To the Girls in My Science Class,


None of you like me. After all, you all belong to the same clique: a clique I have no interest in joining. We tend to ignore each other. I hear your conversations, but no matter how derogatory, I never interject. Until now.

“I’ve been bullied,” one of you said, a smile on your face as you pointed at a friend, “You said you didn’t like my hair!” All of you laughed, then continued to make jokes about victims of bullying and anti-bullying movements.

I sat there. I didn’t say anything. It’s not like you would listen to me if I did. But there is something I want to tell you all, regardless of whether or not you choose to listen.


You are fortunate: You have never felt the sting of tears as girls insult your looks and family. You have never had to be shadowed by a teacher at recess, to make sure that kids don’t insult you. I am not as lucky.

I was bullied for four years straight, to the point that I contemplated - and several times attempted - suicide constantly. I was called names so often, that I began to actually believe what my peers said about me. I would sit in classes as boys told me to kill myself, and teachers CHOSE not to hear. Yet you sit there and mock the pain that I - and thousands of others - have beared for years.

It is impossible to erase the scars my classmates have left on me. No matter how many people tell me I am worth something, it does nothing to raise the self esteem that was shattered time and time again by people who had nothing better to do than pick on the outcast. To this day I hate my body. I feel like everyone is looking at me, judging me, even though I know that people are too absorbed in their own lives to care about what I look like.



So you go and mock bullying. Go and laugh about suicide. But let me tell you, if you have perfected the art of being numb, put pills in your mouth intending to swallow, and cried yourself to sleep each and every night: you wouldn’t find it so funny.