How the Bullying Started…

The bullying started when I was 12 and in the sixth grade. I was in private school, and I was overweight. Even worse, my family was having money problems, so we couldn’t afford the clothes that other kids had. At the beginning of the school year, Amy’s mom bought her ten new outfits. I wore what I had.

It was 1986. Childhood bullying was not a widely discussed issue.

As a child I turned to food more and more for comfort, not understanding that overeating would lead to weight gain and create a cycle of bullying. The first instance of bullying was when Amy and her boyfriend, Peter, brought a measuring tape to school. They put it around me to show me how fat I was. I didn’t fight back, I just stood there, not knowing what to do or say. They just laughed.

That Christmas, my Mom bought me a pair of Guess jeans, and I was so happy. I wore them to school the first day after the holidays, and then wore them again the next day. Ashley made a comment about me wearing the same jeans two days in a row and laughed loudly. I told her that I washed them, as we did have a washing machine.

These were just two examples of my day to day. Being 12, I felt bad but didn’t know anything other than this or that I should have spoken up. There was no side hustle for me to make money for jeans, and I had no idea how to lose weight.