I know I haven't suffered as much as a lot of people, but it still feels bad to be bullied.

Hello, I'm a 13-year-old Filipino (1/4 English) girl, and I go to an all-girls private Catholic school here in the Philippines. My school keeps giving these anti-bullying talks, but of course, it's still going to go on, isn't it? Please don't judge me for anything I write below. It's painful, but it'll be nice to get off my chest.

It probably started in first grade. I've been a quite smart girl all my life, and my grades have only been going down recently. Back then, I didn't have to worry about much. I was shallow, and back then as a seven-year-old, friends were only people you eat recess with. My best friend in the whole of Kinder (who I will call Friend 1 or F1 for short) had been sorted off into a different section, but being a very social girl back then, I had made "friends" easily. The only problem came when a girl in my class started having family problems, and she took it all out on the rest of us. Let's call her Bully 1, or B1. She started stealing people's things and throwing them into trashcans. I started getting suspicious when I noticed that every morning she'd ask to see my pencil case, because I didn't know she was stealing things back then. Every morning, she'd take my pencil case. Every morning, I'd notice something was missing and I'd point it out to her. Every morning, she'd gasp and say, "oh, no, I think I saw your [thing from pencil case] outside, in the trashcan." I realized that she was a thief, and every morning from then she'd come and ask to see my pencil case and it satisfy me so to answer with a big fat NO. And that was the end of my bullying in Grade 1.

Second grade came, and I realized I had no real friends. Everywhere I turned, there was nobody. I had only books as my company. First trimester came and went, and when my mom got my report card, she was smiling for two reasons. One, I had gotten good grades. Two, the person sitting behind me was actually my cousin three-times-removed, and my mom had met her grandparents. This was Friend 2. I became friends with F2, and she introduced me to F3, a shy, innocent girl that didn't want to say hi at first. I liked them immediately. But then the new girl (B2) came in and made friends with F2, and F3 being someone to stick by F2's side, I was left alone. I had no friends to eat lunch with. I let my feelings out on a seatwork that asked us to rate events in our life from 1-10, 10 being the lowest, and I put "B2 becoming friends with F2 so I have no friends". Long story short, I went to the guidance counselor's office, F3 convinced F2 to come back to me after I sort of became a bully myself (and got called a "f*cker" by a Grade 1 student in the process), and by the end of the school year, I was okay, even though I was pushed around a lot.

Grade 3 passed by without many problems. I made a new friend (F4) and regained my friendship with F1. Grade 4 never happened because of the K-12 program, where all the levels were renamed and our curriculum was changed. I think I joined Wattpad in the midst of all this, because I've always loved imagining my own worlds, and I've always been chosen for the story-writing programs of the grade school (I'm still proud of it to this day).

Grade 5. I became a bit quieter. I quit my piano lessons (which had gone on for about 5 years) to have guitar lessons. I knew I was (and am) chubby and not very good-looking, but I realized what people thought about me when we were studying for our third-trimester exams. I don't think it was a good idea to join a four-person Filipino review session with a mean girl being an interrogator. She started saying adjectives, and later, "sino ang pinakamapangit dito?" which means, 'who here is the ugliest?' Being someone with hardly any self confidence, I raised my hand. And because I raised my hand, the other three people pointed at me. I smiled shakily, ran off, and cried in the bathroom. And then I felt ugly, inside and out.

F4 invited me to go to the CISV [blank] City chapter minicamp for five days after Grade 5. When we were set to go on the bus, her dad started crying. I really didn't understand. After five days of being at camp (I hardly made any friends because F4 was always there for me), we returned home, and discovered heart-shattering news.

F4's dad had cancer. Bone marrow cancer, and multiple myeloma (I'm not sure how to spell that) to go with it. He and his family had to move to the U.S. so he could get treated. He went ahead so he could start his chemotherapy.

It all happened so fast. One week F4 and I heard mass together. Played. Knew that she had about a month left to stay in the Philippines. And the next -- she was gone. She had to go early because her dad's condition got steadily worse. It broke my heart. Her dad's now better, but she won't come back because it'll be too difficult to get everything back to her old life. I feel useless and discarded because of this.

