. I was forced to pick through every text, every email, and every Facebook message we’d ever exchanged, looking for proof that he was a danger to me, and that I’d been clear that I didn’t want anything to do with him.
Everything that was supposed to stay private about our relationship; our sex life, our fighting, our most intimate moments, was torn open. The story of how I lost my virginity to him is now known by countless people who have a copy of the full restraining order; my boss, an attorney, police officers at my high school and college.
That’s why I’m okay with sharing my story with the world. The people I wanted to keep this a secret from are now the people who know everything about it.
And in the end, it wasn’t enough. We didn’t get our restraining order, and at the advice of our lawyer, we dismissed the case.
I lost four of my best friends in the world after this happened, leaving me with one.
I lost Anna when I read over her testimony that she’d given to the private investigator. She didn’t think I had anything to be afraid of. She knew that he slapped me, that he hurt me, that he taunted me. But I never told him to stop in her presence, and in her mind, that made it okay.
She saw the mess I’d become after dating him; she knew that he’d threatened my family. But she was on his side; under his spell. If she’d said that she thought he was a danger to me, we could’ve had a shot at a restraining order. I knew that I would never trust her again.
I lost a third friend a few months after the whole thing happened. He’d had a crush on me for some time, and we had a very close friendship, texting 24/7 for months. I’d told him every detail of what my ex had done to me, and he’d been supportive.
I started college in January – at the age of sixteen. I had a job. I was stressed and emotionally wounded. I stopped talking to him every day, and shortened it to just once or twice a week, until eventually we were hardly talking at all.
He always wanted to hang out, and when I did agree to do something, I was exhausted and not as “playful” as he wanted me to be. So he gave me an ultimatum: either put in more effort, or don’t bother talking to him again. I knew better than to think that giving him more was the way to make things work; that was the entire nature of the relationship I had just escaped. So things ended.
And, lastly, I lost a fourth friend; my boyfriend. Before this, I never understood why women stayed in abusive relationships any more than I understood why people did drugs.
Both things were harmful and had potential to ruin your life.
But they have another thing in common; people run to them when they’re week. Just months before I started talking to my now-ex boyfriend, our house had been burglarized while we were home. I couldn’t sleep in my own room for months without the light on.
I had also been diagnosed with depression. I was unhappy with school. I lacked a sense of purpose.
No one talks about the good side of abusive relationships. He was my best friend in the world. We shared everything together; opinions, thoughts, feelings. When he wasn’t tearing me down, he was the most supportive friend in the world.
When I admitted to myself that his abuse was worse than his good side could ever be, I lost the best friend I had in him.
Getting out of that abusive relationship was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
It was painful, and I haven’t even begun to imagine how it will affect my future relationships.
It made me stronger than I ever was, but I will never be thankful for it.
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2015 | Anxiety, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Depression, Sexual Coercion, Teen Rape |
Date or acquaintance rape is one of the hardest to accept.
This is her story:
We were friends.
We went out to dinner. When he dropped me off at my apartment, he asked if he could come in.
I said sure – I didn’t think anything of it.
He’d been to my apartment many times. Sometimes we did homework together or we’d watch a movie together.
That night, we were sitting on the couch watching television. He asked me if he could kiss me. I didn’t want to; I made excuses. I told him he had a girlfriend and that he he would regret it afterwards.I told him it would change the dynamic between us as friends.
I made these excuses for him so he’d understand that he was wrong. Instead, I should have told him I didn’t want to kiss him because I didn’t want to kiss him. Period.
He kept pressing me.
I felt cornered and I was exhausted trying to reason with him. Then a dumb thought entered my head: maybe if I let him just this once, he might stop bothering me. He must have sensed my momentary hesitation because he leaned in to kiss me. For a while I let him.
Then I pulled away and looked away. I was staring at the television. I wasn’t looking at him.
I gave him no impression that could’ve caused him to do what he did next.
He must’ve decided he was going to do this and acted without bothering to fill me in. He got up from the couch and picked me up without warning; without asking me. I didn’t realize his intention until he put me down on the bed, got on top of me, and started pulling my clothes off.
He didn’t said a word.
He just did it.
