Diary of a Gen Z Student: I was bullied in school but I realise I don't have to live by that script

Jane Cowan: "At first, I couldn’t tell anyone that I was being bullied. Because I couldn’t repeat the things that were being said." Picture: Moya Nolan.

It’s a strange experience to be bullied. It’s like all of a sudden, you’re letting someone write the script by which you’re going to exist. It can feel so disempowering to find yourself in that place. And it really does feel like that: finding yourself in this situation. 

You don’t know what you did to get there. All you know is that you are very much there. I remember what it was like. Feeling sick every time I got a text on Snapchat. Crying before walking into school. Waiting to hear what would be said to me in class that day, or what was being said about me during lunch.

At first, I couldn’t tell anyone that I was being bullied. Because I couldn’t repeat the things that were being said. I couldn’t tell someone that a group of girls in school said that I suck the life out of everything around me, or that those girls would make jokes about my appearance. 

Telling someone about it felt like telling someone everything that was wrong with me. Because if they said I was a terrible person to spend time with, it had to be true. I couldn’t conceptualise that they might laugh at me for being unattractive, for a reason separate from whether or not it was true. 

And because I couldn’t admit that these things were being said, I had no one to challenge my belief that these bullies were correct. It actually took years before I could say that I had been bullied in secondary school. 

I was too embarrassed for anyone to know; I thought that it had to be a reflection on me.

It's difficult to be a teenager. Secondary school can be brutal. Everyone is trying so desperately to fit in. And if people realise that you stand somewhere outside the mould, you can quickly find yourself isolated. I was always a shy kid. 

I read a lot and studied quite diligently, something that teachers often drew attention to. But when you’re 15 and a teacher is favouring you in front of a class, the outcome is generally not a positive one. 

Of course, that placed me on a pedestal, one I didn’t want to be on, one that caused other students to resent me. It became a sort of sneering joke. When I was being pointedly ostracised, these girls would laugh and say that I probably needed to go home and study anyways.

What I remember most about that time in my life was what happened when teachers started to find out. My yearhead called a few girls into her office to threaten detention or calling their parents. 

Really though, nothing was done. It just singled me out from the class more than before. I started taking days off school after that. I eventually moved schools for a fresh start. But all of the beliefs that I had developed while I was being bullied, I brought with me to my new school. 

That I should be embarrassed about my appearance or that people wouldn’t want to be friends with me. I felt there had to be something so innately incorrect about my being, because I struggled to fit in during school.

But when I got to college, I finally managed to tell a friend about my experience. Having someone ask why I believed the things that were said about me in the first place, was a stark moment. Because it had never occurred to me that I had made a choice, when I agreed with the bullies. 

This narrative I had been feeding myself for years, was suddenly shattered. Maybe those things hadn’t been true to begin with. Maybe those bullies were just kids that were so petrified of being isolated from their peers, that they ostracised me first. Maybe I’m 21 now and can let go of the hurtful things that were said when I was 16.

That’s why I’m writing this column. I’m not embarrassed about the fact that I was bullied anymore. Because it was never really about me. Sure, I probably reflected something that those girls didn’t want to see. 

And yes, I needed to be braver and to think more critically about why someone might try to hurt someone else. But realising that I don’t have to live by the script of ‘not pretty, unpleasant to be around, deserves to be excluded, weird girl’ is an empowering thought. 

I never needed a teacher to step in and save me. I needed to realise that I hadn’t deserved what was happening in the first place.