By Lilly Nick
I had never been “The Popular Kid” at school. In fact, I was quite the opposite. Shy, reserved, introverted, and few friends. It was a couple of months after I started high school when things got really bad though. My old primary friends had all split up and gone to different secondary schools, meaning I was all alone. I found people to “hang out with” during break times but, none that, I think, would ever actually regard me as their friend.
The others began to pick up on this. First, it began with a few insults and some pretty rumours. My name was Khadijah, but most people just called me “idiot” or “moron”. In fact, some days it felt as if nobody had even known my name at all. Skip a few weeks, and things began to escalate. People would follow me around and tell me what a horrible person I was. Threats were made against my family. Some people had even made racist remarks against my headscarf. Latisha and Tyler in particular were the worst though. They`d constantly talk about me, say horrible things about me, just hoping I would overhear them.
Finally, one day, Latisha approached me and gave me my daily reminder of what a terrible excuse for a human being I was (which was nothing out of the ordinary by now). Only this time, she started getting progressively more violent. The “conversation” was brief and eventually, it ended up in a fight, or rather, her fighting me.
To make matters worse, Tyler had recorded the entire thing and posted it all over social media. I felt ashamed. So, “is there a happy ending to this story?” you may ask. “Did anything good come of it afterwards?”. Well In a way, yes. Once the video was uploaded, I of course got many hateful and negative messages, but surprisingly, I also received many incredibly kind and supportive messages.
Latisha was expelled from the school and Tyler was excluded for 5 days. Tyler, along with many others who had taken part in insulting or spreading rumours about me, had given me a sincere apology for what they did. For the most part, all of the name calling had just stopped.
For anyone who is being bullied right now – don`t give up! There is a light at the end of the tunnel! It gets better.