This is NOT your fault and SweetCheeks1980, how very fucking insulting, victim blaming at its worst, some bullies do NOT stop becsue you ask!
My bullying started as a young kid, in school it was around year 5 of primary. I got sat next to a boy who was very mean to me, name calling all the time, and he physically attacked me in class by slapping me across the face. Another pupil went and told the teacher, she just refused to believe that could/had happened in her class. He then held my arm down another time mid lesson, and dug pencils in as hard as he could, twisting and stabbing trying to make me cry. I went to show hre myself, and she dismissed that the marks didn't look like stab marks. True they didn't, i had an allergic reaction to the colouring in them (coloured pancils) so they had swollen and puffed outwards, and they are still scarred now more than 15 years later. Again she dismissed the whole thing.
Out of school around that time, there was a boy 1 year older and a girl 3 years older who targetted both me and my sister, they lived in our street, and it was horrible. They backed me in a corner one day and squirted an entire one of those large super soakers directly in my face close range so i couldn't breathe and half drowned me, laughing the whole time. They moved on to getting all the local kids to terrorise my family, think having sudden loud bangs on the windows daily, abuse shouted at you any time you opened your door. My dad became physically ill with the worry of it all, and nothing was ever done. It took 2 years fro the older ones to grow up eave school and move on and the rest kind of lost interest i think.
The worst of it came in highschool for me though. I was the smart kid, as well as the fat kid, so i was the loner. I got picked on, typical kind of stuff, until a girl who previously used to actually defend and look out for me from the horrible primary school boy, transferred to the highschool i was at when i was 14. 3 days in she began a campaign of terror that almost cost me my life. Every class she was sat either next to me or behind me. She would whisper insults at me 24/7, throw things at me, tap me on the shoulder and ask for them back, etc. My so called friends, had her well and truly invited in to the group and stayed friends with her and just watched, even when i asked for help they refused, i could not get away from her, even at break and lunch. Yes i know these people werent really my friends, but i had no option, no way of making "new" friends the groups and hierarchy was well set and it was these people or be totally alone.
She would also do big events, she got hold of an unflattering picture of me taken without my knowledge, showed me it, and threatened to have it blown up and mass printed and posted round the school. She showed it to her boyfriend and delighted in talking "behind my back" but deliberately loud enough I could hear, about all the vile things he said about me. 3 months in she spread a rumour around the gym while i was still changing, that i was a lesbian that had tried to make a pass at her previously. I walked in the room to all these stares, her smug grin, and whispering, and nobody would tell me what it was about and all pretended it was in my head. One took pity on me and told me next morning at school, but even people i'd been friends with almost 3 years did the whole "It's ok, we don't mind if youre a lesbian, we just dont like you lying about it, so just admit it" shit. No amount of insistence i wasn't lying and it was a story she made up worked, and the funny thing is, it turned out later to be I was the only one who WAS 100% straight.
I had a day off sick, and that day was art class. A week later, as i was leaving school the day before next art class, a girl who didn't even like me approached me to let me know that the previous week, was collage work, and a picture of a hippo had been stuck in my book with all sorts of nasty captions written around it. One of them had been bragging to her about it, and being a sweet girl, she let me know so i could prepare for it. Sitting down in class that day was awful, they didn't know i knew and were sat clearly waiting, giant smirks, wide eyed, waiting for the shit to hit the fan. I'd taken in a permanent marker and just partially opened the book to it and started scribbling out all the comments, but i did see one had drawn a cartoon pic of me also, very unflattering and one of the comments i saw was how everyone hated me, why didn't i just kill myself.
It got to the point i was suicidal, walking out in front of cars on the main road on my way to and from school every day, hoping to get hit. I'd feel a tiny wave of relief when final bell went, then the rising panic before i was even half way home that i'd have to come back. I wasn't sleeping, i'd be awake having panic attacks til between 4 and 5am EVERY day, then up at half 7 to get ready for school. i'd manage to crash for an hour or 2 after school til my mum got home at 5, but that was it. I couldn't concentrate on work, was dropping from A's to D's, homework was going majorly downhill as i just couldn't bear to look at anything to do with school once i got home without a panic attack, i needed to block it out, so it would get done morning it was due, i'd get up 10 minutes earlier and rush it, sometimes it was only half done and i'd be trying to finish it at break time if the lesson was later in the day. Not ONE teacher approached me. I had no faith in approaching them after my primary school experience, but had one even noticed and asked it would all have flooded out.
