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For once I’m not being dramatic, and hold my stance that being bullied changed my entire life at the tender age of 10 (I say tender like I’m a piece of chicken…) but that’s when it started at least. We had moved from England to New York and I always got made fun of. For having an accent, for having a mole on the inside of my leg, for “being named after a car”. My list can go on and on. And no I was not named after a car. I was named after my grandmother: Mary Mercedes.
Sadly it didn’t stop in Elementary school and only got worse when I moved up to Jr high. So much so that a girl in the grade above me (let’s call her Vivian for arguments sake) actually apologized to me a few years ago, which I’m sure was part of her 12 step program and not from the sincerity of her heart all these years later.
The truth is that I was taunted in Junior high school. Taunted. I was called every name under the sun including the “C” word. I would leave school in tears because the older girls made it their mission to make my life a living hell.
Cheerleading tryouts are something I vividly remember. The girl before me (we will call her Kim) had impressively mimicked her mother’s routine from 30 years ago. My hidden gem was doing a cartwheel with a round off landing. Something I had learnt in gymnastics from my Russian coach Victor.
We had to wait until Friday for the piece of paper to be taped to the gym door with who had made cut. And there it was. My name printed out and scribbled out with a black marker.
It’s a vivid memory in my head. It’s a memory I have all of these years later. Eventually the bullying got so bad and intolerable that my parents ended up moving just to pull me out of the school district. Once we did I was much happier. I had a boyfriend in the grade above, and became friends with his friends, but it didn’t erase all of the years I had spent being constantly ridiculed. Pivotal years of my life.
I believe this and being called fat in my red and navy stripe swim team swimsuit is what jumpstarted my eating disorder. It was an escape and a way to numb. This was also a living hell, except this time I had control over it. Food was my drug and my way to numb the pain and feelings of inadequacy.
I wish I could say that when I moved and fell in “puppy” love with my high school sweetheart that everything fell into place but it really didn’t. It fell even more out of place. Me wrapped up in an eating disorder, missing school, getting sent to inpatient programs, outpatient programs, out of state programs. Being force fed in residential treatment, ripped away from my family, my boyfriend, and my MacBook (a pivotal piece of the story). I no longer had any control over what I ate, where I was, or even who I spoke to.
My eating disorder soon took the reins of my entire life. It robbed me from sweet sixteens, my high school prom, and even graduation. I missed all of these monumental events because I was too wrapped up in numbing the pain I had felt silently for so many years.
Now as we’re really digging deep I will just mention that the real reason I didn’t go to my senior prom was because that same high school “sweetheart” was secretly going with one of my best friends at the time. The entire grade kept it from me like a hidden secret. I was supposed to turn up and be publicly humiliated. Keep in mind he was a grade older and had graduated, we had a tumultuous relationship and had broken up once he was off to college, but still it hurt. It hurt that my friend betrayed me. That it was my senior prom and he asked her, or she asked him. It all hurt like hell.
Given my sisters a senior in high school, I wrote a little unpublished, free-verse poem called if I could be 17 again. I thought it would never see the light of day and sit silently in my notes app (much like the many other thoughts in my head) but for the sake of typing out my life trauma in 800 words on a Monday evening, thought I would leave it as an ending to this post.
If I could be 17 again
I’d tell her to stop worrying about her weight
To stop purging to feel empty physically and mentally
To enjoy her beauty and her body
I’d tell her heartbreak doesn’t last forever but the memory of him will
I’d tell her to go to her senior prom and wear her dream dress
I’d remind her that she’s not to much she just hasn’t found the right person
I’d tell her to never take her health for granted and confirm that stress can eat you up alive
Lastly I’d tell reassure her that everything will be ok.
Thank you for reading for more of my blog posts you can. click here. For videos check out my Youtube. Have you ever been bullied and do you think it affected your life or the way you look at life and childhood trauma in any way?
