I don't remember much of preschool but supposedly there was this kid who once pushed me out of my chair and took it, and my mom was there and was ready to hang the kid. As for me, I apparently just shrugged and went and got a different chair instead of starting a fight or pushing back or whatever it was my mother had expected I would do. I don't recall having many friends either, maybe 3 in all of the class. For some reason this one girl named Brenna is sticking out. I think she was one of the ones who thought I was just weird.

I remember not liking the teacher's assistant for my kindergarten class. I got an N on my weekly progress report because I told her to be quiet and she went and told everyone that I had told her to "shut up". I don't remember which I said.

In first grade I switched schools after moving. There was this kid about 10 years old named Justin and he warned me that he would beat me up if I messed with him so I was very careful not to mess with him so he and I never got into fights or anything.

Second grade I went to yet another school where I stayed through fourth grade. It was a small Christian private school. My procrastination issues got worse and also I slowly withdrew into myself. Fourth grade was the worst. There were these two girls Jessica and Kendra. I had my hands in my skort for whatever reason (I don't know why, but I do know I wasn't touching myself) and they saw me and went and told everyone to avoid me. I spiralled into a depression and became self-abusive, tighting my belt too tight and sleeping on the floor (but always getting back into my bed because I didn't want my parents to see or be involved), and talking about how I should just die. I had one sort-of friend, and that was only because the principal told her that she had to keep being my friend. I had another sort-of friend, whom I was only acquainted with because of previous years' spelling bees and because her parents and my parents were in the same small group. Also I had my friend who lived an hour away and my across the street neighbor. But they weren't enough. I drew a bunch of pictures in the white space of my agenda book (this was back when they were actually the size of normal paper rather than small enough to fit into my palm and so there was plenty of white space) about sad [Snickie] and at one point I made a list of people I knew and my relationship with them. I had four colors of markers for that list. Green meant I was comfortable with them and considered myself friendly; dark blue was on-again off-again; and orange and fuschia had their own meanings, probably something along the lines of "they hate me". The green list was long but full of teachers, my neighbor, and the hour-away friend. Two other names made up the blue list and everyone else was in the orange and fuschia lists by name. My parents discovered the drawings and the list and sent me to counselling... I guess they didn't really grasp just how wrong my head was until they saw the physical manifestations in my agenda. The counsellor told them I was an intellectually gifted child and that children like me tend to have trouble with socialization and that I should be placed in a program that would cater to the gifted. My parents had me tested with the county and lo and behold I qualified for the program. However, the one elementary school in the area that did that was a public school in a not-so-great part of town. My parents decided to keep me in the private school and hope things would resolve on their own. By the end of the year I was mostly okay.

Fifth grade at the private school started... and this time the flak came from the teacher, who called me a child of the devil when I told her I was bored. When the principal (new guy) wouldn't do anything about it, my parents got angry and pulled me out and enrolled me into the gifted class at the public school. And that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Most of my social issues disappeared overnight, I made friends, my intellectual needs were being satisfied, and I was happier.

Then sixth grade happened. I met this girl Courtney and we became best friends. One day in gym she told me about how her dad had died just a few years prior in a car accident, and we held hands while I was comforting her 'n stuff. A girl named Heather saw us and called us lesbians, and because she had some dirt on other people she blackmailed them into spreading the rumor that Courtney and I were lesbians. It got around to people on my bus: one of my neighbor's best friends (new neighbor - we moved while I was in 5th grade to the other side of town), Maddie, was one of the worst perpetrators. She once yelled at the bus loop that she had seen Courtney and I kissing in the locker room bathrooms, which we weren't. I was once pushed back onto this other girl on my bus, who also went by Maddy, and she recoiled as if I were a leper or coated in some kind of disgusting grime. Like, "EW THE LESBIAN B**** TOUCHED ME EW EW EW EW!!!!" Coincidentally they and I all decided to sit at the front of the bus at the same time to get away from each other and so there was that drama too. Outside of the gym was a hallway with some chainlink gates and it was very cramped when waiting to get into the locker rooms. I was pushed into one girl by the crowd and she yelled at me to stay out of her bubble. Another girl punched me in the shoulder; not hard, but still. Eventually I let my parents know what was going on and my mother was livid. She called the school and told them to address it and used all the buzzwords like "bullying" and so they called me and Maddie into the disciplinary office (Heather had kind of faded out of the picture by then). She caught me outside the door and "made up" with me, and then completely changed her story to say she had been defending me (not true at all) and negated mine when we were talking to the administrator. I guess it worked though because nobody really bothered me after that.

I don't remember feeling degraded during the sixth grade bullying experience, only really annoyed. I was really nonconfrontational back then so that's how it was allowed to continue for as long as it did. It especially didn't help that what they were saying about us wasn't true at all. Courtney and I are (or were, at the time) straight as boards (she might be closer to bi now but chooses to act hetero because of her religion, whereas I identify as asexual but heteroromantic now).

It's one thing to be bullied for what you are. It's another to be bullied for something you're not. I'm not saying one is worse than the other, just that they're different.

Interestingly, Heather was in my eleventh grade English class. Every few weeks my teacher made us switch seats/tables and so I ended up at one point sitting next to her at a roundtable full of druggies/rebels (they passed around a 2-liter bottle of Coke and rum on a near-daily basis). The day we switched and I was next to her, I was nonchalantly like, "Oh hey, you bullied me in the sixth grade." And she was like, "Oh really? Uh, sorry."

And those are my experiences with being bullied.