Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and mature content.
a/n: the no capitalization was purposeful. please don't comment on that. i put it so it'll seem sadder and more serious, ya know? like in poetry people do that, like marms.
this is a true story, just wanted to let you know before you read.
trigger warning.
i put my full pen name on here, but it's only my pen name. not my real name. so don't yell at me ;(
also, the point of this was so people would leave me alone about being depressed and shit, so if anyone gives me shit, share it with them please or whatever.
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dear you,
i don't know if you even know my name anymore. i'm pestered with comments like: "homo" and "retard" and "nerd" and "brat" from you. just because i'm bisexual, might have autism, a nerd, and slightly obnoxious when it comes to my fandoms doesn't mean that you can do that. that you can call me those thing to make yourself feel better. do you know it? i don't think you do. all you pair with me is those insults, and not my name: "kara riley stevens."
you claim that your life is worse than mine. you, with your "skin disease" that traumatized you so you can only wear dresses now; you, who are forced into activities that you don't like; you, who can't eat anything except junk food, bread, and cheese because you don't like anything else. you claim that these things ruined your life, but you had that "skin disease" - which i looked up and doesn't exist - when you were four years old. you're 13 now. you do realize you can quit things, right? you can do that, talk to your parents when you don't want to do something. you do realize that you can eat fruit, vegetables, meat... all of those things, even if you don't like them. i eat brussels sprouts and pizza all the time. doesn't mean i like them.
but that doesn't give you an excuse to ruin my social status, ruin my life, ruin everything that i try hard for. i have constant f's. no friends except on the internet. a bleak future. all because of you.
yes, i have to admit, in first through third grade, i was an absolute bitch. like, the bitchiest bitch that you would probably ever meet. condescending, boastful, obnoxious, etc. you met me in second or third grade, i don't remember, but you immediately took a disliking to me.
then in fourth grade, everyone started to bully me. the daughter of the principal took me aside and slapped me, telling me to stay away from her friends. she got away with it. people would smash my books out of my hands, jostle me at lunch, call me horrible things. it was one of the worst years of my life. it just got worse in fifth grade, until i made secret plans.
plans to kill myself.
yes, i am aware that i was really young, but i was so fucking done with life. if the real world was like this, then why should i live in this cruel, heartless world anymore? i made a plan in october to, if the bullying didn't stop by then, to kill myself a month after my birthday to make a statement that you shouldn't bully.
then you came.
you invited me into your friend group - a group of people as awkward as i am - and allowed me to join your pretending game: where we pretended that we were in a magical, mystical world where magic, dragons, seers were possible and where we can be whatever we can be. i decided that, since i had a friend group, that i shouldn't die. there was something to live for.
there was still bullying, i must admit, but it wasn't so bad since i had friends.
then sixth grade.
you turned... cold. you gave me the cold shoulder when i tried to hang out with you. the bullying wasn't so bad in sixth grade, i must have you know. most people were trying to make friends with people from the other elementary schools, so they were too busy to bully me. it still hurt. you turned and hung out with a girl named alexandria instead. a girl with more popularity, more status, and less of a nerd than me.
so i sat with a girl named elle, who kind of liked me but didn't love me either. we hung out. sleepovers and shit. i guess i was trying to make you jealous, i don't know. but then, she started to avoid me too, because of rumors that i was fucking the least popular boys in the school.
all spread by you.
don't worry, i know that was all you. you told cade, the local big-mouth, and lexi, the local gossip, "everything" that you knew about me. the bullying in fourth grade started up again, even worse than before. when the teachers and the people who were in the musical with me weren't looking, you and your disciples dumped my books out of my hand. you and them took seats next to my new musical friends so i would be alone. spread even more, false rumors about me to keep their own self-esteem up. they would "accidentally" trip me during gym class.
let's just say this completely broke me.
my grades dropped. i went from an a+ student to a b+ student, at best. i would fake sickness to stay out of school. whenever i could, i would lock myself in my room, with my lights off, underneath my bed, curled up and crying. i had no self-esteem anymore. still don't.
seventh grade went by the same way, except i had my friends named emmalyn and saruka then. they were by me the entire time through seventh grade. it still didn't help through my depression.
in eighth grade, you sat at my table near your friend christopher, who had become my own friend over the summer. whenever we would be talking about something, you would interrupt out of jealousy. the bullying was still there, the same as before. then last week...
that was the week we had the big fight.
i told you i had enough of the way you were treating me. enough of the rumors you were spreading, enough of the bullying that you caused. i had absolutely enough, and if you didn't like me, you could move tables. my friends were here, but your friends aren't. move somewhere else.
you remember what you did? you gave me a smirk.
"what friends?" you asked. "do you really think that you have friends? how naïve. you don't deserve everything. you're obnoxious, immature, and just plain rude. you need to learn what's coming to you. no one wants you around. just go kill yourself already."
i sat there in shock. everyone was sitting at another table or getting lunch. no one was there. no one had heard.
that night, i cried myself to sleep.
dear you, you are a monster.
dear you, you are the reason why i am suicidal.
dear you, i hope that those words that you said will haunt you for the rest of your life.
go to hell.
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kara
Kara! *Almost cries* I wasn't nearly bullied as badly as this in elementary school. Just called a girl a couple of times, someone put a chewed gum into my hair, teasing and stuff. (All that made me develop major trust issues), and I recently wrote all about it on the blog of a person with similar issues on JWS. Good luck and don't stop being yourself. Time heals even emotional wounds. Trust me:).
