Words Act Like Weapons

Was throwing up every day after lunch enough? Should I do more?  

I just needed to think about what I was about to do.   

Wait. 

Why was I even thinking about that? Why does an eight years old girl even know about suicide and actually want to kill herself? 

I knew why. It was the constant bullying. It happened every day at school. Children are supposed to enjoy their school years. They can see their friends and learn too. But I did not. I only had four or five friends, but can you imagine four people in front of twenty others. 

Hearing the kinds of words and sentences that can make you want to do something irreparable. 

I lived that for 5 years because I was just different, not as skinny as the other kids.  

Alone with just a book in my hands. I wasn’t doing anything to anybody but they were still there. Taking my book, throwing it away. 

I couldn’t do anything to defend myself.  

I couldn’t speak about it to anyone.  

Who would I have told and what would they have done? If I told the teachers or my parents I was bullied I would be ashamed. 

So, I thought, what if the only way to not feel bad was to stop feeling everything. 

And what would happen if I did it? Who would still remember me?  

I didn’t know the answers, but I knew I could do it. 

But I decided to give life a second chance and hope that my future wouldn’t be the same.  

Time helped me and now I know I made the right choice. 

When I was 12, I told someone about this for the first time. That “someone” was my best friend who realized what I had gone through. She asked me to speak about my story to an adult, but I was not able to tell my parents so I spoke to her mom. 

And a few months later, I decided to tell my dad about it when my mom was not there. 

When I told him, I saw my dad crying for the first time of my life in 15 years. I don’t know if you have ever had one of your parents crying because of you but it is the worst feeling I have personally had.  

Telling him made me feel free. It was just like I hadn’t been breathing for this long and telling one of my parents was the only way to make me breath again. 

Since I lived through that bullying, I am obsessed with my body, my shape. I need to practice sports to make sure I am not going to gain weight while counting each calorie I eat. Even though I lived through the bullying, their words still haunt me. 

When things don’t go the way I would like in my life, I don’t eat, scared to become again that “fat” little girl that I was, bullied by a group of kids. 

I have been practicing horseback riding for years now and it helped me release and forget everything. I don’t think I could stop being with horses because they are part of the reason why I am still here today. 

Keeping something extreme going on in your life to yourself is not going to be helpful. I realize now, that I should have told someone about it to help me stop that bullying. 

I decided to write about my story to help people understand that words act like weapons.  

They can kill.  

Even if you think it is just a joke. 

You never know what is going on in someone else’s life.