I cannot explain my reaction. I lost all sensation in my body, I lost all sense of control. I couldn’t speak. What sealed the deal on what would happen to me next was the complete same sense of powerlessness I felt after he stripped my clothes off.
He was fully clothed and I was naked. He had power; I didn’t. I keep thinking of the miserable, weak, pathetic little creature I turned into after that. I felt so small.
After he pulled my clothes off, he sucked on my breasts. He looked up and said, “You have perfect breasts!” I guess he got bored after that because he got up and started texting.
It took great effort to move. My body felt it was made of lead. I was very conscious of my naked body. I was hunched over slightly, perhaps subconsciously, trying to cover up what little I could. I got up from the bed and was now standing in front of him. He typed a few more words while I stared emptily at his moving hands.
Then he threw his phone into the laundry basket and spread is arms out motioning me to take his shirt off. The gesture seemed to say, “Take my shirt off, bitch!” I undid a few of his buttons then stopped. He must have done the rest.
The next thing I remember is him making me hold him in my hand. He inserted his finger in me and whispered, “Wow, you are so wet!” Then he sat down on the bed and was motioning me to straddle him.
“Are you clean?” he asked. I wonder if it would have made a difference if I had said no.
Instead, I didn’t answer. The thought of doing anything sexual with him was unbearable. I pulled away from him, took a step back and said, “I don’t think we should.”
It took every ounce of energy in me to do that. I was afraid of him but I didn’t realize that what I was feeling was fear and confusion: I was just trying to get through it.
After I pulled away, he stared at the wall for a second. Then, without saying a word, he took my arm, pinned me to the bed and got on top of me.
Then, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. I pulled my hands away from him. I remember this vividly because I imagined touching his shoulders and the thought repulsed me; so I drew my hands back.
My face was turned away.
At one point, I remember watching my left leg spread out, hanging in the air. Then, I don’t remember seeing anything. Maybe I closed my eyes. I don’t remember. All I remember are words.
He asked me if he could kiss me. After all he had done to me, he asked me if he could kiss me. I don’t remember responding. I don’t think I did because I cannot remember him kissing me. He asked if I was on the pill or if he needed to pull out. I knew I had to respond so I let out two weak responses: once I said yes and once I said no. I remember very clearly how difficult it was to let those words out. I felt my voice was stuck in my throat.
I remember him saying: relax, just relax. I didn’t feel anything. I can’t tell when he was inside me.
At some point, I remember feeling a sharp pain and letting out a yelp. “Too much?” he asked and kept going.
The next thing I remember is him getting up to finish all over me. He got off me after that. I got up immediately and went into the restroom to wipe myself off. I could see him standing by the bed.
“I enjoyed it,” he said, “I’ve never been inside any one so tight before.”
I was shame and embarrassed after he said that to me. Afterward, I just wanted to return to a state of normalcy. I did not think about it again for weeks. It was as if my body wanted to forget what had happened.
Then it came back.
It was almost as sudden and abrupt as the moment he picked me up from the couch. All of it came flooding back at once.
The forgotten moment now plays in my head over and over and over again. The crying spells, the sadness, the anger, the humiliation – all of it came out of nowhere and it hasn’t stopped since.
by Band Back Together | Oct 30, 2015 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Depression, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Esteem, Teen Depression, Teen Rape |
I’ve been reading people’s stories on The Band and decided it might help me to share mine. Most of the stories I’ve seen included violence, fortunately mine doesn’t.
I am now 16.
He was my boyfriend of two years. I still don’t remember everything from that night, but I feel that it is time to let go of what I do remember.
We were at his house and he decided to watch a horror movie on his laptop, so we were lying on his bed watching this movie. I rolled over and gave him a kiss, then I rolled back over on my side to continue watching the movie. He tugged on my sweatshirt and said, “I wasn’t done with you yet.”
I thought he was just teasing.
When I rolled to face him, he grabbed onto my waist. I knew then what he wanted. I told him that I wasn’t ready. I told him no.
I did, I said no…
(sorry this is really hard for me to share).
He put more pressure on me so I wouldn’t be able to get away, though I tried. I truly tried to get away.
I will never say that I gave up fighting him, because I didn’t. But, I clenched my eyes shut. I felt him start to pull my pants down so I started kicking. That didn’t stop him. Then…
Then it happened.