I started hanging out with F2 and F3 because they felt neglected while I was hanging out with F4. F1 joined us because the other friend I hung out with while being close to F4 started bullying her. That was sixth grade, and everything was pretty much okay. We graduated grade school and during grad practice, I made two new friends, F5 and F6. I became friends with F5 because she sat beside me, and F6 because one, she sat behind me, and two, because she turned out to be on the same flight as I was going to the U.S. during our summer vacation. (Unfortunately, the state we went to was nowhere near F4.) And then, F2 left for the U.S. because her mom lived there. She hasn't talked to me for two years. F3, F1, and I were devastated.

I honestly don't remember very much about seventh grade, even though it was only last year. I turned completely introverted. I slowly became best friends with F5 and F6, and later on F7. That was the year I became bisexual. It embarrasses me to talk about it, which is why only F5, F6, and F7 know. I'm not sure if any of you are homophobic. If you are, I'm sorry. But what's all that sh*t out there about being who you are, if you, well, aren't who you are? Well, I started noticing people in my school. And, oh, skies, am I humiliated about it. Aren't there enough boys in the world to have a crush on?? Why girls too? Anyway, I'll continue, since I feel very uncomfortable about it.

Eighth grade. Where I am now. Everything's going down. I started the year okay, covering my ears as girls screeched in the halls about how happy they are to see their friends again. Then again, I saw my friends during the summer. I'm starting to drift away from F1 and F3 because they keep talking about celebrities, and many shallow things. I'm starting to doubt them. Everything was going okay. I kind of burst out at my class on Facebook Messenger because the talkative ones started talking about celebrities (and I'm starting to despise celebrities, but I will never despise the ones who are in my favorite bands), but we smoothed it over after a while. At the start of the year, we took a short quiz to determine who would be in the end-of-the-year high-school-wide Quiz Bee. Three weeks ago, two people were picked from each of the four sections of each high school batch. I was one of the representatives. They told me I should be honored to do it, but I broke down into tears. As an introvert, I hate being the center of attention. I couldn't stand it as all eyes in the class turned to me. Way to ruin the Buwan ng Wika celebration, folks. Anyway, last week was when it all went to hell. Last week was exam week, which means hell week. Hell week means bad tempers. Someone asked in the batch Viber, "who here has a reviewer for [subject]? Please send it to [email]." I told her to check the class Facebook group because I'd posted a reviewer there. And oh boy, did hell start.

I had a Viber username. I'm not sure if I can mention it here, but let's say it involved my nickname and it was a pun, like for example your nickname is Sue and the pun is Sushi. Well, someone else in the batch, someone much smarter than me, has a very similar nickname to me. The batch (or a very small portion of it) mistook me for her, and started asking me to send the reviewer and saying hi to her and asking if she could please go to their group chat. I said, "whoa, there. I'm not her." Cue five minutes of stupid arguing whether I was her or not. Later on, when it was dying down, a popular girl said, "guys, uso mag PM". "Uso" means popular or 'in', and "mag" is to do something. So she said, "guys, private messaging is so in right now." I said, "okay, bye," and left to study. I checked my phone about a minute later to confirm something with my friends, only to discover that the batch group (which I had put on mute) was running amok with messages from the popular girls, saying how ridiculous the whole thing was and to "just freaking use your real name" because I had said I had wanted to remain anonymous. F1 defended me, saying that it's just a username so I shouldn't have to change it. I said playfully to the popular girls, "so who's the one spamming now?" They replied with "I thought you left" (that was B1, by the way). Five minutes later, I added some friends to the batch group because they had accidentally left. The popular girls laughed at their creative usernames: "what's next, the alphabet?" "I'll name myself [movie reference that I don't know]" "[Tagalog swear] HAHAHAHAHA!" and "so much food" (because my friends and I tend to make our usernames food references). In comes B3. "Alam niyo ba meaning ng spamming?" ("Do you know the meaning of spamming?") She sends countless, useless thumbs-ups. The popular girls start laughing and spamming, and I tell them, "In your own words, guys, uso mag PM." I should've stopped right there, but I had to go and make the situation worse.

One more thing to add to my list of never-ending regret.

B4: "Thanks for the credits!" B3: "eh kayo nga eh" ("you did the same") B1: "So you would know how we feel" B3: "We're a group not just 2 people so it's not called PM" (honestly, I was talking to about 4 people, so she had no right to say that) B5: "didn't you say there was a reason for everything earlier?" (I did say that as an explanation for my username, but I really don't understand what their reason was.) B3 and B1: *fools around, cracks bad pun* Me: "thanks for telling me off because you were arguing about my username and now I'm to blame for it. You're hypocrites."

