I wrote this bit below in 2009, it goes with another post, I cut this part out to repost here.
When I watched the #RIPAmandaTodd YouTube video yesterday my heart broke for her and her family and for everyone that this has and will affect and like so many others I sat and cried. The worst was watching her cards go by describing some of the things that she had been through. I was suddenly thrown back to some of the more violent bullying I had been a victim of and found the similarities were hitting a little too close to home.
My first attempt at suicide did not come until I was 16, the story below is only a fraction of what I dealt with. The bullying I suffered has left me scarred for life, it hasn’t even been five years since my last suicide attempt, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do, I just know that I’d give anything for these kids to not have to go through this shit.
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When I was in middle school, grade eight, I made out with a boy over the weekend, he told me things were over between he and his girlfriend, we were already friends because we skied together, so whatever right, i went on a date with him, it was fucking middle school. When I arrived at school on Monday, with my place having already been solidified as as loser in elementary school [everywhere but on the track and the ski hill] I was shocked even at that age to find he had told her, wasn’t it over? Why would he do that?
I was, as she had bluntly put it: dead.
The end of the school day came and nothing happened. Had I relaxed? Of course not, attending school from grade six till the day I graduated was like being thrown into a different shark tank in a different country every god damned day. I never had a fucking clue what those fuckers had in store for me. The bullying I experienced in school was at such an intense level I have just started to stand up straight in the last couple of years.
A girl I had been friends with back before THE dreaded rumour, that never, not for one day, in Smithers or Terrace [only two.five hours apart] was I ever to live down, came up to my locker to talk to me. I don’t remember exactly how she got me outside, I remember she was nice to me but I wanted any positive attention I could get, so I trusted her. As we walked down the hall towards the backstairs to the door leading to the buses, a direction I did need to walk in anyway, I didn’t think anything of it until we hit the stairs.
The buses were to the left but she made me turn right and I knew instantly I was in trouble, the smokers, the bad kids, the bullies hung out round those parts and there she stood the girl who was supposed to be the ex-girlfriend. I remember she slammed me against the cement wall, she started punching my face and as I lifted my hands to defend my face she punched anywhere she could land one and was kicking me too, whilst screaming a bunch of venom at me, I did not try to fight back. Even back then with a really sore face I remember thinking why the fuck is she not mad at him? I don’t remember how I got away from her.
I remember heading back into the school, sliding down the wall, putting my head in my lap and balling. I heard the door open and froze. Outside, she hadn’t just beaten me up once, she came at me multiple times while I was trying to get away from her and the many onlookers. The girl who had lured me there in the first place must have had a change of heart, it was her who walked through the door picked me up and walked me to the principles’ office where, let’s face it, I spent a lot of time – not because I got in trouble but because I had nowhere else where I felt safe to go except the sick room, but this time the school had to call my parents.
The last time, I was off school property when I got beat up so I was able to hide it from my dad, fat lip and all for a couple of days. There was no hiding this and I was beyond horrified. Sometimes I’m really not sure how I made it to sixteen before making a valiant attempt to knock myself off. My dad had to come get me, I was a mess, crying, in pain, scared and bruising and it was because I made out with some stupid boy and my dad would know that. My being a huge loser must have been so embarrassing for my parents. Smithers is really fucking small, man. But worse than that, again, I had been a victim of violence that could by a sick and twisted individual be blamed on me. She did, the girl who shit kicked me on school property, thankfully she got suspended.
