I hadn’t always been the big one. I was skinny until I entered third grade. When I was born though I had been diagnosed with epilepsy. Epilepsy is a term that they use for a thing called “seizures”. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at 8 years old and I was also diagnosed with meningitis, which is a bacterial infection. I stayed in the hospital for eight days and then I was released. I was a pretty energetic baby. My parents and sister once went to Disney World when we went down to Florida once to see my Grandma and Grandpa and they left me with them and I was driving them nuts. I would climb in and out of the stroller continuously. I had taken medication for the seizures from the time I got them up until I was 13 years old. During part of that time I got switched to a different medication and they side that some of the side effects could be weight gain and boy did it show. I was about 90 pounds in third grade and by the time I got to fourth grade I was about 130 pounds. I became nervous and scared to speak to people. I didn’t talk to any females and I used to talk to them all the time. I used to be called names a lot. It really hurt and especially with being in fourth grade. Middle school wasn’t that much better. I did meet one of my best friends in middle school though. I still talk to him today too. It has been 9 years since we first met in sixth grade English. By the time I got to high school it was just a total wreck. I had gone to public school in elementary school and then I went to a public school because I followed one of my friends there. I went back to public school for high school and I knew people but they had changed a lot. They didn’t seem like the same people and I didn’t like it. I had some people follow me to high school but some of them I didn’t talk to very much if at all. So I had to make new friends and that is never easy. I went through bullying a lot in high school as well. One time I felt so lost while in highs school that I though about suicide. With my dog also dying while I was in 11th grade it didn’t help much. It never got better in high school. People were still the cruel and mean people that you didn’t want to talk too. I was on the verge of taking my own life because of other people because I thought that my weight was holding me back from meeting new people and it was. It was also the bullying that was holding me back as well. My whole point of writing this story is those of you who are dealing with bullying and they don’t stop, tell a teacher or go straight to the principal. If they don’t do anything about it go to the police. The point is you need to tell someone. I have had a huge burden fall off of my shoulders because I graduated from the high school and I no longer have to deal with those people but I also stopped letting it get to me. Words are exactly that, they are words. They cannot physically hurt you. They can only hurt you mentally if you let them so don’t. There are a lot of people out there that are dealing with the same thing that you or someone else may be going through so don’t let it get to you. Suicide is never the way either. You are stronger than that. You can get through it I know you can. I did and I am not 65 pounds lighter than I was in high school. The bullies were the ones that lit the fire to get me going to lose the weight. Getting involved in a sport or club that you enjoy to get your mind off of what goes on during the school day. Everything will turn out to be better in the near future it just takes time.