I had a personal bully for the bulk of my grade school experience.  A small private school and last names starting with the same letter put us in close proximity of one another often. I was overweight, bashful, and wearing near coke bottle glasses (worn since 2nd grade) and hand-me-down clothes, all of which may have contributed to making me an easy target.

Which comes first – the bullying or the low self-esteem?

There were some pretty low moments for me and I hated strongly disliked the social aspect of much of my grade school experience until I transferred schools in 11th grade. In retrospect, I’m grateful to have had a circle of friends who truly liked me and, while bullied, it never included physical abuse like hitting or getting knocked down. In fact, the one time my bully’s friend wanted to fight me for flirting with her boyfriend (I had no idea HOW to flirt back then, so that was somewhat laughable), my bully was the one pulling her off me and convincing her not to throw a punch. So as miserable as I was, it could have been a whole lot worse. Only once, in 8th grade, do I remember mentioning the temptation of suicide (more…)