My virginity was taken from me.
I’ve had nightmares ever since.
I didn’t leave him after it happened. I felt like I was too weak to be on my own. I also kept having sex with him because I was so scared that if I didn’t, he would do it again…and he ruined the little bit of self-esteem I had.
So, since I felt so low about myself, I kept doing it because I felt like I deserved it.
Like I said before, I’m fortunate that my situation wasn’t violent.
I am sixteen years old, almost seventeen, and I am currently in a relationship with my seventeen year old Navy boyfriend. I came into this relationship scared to death to let myself love someone again.
But, my boyfriend taught me that what I went through was tragic and devastating, but I am beautiful and have my whole life ahead of me. He has turned my life around completely and made me realize that I have to learn to love myself before I could be happy and love someone else.
I still have nightmares whenever I sleep. I still go through periods when I blame myself. I still have severe depression, but everyday is a new day.
I guess, part of me is still seeking for help and advise on how to keep fighting after a rape. Being raped has made me who I am today.
Yes, I wish it hadn’t happen, but at the same time, I’m glad that it did because it has made me become the strong, beautiful young lady I am.
by Band Back Together | Oct 28, 2015 | Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Major Depressive Disorder, Social Isolation, Suicide, Teen Depression |
Well, isn’t that the most creative title you’ve ever set your eyes on? It doesn’t matter, though; I’ve a great many things that need to be said, and damn it all, I’m going to say them regardless of how impressive my title is
In any case, hello again, Depression. Have you missed me?
It’s been a while since you were a real force in my life. A while since you were anything more than the reason I take a pill every day when I wake up. You’re pretty damned harmless now, I have to say, but don’t get me wrong; I can still remember quite vividly what you did to me from the time I was thirteen until a few months ago, when I finally got help.
You’re a clever bastard, I have to say. You almost got me, I guess as a sort of revenge for not being able to take my mother down when she was my age. Disguising yourself as regular teenaged angst from thirteen to sixteen, and then going all-out and turning me into a nearly catatonic husk of a person from seventeen to twenty. Pretty damned smart of you. We both know that you nearly tricked me into killing myself on more than a few occasions, and that your suffocating influence is what lead me to giving up all of my friends, alienating my family and hiding away from the world for a good three years. You’re damned good at what you do, but you’re just not good enough.
You see, Depression, I won.
I beat you. It’s over. One pill, and you can’t put your hands around my throat any more. One pill, and I emerge from my home with the biggest fucking smile you’ve ever seen. My friends, who are seriously the best fucking friends a girl could ask for, were waiting for me when I came out from the shadow of my disorder. My grandmother broke down and cried when she learned that I was able to kick your ass out of my life. For the first time in ages, I’m happy. I’m happy, I’m doing the things I love to do, I’m spending time with the people who make my life truly amazing, and I’m enjoying every moment of this life that you tried to steal from me.
I don’t know who I’d be, or where I’d be if you hadn’t come into my life at such an early age. Maybe I’d have graduated instead of getting my GED. Maybe I’d be in love. Maybe I’d live somewhere that I can only dream about right now. Maybe I’d be dead. It’s useless, really, to think of all the ways that I would be different were I not one of your victims. You came into my life, just as you came into the lives of all the relatives I inherited you from, and you’re always going to be here, lurking in the shadows and waiting for a day I forget to take my medication. You’ll be there when I have a child of my own and I worry that she’s going to be pulled into your toxic embrace. You’ll be there every morning when I pop the top from my bottle of meds, that lingering reminder of what I used to be, and what I could be again if I allowed it.
But for now, my dear Depression, I can take comfort in one thing.
I won.
by Band Back Together | Oct 22, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Parent With a Special Needs Child, Parenting, Special Needs Parenting, Speech Disorders |
I am the mother of identical twin sons. They turned two in November.
At 12 months, they seemed to be moving right along in their development. They were walking, starting to say words; everything seemed fine. I was a little worried they were late in talking, but they were talking, so that was something. By 15 months, they still had very few words but they were both doing some signs and also had a full repertoire of “action” songs in their arsenal. By 18 months, there were no words. None. No signs. No action songs.
