Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A story of change

When I was 15, I was pretty heavily bullied at school.
To begin with, I left the first school soon after my 15th birthday. I went to a new school, and enjoyed myself for the first few weeks. I was the new kid. No one wanted to hurt me, they wanted to see what I was like.
As it turned out, they saw I was different. I excelled in classes, and was easily one of the top students.
Indeed, in an early music class, I found myself explaining something to the teacher.
Needless to say, for those of you who read this and have been bullied, this attracted a lot of jealousy. I was quickly hated by most of the year, which, due to my horrible anxiety, caused me to act out and be hated further.
It came to a head a few weeks before the end of fourth term. I was threatened by a fellow student that I was going to be gang bashed.
My response was to not go to the town that my school was in. I avoided it up until I was 17 and a little smarter.
Of course my genius plan only lasted the length of the holidays. Eventually I had to go back to school.

My first day back was horrible. through the course of the two and a half months I'd had off, I'd had my left ear pierced and stretched. The teachers hated this, but I seemed to be the only one in trouble for it. I had to take it out, but, for those of you who've never smelt a stretcher before, the smell surrounded my body and made me stink all day. The boy who threatened me hadn't forgotten and jumped at me the first chance he got. Luckily there was no physicality.

That night, my parents noticed something was wrong and got the story out of me. They decided I wouldn't go for the next week, which turned into fortnight, which turned into month, which turned into term until eventually the school called me in during holidays. I explained and they did little to stop it. I returned briefly for second term, mainly for music classes and camp. By the end of my run at the school, I had a 9 day attendance, three of which were camp. I ended up expelled from that school for poor attendance.

I didn't have a school for the remainder of that term. After the holidays, I enrolled in distance education. To anyone who's experienced distance, they'll know that it's horrible. You have no contact with the outside world, no socializing what so ever. Just sitting at home every day, supposedly doing work. Most people who take this rout know that if you have any mental problem, the system exploits it. My depression made work nearly impossible and it got to mid semester and I had handed in no work what so ever. I went in to the head quarters of the school to discuss this and they quickly told me to find a way to do it.

Needless to say, this didn't work. I ended up writing myself off. I didn't think I'd ever be anything or do anything. All I was was a sad over weight 16 year old with a guitar and a negative self image. I almost killed myself daily. Suicide was almost always in my mind some where.

Then something amazing happened. I got a girlfriend late year. She saved me. I enrolled in a tafe course so I could get back into schooling, doing VCAL as it was the only open course since I hadn't completed year 10. As it turns out, the girl was cheating on my for two thirds of the relationship and still tries to make my life hell. People are just like that I guess.

Since I turned my life around, I have lost weight, become fitter and my mental problems are clearing up. My face got less pimply, my smile came back and I generally felt better.
That was, until I met the other people. But that is a different story.
I'm Valentine's Shadow.
This is my story.

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