Odd Girl Speaks Out Read online

  Soon, I had no friends. I sat alone at lunch. I skipped classes just so I didn't have to face any of those girls and the looks they would give me. My grades dropped dramatically. Finally, I made the decision to transfer to a public school to escape the girls and the torment. I found solace in the fact that I would be going to a new school where I knew no one. It was a chance to start over. I vowed to make a change. I did make a change, but not for the better.

  At my new high school, I became the bully. I talked badly about girls behind their backs. I even made a few girls cry in the hallways before classes. I prided myself on being popular and in charge. No one messed with me because they knew if they did I could turn everyone that "mattered" in the school against them in no time. I was downright cruel.

  For me, it was a defense mechanism. I thought if I pretended to be strong, and if I picked on everyone else that was weaker than me, no one would see the chubby girl that was tortured just years earlier. I felt as long as I was making fun of someone else, they couldn't turn the tables and make fun of me. I had the "better-them-than-me" mentality.

  It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I realized exactly what I was doing. While at the mall one evening I ran into a girl that had gone to my high school my sophomore year. I recognized her face but couldn't quite remember her name. She was tall, thin, and very pretty, so I assumed I must have been friends with her, considering my elitist and shallow attitude.

  I approached her, said hello, and began making small talk. She had a look of sheer terror on her face as I talked to her.

  Finally she spoke up and said, "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

  I confessed that I recognized her face but couldn't remember her name.

  "I'm Monica Taylor," she replied, and I knew why she had a look of disgust and horror on her face.

  I had made Monica's life miserable for an entire year. I had convinced boys to make mooing sounds when she walked past them in the hallway, I laughed as my friends sat back and threw food at her during lunch, I called her everything from pig to fat and laughed as I did it. I was awful to this girl.

  I was absolutely speechless and felt complete remorse when she started to cry and told me that she had had to move away because I had made her life so miserable. She revealed that her weight loss was due to an eating disorder that I directly contributed to by making fun of her weight. Her final words to me were, "You are a nasty person."

  With that she walked away, and I was left with the horrible realization that I had become the very type of person I hated. I was my own worst nightmare.

  From that point on, I vowed to be a different person. I promised myself I would no longer make fun of people, for any reason. I couldn't make people feel as badly as people had made me feel in the past. I didn't have that right.

  Making the change wasn't easy. The habit of ridiculing others was almost second nature to me. I was forced to cut ties with most of my so-called friends. I refused to spend time with people that picked on others. It resulted in a lot of backlash for me, but I came to understand that people like that weren't worth my time or effort in the first place. I knew from experience that their hurtful words stemmed from their own insecurities, not mine.

  I made a real effort to get to know people I wouldn't normally spend time with and found out how wonderful those people were. I made so many real friends. I knew these people wouldn't stab me in the back or talk bad about me when I wasn't around.

  I apologized to everyone I had made fun of. This was the most difficult task for me. It meant I had to admit I was wrong. It meant I had to admit that they were bigger, better people than I was. But I knew it had to be done, not just for my own sanity, but because I knew I would feel so much better if those girls who had tortured me would only apologize.

  My senior year, my year of change, was one of the best of my life. I made so many new friends and found out that you don't have to be mean and hurtful to have good friends. I was more popular being respectful and kind to others than I would have ever been had I stuck with being mean.

  Those experiences have made all the difference in my life, and I am grateful that I was able to see the light and make a change for the better. I hope others can see the errors of their ways and do the same someday.

  —AGE 21

  Friend Trouble

  I have a best friend who has been my friend since fourth grade. I am now in fifth grade. Last year she was the only person, friend-wise, who I could depend on. I did have another best friend, but she had moved away. I really missed her, and I counted on my other best friend to make up for that loss. She did. For a while.

  At the end of fourth grade, we made another friend. She was really nice, or at least, I thought so. We really liked her, so we really bonded with her. We became the best of friends. We played with each other a lot, and I was so happy. I thought that now, with two friends to depend on, I would feel somewhat better about my friend moving away. And I did. For a while. Now here came summer. We said good-bye, and vowed to always be friends.

  Here comes fifth grade. As luck would have it, each of us are in different classes. We don't let that affect our friendship. Oh no. We played with each other and talked to each other every chance we got.

  Anyway, we made up this new game during recess, when we would all go down the slides backward, holding each others' feet. This was fun. For a while. Now, this became a problem. The problem with this game was that it was really fun, but it also hurt the person that went first. And the friend that we had made in fourth grade was a little chubby, so we always made her go first. She didn't mind this. For a while.

  Soon, she began to ask why she always had to go first. We couldn't tell her that we made her go first because she was fat, so we avoided the question.

  Finally, she said that I had to go first. I'm average fat. I couldn't make my other best friend go first, because she's as skinny as a skeleton. So I agreed to go just once. It hurt as much as I thought it would and a little more. I didn't want to do that again.

