I was 7 when it started, the first year of primary and I can barely understand anyone with my very limited vocabulary and knowledge of what seems to be the first language of all my peers - mandarin. Now being a non-mandarin speaking Chinese in a Chinese school ( that so happens to be an 'elite' school full of snobby kids ) I was a target from day 1. Now that was quite a blow from reality since I grew up in a different state and went to my mum's kindergarten.As time passes, the bullying only seems to get worse, within a few months, I was the outcast. I was trying my hardest to catch up on my mandarin but even the teacher shunned me and compared me to my siblings all of whom were smarter than me even my little brother.I tried talking to my mum about it but all she said was, "grow up, I'm sure it's not that bad and you're overreacting like always" and man did that hurt. I remember crying that night.I was eight when I first self-harmed by picking on my wounds and hitting tables with my hands. Around that time, I also wrote my first suicide letter. I mean I didn't know then that there was a word for killing yourself but I wrote a letter and all it said was "I love you all but why can't you love me? I'll miss you guys. Sorry" a few months later was when I first burned myself.I remember hitting an all time low when I was 10 it lasted 3 years. During that time I remember secluding myself from everyone and just wallow in self-hatred. I was too afraid to cut so I took it out in a different way - punching walls, hitting hard surfaces, pinching myself and my collection of suicide letters increase a lot during that time.I tried talking about the bullying to my class teacher next year and she told them off. And miraculously they stopped, but only for a week. When the next Monday came around, they were back to their old ways, this time, a lot worse. They spread around that I had a disease and no one could touch me or they'll be infected, they even named it after me. I also caught them passing around a piece of paper asking my classmates to write everything they hate about me the list was so long it needed 2 papers. They then gave it to me and I still have it now it's kinda sick how I like to read over it and add a few more points when I'm sad.Fast forward to middle school where I started my first year thinking I could restart and give myself a new reputation and boy how wrong I was. Most of them came to the same school and I don't know how they do it if they managed to turn everyone in my year against me, once again. I didn't even meet 90% of them and yet they believed them. I was 10 when I first cut myself but I was too afraid of doing it again until I was 14, that year was the darkest time in my life and I really did hit rock bottom. I had an eating disorder and I self-harmed and I wrote even more suicide letters.I remember one particular night my family decided to take their anger out on me. My parents were screaming at me about how I am the problem child and how I can never do things right, my younger brother told me I was the worst sister ever, my sisters downright called me fat and stupid and useless and my big brother just ignored me. That night I remember crying and cutting myself so bad I was covered in them, my arms, my thighs, my ankles, and my torso was just awful.Now I'm trying to recover from my ED and I've put on some weight but all my close friends and family keep saying that I look fat and how I used to have the perfect body and I admit it made me relapse but they didn't know so I guess it's not their fault. I'm not recovered yet but I'm trying to. I really am and I hope every single soul in the world will get to be happy. I'm on my way there.
