Finding new strength after relentless bullying

I got very sick a few weeks ago. Understandably, my friends would sit one seat away from me in class because I was phlegmy and gross, and none of them could afford to catch whatever my bug from hell was. But for some reason, I found myself growing increasingly upset every time this happened.

Thinking about it (instead of taking notes in class), I realized it wasn’t the current situation that was bothering me; It was a memory from middle school. I thought I was over it. It’s been almost eight years since you, my middle school classmates, treated me as an untouchable.

I remember when we learned about the Indian caste system in class. The teacher spoke about how Dalits or untouchables were treated like a disease contaminating those around them. You listened to her, and you created “Diva Parekh Disease,” what you affectingly called DPD. You’d yell “DPD, DPD!” as I walked toward you.

You’d move out of the way. You wouldn’t sit next to me. You took a lesson about humanity, about never letting something like this happen to our society again, and you turned it against me. Well, at least I understood a little of what untouchables might feel like. Teaching moment, right?

This wasn’t unusual though. I was used to stuff like this. I used to love Akon’s “Mr. Lonely.” Then you replaced the lyrics. “Diva’s so lonely, she has nobody...” And you’d sing it. I still love the song, but I can’t listen to it anymore.

You did this for three years. I was a child developing OCD. If I lost an eraser, my whole world would come crashing down around me. You stole at least 30 erasers from me. You took the first pen my mom had bought for me and broke it while tossing it around; It was a really nice fountain pen. I still haven’t told her about that. I felt too guilty.

When I finally broke and refused to go back to school, my parents had to drag fifth-grade me to a therapist, and I cried all the way there because I thought that meant I was crazy. Did you know I grew up in therapy? Do you know how many years it took me to function normally in social situations again?

Even now I sometimes get irrational surges of fear. I’m afraid that people are just using me for my homework, like you did. I’m afraid that as soon as I help them, they’ll turn against me, like you did.

Did you know you took my childhood and wrenched it away from me? Sometimes, here, I’ll do something stupid or childish, and my friends will say, “You’re a child,” and laugh.

Yes, I am a child. I am a child because I never got to be a child. You took that away from me, but now I’m taking it back. I’m making the best of it. I should never have had to.

My roommate and I would stay up till five in the morning just talking, and I’d tell her these stories. Her reaction burned itself into my mind. She said she’d seen bullying, but this was something so much worse and so unheard of, she didn’t know kids could be that cruel. Well, you showed her, didn’t you?

If this, what you did, is going to stay with me all my life, I hope that for at least one second, you can understand the scope of what you did. I hope you can feel it. And I hope it hurts. Because that’s only going to be a fraction of how much it hurts me every day, only a fraction of how much it hurt my parents who still blame themselves for it.

To those few of you who apologized, thank you. This fixes nothing, but it makes me respect you. But please, please don’t defend your actions. No, you did not make me stronger. You made me weak. You turned me into a wreck. I fought harder than I ever have to get my strength back. And don’t you dare take the credit.

I don’t hate you. I don’t resent you, even though I did for a long time. I’ve found my place here, I’ve found my friends, and I would love for you to see me now. I would love for you to see that you didn’t break me. You came very close.

I held together the pieces you left me in and became whole again, but there will always be cracks. Never forget that.