  When we got back to the top of the slides, she told me that I had to go first again. I refused, and she asked why. I burst out, "Because you're fat and you will crush me!"

  Well, that really offended her, and she went away crying. She is spoiled rotten. She came back after a while, sat down next to me and my best friend, and said she was sorry. I did, too, and I really meant it. Then the next day, she told me I had to go first again. I said no. She told me this every day. My best friend didn't have to go first because she is too skinny.

  Finally, one day, I got so mad at her, I pushed her. She almost fell over a railing onto the ground. She pushed me back and we started kicking and punching each other. She knocked my glasses off, and I kept hitting her face. Finally she pulled away and said, "THAT HURT!" She went down the slide and sat at the bottom crying. I sat down at the top, and started crying, too.

  My other friend didn't take sides. She kept going between me and my fat friend and talking to each of us. My friend came back up and my fat friend came up with her. We both apologized, but we didn't mean it. Ever since then, me and my fat friend both try to hang out with my skinny friend.

  Here is the problem. My skinny friend has divorced parents and is not really dependable. You don't know who's at her house when. My parents wouldn't let me sleep over at her house for this reason, so me and my skinny friend did not have any fat friend free time.

  By this time, my skinny friend didn't like my fat friend either. We tried to drop hints, like ignoring her, but they didn't work. We had bonded too much with her.

  Finally, we decided to do a three-way phone call and tell my fat friend that we didn't want to be friends with her anymore. We did this and immediately hung up. My fat friend's mom called my skinny friend's mom because she didn't know my number, and my skinny friend got in trouble. My fat friend was crying.

  She's just not getting it and I guess we'll have to live with it. We just can't tell her, or she'll tell the teacher. We're thinking what
to do, and until then I guess she still thinks that we're best friends!

  —AGE 11

  My Shameful Story of Victimization, Paranoia, and Redemption

  At first, when I would hear stories of girls ruining other girls' lives in horrible backstabbing stunts, I would deny that it could have ever happened in my school among my fellow students. I went to a private Catholic school where almost everyone had known each other since kindergarten, and where girls made up barely over one-third of the grade.

  But I was wrong; it was one year ago that I realized this horrible fact. Two years ago my very best friend of three years moved halfway across the country. For a while we made it work, but that summer I went to visit her and we realized that we had nothing in common anymore. We haven't spoken since July 2002.

  So I go into seventh grade, into a bunch of girls with well-established and defined groups of friends. What the hell am I supposed to do? This is when I realize how badly other girls had psychologically hurt me throughout my short life. Every time someone that I had approached with friendship talked to someone else I became unrealistically paranoid that my proposal was the conversation topic they found so funny. I literally trusted no one. I was alone and miserable, but what hurt even more than the insane paranoia was that my own mother could look into my eyes and have no idea how much pain I was in.

  So after I spend a couple months loathing my life and my best friend, for leaving, I approached two girls I had known since I was five. Being separate from other people anyway, they accepted my proposal. I had friends, but I still couldn't fully trust them.

  Well, the year goes by and I find myself becoming pretty good friends with multiple members of the "popular" group, which is nice. So I start hanging out with them and am invited to parties. Life, though I continue to be paranoid about everything that is happening, is pretty good.

  Now enters the crazy unexpected plot twist. My best friend from ages three through seven begins to hang around me. I completely ignore the fact that we're in the same classes and jump right to the paranoid conclusion that she is using me to get to the "popular" girls.

  Here is where I go from innocent victim to card-carrying member of the international "evil" girls' society. Now I begin to get upset that she thought she could do that to me. So every time she said anything about anyone in the grade, I made sure they knew what she said, and what she really meant by it. Pretty soon the whole grade started to see how annoying she was as well.

  She never, from what I know, even considered that it was me giving her the bad rap. I think that because she never stopped hanging out with me. When I realized this, of course, my mission went from getting back at her, to getting her to leave me alone. She is not one who can take a hint, so the only way to get her to leave was to tell her to her face. As every girl knows, as soon as you do that you're labeled a bitch to everyone you know and their families.

  So, here I am hating the only person who really wants to hang with me. The group I do hang with is made up of me, a pretty annoying guy, another girl, and her boyfriend, who happens to be one of the two guys I'm in love with (the other one is another of my best guy friends), and neither like me. On top of that, I can't tell anyone in fear that my mother might find out, which would mean I would have to talk to her, which, believe me, is impossible, and this is my life at least until high school. So basically my life would suck even if I weren't paranoid.

  —AGE 14

  Looking for Someone to Dominate

  It started freshman year and I was fourteen. My first few months of school were basically me trying to find some group of girls to fit in. I go to an all-girls' school, which could be either really easy or extremely hard. I tried hanging out with a few girls I'd met but they didn't seem to fit with me. And then later I found the group I fit into perfectly.

  That's when I started looking. Looking for someone to dominate. Because when you're a freshman, everyone else seems to dominate over you but if I could just find someone weaker than myself, I would have that much more power.

