“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Monday night, my mom and I were cooking dinner and I was thinking about my regrets, and trust me, I've had a lot. One of the regrets I have is never trying out for cheerleader in high school. Actually I did try out Junior year but I didn't make it. So I guess my regret was not making the cheerleading squad. Another regret I have is never trying out for our drill team. Why didn't I try out? Well I guess the answer is that I never felt like I was skinny enough to try out. Of course then my mom and I started talk about it. That's when I thought maybe we should write about what it's like being a bigger girl which led to writing about what it's like to be bullied. And that's what we're bringing you today. It's almost as if you have to hide behind a mask. What's It Like To Be BulliedI was bullied just about all through seventh grade. The same four boys kept throwing pinecones at me, spitting at me, chasing me in the classroom, and throwing words at me. They tripped me in class one day causing me to rip my shirt. They would call me elephant and make elephant noises as well as pretending the ground was shaking when I walked by. They called me gigatore and ugly and those are the nice ones. I tried telling the teachers but nothing ever got done. My mom had a conference with several of my teachers and was told that boys will be boys. It was a miserable year.
So we start with the question, do you know what that does to someone? I know a girl who lost her light, her smile, and shed more tears than a girl should ever have to shed at that age. I saw a girl go from being vibrant and outgoing to withdrawn and shy. Middle school is a hard time for everyone but it is especially bad when your peers continue to put you down and make fun of you and none of your teachers seem to care. For me, it was my darkest point. Somedays I would try to fake being sick so I didn't have to go to school (it didn't work - my mom was too smart for that). I feared going to school knowing no one was going to do anything to make my situation better, and standing up for myself made it even worse. There were times when I thought what if I didn't exist anymore? What if I hadn't ever been born? Is there an escape? Yes, there were moments I contemplated suicide, but thankfully I never acted on it. The bullying eventually stopped but that didn't mean everything went back to normal. The damage had already been done. I may not have had to face them everyday but I did have to face the aftermath. My self-esteem was shot, and for a while everything was an act. Before all of this, I didn't think much about my weight but boy did I have weight issues after that. Freshman year the constant thought of being an elephant crept into my mind and, to cut the chase, I lost 45 pounds in about four or five months. Not only did I lose a lot of weight but I lost a lot of my hair and gained a life long battle of not eating enough or too much, worrying about how others percieved me, and not trusting my abilities. I didn't try out for sports because I didn't want to be the fat girl. I didn't try out for cheerleading (until the very last year I could) because I didn't want to be the fat girl. I became self-conscious about being the fat dancer in dance class. I looked at everyone on a sports team or dance team or cheer team and thought I couldn't be on that team because I'm too fat. I convinced myself that my ex broke up with me because I was too fat and that I could never get a boyfriend because I was so fat. I'm still convinced (after 10 months with an amazing guy) that I'm too fat for him and he deserves a skinny girl. When I started college I mustered up the courage and I tried out for the dance team (spolier alert - I didn't make it - though it proably had more to do with the fact that I didn't have much drill team experience or technique) and naturally, I blamed not making it on not being skinny enough. I then get these thoughts and think, I need to start a diet and exercise program, so I do. I count calories to the point it becomes a game - and not a good one at that. The game I play with myself sees I only ate 1327 calories yesterday so I eat less the next day therefore, beating the "score". I know for a couple of weeks during my first semester of college I was barely eating 600 calories a day. 600 CALORIES!!! The average calorie consumption a human needs is 2000 calories. I was eating 1/3 of what I should be eating. How did I justify eating that few calories? Well, I was eating three meals a day so surely that was enough, right? I had a breakfast bar in the morning (250 calories), a salad with some veggies and salsa (100 calories) for lunch, and some type of meat and veggie for dinner (250 calories). I had three meals and that's all I needed. Nobody knew it was that bad and I didn't think it was that bad but thankfully I eventually began eating more before it affected my health. Everytime something goes wrong I know it's because I'm fat. Everything is because I'm fat. I use to never think that. But I'm not the perfect skinny girl everyone desires to be friends with or hangout with, right? So thanks to four boys just being boys, I will live a lifetime fighting my self-esteem issues. I understand exactly how Abby feels because I remember in elementary school, I was called names like fatty and had fellow classmates chant at me the old "fatty fatty two by four can't get through the kitchen door". I still suffer from self-esteem issues. We tell you this not to make you sad or give us sympothy. We tell you so that you know that words tryly do hurt and can cause lifelong struggles. After seven years or after forty years, the words you told us still stick to us. So teach your kids and grandkids that words do hurt and will last a life time. Watch out for your friends and family and if you see it, help stop it. We want everyone to be happy and not struggle with selfesteem problems or weight issues. It's a long road. That's it for now. XOXO, The Gearles
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Abby & AndreaA college student trying to figure out the world with her mom by herside. Life through my lens (Abby). We all have different stories and these are only some of mine. Some funny, some adventurous, some hard. Sit back and relax. Enjoy. Archives
March 2018
Categories
All
|