I was bullied regularly by a group of my peers from the age of 11 to 13. It started with one kid and he "recruited" more and more members of my "fan club." Every move I made was mimicked and I was psychologically tortured relentlessly with no respite from anyone. It didn't take long for me to believe in this bullshit, and I didn't know it at the time, but I developed a sever case of "Complex PTSD." My developing brain had been altered from this abuse and I internalized it all and pretty much "shut down." I was a shy and intelligent child and had always had trouble fitting in socially, but never to the point where I was shunned from almost everyone and made an object of constant ridicule. I became to afraid to be around people after that, "freezing up", thus calling even more recruits to my already large group of enemies. I was always on edge and paranoid about people making fun of me and this fear caused my behavior to truly become odd. I lost all self-esteem. I told no one about what was going on because I was too ashamed to admit that anyone would treat me this badly. Also, in those days, bullying wasn't taken seriously and since I wasn't being physically abused, I feared that if I complained about it, I would be invalidated or told that I deserved it. There were just too many people against me and not enough people willing to fight for me that I just tried to shut it all out. Of course that was impossible. My grades plummeted. I didn't participate in any activities. I can't even begin to describe all that was done to hurt me in a way that could not be reversed, even to this day, and I have just turned 50 years old. In high school, I turned to drugs and alcohol to block out the pain and to feel comfortable with myself. The problem was that not only did it make me feel more at ease; it also made me not care about going to school and getting good grades or doing much of anything. All I wanted was relief from the horrendous pain. I never finished college. I never finished much of anything. Just went around feeling "half-alive." The only saving grace was when a Dr prescribed an anti-anxiety med for me. It literally changed my life. I felt "normal". However, these drugs have their negative aspects: it made me lose my ambition. It kept me from really "feeling" anything at all. I was numb. I was still depressed, and I still had ZERO self-esteem.

I have been misdiagnosed, misunderstood, rejected, invalidated. It wasn't until 2011 that I was correctly diagnosed with CPTSD. I got on the right meds, got the right therapy, and started to talk about what happened to me. I had always been too ashamed someone would tell me it was ridiculous that it affected me like that and I really was a weak loser in life. Well, I found out that the opposite is true! I went through alot of trauma from the bullying and other traumas before and after that and I survived! I am far from weak and I didn't deserve the crap I got, as did any of us. The worst thing to do about bullying is to IGNORE it or to be SILENT! Especially now, in the present day. If I had my life to do over, I would have not stayed silent. I would have fought for myself and never stopped trying to build an alliance. Even if it failed, at least I would have defended my "sense of self" and maybe today I would have had a much healthier one! Anyone being bullied now, SPEAK UP! You are worth it! It's too late for me to do my school years over. It's too late for me to achieve many things I wanted to achieve or might have achieved, had I been treated with respect and validated for being ME! Don't let anyone screw with the most important person, which is YOU!