Not so fun times at Great Bridge Junior High (before it became Great Bridge Middle School North Campus, of course)

There has been much ado about bullying lately.  It's a very sensitive topic for each person speaking out because it is an intensely personal experience if you have been bullied.  It happens most often because somebody else does not like who you are - and how do you get more personal than that?

I don't know if there truly has been an increase in actual occurance, but I agree that something is different, particulalry in consequences, for so many youth to be killing themselves.  It's an unfortunate byproduct of our rapidly changing society mixed with technology.

It all makes me very thankful that I made it through junior high as well as I did.  There is no other way to say it other than 7th and 8th grade pretty much sucked (although, that may be true for everybody).  I usually tried to protect my parents from how bad it really was because I didn't want them to feel guilty for moving or not having more money, and I didn't want to bother them.  I'm sure similar silence mixed with denial is what keeps parents unaware until something tragic happens.

I was picked on quite frequently for being different, for a long list of reasons, but that is true for most of us in junior high.  The actual bullying was largely attributable to one girl and her friend that she controlled.  I honestly don't remember their names now.  This girl was a couple of years older and just plain mean.  She smoked and acted like she carried a knife.  I never could quite figure out why she maked fun of me for how I looked given that she looked like a stereotypical early 90s Nascar fan with too-tight acid wash jeans and fluffy hair.  The girl she controlled was very tall and overweight with freckles and short hair on top and a buzz cut around the sides.  I think she was secretly very sweet, just so desperate for acceptance.  Mean girl lived one street over and they both rode my bus.

Everyday there was some new scare tactic, but I had no option but to ride the bus (which was full of other freaks - but there's no need to expound on that right now).  For example, one day she unlocked all of the hinges on my saxophone case so that everything fell out of it and rolled around the bus floor when I stood up for my stop.  If she didn't actually "do" something to me, then she would sit in the seat in front of me and stare at me, asking over and over again why I was so happy and why I smiled all the time.  Or why I dressed the way I did, or why I was a Christian, or why I wore gold jewelry, or why I talked so stupid.

Finally, after several months of this, she told me that we were going to fight on a certain day and I was to meet her at the trails at 4:30.  (The trails were a series of trails in a field between our neighborhood and the main highway behind it.)  I still hadn't told my parents and pondered what I should do on the fight day for over a week.  So, on fight day, I got off the bus and went straight to my mom and told her everything.  She decided that instead of showing up at the trails at 4:30, that we would show up at her front door at 4:00.  Her mom was home, and my mom told her everything while the mean girl sat in the corner of the couch, seemingly shrinking by the second.  The next day, we all met in the principal's office and mean girl and her friend were both suspended.

This gave me a reprieve for some time.  A while later, she leaned over her friend and towards my seat and mouthed a long list of cuss words and how she was going to kill me.  I just went to the principal again and she denied it but there had been too many witnesses for too long and she was starting to lose control over the other girl, so she just got suspended again.  That was the last time she bothered me and then she faded into oblivion.     

I know at least one of my nephews goes through similar experiences these days.  It breaks my heart because he can't always help how different he is.  While he has a lot of problems, he also has a beautiful heart that challenges me to be a better adult. Those kids don't know who they're talking to.