There are some things you don’t understand until they happen to you. There’s not really a magic bullet in terms of ‘understanding’ mental health struggles. Truth be told, I don’t think that’s even a possibility. There’s so much for so many different people. So many thoughts and feelings bigger than you could ever say or express, and that’s probably why everyone finds it so hard to ask for help.
When I was about 12, I had what the therapists I’ve seen like to call a “traumatic incident”. In the hopes of sparing you the nasty details, I won’t go into it. But ever since that point, my life took a turn for the worse. Like some kind of fucked up spiral, I just couldn’t seem to stop getting worse. Some of these factors were out of my control. Bullying is potentially the worst thing I’ve experienced, and between everything else that’s happened in my life that’s saying a lot. The thing about bullying is that it seems like such a childish thing to say, so primary school, so immature. That’s probably why people tend to not take as much notice of it.
The first time this happened was when I was in Year 4, about 9 years old. There was a boy in my class who was pulling my hair and saying mean things to me. The adults said he had a crush on me. Weird, right? I mean, what a strange concept. Even more strangely, we ended up becoming friends. I imagine this contributed to my severe lack of a backbone in the current day. The next time was Year 7, now I was 12. I was unfortunately the perfect prey for the average preteen. With my mental health down the drain, I was what most people would consider “weird”. And, to be fair, I probably was. But guess what? Even if I was an alien I still didn’t deserve everything that was about to come my way. There were so many different people, it’s not like it was just the one. From being asked out as a joke to being called full out slurs, it added up quickly. People I thought I knew turned their back on me as to not be seen with the ‘weird girl’. Having said this, I found solace in the other “weirdos”. By year 10, I had a solid friend group. Things had started to get better…kind of. There was still other stuff going on, but at least the bullying had eased up, right? And then Year 11 came. My mum got diagnosed with breast cancer and things kicked off again. My best friend, the one who’d been with me through so much, woke up one day and decided he was sick of me. To this day, I’m still not sure what the reason for this decision was, but all of a sudden I was iced out. A few others from the friend group decided to flock to him and abandon me. I remember some things so distinctly, the writing on their hands from their classes together that would say such nasty things about me. The videos of them saying they wanted to do such horrible things to me. I remember it all.
Bullying is one of those silent killers. Something that will push someone to the brink of suicide and still be considered a childish thing to talk about. I sincerely hope this was just a phase for so many of my peers, because for me? It will be with me for the rest of my life.