Everything was easily explained away as a boy-thing, or a twin-thing, or an identical-twin thing.
We tried not to worry.
Friday, they had their first visit with Early Intervention. I wanted to get their speech back on track as soon as possible. Language delays were our number one concern. Of course, in the back of our mind, we’d thought about autism, but we weren’t going there unless we had to. It’s too difficult.
After thirty minutes of watching the boys “play,” and watching their interactions with me, the Early Childhood Development teacher and the Speech Pathologist, there was an early diagnosis of sorts. They weren’t as concerned with the language as they were all of the other things: they didn’t really play with their toys, they didn’t really interact with, well, anyone in the room.
Early Intervention wanted to proceed with autism evaluations.
The next thirty minutes involved me, sitting on a chair nursing my four-month old. Trying to not to break into an ugly cry, trying to keep it together and sound somewhat intelligent until I could get all of these people who just brought my whole world crashing down, out my door.
My sons are perfect.
And I don’t know how to fix them.
by Band Back Together | Oct 20, 2015 | Anxiety, Childhood Bullying, Depression, Eating Disorders, Restrictive Eating Disorders, Self Injury, Self-Esteem, Suicide, Teen Depression |
Hello The Band,
My name is Sarah and I am 22 years old.
When I was 13, I was bullied, and in response I began my nine year (so far) journey with depression and self-harm, followed by a seven year journey with a restrictive eating disorder.
Until now, The Band I have never written or spoken about my story in complete, honest detail. It’s more important than ever that I come to terms with how that individual made me feel.
I still don’t feel brave enough to open up this much to people who know me, so opening up to you, The Band, is the first step.
I was always a shy child growing up. I first found myself a victim of bullying at the age of five. I can’t remember much, apart from trying to hide from those two boys in my year and their cruel words – even then, I never told anybody about what was happening. Despite that experience (which was thankfully short-lived), I always had a good number of close friendships and grew up as a happy, quiet, attentive, little girl.
I moved through the next eight years of my education without any significant hiccups. During the usual childhood friend tiffs, I’d always find a new handful of friends right around the corner. I enjoyed school. I guess the only problem I had (although I didn’t notice it at the time) was that my family was not particularly open.
My parents had been together throughout my childhood (and are now celebrating their second year of – finally – being married) and I had an older sister. Both of my parents worked full-time throughout my childhood, so my grandmother would often walk me to and from school, and look after my sister and I at home.
I have few memories of spending time with my parents but those I have are happy ones. I wouldn’t realize until years later that the emotional distance between my family and I made me a very closed person.
For the record, I’m beyond the blaming stage – we are all consequences of our experiences and we can’t change the past. Now we just have to try to learn how to move forward.
I made it to secondary school without too many problems. My first year was similarly successful – I was in the top sets for everything and had a close group of friends. About halfway into my second year of secondary school, not long after my thirteenth birthday, the bullying began.
I remember the first time so vividly.
I was walking home from school with a girl who I didn’t usually talk to much, and the boy in question (let’s call him B for “bully” for convenience) was walking with his friends some way behind us. There was nobody between us.
The next thing I knew, I heard him shout “Sarah, get your tits out!”
Instinctively, I turned around, stuck my middle finger up at him and continued walking. The girl I was with asked me what he’d said, but I pretended that I hadn’t heard the exact words.
I still remember my heart dropping a beat when he’d shouted, but I went home and got on with the day, not thinking much of what had happened. I didn’t know that it would change so much.
The next time it happened, I was walking home alone with B walking with his friends behind me. This was the start of countless occasions almost identical in content:
He would, on an near-daily basis, shout three words down the street at me: “Sarah saggy tits.“
I was (and still feel) so ashamed but I didn’t feel I could tell anybody. I’d never even judged my appearance until that point. I hadn’t noticed that I was developing faster than the other girls my age, and it made me feel like I was disgusting.
I hated my body, because (in my head) that was the reason this was happening. It didn’t take long for the self-hate and anger to kick in.
The first time I purposely hurt myself was following one of these incidents. I got my mathematical compass out of my pencil case, took off my trousers, and dragged the tip over my thigh several times. It felt so good to actually DO something, because I’d felt so helpless.
