This is the sequel blog to The Target: Diary of a Bullied Kid.
When I was fourteen, I hit rock bottom. The bullying left its mark. Having had so much of who I was criticized and mocked, my self esteem was agonizingly low. I rarely raised my gaze from the floor. I was too embarrassed and flustered by being noticed that I barely spoke.
The bullying ground me down so much that I woke up one day and realised that I'd folded myself down into nothingness. I barely had a personality. If asked to describe myself, I would have struggled to say anything other than 'kind'. I was so nondescript - apart from my unusual name - I was like a ghost. Too insecure to share my likes, hobbies and creative pursuits, I could rarely think of anything to talk about. Looking back, I can imagine people wondering what on earth to make of me - the deliberately non-descript soul. Existence was a painful exercise in avoiding being made fun of, never feeling truly safe.
What changed? Well, the simple, truthful answer is Neopets. The happy little website where you could play games, explore a fictional world and make friends. The website was my first introduction to internet forums and a new way to socialize without people seeing my face or hearing my voice.
Feeling implicitly more secure, I very quickly began to make friends. We were a bunch of weird misfits but our fun exchanges (initially asynchronous requiring endless page refreshes!) built my confidence. As I focused on making my faceless friends laugh and helped them with their woes, my anxiety faded away. For the first time in my teen years, I felt comfortable and enjoyed social interaction. It was a revelation. I'd always assumed I wasn't meant to have friends - that there was something wrong with me, and yet here I was! I was stripped of everything physical, with just my words and an avatar to signal my personality but that didn't matter. I was still making wonderful connections.
Small thing though this may sound, it was life-changing for me. To know I was cared about and wanted made me realise - hey! Maybe I could have friends in real life. I just needed to figure out how to channel the 'Me' I was online at school.
Gripped by this idea, I went on a journey of mental self-discovery. Using my own form of CBT (a type of therapy I later realized was a real Thing professionals had thought of), I began to give myself mental pep talks. I figured out what I was going to do to fend off the bullies. I was going to channel my sense of humor to find witty responses to anyone who tried to mock me, just as I'd seen the more confident kids do. Every insult or laugh at my expense would still hurt but I could deflect, perhaps even befriend the bullies.
I still remember the pain of the early days - before I'd developed the thick skin required. All day, I was essentially having to spend all my time talking kindly to myself, celebrating my wins and rationalizing my less-than-successful moments. However, things drastically shifted the first time I dared to speak back to a bully. One particular girl tended to give out the exercise books at school, saying each person's name as she did so. Reliably, every time she got to me, changed my last name to an insult triggering a predictable ripple of laughter through the class. So one day, I waited for her and when the jibe came, I fixed her gaze in mine, gave her smile and did the same thing back. The class was so shocked - teacher included - that the room surged with laughter. That one, simple (albeit immature) act was a turning point - suddenly, I wasn't the weird mute kid, I was the cool and smart kid who didn't take crap. News of my sudden change in social reputation spread like wildfire and it quickly became deemed 'uncool' to insult me.
"I didn't think I'd like you but you're so funny!" (Never quite knew why but heck, I'll take it).
"You've really come out of your shell! You're such a rebel!"
"You're a legend!" (Or in chav lingo a 'ledge')
They were all common compliments I started to get. I prided myself on being the classmate you could have a good banter with. And on those few occasional times a bully did try to mess with me, I often had others standing up for me.
I can't say it was easy. Having to summon the energy to be bright and funny everyday despite my seriously low self esteem was exhausting. Any time I failed to live up to my new persona was a knock to my confidence and reputation. However, while social anxiety knawed at me, in time I found myself growing in confidence and happy in my own skin.
I found friends too. Previously without a bunch of friends to call my own, I found entire groups now ready and willing to call me a friend. The first time someone asked me to hang out with them I nearly passed out but it was an amazing moment that still makes me smile. I gained even more friends on MSN/Windows Instant Messenger (I know, showing my age here). My reputation as someone you could safely confide in grew and soon I had a circle of people around me. I even got the label of 'popular', if you can believe it! (And I found out how meaningless a label it actually is in most cases - popularity is what others perceive you to be)
Now, I will say that the ribbing and mocking never entirely went away. Such was the nature of my all-girls school - gentle and not-so-gentle insults were kind of the standard form of communication. However, the intensity and frequency was low enough that I even began to enjoy going to school! In fact, I look back on my prefect days especially fondly as a wonderful couple of years. The hilarity that was my cohort of "the worst prefects we've ever had" deserves its own blog.
I only recognised how total my transformation was at the end of my school days. In lieu of proper yearbooks (which the school just didn't do!), my classmates and I brought in blank notebooks so we could write goodbye messages to one another. I still have mine somewhere and boy, it is filled to the brim of genuinely tear-jerking kindness. In particular, my form tutor wrote about how remarkable I had been, going from shy and mute to a confident classmate with a sense of humor.
"You're like a phoenix!"
Honestly, those school years shaped who I am forever. My social anxiety has never completely left - I still struggle not to base my worth on the opinions of strangers (a habit I am working hard to break!). However, knowing that I went from the most insecure, darkest places mentally to one of real joy has never left. It made me realise that - even if some days suck - you can claw yourself out of the lowest of lows. No matter what, there are always glimmers of joy to be found. It's a realization that has got me through many tough times and gave me the confidence to pursue a high pressure client-facing career in communications - something that I'd never dreamed I'd be bold enough to do as a teen.
So, dear reader, remember that just as the world can change for the worst, it can also change for the better.
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