When I was in grade school I was not popular but I had a few good friends. Everyone got along great, or that's what I thought. In grade 4 I started noticing the kind of bullying happening in my small school my good friend was actually being slut shamed, for having like 3 boyfriends in the school year. I found it terrible but I was too cowardly to know how to stand up for her. I noticed numerous times that it happened to classmates and sometimes I even laughed. Pathetic. Then one day in grade 5 the attention turned to me. I wasn't skinny, I wasn't pretty. This one boy in my class, the bully started hassling me for my lunch. Calling me 'tubby' and 'fat' and making fun of me constantly. I felt really bad and I usually gave in to him and let him have my lunch. That lasted for a few months because we had assigned seating at lunch, I then got moved away from him. All the while I was too scared to tell because his father was a teacher.

My problems went away and grade 6 was okay.

Grade 7 was amazing and then my best friends graduated.

I had okay friends but they sort of cast me out. I was too loud, they didn't like me. I was forced to sit alone at recess half the time. When I did spend time with them I felt inferior. I felt like crap. I knew they didn't like me but I was desperate for some companions at recess and lunch. Also to make matters worse, the same bully was back at it. Ctitisizing me in gym class so much that I stayed home as much as possible. My grades were getting bad so I had to go back but when I did... I had developed depression, anxiety and a severe stomach problem. I refused to participate in gym class, I contemplated hurting myself... I felt honestly like nothing. The bully was my grade 8 teachers son and I went to the principal and I had meetings with him and my parents.

They didn't do a thing, they protected him. No witnesses, no proof, I guess. Things turned around when a new girl came to my school, she was funny and bubbly and we became really great friends. We used to talk and complain to each other and she really helped me. I helped her too since she was being slut shamed. We gave each other someone to lean on and things were better for both of us. I stopped letting the bully bother me. I started being myself again and I started being happy.

Now that I'm in highschool I can say that time still makes me feel a tiny bit insecure. But, then I think about it and I know I'm better than the bully.

I got to highschool and my older friends were there and my friends from other schools and my life pieced itself together. Suddenly that bully seems like a distant, cowardly, memory. Stay strong.