My Life Ruined by Bullying at School

by Taylor
(Michigan UP)

I'm a 28 year old guy now and the bullying I was subjected to from the 9th grade through 12th hangs over me like an illness. I wasn't completely naive to how things are but my total shock was lifelong friends who turned on me. I went from being about as typical as a young guy could be to someone people despised. I was a loyal friend but that wasn't returned to me at all.

Some of my friends started making friends with a new group of people. The new group did not like me. I'd be hanging around them and they'd talk like I wasn't there. They'd plan something purposely excluding me. I was no longer asked to play basketball or volleyball which we played a lot. The last day I ever hung out with them, or attempted to, they talked like I wasn't there. I never tried again. I didn't let that bother me much but gradually it turned real ugly. They started following me around at school harassing me at every turn.

Kids who my parents had known and had taken on trips with us became just God awful to me. I realized one day... or came to terms with the fact I had no friends period. I was hurt, in shock, just heart broken as to the way it worked out. I was embarrassed for my parents to know about it which didn't take long as no one called me. No one came over anymore. I never went anywhere other then school and my part-time job at a pizza joint. I found a new form of loneliness for sure...

One day two of the worst guys just kept pushing me around. Sorry to admit it but I'm not a fighter. They each sucker punched me in front of a large group. Having people your age yelling and screaming for these guys to "kick his as*" F$%( him up". That was worse than being hit. Seeing the kids of my parents friends treating me this way just hurt my soul.

Luckily no one followed me as I walked/ran away... I sat down on some steps and just cried. Puberty was bad enough. Being a skinny pale kid that bloomed late was even worse. I can see every face of every kid that watched what happened and then the one's who stepped around me now as I was nervous wreck. No one came to my defence. No one offered a kind word. Even now I can still taste the saltiness of my blood on my lips.

Talk about feeling less than nothing. My parents were beyond upset when they saw me. My lip cut. My eyes darkened. I sat on the couch and tearfully apologized for being a weakling. A coward. A "loser". Which I was called a lot leading up to it. They wanted to meet with the principal. They wanted to move me to another school. They wanted to me to go and talk to someone. Go talk to someone I asked LOL. It was hard enough to even face another human being much less go ramble on to a stranger to discuss why I'm a coward and why no likes me. I said maybe go talk to all the ones who hurt me.

I was already 17 and only had a my senior year left so I stayed and it was about as bad I knew it would be. I survived the final year. I'm not college material but I work. I blame myself for not getting over all this. The terrible things that happened are still so vivid. I can only wonder do any of these people ever reflect on how they treated me and other people like me?

Do the kids that once called me a friend ever think back about me?
I live alone. My parents moved out of state a couple of years ago and I'm an only child. I have a job at night where I don't have to really see anyone. I shop online. I grocery shop at 6 am and live as a hermit. I don't fit in the world and from my experience the world doesn't want me.

My dreams were like everyone's else's but I gave up. I always thought I'd have a wife and kids. I look at myself in the mirror with disgust. A woman needs a real man and a kid needs a real father. Not a coward whose scared of his own shadow.

I hope people, especially young people, who have a real taste for hurting innocent people will read this and know I'm not alone. There are many whose lives are ruined by cruel acts of others. Maybe think about that before you pick on someone... I wish I could have stood up and ended the bullying but I didn't and that's my fault.

I wish it was different. I wish I was different.