Mean

So, I’m listing to Mark Salling and Dot Jones singing Taylor Swift’s ‘Mean’ and I can’t help but think back to middle school and my first year of high school.

Few people realize that when it comes to suicidal ideation middle school students have the highest rates. I’m talking pure thoughts, not attempts or completion. No, those have higher rates among other age groups. But no one likes to think of these happy little pre-teens thinking about themselves. I belonged to that group of not so happy youngin’s.

I’ve shared snippets of this story before but I feel like the full, will almost full, story needs to be shared. So, here it is.

My trouble really started in 7th grade. There were some issues going on with my brother and my parents were rather distracted. I was always a good kid. Never got in trouble, got good grades, had seemingly good friends. I don’t want to say I was neglected or ignored, it seems too harsh, but I never got the kind of attention my older brother got and I didn’t really know why. Looking back at it all, I don’t envy the attention he got, but we all know hindsight is a whole lot clearer.

Anyways. I had a small group of friends I made in elementary school, the main one we’ll call MB. This small group grew a little bigger in middle school, but never got bigger than twelve. You could only fit twelve people at a lunch table, and you weren’t in unless you had a spot. MB was the center point, she sat at one end of the table and the closer you were to her the more important you were. For the longest time I was honored with the seat across from her.

In seventh grade MB, myself, and a few others would hang out at a local mall, playing Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade. I had just turned thirteen, was very innocent in comparison to my friends. That when I met the guy that ended up being my first boyfriend. We’ll call him MF. He was a senior in high school, and nice, and took an interest in me when I was feeling ignored. He of coursed like MB. But after a month or so, MB ditched me at the arcade to go hang out elsewhere in the mall. Her parents were pissed she went off on her own, and suddenly I was the only one in our little group allowed to be at the mall without adult supervision.

At this point in time I started to talk to MF more and we grew close. He made me feel special. Something, I’m still not fully sure about the details, happened between MB and MF and suddenly she was no longer friends with him. None of my friends were friends with MF anymore. But I didn’t want to give up the attention I got. You can probably guess what happened next. MF and I started dating. My friends didn’t approve, but they all were following what MB told them, and she had a habit of lying, so I ignored her.

There were so many red flags with MF, I’m surprised at how blind I was to it all. This was about the time my depression started rearing it’s ugly head, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t wonder if I wouldn’t be better off dead. MF was the only one who knew about these thoughts, and I made so many threats to hurt myself. I never did, but MF always got mad when he saw me and I hadn’t hurt myself.

Some of you might be wondering how my mom didn’t notice anything. But she went to bed before me. I’d stay up on the laptop in my room chatting with MF. And she was so busy with my brother, and I was so busy trying to keep MF a secret that of course she didn’t see anything. I made sure she didn’t.

I went out with MF for three months. Six weeks in is when he assaulted me. It only happened that once, and there was no actual penetration, and he did stop when I said to, and we had done plenty of other things that I’d been okay with, that I just kept it to myself. My friends didn’t want to hear anything about me and MF, the other people I made at the arcade had no idea what was going on. I kept it all to myself and continued to see him. I remember once waiting in the rain two hours, waiting for him to show up. I listened to him talk about when his family would be out of the town, when he’d have the house to himself. How it’d be the perfect time for me to come over so he could show me he leather collection. Even then I knew he wasn’t talking about a nice jacket.

We broke up mother’s day that year. I was upset he was breaking a promise and he told me to f*** off. That night was the closest I ever came to actually harming myself. But of course we remained friends. I started keeping a journal thought at that point. Poems about what had gone on. I had grown close to another guy I had met at the arcade, RT, he was the same age as MF but he was actually a good guy. He was the first one I ever told about what had gone on. He didn’t say I should report, but he did tell me to stay away from the guy.

Another guy, Z, 25 at the time, found out, and threatened to tell my mom about what had gone on if I didn’t. I was stuck. I had to tell her, and from there I had to tell my dad, and the cops.

And this is where I say screw Law and Order. It took exactly a year from reporting to sentencing. I reported June 29th, 2003. He was sentenced June 29th, 2004. That year of my life was like hell. Eighth grade hell.

I knew MF would be pissed. I knew his lawyer mom would be pissed. And now, thanks to the court system, he had my address, and he knew where I went to school. The court handed the information over to him, because how can someone be told to stay away from a person without knowing where said person lived.

I was paranoid. And every time I felt like I was getting better there would be another pre-trial hearing that would open the wound. I;d have to sit in the same room with him with all these strangers who knew what had happened.

Around February when an actual trial date was being set. (A quick side note. The defendant has the right to a speeding trial, but he also has the right to ask for a trial date three months away, and no one asks the victim if that is just like salt on an open wound.)  At thing point in time my friends, mainly MB, started to think that I had actually asked for what happen, and even told me that they thought I only told because I was pissed he broke up with me. I was slowly losing my lunch spot, until one day I had been replaced. I sat in the corner on the floor that day, and the next few days. No teachers ever commented.

When I finally found another table to sit at I started noticing that anyone who wasn’t an outcast had BIAC written on their hands. After lunch I noticed the same written on whiteboard in 8th grade classrooms, surrounded by a box and the word “save”. All our teachers shared classrooms, so this “save” box was common place. So of course no one questioned it. In the hallway I noticed two of the people who I use to eat lunch with had an N on their hand, and I finally asked them what was going on. They wrote N for neutral, and had been told to tell me BIAC stood for Bible In A Church. After some begging they confessed that it actually stood for Becky Is A Cow.

I was crushed. But it was hearsay, and the bullying rules were rather non-existent. Yeah, we had harassment rules. But I wasn’t being harassed because of race, or gender, or orientation. So, in other words. I had to deal. I walked into a classroom and saw that one of my former friends had drawn a picture of me in a grave. I knew from the drawing style who it was, but since I didn’t see them draw it nothing could be done.

High school only got better because I had the option of spending my last two years as a full time student at a community college. People think I did that because I was smart and wanted to get a head start on college. But I really did it because I didn’t know if I could survive two more years.