  And then I found my target. Jodie. At first I hadn't really noticed her, but then I heard a rumor that she was talking about me behind my back. And that's what set me off.

  She had just enough guts to talk about me but not enough friends to back her up. And so I told all my friends about her and what she may or may not have said. I worked it so my best friend hated her, too, and would try and intimidate her in the halls during school. Even in RE. I would rag on her. That's the perfect place to really intimidate someone. That's where I could get more physical while whispering vicious things to her and fighting over a puck in hockey. I could pin her against the wall or "accidentally" hit her with my hockey stick.

  One day I didn't know where the hockey puck was, and she yelled back at me that she had it. But she did it with sarcasm in her voice and that just didn't fly with me. I yelled back, "Bite me!!" With a few other choice words, of course. And then she cowered and never said anything to me again.

  When walking down the halls I would seek her out in order to bump into her and say something sarcastic yet equally vicious. Or even just a glare in the hallway to make sure she remembered who was dominating who.

  At the end of the day, my best friend Lori would come back and explain to me how she intimidated her in one of her classes. It was great. I felt powerful. And most of all, important.

  My friends knew I did it, but I don't think the teachers did. How could they know without her telling them? And I never got called into the office because I never hurt her—physically that is. They didn't know I was trying to make her life hell.

  Needless to say she doesn't go to my school anymore. And honestly, I was disappointed to hear she wasn't coming back the following year. Even now I look for people who I can dominate. People who I can get others to hate or at least be annoyed with. I know it's a bad habit, but it's a habit that's hard to kick. It's the way girls survive with other girls. By either undermining them or otherwise. Ironically, it seems to be how we get along.

  —AGE 17

  I Just Stood By and Let It Happen

  I can't say I was a bully by the popular definition: I never beat anyone up, I never really verbally went all out on someone with curses and all. But I know I've hurt people. I mastered the silent treatment. I've been a bully through gossip and in doing so I've really damaged someone's reputation.

  I hate to admit it, but I'm the kind of girl where I don't want to sit next to the loser girl or the outcast. If I talked to the loser girl and if I'm seen hanging out with her, my own reputation could be damaged. The people I've managed to become "in" with would think I was uncool.

  I was the bully in a group—a collective bully. I was a bully in the sense that I would hang out with my louder friends when we all confronted someone we didn't like. I was a bully by association. I never really did the verbal confrontation myself. I just stood by and let it happen.

  I remember there was this girl Erica who I was friends with. She wasn't exactly the most popular girl in school. I sot next to her in algebra class, and we learned to crack jokes. I even learned to enjoy sitting with her.

  This girl Mary who I was friends with was cool—tough and popular. She didn't like the fact that I was talking to Erica, so she kept pestering me about my relationship with her. Mary was like, "Erica is a loser and so why do you keep talking to her?"

  One day, I was hanging out with Mary and we walked past Erica's locker. But as we were passing, Mary started questioning Erica. She was like, "Who the hell do you think you are? I saw you checking out my boyfriend Mike!" and she shoved her backward. Erica just swallowed and as much I just wanted to stick up for her, I didn't.

  Everyone was watching. Even Chris, the boy I liked, the most popular guy in school, was not too far away.

  Erica said, "I'm sorry."

  I was just so shocked! She hadn't even done anything wrong and she was apologizing to Mary. I know Mary made up the whole scenario just to put me in a weird position and to let Erica
know her place. I knew it was cruel.

  Looking back, now that I'm more independent, I know I should have stood up for Erica. Screw Mary. Yet I knew I hurt Erica. We never talked again. I was a bully by association. A bully of the masses. I know I'm not like that anymore and considering the fact that I have been bullied by other girls, I don't like really thinking about the fact that I've been on the wrong side. This is actually the first time I'm mentioning it. Maybe I can help someone by telling this story. Maybe I won't. At least I'm being honest.

  —AGE 16

  Harmless Fun

  When I was in fifth grade, I moved to a new school with a lot of my friends. In the first week, I sat down at a random seat and it turned out to be someone else's. This girl that it belonged to said something along the lines of, "That's my seat, get out of it now."

  I said something like, "No, I don't see your name on it."

  Then she said, "Get off or I'll give you one of these." She grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and pulled it so I was forced to get up. I walked away. I never ever forgot that moment, but I never confronted her about it either. So as the year passed, I began to dislike everything she did. I hated her.

  In sixth grade, I hung out with the more "outgoing" group. The girl that "picked on" me in fifth grade was in the other group. None of my friends liked her. It wasn't that she did something horrible to us all. It was just a thing. Anyway, as we got older, my distrust of her and hatred for her grew. Every year, our class got smaller and smaller. We got to know each other more, but I still didn't like her.

  We used to get onto a fake screen name and start talking to her crushes, saying that it was her. We made the guys think that she was a complete freak and stalker. It was fun, and I didn't feel any guilt. I mean, she picked on me first, right? (That's what I thought then.)