Bullying…My rollercoaster ride.

Bullying comes in a lot of different forms, it could be name calling, being spat at, having your things stolen, being punched, people talking about you behind your back, discrimination, racial abuse, other kinds of abuse, I could go on for hours. In this piece I'm going to tell you the story about the low life's that bullied me to breaking point when I flipped and how I overcome it. I'll try to put some funny bit's in if I can, but it's a side of me that I don't talk about very often, but I guess you want to know a bit about bullying seen as you're here, so here goes.

Altogether I was bullied for 8 years from year 2 of my primary school years to year 10 of my secondary school years (from aged 7 to 15). When I was young, my parents never had much money to provide me with all that the popular school clothes, packed lunches and fancy accessories that the "in group" had so I guess the young bullies homed in on that. The lack of money was due to my mum being made redundant and my dad being ill. I was thankful that I had the bare necessities.

I started to notice that there was a problem when all the other kids in the class wouldn't talk to me anymore and wouldn't sit next to me. I used to look like a right scruff some days, but I didn't care because my mum and dad loved me dearly. I even had the classic home hair cuts that we've all had at some point in our lives. Makes me laugh at how silly that Egyptian haircut looked. So needless to say I was short of a fair few friends, but I was happy being with the so called "rejects", strange thing is they all had something about them that you would class as normal, kids eh? They can be destructive.

A lot of the whole bully aspect is that if you're with the bullies, then you're with the rejects. As the ring leaders grew so called "respect", so did their dislike for me. People were scared to talk to me. Some of them would be fine with me out of school, but once it came to school time the iron fist rule came back into action. There were 4 main ring leaders, 2 of them were boys and one of them lived just a few doors away. The lad's (boys) were the worst. By this time it was approaching the summer holidays and I was looking forward to having a bit of a rest bite and hoping for things to change at secondary school. Boy was I wrong.

I was nervous on my first day at the new secondary school. The school was rated as the second worst school in the city. One of the ring leaders had gone to a different school, but the 3 ring leaders who had come to the same school were growing in popularity. The name calling began to get physical. It started off with people spitting at me, so I avoided them. Then whenever they saw me in between lessons they would kick my schoolbag.

Things had gradually got worse over time and it was almost unbearable after Christmas. I had made one new friend at the school who I was very proud of, and we got on quite well. She started to get bullied because she hung around with me. One day she was too scared to go home by herself and she lived quite far away, so I said that she could come home with me till the rush of school kids had cleared off the streets.

We were happily walking home, minding our own business when a group of about 4 afro Caribbean girls over the other side of the road shouted "Oi ugly, where's your cardboard box home?" I just ignored it and said nothing. I noticed that one of the girls was a ring leader in my primary school. They started to pick up pace and cross the road. I turned round facing forward again and hoped and prayed that they weren't going to try anything. At that point I felt a sharp pain in my back, one of the girls had kicked me in the back and now 3 of the four girls were laying into me. Luckily a woman had stopped in her tracks in disbelief, crossed over the road and gave the girls a right telling off. That scared them off and the polite woman walked me and my friend back home.

I was terrified of going to school the next day, so my mum had arranged for the year head to take me to school instead of walking, and for my sister who'd just left school was to pick me up. It was a very strange day at school, in my first lesson it was very quiet, too quiet for a class of rebelling teenagers. I tried to put it down to the strict teacher. I went to the next lesson and it was the same thing. I started to look at people's faces and all I saw was pure faces of evil and disgust. At that point I started to wonder what was going on. I knew that people would be talking about what had happened the previous day, but why were they so quiet? And why were they looking at me like that? They were looking at me as if I'd murdered someone. This carried on till the first lesson after lunchtime. Even at lunchtime I didn't get the usual bits of food thrown at me in the dinner hall. Even the higher years were giving me strange looks. I started to worry now because this had been going on all day.

I was in my first third lesson of the day when the year head came into class and pulled me out of class. She had a disappointed look on her face. Once we were outside she sat me down and looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I'd ever been racist before. I couldn't believe what she was asking me, obviously she hadn't seen me with the two Asian girls that I'd recently became friendly with. I told her that I'd never been racist and explained the two girls that made friends with. She said that the 4 girls that had now turned into 5 girls who confronted me the other day did that because I was shouting racial abuse at them, and that it was my word against theirs. I was now getting angry inside with the thought that they'd made up a story to get themselves out of trouble, and at the same time pulled someone innocent into all of this. Now all the silence and looks of disgust were beginning to make sense. They'd really hatched an utterly evil plan, and told everyone that I was a racist. Everyone was in on it and I knew nothing about it up until that point. I went back into my lesson dumbfounded and full of fear. The anger was only momentarily. I struggled through the rest of the day with this festering on my mind and my friend trying to help me with no avail.

