Ever since I was little, I have had issues with friends and bullies. I always tried my hardest to be kind to everyone and I never understood why someone couldn’t do the same, when being friendly is honestly so simple.
I remember my first bully was in kindergarten. I would go into class and there would be a boy. He was a blonde, blue-eyed kid and we never really talked and so there shouldn’t be an issue between us, right? Wrong. Who knew that a kid you’ve never even hung out with could have such a burning hate towards you. I remember I genuinely feared going to school because I knew he would be there. He would physically attack me and during recess I would have to hide from him. It was brought up to the office and was finally dealt with, but by then, the pain was already dealt. Not just physically, but mentally. It introduced me to the fact that people are rude to you, even if you don’t deserve it.
The next school year came around and I was really struggling. I hated leaving my family because I felt so lonely at school. I had a best friend but we were very back and forth. You know, friends one day, and then the next day we absolutely hated each other. Although we fought a lot, it was still company at school, and that company disappeared when she moved away one day.
Once I entered second grade, that year was amazing. I had an amazing teacher who cared about me deeply and I felt like I fit in. I was able to talk to her whenever I needed, considering she was a family friend, and I actually enjoyed going to school.
I reached third grade and I was excited to see what this school year would hold, considering the grade before was so good. I thought that all of the hard stuff that I went through at the beginning of Elementary went away, but boy was I wrong. I would pay attention during class and ask questions that maybe others wondered too but were too afraid to ask, but that didn’t make me the favorite in the class, somehow it made me the target. During a lesson, we were talking about nouns and verbs. I had a loose tooth that was really bothering me, so during the lesson I was wiggling it, trying to get it out. The teacher seemed to misunderstand and said, “Ashlyn is sucking her thumb. What is the noun?” The class turned to me as I tried to explain that I just had a loose tooth but was interrupted when they all answered, “Ashlyn is the noun” As if the teacher didn’t do something incredibly wrong, she congratulated the class, laughing at the matter. I almost ended up in tears.
I truly felt alone and like I didn’t belong. I no longer felt excited to go to school and no longer wanted to be that kind and outgoing kid that everyone knew they could turn to. My parents hated seeing me like this and thought it would be best to homeschool me but I didn’t want to because I thought it would get better and none of my other siblings had to be homeschooled.
Fourth grade came along and I had a teacher I liked. My “best friend” as well as my crush were in my class so what could be better? The answer to that was everything. Everything could have been better. I was in class one day and we were all working on an assignment. It was a fun, multiplication ice cream assignment where you would progressively work on harder multiplication problems as the ice cream stack got taller. I was talking to my best friend about my crush and she kept asking me who it was. I was worried she would tell him, so I didn’t want to tell her, but she kept asking. I finally told her after she promised to not tell him and that’s when she stood up from the desks we were sitting at and walked right over to him. She points at me and says “Ashlyn has a crush on you.” My heart dropped. Everyone turned and looked at me and started to whisper. The teacher went to the front of the classroom and said, “Just a reminder, it’s okay to have crushes but we are a little too young to tell them and act on it.” How embarrassing. Elementary shouldn’t be this hard, you’re just a kid, you shouldn’t have to deal with bullies or friends that don’t actually care about you the way you think they do.
It was finally fifth grade. I was one of the older kids of the school now and felt more at ease, like I was cool no matter what, you know how it is in Elementary. But this school year was filled with drama. I had a group of friends, who genuinely didn’t care about one another and it was obvious. We would constantly fight with each other and when I would reach out to the teachers about it, it didn’t matter because “it was just drama,” but to me, it wasn’t just drama. The things they did and said to me hurt and I never actually realized how bad it affected me until I realized that I still remember it years later.
It continued through sixth and seventh grade and only got worse. In seventh grade, one of the girls spread a rumor about me that went around the whole school. It hurt me and I realized that my childhood in school was robbed from me. Ever since kindergarten I was bullied, either physically or mentally. It got better once I reached eighth grade because I was able to actually defend myself. I still had a hard time making close friends. Considering so much damage was dealt in past friendships, it was hard trusting people.
From all the past years, I would be told to try and understand that they might be going through a hard time and to give them some leniency, but I was going through a hard time too, and never once did it cross my mind to treat someone like that. Even now, as I am a senior in high school, I still deal with people who claim to be my friend but do things that hurt me, but I have also found people who genuinely do care about me. Through all the hardships that I went through, it has given me the ability to spot when a “friend” isn’t actually my friend, so in the end all the pain from bullying made me stronger and taught me to value the friends that do care.
