A Bully in my Highschool told the entire school I have had 3 abortions

Bullies are the worse, especially when you are a 12year old attending a school where little or no attention is given to Bullying.

When I was in high school, I was one of those students who were not in the cool league nor in the not so cool league. I had friends who were in the cool league as well as friends in the not so cool league so I was somewhere in the middle.

Just like in most schools, My school had the “Mean Girls” — a group of girls who were not so nice. Girls who felt they were better than everyone else in the school. They were 4 in number but one of the girls left the school during the 2nd year of junior high. The leader of the group happened to be my cousin. She and I would usually spend some of our holidays together in the family house. But we were never close as she’d always act like she didn’t know me in school.

By the time we were in our final year of junior high, a new student joined us. The new student was a girl I knew. She lived in my neighbourhood, and she was the big sister of my best friend who attended another school. She had come to join our school because she failed to get promoted to the next class in her former school. Now, this new student was the meanest of them all. She was on the big side physique-wise, so she’d often try to intimidate other students based on that. She’d usually make fun of people’s accents (both students and teachers). she’d curse people out for no reasons whatsoever and occasionally get into fights with some of the smaller sized students. I, on the other hand, was also on the big side so I was never intimidated by her size and besides, I knew she wasn’t as tough as she made people believe. I knew everything about her, because like I said, her younger sister was my best friend (still is by the way). This girl was nothing like her sister, she was an arrogant/mean person who often bullied people just for the fun of it.

When she noticed I wasn’t afraid of her as the others in the class, I became an issue to her. Often times in school she’d abuse me just to embarrass me. We’d be in class and she’d start composing silly songs with my name in them. Songs that implies that I think I am pretty but I’m the ugliest person she’d ever seen. Everyone in the class would laugh out loud and I’d feel so embarrassed. I’d sometimes have to leave the class and when I return, she’d say “the cockroach returns.” and the class would giggle. One time I heard she told people in school that I had gotten an abortion, not once but 3 times. I never bothered to defend myself much because as ignorant as it sounds, I had no idea what the implications of such rumour were. I was still quite naive and had never been with anyone sexually. I was just 12 years old. I did not even know what it meant to be a ‘Virgin’ up until I turned 14. Luckily for me, most people (the students and teachers) in my school were aware of that fact. — they knew I was a decent girl, so no one believed the rumour.

Soon I noticed my cousin — the leader of the “mean girls”, made the Bully part of their group. She became the 4th girl in the group, in replacement of the former girl who transferred to some other school. I noticed they became best of friends, as my cousin would often encourage her to bully me more and would often get a good laugh from it. This continued until the final year of high school when I had had enough of the bullying. One morning, I came to school with a plan. During our first free period for the day, while everyone was in class engaged in their respective activities, I got up and asked for everyone’s attention. When I had gotten it, I began my speech. Just as I was about talking, the bully made a derogatory statement which I can’t recall but I remember ignoring it while I continued with my speech.

I talked about how I understand that bullies are just people hurting within themselves. They find validation from others by being mean to people they feel threatened by. I then walked to her seat, where she was seated and told her, ‘I know you hate yourself’. she replied, “No I hate you”. I said to her again, ‘I know you hate me, but you hate yourself more’. she replied again, this time around standing up like she was about to start a fight. “I said I hate you Belinda” Then I said to her looking her straight in the eyes fearlessly. ‘you know I’m saying the truth but you don’t want the world to know this truth, that is why you keep picking on people. That is why you are the way you are. You are not a bully, you are just pretending to be one to hide the fact that you hate yourself’.’ At this moment she was boiling up with rage but couldn’t say a word. I knew I might be hit in the face any moment now but I couldn’t care less, I continued ‘I am not the problem, you are. How can you hate someone as amazing as you, how can you not see how beautiful and talented you are, how can you not see how kind and caring you are and worse of all, how can you not let the world see how kind you are? Stop pretending to be mean so these mean girls will like you. Like yourself, that’s all that matters.’ After saying this to her, I noticed she was no longer angry as earlier. Now she just stood there, looking some sort of confused. I looked around and noticed the class was silent. I just walked back to my seat and sat down calmly.

I must admit, it was a relieve that I did not get hit in the face because I hated getting into fights. Most of all I felt relieved I said all that I did to her. Even though I did not mean any of the nice things I said to her at the time, because all I wanted to do at that point was to hold her in the face while I took really good punches at her, I am glad I didn’t. I was proud of myself for handling the situation the way I did.

The best part was, I notice my bully never troubled me again after that day. There were even days when she tried being friends but I knew better than to let that happen. I decided to mind myself until we graduated. Now several years later, As a Psychologist, knowing what I know now about the human mind and behavioural patterns, I appreciate the teenage me for choosing to find the good in a mean girl and show it to her.

This takes me to my point. Nothing really changes until you take a stand. And you can’t put out a fire by pouring more fire to it. When you don’t like the way a person treats you, change it. Stand firm and demand what you deserve but do it with love even though you don’t mean it. Fake it till you mean it.