Finding Life

Rough Childhood

Being young was great. I had loads of friends and the best mum and dad in the world. I knew my family loved me and I was a happy child. Some of my earliest memories are the best I have, like being in the school choir and auditioning for a solo part in 'Moon River' which I got. I told my friend, who was upset that she didnt get picked, that I had been to opera school in an attempt to make her feel a little bit better. Bare in mind, we were about eight years old so obviously I had never been to opera school, but even at that young age I was always attempting to console others and look out for them, even if it meant telling a little white lie every now and then.

When we were nine, it was time to move to our next school and this is where things started to change. The innocent children who used to be my friends suddenly turned in to mouthy brats with disgusting attitudes. Dont get me wrong, I probably changed to but I was never purposely horrible to anyone. I was lucky to find some girls who I would actually stay friends with until we finished school at sixteen but even those girls could be backstabbing bitches at times.

The bullying started after just a few weeks. "Fatty", "Fish Lips", "Crow nose". These were the three most common insults thrown my way and it gave me a complex. I would go home and cry into my pillow all nighy long. I kept a diary in which I would write about wanting to save up for plastic surgery, at the tender age of eleven.

I never thought I was pretty. Far from it, but somewhere deep inside me I knew I wasnt totally ugly either. I was an easy target for bullies though because I let it show that the hurtful words spat at me on a daily basis were cutting me like a knife. My friends didnt stick up for me very often either for fear of then being a target themselves. I understood that. I probably shouldnt have but thats the kind of person I was. I didnt want my friends having to go through what I was going through so I made damn sure if they were going to pick on somebody then that somebody was me.

I carried on with my interest in singing by joining the choir at this school, as did my group of friends. This was our most common ground. The five of us loved to sing and eventually made a band of our own called 'Harmony'. We became the school celebrities, but of course, the fat one with big nose and big lips never got any good attention. Nobody was ever rude to me whist we were on stage performimg but in the corridors of the school the day after a show and for the following weeks i'd get booed and told that I sounded like a man. I knew full well i didnt, but it didnt make it hurt less.

Things at home wernt brilliant anymore either. Mum and dad had started having these arguments amd being an only child I felt like the world was on my shoulders. I knew there arguments wernt about me but I felt like I had a duty to be involved as the mediator. I couldnt cope with my two biggest influences being at loggerheads. I had to keep them together. And selfishly thats what I done. Before mum could leave i would lock the doors and hide the keys in my bedroom so she had no choice but to stay and then once things had calmed down the following day I would talk to my parents seperately and try to explain to thrm how the other one was feeling. It always seemed to work for about a week before the next row where the routine would be the same. Over the years I came to realise they were only staying together because of me but it didnt stop me being selfish. I still kept on keeping them together.

My nan died when I was 11. She was a stong role model in my life and I absolutely adored her. Everybody loved her and everybody called her nan. I dont think half the people even knew her actual name was Maria. She was German and infact was my Great Nan. My German ancestory was yet another topic the bullies liked to play on, but I loved being part of that culture. Nan looled after me a lot when Mum was at work and we used to listen to German folk music and the language was spoken in our house quite frequently, especially by Nan who would often forget the English word for something and use the German word instead. I loved my nan and as I said she had great imfluence in my life so when she died I was devestated. I spent a lot of my free time in the days between her death and her funeral writing a eulogy to be read out but when the day of the funeral arrived I was so emotional i couldnt bring myself to read it and the priest done it for me.

Then in my final school the bullying became worse and although I still had the same group of friends I became shy and unsociable. I would sit with them at lunch time listening to them speak about thier boyfriends wondering what was so terribly wrong with me that no boy had ever given me a second look. I was so sick of hearing it that I went to the trouble of making up a boyfriend. His name was Ryan Mile and he was 16 while I was 14. I could tell my friends didnt believe me though and knew they were sniggering behind my back and theyd ask questions about how it was going with him but it was oh so sarcastic and within a couple of weeks 'Ryan' had moved to Australlia so naturally we 'broke up', and that was the end of that.

I was so fed up of my life by this point and spoke to my mum about it who introduced me to a girl she knew who was a couple of years older than me. Her name was Elizabeth but nobody called her that. To me and everyone except her Dad she was 'Dibz'. When we first met she had short spikey hair and looked more like a boy than some of the boys at school did but she was a fantastic person. She to had been bullied relentlessly at school but she started to fight back, something i never managed.

The first time she came to my house I done her make up. She didnt wear make up but she saw a lost and lonely girl who needed her spirits lifting and as my friend she let me do whatever I liked. I'd always been into hair and make up, not that I ever made much of an effort on myself unless I was going out.

Dibz and I had a mutual respect for eachother as victims of bullying and this proved to be a good foundation for our friendship. Neither of us ever wanted the other being upset or hurt and we stuck together through thick and thin and it was thanks to her that I gained a lot more friends. All of them older than me, the eldest being about 25, but i fit in. I seemed to be on the same wavelength as these older people. Maybe was mature for my age or they were immature for thiers but either way I was glad to have these people around me. I felt confident and accepted for once.