. I also hit and pushed other kids too. I was soooooo bad that I even made a promise to myself that I would be good in first grade(which I achieved my goal, and it was a major improvement.) I met Harrison(@ZeldaIsSheik) and we became best friends.Hi there. I've been planning a review for quite some time - so here I am!
This seems to be a personal vent so I won't say anything on the topics of grammar, spelling, or formatting.
This really touched me a lot. Your use of curse words throughout this added to the emotion to this, and your use of them is one of those rare times where it flows smoothly with this and doesn't give off a vulgar vibe, instead, it reflects your anger to whoever "you" is, and the last line wraps that up cleanly. The no capitalization brings off a lot of more emotion to this, and I love emotion, even if I may not show them often, or at all, in my personal life.
One of the main pictures you're telling in this, about how you're being bullied, is something I can relate to. I'm bullied as well, however, it's for completely different reasons (my stutter, my love for Slipknot, me being Bisexual, and me being a Satanist) and only done by three people. So me reading this connected me to the story, and I also enjoy stories I can relate to in some way, whether it be good or bad.
However, in the line: "dear you, you are the reason why i am suicidal." You stated that bullying from people before you met "you" made you suicidal. While "you" might've made the thoughts worse, it confused me at reading that line because you said earlier that bullying from other people made you suicidal before you met whoever "you" is.
Goodbye, and best of luck in your reviewing and writing,
Pastel
Hey there, Kara. Since you reviewed me, I figured I'd return the favor, but I've been sitting here for a bit trying to figure out how to tackle this because wow is this heavy.
From a technical writing standpoint, there's a fair amount that could be improved with regards to the flow of events, level of detail included, and generally more showing rather than telling. Right now, the conclusion that the narrator is suicidal because of "you" doesn't logically follow since it was mentioned earlier that the narrator was suicidal before meeting "you", and so "you" just masked and then later magnified the already extant feelings of suicidality that had been caused by the continuous bullying going on throughout the years this piece covers. You would need to do a lot more showing of all the things done that makes "you" responsible for the current suicidal feelings independent of the suicidal feelings arising from the long-term bullying, compared to the vaguer references you have going on right now.
That would involve expanding this quite a bit more, which, due to the subject, would be hard to do, and I don't think you were aiming to make this into a good piece of literature when you wrote and posted this, so whether or not you revisit this piece is up to you.
With that said, I've been where you've been courtesy of being the only non-white (and even then, I was half white) student in an otherwise all-white very Catholic school all through my primary and secondary school years. It also didn't help that I was legitimately brilliant, and so I wasn't in the same age group as my classmates, and I was often pulled away for various special assessments and projects to foster my above-average abilities. Making friends was really hard, and I actually didn't have more than one until 8th grade because my friends from kindergarten all either moved away or were in different classes than me.
Having friends helps a lot, and it sounds like you're lucky enough to have friends now, which will make things a lot easier. However, there is one piece of advice I think you won't hear from most people, and that's to own your own feelings, all of them, as your own and no one else's. The reason for that is that when you blame someone else for how you feel, you're basically giving them control over your feelings, whether you intend to or not, and the more control you give others over your feelings, the less control you have over them.
It's a lot easier to give other people control than it is to control things yourself, but in the long run, you'll be stronger for it because at the end of the day, you'll be able to say that your own happiness or misery or apathy or whatever resides within you and only you, and you can change whatever it is that you're feeling by changing only one thing: yourself. And that's kind of the bedrock of self-confidence in a nutshell, in my experience: that you own who you are and that you can always change for the better.
Wow Kara! Our past lives are so similar! Except, I went through all that WITHOUT any friends! But before I talk about all that, I want to review your work! I like how you didn't capitalize anything, to be honest. I feel like it put a personal touch on your work. Now, like Saru said, the line: 'like, the bitchiest bitch you can ever meet' should be written in past tense since you are talking about yourself in third grade. Now, I shall give you some advice and tell you about some of my personal experiences! Like you, my 5th and 6th grade years were the hardest in my life. In those two years alone, I was both anorexic and bulimic (at different times of course). I also began cutting myself and having suicidal thoughts. I also had a fake "friend" that I met in 4th grade. She did the same thing as your fake friend did to you; found somebody "better" and "cooler" than me and began to treat me like shit. She understood that she was my only friend at the time and I was desperate to keep her, so she took advantage of me and talked shit behind my back. It was truly awful 
. I didn't even think that I would live through this year before I was saved in January! But as you know, Jesus came to me at the perfect time. I wouldn't be here without him. If you have more questions about my experiences with Jesus, feel free to ask! But now, I shall give you advice! Holding onto the past won't make your situation any better. In fact, it will only hurt you more. I highly encourage you to forgive the people who have hurt you, and even if they still do, forgive them! Don't hold onto what they say! This life is temporary, don't throw it away over some drama at school! You are precious and loved beyond what you will ever be able to understand! I know you are an atheist, but please just try to give Jesus a chance! I know he can save you just like he did with me! I used to be atheist as well, so I know what you are feeling! Jesus and I are always here to talk if you need us. YOU ARE SO LOVED!
Hi Kara! Saru here for a hopefully helpful review!
This story really touched me, so I'm going to get constructive criticism out of the way first.
like, the bitchiest bitch that you can probably ever see.
i sat there in shock. emmalyn, chris and the new girl that had sat at our table were still getting lunch, so they hadn't heard it. saruka sat at another table, and we were pretty much alone. so no one had heard.
I swear, if I knew this person, I will go to them and make them pay for what they did to you. I have plenty more to say on this matter, but I'm afraid it'll break my strict no cursing policy.
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