The next day, after B had done exactly the same thing, I tried to self-harm again. Problem was, I didn’t have quite so much anger and self-hatred built up, so had trouble making myself do it.
I was desperate for that release. I started drawing lines on my legs with pen and methodically scratching at them with the compass until all the pen had been scratched away. It didn’t take long before I didn’t need the pen, or before I used more harmful instruments, and moved to other parts of my body.
All the while, I was doing whatever I could to avoid walking in front of B on the way home from school. I would stand around the school gates, until the number of people dwindled so much that I was almost sure that he’d already left (sometimes it succeeded, other times it didn’t). I also started slowing down to the pace of a snail if I saw him ahead of me on the path.
After avoiding B on the way home for a while, he started bullying me in other ways, although he never used those words anywhere but on the walk home.
He began trying to trip me up around school. Having to see him in classes every day was torture. For the first time in my life, I hated going to school. I’d be anxious every morning and would feel sick at the thought of going in.
Then, the bullying started on the Internet, too.
We all had these “websites” and he would use his to bully me further – publicly. He’d post comments on his page, pretending to be me, saying horrible things (the most memorable being that I masturbated at the image of this unpopular guy at school).
Everyone saw it.
Nobody said anything, but I knew they had.
And B was relentless in his bullying, both in person and cyberbullying.
The first time I tried to be more aggressive to stop the bullying was after the online bullying had begun. Apart from what he’d said about me, he’d also followed a young teacher home and posted her address online. I used this to report him to the site host and his account was deleted.
For a short while, the bullying paused. However, my friends told me that B knew I was the one who’d gotten his site taken down, which meant that he was clearly still saying things about me.
After a few weeks, the three word harassment on my walk home began again. The next step I took was to tell my head of year about what he’d put about that teacher online. My friends were called into the head of year’s office and she asked them about what he’d written. They told her about the teacher and that B had written things about me on there, too. This teacher didn’t speak to me again, but B was suspended for a grand total of three days.
He never bullied me again, clearly knowing that that had been his punishment without me mentioning what he’d put me through.
About half a year after it started, the bullying was over.
However, the damage was already done.
I was depressed and self-harming on a daily basis. Self-harm became my way of coping with every negative feeling I had. I tried to stop a number of times, but always ended up self-harming worse when I gave in. It was also around this time that I learned my closest friends were talking about my self-injury behind my back. Everybody knew about my self-harm, but nobody approached me about it. Again, I changed groups of friends and, thankfully, was not alone.
I was 15 and just about to start my last year at that secondary school. My appetite was greatly suppressed by my depression and I’d often only eat one meal a day.
It was just before starting school that I consciously decided to stop eating. I began weighing myself every morning, before putting a few drops of milk into a bowl to make it look like I’d eaten, throwing away my lunch on the way to school, and reluctantly eating dinner with my parents each night. About three months later, I was at a BMI of 16% and my parents had noticed something was wrong.
I spent a few days pretending to be ill so that I didn’t have to eat anything, when my mother told me that they thought I was starving myself. I laughed it off and went back to eating properly. I lasted a week (and a 5 pound weight gain) before my emotions caught up with me.
It was then that I became trapped in the cycle of trying to lose weight and self-harming. Sometimes, I made myself sick, I over-exercising, one or two times of laxative abuse, quite a few minor overdoses, and lots of self-harming and cutting.
Since this started, I’ve seen quite a few different therapists.
The longest I’ve been without cutting is four months, and I’m currently coping better with the eating disorder than ever before. I’m still struggling quite a bit, but without this experience, I wouldn’t be where I am now.
I’m 22 and I’m on my way to my dream career as a researcher. I am just starting my PhD in psychology, with my research topic greatly inspired by what I’ve been through. I’ve come a long way since the first time B shouted at me. I still have problems with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and making myself eat enough, but I’m so much more confident, knowledgeable and open than I was back then.
I have a massive way to go, but I’m encouraged by how far I’ve come.
There were a couple of times that I came really close to telling a teacher what I was going through, but I never had enough courage to do it. I can say now that things may have be a lot easier if I’d been brave enough to say something.
Please, please consider reaching out to someone if you know they are being bullied.
