She enters (invades) my space and immediately I know that she’s there. It’s as if someone whispered a warning in my ear, but they didn’t.
My body tenses up when she walks into the room. She doesn’t know that, of course. But I know she hasn’t forgotten what she did.
Sixth grade was the first time I’d say that I ever got bullied. A boy in kindergarten was mean-spirited, but he left me alone after about two times. Plus, the kid was in kindergarten. I hate this cliché, but it’s probably true that he didn’t know any better.
By the time sixth grade comes, kids should know better than to bully others. And in the past, I’ve gotten stares and comments. I’ve heard some things that I should have never had to hear about my legs. But nothing was said or done repeatedly by the same person.
That changed in sixth-grade PE. PE was a nightmare for me. I learned that we had to change clothes in the locker room. As a shy and modest person, that made me extremely nervous. Also, I can’t get dressed standing up because of my lack of balance. At first, it was okay because I sat on my spot on the bench to change clothes.
Then one day, a girl put her backpack on the other side of the bench. Now, she needed more room (according to her) because her backpack took up more space. For several days, she complained that I took up too much space, so I tried to curl my legs in and cooperate. I couldn’t get dressed that way, though, so I decided to explain to her that I needed the bench for balance purposes.
I thought that would be the end of the conflict. It wasn’t. She said, “Okay, but can you take up less room?” with a mean smirk on her face. I tried; I really did. I really didn’t want to make an enemy, especially not in PE. I’m vulnerable in PE class. People see me at my weakest.
I was trying to keep the peace while still being able to sit on the bench, but one day I felt her shove me. I tried to plant my feet firmly on the ground, but it’s really easy for people to push me. Before I knew it, I was on the dirty locker room floor.
I was upset, but I second-guessed that she really shoved me. Maybe I just fell off. Also, I didn’t have any proof.
Maybe I didn’t have any proof, but I stopped doubting myself after a few days as she continued to subtly knock me off the bench. It was taking me longer and longer to get dressed because I had to secure a position on a stupid bench that no one else even really needed. She got dressed just fine standing up.
“Please!” I said one day, embarrassingly near tears. “I need to sit here! I can’t get dressed standing up like you can, I’m sorry.”
The subtle shoving didn’t stop. People noticed I tended to end up on the floor pretty much every class period, but they attributed it to me being clumsy (which, at first, was what I thought too).
The bullying got worse when we were put on the same volleyball team in PE class. She signaled for everyone on the team not to pass to me, and I overheard her telling another girl that I was useless at volleyball. I admit, I wasn’t and still am not good at volleyball, but the comment was hurtful.
After a couple of days in the volleyball unit, I told my adaptive PE teacher that I was being bullied, but because he wasn’t my “official” PE teacher, there wasn’t much he could do.
Finally, I asked my PE teacher for a different spot in the locker room. When she asked why, I told her that I was being bullied. Prior to the conversation, I had tried to establish a good student-teacher relationship with my PE teacher for several reasons: PE teachers in the past had given me an F because of what I couldn’t do and I am most vulnerable in PE. But there was a glass wall in the locker room, and my PE teacher said that she hadn’t seen anything through her glass wall. She told me that I could get dressed in her office, which I did not want to do at all. It was punishing the victim for something I had no control over. That would have embarrassed me so much. Pretty much immediately, I regretted reporting that I was bullied because I lost all credibility with my PE teacher. On the rare occasion that my adaptive PE teacher wasn’t there, I was on my own. It was quite obvious that my PE teacher strongly disliked me.
Worse, the bullying intensified. Whenever I took my shoes off to get dressed, she would step on my bare feet with her shoes on. In choir (which unfortunately we took together) she would kick the back of my chair incessantly. I asked my choir director to change seats, and luckily he was understanding. In the locker room, I told my friends what was happening and how helpless I felt, and my friend let me take her spot on the bench so I didn’t get shoved off anymore.
I tried to understand why she was bullying me. Maybe something really difficult was going on in her home life, I don’t know. And I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her at all; I just felt that I needed to understand why. Why did she shove me off when she knew I needed help? Why did she hurt me so badly? The only conclusion I came to was that she hated me because I had a disability. That thought deeply saddened me. The thought that someone could hate me because of a condition I was born with was devastating. Also, it kind of made me sad for her. There are so many awesome people with disabilities, and if your worldview is limited enough to hate all of those people…. I don’t even know what to say.
I was so scared throughout my sixth-grade year that I was miserable. She would glare at me fiercely and I couldn’t look her in the eye. I couldn’t believe that I was so scared of a person and she reduced me to a mess. My parents say that no one can make you feel a certain way, but in my opinion she made me feel helpless. I never meant to give her so much power. I want that power back.
The summer before seventh grade, I was at a glasses store with my mom getting my glasses fixed. Then she walked in, and my hackles rose. I literally hid behind my mom and barely said a word until she left. I was scared—of a person! It was crazy. I felt so cowardly. As I peeked at her face, all those helpless, angry emotions came flooding back. She shoved me and she said awful things about me and she kicked and she stepped on my feet and I could do nothing. I was too physically helpless to do anything.
Now it’s three years later. Unfortunately, she is in my health-science class, and we were assigned seats next to each other. Luckily, I know the subject very well (ironically, because of my health struggles), so when she was snarky with me I was confident enough in myself not to break down. I still resent having to sit next to her. It’s really hard for a past that you wish you could forget to glare you in the face every day.
A few weeks ago, she came into the high-school theater—my safe space—and I could hardly look at her without feeling insecure. I have such amazing, accepting friends in theatre who were with me, and all it took was her presence for me to become an insecure blob of a person.
I’d like to say I have forgiven her by now, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. Thinking of what she did is one of the only things that makes me angry. I’m not an angry person, and I wish I could hide that dark side of myself who is as angry and scared as I was in sixth grade. I don’t want to be that person. I want to forgive, and I don’t want her to hold that much power over me. I never meant to give her that much power, and I want to get it back. I will—eventually.