First of all, I'm 20. I had to mentally grow up because my mother was horrible at taking care of my sister and I when she left my father. That's right, my mother left my father, and she took my younger sister and I with her. We moved to Atlanta, GA, and for 3 and a half years, my life was amazing. The only problems I had were fake best friends (you're at a young age where everyone tries to be like each other and like each other at the same time) and my "enemies" in Kinder Care, which now seem to be silly little kids things, but there was one girl who I will never forget. Her name was Emily, and for some reason, she didn't want me to be friends with my best friend Elizabeth. I never understood why, and I still don't. But she would do everything in her power to get Elizabeth's attention away from me. She would trip me when I was going to the bathroom so that she could get Elizabeth to hang out with her during break instead of me. She used to always put things in my seat so that I couldn't sit next to Elizabeth and it was torture when I had to get glasses when I was 8, because Emily never let me forget it. And the problem was, Elizabeth never told Emily to stop. She knew she was doing bad things to me, yet she also never did or said anything about it.

Thankfully, we moved from Atlanta to Raleigh, NC and I thought this place would be better. I was wrong, unfortunately. Because I wasn't part of the "popular" crowd and I had moved in the middle of the year, I had a much harder time with making friends. I had two best friends, and that was it. I also had a crush on one of the guys named Kevin, and he and I used to ride the same bus. Well, someone overheard me telling my friend Stephanie that I liked Kevin, and it spread. Horribly spread. Everyone would do the "kevin and mary sitting in a tree" song all the time, and all the guys would tease Kevin about me, as well. They'd do kissy faces towards us and eventually, Kevin got so sick of it that he told the entire class he hated my guts and how could they think that he would even like such filth. Well, I was pretty crushed by this point. I was also glad that I was attending a year-round school, and we had break right after all of this, and after we came back, everyone seemed to forget what happened, except for me. I could never look at Kevin the same way, and I always avoided him as best as I could. I was so grateful that fourth grade was almost over and I would be in a different class from him for fifth grade.

Well, fifth grade came around and I moved. Again. My sister and I went to live with my grandparents, and for half a year, we lived in Winston-Salem, NC. Now, the school I attended there was actually even worse with the popularity contest and everything. If you weren't popular, you weren't liked, and believe me, I was hated. This was also when I started to despise any girl I met named Chelsea, because every girl since 5th grade I've met named Chelsea has hated me and done whatever in her power to make school life miserable for me. This Chelsea was no exception. She'd push me down when we played soccer during gym, she'd trip me any way she could, and she would always put things in my path so that I would trip over them. I would come home from school with bruises on my face and my body, but I never said a word. I never wanted to tell my grandparents that I was getting bullied because so much else was on their plate. My sister, of course, knew everything and she and I would sit in our room at night and cry for the most part. Fifth grade was also when I had my first nightmare. Or the one I can vividly remember, and I still have it to this day, but back to Chelsea. See, she found out that I had a small crush on her boyfriend (lol boyfriends in 5th grade), and she plotted. We went to this field trip on the outer banks in North Carolina, and I was so excited because Isaac spent a lot of time talking to me. He sat next to me on the bus, he would walk with me for every tour we did, and he even laughed at the silly things I used to say back then. Well, on the last night of the field trip, there was a dance. Isaac had asked me to go with him, and I said yes. I got all pretty and left the hotel room I shared with my friend Cara and walked to the ballroom that the dance was being held in. Only to come to the ballroom and not only was it empty, but when I walked outside of the hotel, Chelsea, Isaac, and all their friends jumped out and started throwing food at me. Eggs, tomatoes, and even some mud. They then pushed me into one of the closets and locked the door on me until one of the teachers found me because she heard me sobbing.

From then, school didn't get any better. I was made fun of for my weight, wearing glasses, my hair not being straight, and some kids even pretended that I never took a bath or a shower and that I never wore deodorant, they even got one of the classes I was in to have no one sit next to me at all. When I was in 7th grade, I despised how fat I was getting too, and instead of getting off at my bus stop, I would run home from the other bus stop. Well, I was losing weight and gaining muscle, but some of the 8th graders found out what I was doing and copied me, making fun of me while I ran. After that, I gave up on working out. I gave up on a lot of things, but not my schoolwork. This was probably what I used to get teased for the most. I was a book worm. I still am. I love to read, I love math, and I'm quite intelligent. The teachers loved me because I always had the answer to everything, and the students ended up despising me for it. They would call me a nerd, I was always pushed to the "nerd" table during lunch, and they would sometimes steal, or rather hide, my things. Pencils, books, notebooks, stuff like that so that it would look like I hadn't been prepared. In 8th grade, I was even blackmailed into doing my current friend Sean's homework because he found out that I had a crush on this guy Zack and he threatened to tell him if I didn't do his homework for him in math. Unfortunately, I also had to go to high school with Sean, but during 9th grade, he and I began to mellow out and now we're good friends.

I used to also be teased for my first name, which is why I despise it so much and I refuse to let anyone call me by it unless they absolutely have to (family, co-workers, bosses, etc.). I hated school for the mere fact that I hated the students. I was made fun of for being shy because I was too afraid to say anything and then getting laughed at. I was made fun of for actually talking to someone. I've had best friends turn into mortal enemies, of which have ended up hurting me and making my life even more miserable than it was before. What's worse is that there are even these idiots online. There are a few people that I've met and were friends with, and now they hate me just as much as almost everyone back in Cary, NC does (where I spent 7th-12th grade). They spend so much time trying to make me feel miserable, but it's funny because I don't care. I don't care that they don't like me, I don't care about any rumors they spread about me anymore.

And, even with all of this, I still smile. I still laugh, I still joke around with everyone, I am still one of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life, and I will care about you from the moment you say hi to me, and even if we eventually part ways because that's how I am. My look on life will always be optimistic and it's hard not to stop. So, I just wanted to tell everyone this because you don't have to succumb to drugs, alcohol, physical abuse, mental abuse, or anything else in that direction. Not even suicide. You don't have to endure all of this alone and there are people out there willing to help you, you just have to find them.