At the end of the school year, none of them wanted me around. They backstabbed me and didn't even care about me. Jennifer was the only one that stuck by me.
I repeatedly thought about killing myself. All the while, my parents couldn't figure out why I was stressed out, why I came home drying tears, and why I was so changed. My mother and father fought all the time. I didn't know what was worse, school or home.
Now that I look back, I remember that I was mean to a few people. I totally shunned Padma after she called me a bitch. I went along with the rumors. I even told the other kids about how she picked at her wedgies onstage, how she picked her boogers, how she smelled, and all the other usual junk we talked about. I gave her the leering looks, talked behind her back, and all the other things. I felt good because she was lower than even me, and because I wanted her to feel the pain I felt. I wish I had never done it now. It's wrong, and nobody really cared.
I go to a wonderful school now. I'm deathly scared of going to the public high school because that's where all of them are. Going through the emotional trauma would kill me. I now realize that I'm not a fat, ugly, mean, and all-around bitch. I was a victim like so many others. It takes a while to get used to people telling me that I'm pretty, skinny, and the nicest person they know. It makes me feel all confused. But I don't care about popularity anymore. I realized that I'm special, that people like me for who I am here. And I will never try to become another person again.
—AGE 15
Finding Your Inner Strength
Some people's struggles to fit in at school never end.
Year by year, they make and lose friends, get bullied, and suffer heartache. No one really knows for sure why some kids are rejected repeatedly. As I showed in Odd Girl Out, it's not just the poor, overweight, or weird girls who are targets. It could be anyone.
What's amazing to me is not how many girls suffer, but how many triumph over their ordeals. Girls who are humiliated and demeaned, who are abused physically and emotionally, who don't want to come to school, who have thought about dying, find extraordinary inner strength. They learn from their perpetrators who they don't want to be, and in their frequent isolation, figure out exactly who they are and what they want. These girls are role models for me, and their stories can be found throughout this book, especially before and after this section.
If you are the odd girl out more often than not, please read the advice I give to girls on pages 101–03 (in When Friends Turn On You). Beyond that, I suggest the following:
• Ask your parents about visiting a psychotherapist. I saw one when I was a teenager, and she made a huge difference in my life. A good therapist won't judge you; she'll be on your side and help you get through difficult times. If it's appropriate, she'll steer you into social skills training or help you with it directly.
• Find your voice and use it. Work with a therapist, counselor, or parent on saying "no," or "stop," to the people who are trying to ruin your life. Role play the conversations, or study theater to practice using your voice. Take karate, tae kwon do, or kickboxing; they connect you with the physical power of your body and boost your self-esteem. Harness your power and challenge yourself to fight back. Stand up and say what you want and what you don't, and if you can't get it by asking firmly, seek out other ways.
• Get involved—really involved—in activities outside of school. Find something to fall for, and let your passion for it distract you. When I was a teenager and I felt like no person understood me, I spent hours every week with horses. When I couldn't stand my own life, I read, and disappeared into someone else's. I also loved basketball. I could stamp out all thoughts except getting that ball in the basket.
• As my mom always says, living well is the best revenge. So live well: Create a life for yourself outside the sphere of your troubles. As you probably know, one of the worst things about being rejected is the feeling that the pain will never end. When you meet people who have no connection to your social misfortune, you can inhabit another world. When you find something to do that will introduce you to new friends, the positive relationships you'll forge will be your best evidence that this won't always be your life. And if you can find just one friend, he or she could buffer you against the torment you're facing. One friend can be shelter from the storm.
• If you're feeling depressed—eating less or more, sleeping less or more, hating or considering harming yourself—get help. Call 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433) for immediate support by telephone, or visit www.teenadviceonline.org to chat with a counselor, ask a question, or read about depression. No one should have to go through this alone.
If you can do nothing else, just remember: It will end. You will move on. You will not always be at this school, in that bed, with these parents. Life is long, and you are stronger than you think.
Why Are We So Cruel?
A different kind of battle
There is no ammunition
No blood to prove its existence
No physical impairment at all
But it's there...
An invisible battle
Utter stillness, silence
No one speaks
No one acknowledges.
In tight packs they stay close
With their hair all intertwined in a line
Alliances ... defined:
Once outside, the doors instantly lock
But no one sees
The invisible battle.
Squinted eyes of hatred pierce a heart
But I can't dress the wound
Why can't I just swing my arm?
Patch up my body
And go on.
Stereotypically we're dainty, passive,
Everything must be indiscernible
Until preoccupation swells
Funneling every ounce of energy into a hollow opening
To think about the painful obsession
Of the now massively dramatized enemy:
Us
—AGE 17
I Was the One Word that Everyone Fears: Alone
Have you ever heard the phrase, "What goes around, comes around"? Or even, "If you do something bad, it will come back to you three times worse"? I never believed these myths until they actually happened to me. Having to maintain a certain image of perfection, my town isn't always considered the friendliest. The people are uptight and sometimes a little bit hard to handle. Even though I have grown up there, the people still shock me, and so do their children.