The last lesson had finally finished, it felt like a lifetime. I got out of my lesson and walked at the fastest pace that I ever have to the gates to meet my sister. As soon as I saw her, I felt a sense of relief, she was very good at karate and I felt safe with her. I said to her "Let's go, and be fast about it, I think they're after me." We were about half way home when it started.

I looked behind me to see if the same girls were following me. I saw what I can only describe as what looked an express train made of people. The whole road was full of people. There was a small gap about 100 meters between me and my sister and them, and they were getting nearer. We were like trapped mice in a tin can! There must have been about 2-300 hundred people in attendance. Then came the coke bottles, I don't know who threw them, but there was one glass bottle which broke on my head and a few cans. Two of the boys that were at my primary school came running up to me and my sister, and asked my sister "walking the dog?." I felt the back of my head and pulled my hand back to see that it was full of blood!

Me and my sister were helpless as hundreds of people started to crowd round us. I tried to escape the fast forming circle of all the people that had bullied me so much over the years, but I just got pushed back in. Then one of the girls who had beat me up the other day made her way into the circle dragging another girl with her who I never even knew and she looked terrified. The girl from the other day said that I was to fight this girl, for no reason, just for entertainment. The strange thing was that the girl who was supposed to be fighting me was white. I gave my sister my glasses so they didn't get broken, and she held onto me to try and shield the physical abuse that was heading in our direction. I can remember various people of all different ethnic backgrounds laying into me and my sister. Something had to stop this or else we'd both seriously hurt. Older students were coming in trying to stop the slaughter but it was no use.

Suddenly there was a break in the circle and a middle aged man broke his way through, shouting "F***k off home the lot of you's, I've phoned the police and they'll be here anytime."
The kind man took me into his house after most of the kids had scarpered, and rang an ambulance for my head. I never knew that man, but I re-visited the house after I had recovered to give him a thank you card. The ring leaders and the group of girls got a formal warning off the police and were suspended from school for a week. It still didn't compensate much, but I knew that I wouldn't let the bullies force me into silence.

My mum then kept me out of school until she could find me a suitable away from the bullies. I ended up going to a school just on the edge of town. I was getting on great until the girls asked why I left my last school, and me being honest told them why I left. From then on the bullying started again, but it was no where near as bad.

I'd reached year 10 at school, and after a day of name calling something just flipped inside. I was on my to a science lesson at the time when I decided that enough was enough, and I didn't have anything else to do because I'd tried everything. I threw the classroom door open and proceeded on the back row of the class. At that point there was so much anger inside of me that had welled up over all the years. The teacher was in the class room somewhere with one of the trouble makers of the class that had arrived early, but it didn't even register that they were there. I went along the back row throwing and flinging chairs as if they were pillows, one of the chairs hit the whiteboard and dented it; another one hit the filing cabinet and dented that too. There were about four other chairs that I'd thrown but luckily they just landed on the floor. I'd also tipped over almost all the back row of heavy duty science tables. I finally got to the other side of the class and collapsed in a heap on a chair. The teacher just tip toed up to me with a pen and paper and said to me "Write it all down on paper what's bothering you and I'll send it straight to the head teacher." That calmed me down a bit.

After that episode, I never got bullied again, I guess they were scared of what they'd seen or heard.

Some general advice:

If you are being bullied, whatever you do, don't sit there and take it. Telling the teacher or boss can make matters worse. You have to stick up for yourself, show that you can give as good as you get. Don't be afraid to let them know that you will not tolerate it, chances are that half of the time they won't expect it, and that will scare them. Don't tackle the bullies in groups; go to them individually and in the same day so they are not expecting it. Don't put up with it, have confidence in yourself because everyone is special. Don't end up like other people who have taken their own life through bullying, show that your not scared of them.

If you are a bully, think of what it would be like to be bullied. Think of not wanting to go to school to get the life sucked out of you. Think of wanting to take you own life because you've had enough of being downgraded all the time, just have a look on the internet and you'll find hundreds of stories of people taking their own life because they can't take anymore. And most important: How would you feel if you had a criminal record because of your anti social behaviour?

Parting words:
I hope this has been an interesting read for you all. Just to let you know, I didn't let the bullies get the best of me and I now lead a very happy and successful life. I treated it as a learning curve. I took a bit more of a serious approach to this subject as it is a big problem worldwide. Sorry if I've been a bit morbid. Also I'm not trying to seek any attention from this, just letting people know what some victims of bullying can go through by giving my personal experience. Sorry if I made you cry, my apologies if it was a bit too long. Thank you all for reading. And you can go for your cup of tea and biscuits now if you haven't already, or go for a pee if you need. Lol.