• To me, high school was the worst 5 years of my life...It's not the nicest of stories - but it's mine, and I'm a better person because of it all...
    I had moved around the country 10 times before I made it to high school; and due to only being in the area a year before it started, I had few friends...all of whom either continued to a different high school and or fell into different groups, leaving me on my own.
    I had been bullied a small amount before high school - but that soon escalated within the boundaries of the school, where teachers care less as students are 'more able to take care of themselves', yeah right! What a load of rubbish in my opinion. When high school comes around, people quickly mature and become vindictive cows - or so says my experience. Sure I made 'friends' but they were only there when they needed something from me, not whenever I was in need.
    One of the worst memories I have of that place was in my second year:
    no matter what high school you may be at, you always have the 'hard 'gangsta'' wannabe group. Unfortunately for us, that group were known to carry weapons, but it could never be proven within the school. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...the feeling of cold, sharp metal against your throat is a haunting one indeed...
    Over the years, the bullying grew worse, until the ring-leader was expelled for explicit violence to yours truly (she had a record as long as your arm, but that was the final straw). The harsh words and insulting comments were still there but nothing as bad as it had been...or so I hoped.
    Though the major bullying had relatively stopped, there was still one event that will never leave me; in my penultimate year, there was a student who I had never gotten on well with, the odd insult here and there, trying to trip me up in the corridors - the usual. But one day he overstepped the limit - in a way that no female (or male) should ever have to go through, I was assaulted. Luckily it was only minor, but the panic and fear I felt after that made me truly appreciate how bad some people have it - having to go through worse than that on a daily basis.
    But not anymore! I moved away as soon as possible, instead of continuing my A-Level studies (for those who don't know, they are the secondary educational degrees usually studies between ages 16-18, though people retake them at all ages) at that high school, I moved. I applied at a college far away from all of that and moved in with my grandparents - who, surprisingly, were more than happy to have me - and started afresh. Now, I have friends who I adore, am doing well and have left all of that behind. True, there are sometimes the odd event which brings back those memories, but there always will - and with my friends beside me, guiding and helping me, I'm becoming a stronger person for it!
    Life may throw hard situations at you, but the sign of inner strength is to take that situation and be a better man (or woman) for it, not to let it push you down and keep you down.