In second grade I transferred to a small private school down the road from my house. I have always been open and easy to talk to, so making new friends wasn't a problem for me. I became best friends with a group of girls. We were inseparable and did everything together. We did everything from sharing our "deepest darkest secrets" to talking about what we want to be when we grow up to making fun of nearly all the kids not involved in our clique.
We were considered the "popular" group. We intimidated everyone and it seemed that everyone knew that but me. 1 was just going on with my little fourth grade life and having fun. Now that I look back on what I was like in second, third, fourth, and fifth grade, I can call myself a bitch. Like all my friends, I was nice to everyone's faces and then talked horribly behind their backs. Because I was so young, I didn't know that what I was doing was wrong and kept doing it until I had it done back to me.
Boys were beginning to become a huge thing in fourth and fifth grade. Sometimes a girl had her status by the boy she dated, so naturally every girl wanted the "Most Popular Boy in the Grade." In fifth grade, I was going out with a boy named Luke who everyone thought was perfect. The competition for him was gleaming and the jealousy for him was outrageous.
I had no idea that my friends were talking behind my back about how I "don't deserve him" and "Ugh, he deserves SO much better than her ... someone like me!" When I finally found out what my friends were saying about me, it was worse than a slap in the face.
It was a Sunday morning and my phone rang at 8:30. I
picked up the phone to my best friend, Rachel, who I trusted with my life.
"Hi, Grace. I just got an e-mail from Luke saying that he dumped you for me. Umm ... so, what's up?"
"What?" I said, "I don't understand, he hasn't dumped me. Hold on, let me check my e-mail." Sure enough, I had received an e-mail from Luke with the subject of "Good-bye." He had dumped me for Rachel?
What? My fifth grade ego completely popped right there and then. I was astonished. I didn't know what to do. The following week was hard but not even close to what was going to come.
I lowered my head every time I passed Luke and his posse to avoid their looks. It's all right, I thought, at least I still have my girlfriends.
I noticed some minor differences with my friends. They seemed to be ignoring me more lately. I thought that it might be the small side effects of my breakup with Luke, but I was very wrong.
I came home from school that week in the middle of April and checked my e-mail. (I seemed to have lived on e-mail in fifth grade!) I opened up a letter from Rachel and tears started to stream down my face as I read on. Sentences like, "You make my life a living hell," and "Frankly, if you switched schools, people would either be happy or couldn't care less. Sadly, I'd be both," made the tears just flow harder. She was my best friend. How could she do this to me? She had even said that the other girls hated me.
Why? What had I ever done to them? I had done nothing.
The next months at school were ridiculous. I called my mom crying every day at recess time begging her to come pick me up. She refused and said that she believed in me and that I could get through this. Each day, the comments and the stares got worse and worse. When I walked into a room, they would all say something like, "Shh!! She's coming!! Ugh, I guess we might have to be quiet or else she'll go and tell her friends. Oh wait! She doesn't have any!"
It was true, though; I had no friends. The ones I had trusted had abandoned me, and I was left with the people who I made fun of. I didn't know what to do. I was the one word that everyone fears: alone.
One day at sports the girls in the grade were playing a game of Capture the Flag. This girl, Tara, who seemed to get pleasure out of making my life a nightmare, was talking to her friend and pointing at me. I went up to her (she was on the opposing team, and standing right on the edge of the line that separates the teams), and I said, "Do you have a problem with me? What did I ever do to you? Nothing! That's right, I didn't do anything. You're just making fun of me because you're a follower and have nothing better to do with your life."
That pushed her over the edge. She took my arm, pulled me onto her side, and slapped me. I was astonished and just started to cry. The teacher came. She gathered the girls into a huge group and told them that if they weren't nice to me, then the school would have to take action. She threatened them with suspension.
Throughout the rest of fifth grade and during sixth, I made amazing friends. These girls were awesome. In the previous years I was too caught up with making fun of these girls to see how incredible they were. Although the girls who ridiculed me apologized, I never became too close to them, which was the mistake I had made before.
In seventh and eighth grade I became friends with everyone. I was the only girl who was not subscribed to a certain clique or group. The guys in my grade were always so laid back and chill that I decided to start hanging out with them. Before you knew it, I had the best friends you could ever ask for. Through my experiences, I became a stronger person. I learned so much about myself and about others. Because of what happened, I am more confident and happy with myself. There is no way I would be the same person I am today if I hadn't gone through the torture I went through in fifth grade.
When I told my friends that I was going to an all-girls' school, they were all shocked. "Grace? Going to an all-girls' school? What is going through her head?" I can admit that before I came to my school, I was nervous about the girls and what the whole scenario was going to be like. The moment I stepped out of the car on the first day, I loved it. Of course everyone has their closest friends, but there are no cliques or "popular" and "unpopular" girls. Everyone seems equal. At my new school, the realization of girl friendships has embraced me.
