Day One

Dear Diary,

                Today is day one of my journey. I am afraid. There are so many things I have to change, and I am terrified I may fail. I have struggled most of my life with my weight. As a kid, I was bullied. And I suppose if I am going to let it go, I should put it all out there, starting from the beginning. So I will go back to the first time I remember being bullied.

                I was in third grade. I remember being at the water fountain. I had a crush on a boy who was pretty popular. When his cousin found out I liked him, she began making fun of me. And when her friends heard her making fun of me, they joined in. They would tell me that I wasn’t good enough. They called me fat. I had nowhere to run. They were in my class with me, at lunch with me, and at recess. As a young kid, I tried to just run away from them, and sometimes they left me alone. But someone said something every single day. I hated school. I wanted to stay home. Avoid the kids if I could. But I had to go to school. When the boy found out I liked him, he joined right in on the bullying. He and his friends often mockingly fought over me. I knew they were doing it to be mean. But no matter what I did, they wouldn’t leave me alone. To make matter worse...both the girl and the boy who were at the forefront of the bullying had older siblings, so the older kids chimed in too.

                By the time I was in sixth grade, things had only gotten worse. As kids get older, they learn new things. In this case, they learned a harsh new vocabulary. Fat wasn’t enough. It was heifer, sow, or another vulgar name. By this time, I had also begun to develop acne, had braces, and glasses. I was a walking target. Pizza face, four eyes, brace face…constant insults. Of course, I was just trying to focus on school and get by. I didn’t want any attention. I dreaded recess, and lunch was impossible. They made noises as we walked towards the lunchroom. It made me not want to eat in front of anyone. I did have a very small group of friends. Well, that’s what I called them anyway. But most of them turned their backs on me when the bullying got really bad. They chose to ignore me and in some cases participate in the bullying in order to keep themselves looking ‘cool’ to the popular kids.

                Even though I was bullied, I was a cheerleader during elementary. Kindergarten through sixth grade. And I loved it. Yelling and jumping and dancing. I could have done it forever. But the more I was bullied, the more I felt like I needed to hide. At my school, all little girls who wanted to participate in cheer were automatically on the team. We didn’t have to try out. Unfortunately, the popular kids were then always around me. My breaking point in sixth grade was when a group of the popular girls were in the girls’ bathroom. I had walked in to use the restroom and they stopped me. They began asking me if I was bi. As a sixth grade girl, I had no idea what that was. They were blocking my way to the stalls and I felt trapped. They began telling me they were bi and that it was okay if I was too, they said they wouldn’t tell. All I wanted was to use the restroom, so finally I said yes. Looking back, I see how naïve I was. They all laughed and walked out together, finally letting me use the restroom. When I went back out to the playground, everyone I walked close to laughed and moved away. At first I just assumed it was the normal stuff. But as the day went on, I noticed that literally everyone in the fifth and sixth grade was walking on the opposite side of the sidewalk as me. I felt like I had been diagnosed with a disease and hadn’t been informed yet.

                One girl, who is my best friend, stayed by me. Out of everyone, including two of my cousins who were my age and went to school with me, she was the only one. She told me what happened. She said that when the girls came out of the bathroom, they began telling others that I had told them I was bi. It was her who told me what it meant. I felt so stupid. They had tricked me into saying what they wanted me to, and then turned it against me. They conveniently left off the part about them blocking my way and telling me they were bi. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I told my best friend what had happened, and she believed me. But we both knew no one else would. She even began to be bullied just for talking to me. I hated that she was essentially being punished for being a good friend. Skipping forward to my sixth grade homecoming dance, the football boys were still bullying me, but the girls had changed. Some of them even defended me.

                But none of that compared to what junior high and high school had in store. The kids in my grade didn’t mess with me half as much. It was the older kids I had to be worried about. Since I went to a smaller school, junior high and high school students were often in the same hallways and sometimes even had a class together. They may have said the same names, but there were significantly more of them. So I was completely surrounded by bullies. I had given up cheer in the hopes that I would blend into the background and not have to deal with as much bullying. But that isn’t what happened. No matter how hard I tried to keep myself out of the spotlight, they always found me. I remember accidentally bumping into a girl in the hallway on my way to class. The bell had just rung so all the students were trying to push their way to their next class or locker. Someone bumped into me, causing me to bump into her. When I apologized, she responded with ‘you better be fat ass’. The surrounding kids began laughing. I don’t know what her problem was, but I didn’t deserve that.

                My school years for the majority were miserable. I walked the halls with my head down. Straight from class to class, avoiding my locker if at all possible. And if you are wondering what happened between me and my best friend…well we got into a pretty big fight in the seventh or eighth grade, I don’t remember exactly which. We quit talking after that. We just weren’t as close as we once were. I missed her, but I also knew that she wasn’t the same girl I had been friends with. As time went on, we talked here and there, but nothing like we used to. I did gain a group of three brothers. But by the time I had them, the bullying had died down since I was a junior in high school. Don’t get me wrong, people still bullied me some, but I had changed a bit, and began to be friends with some of the nicer popular kids. This gave me some protection. When I was a senior in high school, I was a cheerleader. I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone keep me from doing what I wanted for my senior year. I also confronted anyone who was talking about me (which was now being done behind my back).

                I regret not cheering more. And looking back, I think I would have been better off if I had cheered every year. But college was really no different than high school. I felt like everyone there was saying something mean about me. I quickly found that I was wrong. I made quite a few friends, even if it was only for the semester. I did have people make jokes at my expense. But not as often as I had thought it would happen. And even today I have people who make fun of me. Most people tell me that it shouldn’t matter what anyone thinks of me now, but I have an extremely difficult time writing it off. When I am in public, I go straight back to junior high. I feel trapped and surrounded by people who are just waiting to attack me.

                To this day, I struggle going out in public. It doesn’t matter who I am with or if I feel like I look pretty. All I hear are the negative things people could say. And I often get in my own head before anyone even looks at me. And when I get fast food, even threw a drive-through, I can’t help but think about how many jokes they may be making inside the restaurant. There is no proof that they are and it may all be in my head. But everything that happened when I was younger has lingered in my brain for so long. I have struggled to get away from it and often times, I do not know what to do.

                But now I have decided that I no longer want to live this way. I want to be proud of who I am. And the only way I can do that is to gain confidence in myself and become one hundred percent me. I let too many people mold me into someone they want me to be. I mimic my different friend groups to match who they want me to be. It has become a second nature for me. And that is not okay. I hate pretending to be someone I am not. So I have to change it. And I know it will be extremely difficult. But I won’t be happy until I am successful. I have a long road ahead of me. But it is time for me to give myself a chance. It is time to put myself first. My true friends will stand beside me. And those who do not need to be in my life, will not support me and will fade away. Though I am afraid of failing, I am extremely excited to start a new journey.

~ Love Raine