Cue end of my social existence. They started saying, "woah, beastmode" and "woah, big word". They didn't take me seriously. "It's not a big deal," B1 said. It really wasn't, until the popular girls made it one, and I got involved. B4: "Calling us hypocrites makes you one too." B1 and B3: *laughs heads off* B5: "how are we hypocrites? Please elaborate." My cheeks turned white and my head spun as they started laughing and insulting me. B5: "if your issue is that we're awfully noisy, you should try staying out our hallway in school because it's 1000 times more noisy. [smiley emoticon]" Those are her exact words. That's really when I started crying. OUR hallway. Stay out. And I wished (and still wish) I could disappear. Not-so-close-friend: "stop it already, guys. She stopped responding. If this isn't a big deal you wouldn't talk about it anymore." B1: "HAHAHAHAHA" B3: *laughs and types in bad grammar ("my nose is bloodening")* I remember my chest tightening. They're not taking me seriously. This is getting out of hand. F6: "Guys, please stop spamming the batch group and converse in a separate group. A lot of people are starting to get frustrated because not everyone wants to listen endlessly to jokes and pointless conversations that only you seem to care about. Also, you're being rude to [my name]." Bless that girl's soul. But then... B1: "wanna ask her? maybe she'll reply to you HAHAHA" I probably looked like a mess, with the tears dripping down my face and the redness in my cheeks I always get from crying. They started saying I was being rude, too, and I probably was, but I don't think that what they did was right at all. I had voiced my opinion, like I'm sure I have the right to. They started poking fun at F6's and my large vocabulary, since my dear friend had used the word "plethora". B5: "sorry that we don't share the same humor as you guys, and sorry that we don't want to just keep quiet and conversate in a group. as a batch, we're supposed to be united in a way, right?" OH, F*CKING SKIES. "Conversate" is not even a word. And don't use the f*cking "united as a batch" card, when it isn't even applicable. To make things worse, B3 said, "we're cracking jokes 'cause it's abnormal when there are no jokes then things will become even more serious and we won't fight," which didn't even make sense. B5's twin sister (also a popular girl) said, "we just want to talk here instead of making a separate group chat." Oh, skies above. I wanted to kill myself right then and there. B1: "what happened to them HAHAHAHA" B5: "everyone just needs to take a chill and not get offended because this is how my friends and I actually talk. sorry that we come off as rude, but again, we're hypocrites, right?" Her exact words. B1: "maybe they're looking for deeper words HAHAHAHA" B3: "Their opinions don't matter. Let's make a group chat where we all get along, okay?" Then they all...laughed. It's in the Filipino culture of smart-shaming. I felt my heart breaking, and I wrote up an apology.

"Okay. Here's what I have to say.

1. I'm sorry for what I said. But what I meant was you were sending loads of messages...after you told me I was spamming. That's what I meant by hypocrisy.

2. "Jokes"? How is that a joke? Telling me to stay out of YOUR hallway? I would if I could. I wish I could. Maybe then I wouldn't have to interact with people and I wouldn't have to mess up every single time. I tend to lose my temper. I say the wrong things. I never do anything right. I get it."

And all I get in return is a "SORRY. HAPPY???" from B1 and a "SHUT UP" from B3.

I am seriously contemplating suicide. I used to tell myself before all this happened that there was so much worth living for. That I could make it. But suddenly the world came crashing down around me. I started writing poems about sadness and putting my feelings down in a small filler notebook. I filled one page with the word 'death', written in fancy, looping letters using my brush markers. The popular girls don't mind me in the hallways, but I'm not sure how long it'll last. I'm not sure I want to live to see the end of the temporary peace.

Last night, I was hearing mass, and I just started crying. My chest felt hollow, and I clenched my fists and stared at the ceiling. And while I was typing this, I had an argument with my friends about hardship. F6 said she would have no one when she'd die. She said we didn't know what she was going through. F5 told her we were there for her, and F7 said she'd be there with us until the end. I'm glad that I have the friends I have, because they're helping me cope. I hope that they'll be there with me until the end.