Bullied Throughout Childhood And How It Affected My Life As An Adult

by Jake
(Los Angeles)

I would like to share my story about being the victim of bullying most of my life. As a child, I never had friends. Other children always called me gay and didn't want to be my friend… and often pushed me around and tried to fight me. It made my life as a child miserable. I did not want to tell my family because I was embarrassed by it. I would come home and be alone. I would cry everyday and I hated myself for not being accepted by the other kids.

I always heard that things would get better as an adult. But the years of being bullied and living in isolation affected me as an adult. I had a low self esteem. And I wanted to be accepted by others so badly that I changed almost everything about myself. And the changes were negative changes, to be accepted by my peers. I used drugs and abused alcohol. I rejected my family. And did allot of things that were out of character for me. But if the way I was originally was rejected by my peers and changing to be more like others gained me acceptance.

I was willing to change to be liked. But I realized that I didn't like the person I had changed into. As an adult I was diagnosed as being bipolar and I believe my childhood had allot to do with the illness developing. It is very hard to look at my behavior as an adult and separate who I am from who I became for others to accept me. I now have to deal with people not seeing me the "real" me and always having to prove myself to others. And it is a lonely road accepting myself for who I really am. The person that everyone rejected for years.

At times, I think that It may never be possible to change my life. But I get strength from knowing that in recent years I have met new people who do not know my wild and destructive behavior from the past and they accept me as I am now. I have to work hard at building my self esteem... having to deal with family and friends judging me on my past mistakes. And meeting new people that accept me for who I am and who help me always try to be a better person today than I was yesterday.

Bullying does get easier as an adult. But childhood bullying can make a person's life just as hard, if not harder than what it was when the person was dealing with the bullying on a daily basis.

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