My Personal Experience With BULLIES

Due to a recent comment from Kim I decided to write this article about bullying.

I am 20 going on 21 and I still very well remember my school years. It has been a struggle all the way since I left school and even now I realize I haven’t gone over it just yet. I am telling this story not for you people to feel sorry for me but for you to understand, to learn and not let it happen to someone else. Simply because no one in this world really deserves it!
I started going to school at the age of 6 which is a normal age to start school in Lithuania. First year I nearly fitted into my class as I went to the kindergarten with the same kids. One year later everything changed.

It was the teachers who started and the children who followed. I became the IDIOT.

I moved to another school were I didn’t know anyone. I passed the exams to go to school perfectly and there were no doubts about my future. But the problems soon started. Because of the political situation in Lithuania, two years after recovering independence the social gap was becoming bigger and deeper. Soon children from richer families were coming to school with gifts for our teachers. The teachers themselves couldn’t complain. Who wouldn’t enjoy a free box of chocolate or a pair of gold earrings? I was falling into the gap as my mother (whom I lived with) was an engineer. In the political situation of the time no one was planning or building anything and at home we were surviving on beetroot and potatoes. I could just look at those gifts that other children were bringing to the teachers and imagine how they lived at home. Still I tried not to stand out, I never told ANYONE about struggles at home but the teachers knew.
It was the simple things that betrayed me; the shoes that didn’t change for the whole season, the coat, and the tights. Teachers soon started treating us (by that I mean the poor and the rich) differently. Even the marks were different. I remember one day my teacher put all my notebooks in the hall so other children could see how UGLY my handwriting was. I was seven then and I never got over it; I get petrified when I need to write a birthday card!
It was the teachers who started and the children who followed. I became the IDIOT. No matter what happened for next 10 years of my life I will get blamed for everything. I became afraid. Firstly I stopped doing my homework, because my handwriting was UGLY. I stopped going to school because the boys would beat me up after the lessons, or even during the breaks. I never told anyone. I suffered in silence I was afraid of the school. Years went by and I slowly learned to deal with my “problem”. Few times I even told my mother what names children were calling me and she just told me to answer back. I loved learning I still do, but my marks went down along with the amount of time I spent at school. As I’m writing this my hands are shaking and I am holding the tears. I always believed it was MY FAULT.
I thought I did something wrong or stood out. Only now, so many years later the anger is building up against all of them. My breasts started appearing at the age of 12, lucky me I was the first one to have them! The boys soon decided to check out if my breasts were real. They would stick a real needle into one of my breasts during the lesson. It hurt so much. When it would start snowing I would be afraid of coming out of school as the boys would be “waiting” for me to throw the snowballs at. The girls would put snow in my bag, and all my ink-written home works would get washed away. I remember one day while I was changing for the exercises (I was about 13-14 at the time) all the girls stood around me and started telling me horrible things. How nothing is going to come out of me that was going to end up cleaning public toilets because I WAS STUPID! I remember curling up on the floor and crying. Covering my ears and trying to ignore it. Year later I changed school.

No matter what I was pushing myself through, never complaining, never asking for help. The teachers knew, but it was them who started it in the first place, none of them at any time offered help ever.

New school new start new chance to make friends. It lasted a month. One girl from my new class was going to volleyball training with a girl from my old class. Sandra (the girl from the old class) couldn’t wait to tell Jūratė (the girl from the new class) what kind of history I had at my old school. The next day Jūratė came to school and told the whole class what happened before. I was laughed at as before. Now it wasn’t the social status or the teachers that haunted me, it was MY HISTORY.
In the meantime I was trying to recover from an eating disorder and from other mental related issues. At the ages between 11 and 14 I was in hospital 3 times suffering from STREES. I was on one or other form of stress calming medication for at least 4 years. I couldn’t cope with going to school anymore. I wanted to commit suicide and still I passed my exams and was one of the best at school. No matter what I was pushing myself through, never complaining, never asking for help. The teachers knew, but it was them who started it in the first place, none of them at any time offered help ever.
I never got over that experience and no one should ever go through something like this. NO ONE DESERVES THIS. I only relaxed when I left Lithuania. But there is one thing that haunts me until today, I am afraid of going to the university. I know people are grown up there I know it’s childish to believe they would want me harm, but when I look through university programs I always end up back in my starting point: The Open University. This is an only option I see for my self after all those years of being bullied. I am afraid of socializing until today.