—AGE 15
Happy
Happy is a state of mind. I once thought that I was happy, and I wasn't. I didn't even know the meaning of happy. But I now know the true meaning of the word, and I've found happiness inside of me. All three of my middle school years were spent trying to make myself and others believe that I was happy. It took me a year to realize that I wasn't happy, that I was only faking. I then spent another year and a half trying to do everything I could to make myself happy, and truly believe and feel happy. When in fact I had no idea what real happiness was.
In middle school, I always felt as if I was an "odd girl out" because I never really had one certain group of friends like most of the people I know. Most of the African American "cliques" said I acted and talked too much like a "white girl." I wasn't "black" enough to hang out with them. To this group of people I became known as the "smart, happy, black cheerleader who acts like a white girl." My answer to that is ... why? Is it because I speak proper English, I make good grades, I walk around with a smile on my face and my head held high? If that was why, then so what? That's just me. I was generally a happy person, or at least I thought I was. I would walk around perky, and always with a smile on my face.
That's another thing I think African American girls didn't like about me, my sense of happiness. One girl even told me that she had never met a black girl who was always happy and had a smile on her face. To me, that was a compliment. I never thought much about it. It was just who I was. I never had a problem with hanging out with Caucasian girls, but it just seemed that I couldn't find that right social group that I could be a part of.
At one point I thought I had found a group of friends that I could join. It was an ethnically mixed group of girls that at first treated me great. I soon learned that they had a sort of "leader," who I became very close to. I soon saw her true colors when I realized that she was using me, and became very disrespectful toward my family and me. I stayed for a while and put up with the disrespect; don't ask me why. I guess I was so happy about feeling like I belonged, I didn't care what she said or did. Eventually, I got tired of it, so I left. I continue to be friends with some of the girls, but it's not like it used to be.
While all of this was going on at school, I also had a ton of family issues to deal with. My parents were on the verge of separation. The fighting, harsh words, and coming home to just one parent each night was a lot to grasp. I know you may be thinking that it's not uncommon, but for someone who has had both parents every day ever since they were born, it's hard. The transformations going on inside our home were huge, and I had to deal with them alone. I had to deal with the tears alone because I felt that I had no one to talk to. My parents weren't around, and when they were, they were either arguing or upset.
Well, ya know, when it rains, it pours. Just as all of this was erupting in my life, I began to have issues with me. I began to look at myself and compare myself to others. Physically, I wasn't satisfied with what I saw in the mirror. There were times when I didn't eat and would do everything I could to avoid eating. This became an obsession, which quickly made me very weak and very sick.
No one at home noticed because they had their own problems to deal with. Mentally, I began to wonder what was wrong with me, and why I couldn't have friends like everyone else. I began looking for ways to change my personality. My focus became transforming myself into what others wanted me to be. I tried it, and I hated the new me, worse than the old me. So I gave up on changing, believing that I would never have friends.
In the midst of all of this, I was still at school walking around with a smile on my face, pretending that nothing was wrong. It soon caught up with me, and I realized that all this time I had been faking my happiness. I hid my tears behind my fake smiles and fake laughs so that no
one would notice. I had forgotten how to really smile and really laugh, but I knew I wanted to remember. No one knew this, and I had been trying to cover it up. I couldn't do it anymore.
I began to search for my happiness. Keep in mind that I'm one of those independent-for-life types and I don't (if I can help it) depend on anybody for anything. I began to turn to people for happiness, and I would become frustrated when it didn't work or they didn't make me happy. I began to turn to things that I generally would never turn to. I turned to food, which comforted me but had bad repercussions. When I turned to television, it only reminded me of the things that I longed for, including the happiness that I felt I would never find.
I began to write poetry to express my feelings; it allowed me write down the things that were upsetting me, but let's face it, paper doesn't talk back. None of these things worked. I might want to mention that I'm also a single-for-life type, and at one point I thought that turning to a boyfriend would help. This idea was sparked by my observance of my peers and their courtships. They looked extremely happy and told me how happy they were when they were with their boyfriends. Okay, I didn't go that far, but I was close. I contemplated it many times, but I didn't really believe that was what I was looking for.
It was then that I realized that what I wanted was someone to talk to, I wanted someone to listen to me. The one thing that I turned to that helped me greatly was music. I could always find a song with lyrics that expressed what I was feeling and still do today. Music comforted me unlike anything I had ever tried.
I've learned that God will show up in your life when you least expect it. I know he did in mine. I came home one night, alone, after a bad day. I walked into the bathroom, took one look at my sad face in the mirror, and I knew I couldn't hold the pain in any longer. I took another look at myself, and I broke down and cried. As I cried, I began to think about where I was the last time I was truly happy.
Odd Girl Speaks Out Page 12