“Middle school is the hardest time as a teenager.”

I’ve heard it from several adults I look up to- my parents, my teachers, and many others. I’m sure you’ve heard it too. They say it’s a time when kids aren’t yet a fully matured member of society, a time when kids are so insecure they take pleasure in the sport of humiliating others; “Because,” so many adults say, “it makes them feel better about themselves .” Victims of bullying, my heart goes out to you- and, maybe even more, I pour my heart into the souls of bullies, for they are a people who know not the feeling of being loved; rather, they are traumatized, insecure, desperate creatures with a lack of love to give themselves.

I was told this burning quote several times in my last year of elementary; I was a nervous 11-year-old entering an unknown void of what seemed like endless piles of homework and cruel, vicious 8th graders.

I kept telling myself, though, that these warnings of bullies and losing friends were not meant for me; I assured my mind that they were for the unwilling creatures whose knuckles had turned white holding onto childhood musings, who still believed this world was only existing for themselves. I had a solid foundation of friends that stood by me- and would stay standing no matter the situation (or so I thought).

“Middle school is the hardest time as a teenager.”

When I was younger, my thoughts of what middle school was like were very rigid.

Get into choir and drama.
Find old friends and hang out with them.
Get really pretty from puberty.
Get straight A’s.
Graduate and move on to high school.
In my hardest moments these days- hunching over my homework late at night, or crying because of the bullies at school- I wish; I wish, so very hard, that I could speak to my 2011 self, the Emily who had no idea that these three years could ever seem so long and outstretched- and tell her one thing:

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not.”

I have been pushed around quite often in these three years. My insecurities, which I once thought were so small, so miniscule, I often didn’t notice them, have been violently jerked out of my body, thrust upon society to judge these demons, to taunt them.

This post will tell you story of these insecurities, and the consequences of innocence.

…

Early in my second year of middle school, my friends decided, for a reason I still do not know, to “cut me off.”

It didn’t happen immediately- rather, it happened gradually- one after another, all but one left my side. The incident I remember most is when I sulked out to lunch on a Wednesday, my head down, needing a hug from one of my friends. I went up to one of my best friends, Evelyn*.

“Hey, Evelyn.”

“Oh, hi…” she said, slightly stepping away from me.

“I need a hug.”

As soon as I leaned against her, Evelyn completely moved away from me. There was a physical stumble, but deep down, I a part of me stumbled, too. You know that gross, warm feeling you get deep down in your gut when you know something isn’t right? That’s what lingered inside of me for the rest of the day.

Things like this carried on for about a month- my friends having sleepovers without me, ignoring me in the halls- until I actually found out who the leader of the pack was. Her name was Ann*. We hung out together at lunch before everything had started to happen, but we weren’t great friends. Everybody knew there was a history of Emily and Ann not getting along.

Confused, I sat back for a couple days and analyzed everything I’d ever said to her that might cause some dramatic amount of anger to be sparked between us, but I came up empty handed. I was scared and confused. Why would Ann want to do this to me?

Soon, the situation became much worse than being excluded. Ann spread rumors about me, convincing people to believe the most outrageous things- “So-and-so was being really nice to Emily, when all of a sudden, Emily started being an outright b****!” My closest friends knew early on those rumors weren’t true, but it took a while for some kids to believe me. Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple students still half-believe them.

I don’t know what Ann hated me for, but it must have been quite something- the next part of her little plan was to find people to say things like “Hey, so, are you and Ann okay?” or “God, I hate Ann,” just to get me to talk about her (which I didn’t, not after the one time a nice conversation with my friend blew up in my face), so they could go and tell miss Ann about what I said.

This one hurt me the most, because I could never have a conversation with a kid that wasn’t one of my two best friends. Even after the drama was settled, I still found it hard to talk to my peers for a couple of weeks, because I was so scared they would run back to Ann and tell her about anything stupid I said, and her and Evelyn and all of my old “friends” would laugh.

Like I’ve mentioned many times before- I never really found out why Ann decided to practically run a campaign against me. However, I did receive quite a few loose explanations, all hear-say. The most-believed one is that I was crushing on Ann, and I started getting really weird, and she was only protecting herself.

As soon as my new squad and I heard about this, the least we could do was have a good laugh at the pathetic excuse.

That’s not quite how it went down with the people who didn’t truly know me. After about three people heard about the “real reason”, it spread like wildfire, and the only questions people were asking me for a week were about my sexuality.

A very mean group chat and some horrible incidents later, my mother and I were forced to get the assistant principal of discipline involved. (NOTE: we tried to solve the problem without taking this drastic measure by emailing Ann’s mom ((who didn’t answer)), but nothing seemed to be helping.)

We printed out screenshots of the group chat, identified witnesses- everything we could do to show that Ann and her group of friends were clearly bullying me. We wanted it to stop. Now.

First, my mom made an appointment with Ms. Lin*, just the two of them, and went in to tell the AP everything that had happened. She brought the screenshots with her, and a pad of notes she had been taking every day since the drama had begun to take a sinister turn.

After that, the same day, Ms. Lin called Ann and me in. We talked about what had been going on, and I heard the other side of the story.

I really wish I had been recording this “story”, because that comedy would sell better than Will Ferrell.

Ms. Lin brought people into the office who we said could back up our stories. Ann’s witness sided with my story, and if that doesn’t prove that Ann was lying, I don’t know what does.

After we were told that “nobody was going to get in trouble”, I was forced to sign some kind of makeshift “contract” saying we wouldn’t talk about each other, or be mean to each other.

Ms. Lin, I’m sorry if you’re reading this, but are you kidding me?

The last time I checked, we weren’t in kindergarten.

I’ll admit, I did do some wrongs- but I wouldn’t mind getting in trouble for them if it meant that Ann would get in trouble for what she’d done to me in the past months. What frustrates me the most about this is that there was no real, hard discipline inflicted that would really drill into her head not to do something in the future.

We pretended to make up in front of Ms. Lin, but she still does those little things to get on my nerves, like talking to my friend who’s sitting right next to me, and doesn’t make eye contact with me whatsoever. After all of my friends but one had left, I reunited with an old friend, who stood by me and supported me. I met some new friends, two of them. Those girls are my best friends today, and we love each other more than anything. They have helped me get through these tough times, and for that, I thank them.

I’d like to think of those two as my new beginning, if that’s all right with you.

If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from last year, it’s been that drama- gossiping, spreading rumors, ditching friends- isn’t worth it. Girls my age, wherever you are, it’s not worth it. Bullying is disgusting, and there is no good that can come out of it.

[i] All names have been changed to protect the privacy of each individual.