It came to an end when i broke down one wednesday night, confessed all to my parents who were devastated as i'd hidden it so well out of pure embarrassment and shame, they'd had no idea. First thing Thursday my mum went storming in to the school (she let me stay home as i was a state), only to be told nothing was going to be done I couldn't prove it, it was my word against hers, they wouldn't jeopardise her education just on my say so as i could by lying.
One of the idiot teachers who sat in on the meeting decided it was a brilliant idea to go pull her out of a class and tell her EVERYTHING my mum had been in and said, including how nothing was going to be done about it. I went back on the Monday, which was the last week of the feb half term, and it was awful. Nobody would talk to me, i was given the silent treatment by everyone, those who knew me and those that didn't. The stares, the dirty looks, the whispering, she had told the whole school i'd falsely accused her so i was now a target to everyone as the snitch. Yet at the same time, it was a relief i wasnt having insults and abuse whispered at me constantly. I found out why on the Friday, as we broke up for half term holidays. Last lesson was PE, and as we were leaving, i was unknown to them, behind her and a popular girl, who asked her "Are you doing it now then, jumping her?" The whole school knew thsi had been planned, and it was pure luck she actually had had an emergency app she couldn't miss scheduled at late notice for that day, so she had no time but had to run already just at end bell to make her bus.
Needless to say, half term holiday ended, i didn't go back. And that had the unfortunate effect of losing all structure and routine in my life which allowed my Severe OCD and depression to take over and spiral and i;ve never recovered, only gotten worse. None of my so called friends ever text me to find out where i went, if i was even still alive. I got back in touch with one 11 months later, bully found out, and spread a shit ton of lies. She claimed when she contacted me to say she was switching to our school id told her about my friends, how this girl was seriously ugly and looked like a man, acted really strange and awkward etc. Also that i'd said my other friend was paranoid, insecure and obsessed with herself and how she looked, and was super dull and boring. Neither of these were true, it was her way of being a bitch telling them what SHE thought of them, while also getting them to cut me off and leave me all alone again, almost a year after she'd already won and forced me out.
As a result of her, i became seriously ill, spent my late teens suicidal at having lost everything ( i had been a straight A student with any future i wanted as a possibility) and i became a severely mentally ill wreck due to her torment. I was too ill to go to college, or uni, or ever get a job, my dad had to quit work when i was 16 and become my full time carer. Despite desperate attempts to access mental health care since i was 15, I'm now completely housebound as i was never able to regain the control i lost and i have no life. My family abandoned me when my mum died when i was 20, i can't make or keep friends as my illness makes them run a mile, cant have a relationship as i can't leave the house and have no prospects of ever working or being functional, im literally just existing while i wait to die.
I did what you're always told to do, ignore the bully, don't retaliate, they get bored and will move on. She found me on facebook at 18, gave a fake apology, when i asked why she did it, her response was "i was bored and it was fun, you did nothing to provoke me, and by not reacting it became a mission to find what it would take, what i'd have to do, to get you to snap". She then invited one of her old back up sidekick in and they started bullying me mercilessly, i stood up for myself and got a severe threat to my life, she had several brothers and step brothers, hooligan family all in serious gangs, and she told me my address and said i would regret ever daring to talk to her like that.
I tired online relationships, found the damage done to my self esteem and self worth just made me a target for users. Ive been controlled, manipulated, verbally sexually abused, financially abused and put down for the past 10 years, including the day my mum died being sulked at i wouldnt sex chat like i was forced to every other day for 18 months. Was threatened with extreme sexual violence including anal rape.
Before i became completely housebound i was also sexually assaulted in a busy Tesco not more than 10 feet from the security guard, by a kid no older than about 12/13. I was just filling out a lottery ticket when my bum was slapped and grabbed at. Spun round, a kid is stood a foot away, staring at me, smirking, a group of his friends just behind him laughing. I was too ashamed and embarrassed and thought nobody would think it was a big deal as he was just a kid so didn't report it.
SweetCheeks1980, please explain to me how i just "let" this happen to me? How did i have any control over what these people did to me, threatened to do to me, what should i have done then to prevent all this? Especially when the girl at school had literally a gang of back up and i had nobody, and all of them were more than willing to get physical.