Stripped
My freshman year of high school, was a milestone that for the rest of my life I would never forget. Every emotion of figuring out who I was and where I fit into the world was just a minimal part of my life. But my biggest fear of being bullied came with an exceedingly high cost that I would continue to pay for the rest of my life.
It started out with just the normal tendencies of bullying, name calling, and poking etc. but my instinct of ignoring it only made the problem worsen. Until the moment when I was literally threatened during lunch period. We had bullying prevention talks all the time, so I knew going to a teacher I trusted or administrator was the way to solve this issue.
After addressing the threat to a teacher, and promised everything would be taken care of, I proceeded about my day like normal and took my seat in class, only the bullying and outbursts were magnified and I remained speechless the whole entire time, until the bell rang to switch classes and I waited till every last person except for the teacher was out of the classroom, then I made my way out only then to be assuaged from behind.
As I was attacked I let out screams, but everyone around remained frozen, and no teacher came to break up the fight. My friends just stood while I was spinning around on a merry go round watching people remain frozen like someone had a stopped the hands of time.
Finally a friend came through and guided me back into the classroom and there I was facing the teacher I just left to only hear her say, “sweetie was that you?” The rest is school protocol to assess my wounds and then get me to the office so administrators could contact parents, talk to witnesses etc. after my mom’s arrival she decided to press charges against my attacker, which then lead to the rest of my high school years to be bullied by my attacker’s friends or people who thought I was weak for not hitting back. It was this moment in time when I felt like I was one the biggest stage in the world, stripped in front of the entire world.