How I dealt with Harassment

Bullying and harassment have been going on forever—no matter which country you live in. I’m from Poland and I was one of the victims of the constant bullying while growing up. I want to share my story to help others fight the bullies and give hope that it will get better!

When I was 11 my family decided to move. I had to say goodbye to all my friends and make new ones in my new neighborhood and school. On my first day at school I received nasty looks and mean comments because I was new, and had a very nice backpack which was a gift from my uncle in the USA. Kids already assumed that I was a horrible person so they started laughing at me. “Cover your head with the backpack since it is prettier than your face.” I didn’t say anything I was shocked. Why were they so mean?  Unfortunately, it got worse. Kids would constantly laugh at me all the time calling me  fat, ugly, useless, and stupid. It even got to the point where a group of boys would wait for me after school to spit, throw spiders at me, and push me around.

I didn’t tell anybody about my experience at school. I was embarrassed and didn’t want my parents to get involved. I would stay at home most of the time watching cartoons (Cartoon Network in English, hell yeah, Dexter’s Laboratory and the PowerPuff Girls). 

I picked up English words very quickly, so my mom decided to sign me up for private English classes. I loved those classes, since I had something to look forward to twice a week. I met cool people who were nice and didn’t bully me at all. I made a very good friend Marta who apparently was living very close to me. We would hang out a lot and play volleyball. She was the first person I told about my school problems. She would cheer me up and told me NOT to care. Her words helped me a lot. Marta also encouraged me to attend volleyball classes after school. I joined the volleyball team and practiced a lot. I would train 4 times a week. My coach was extremely tough and had a lot of expectations. He made me train very hard. I would take out all of my school frustrations on the volleyball court and believe me I smashed those serves ;]

I stopped caring about people at school I was so busy with volleyball and English I simply didn’t have time to worry about it. I lost a lot of weight, became very flexible and fast. I had the best grades in my class. My classmates were asking me for help with Math and English, since I did they would protect me from the bullies. After a while I became a little famous for my volleyball skills. The bullies stopped harassing me, I guess I impressed them with my skills. 

Overall, it is not easy to deal with harassment, you need to find the strength in yourself to just NOT CARE. Focus on your hobbies, goals and dreams. Education is also a key to success. I put a lot of effort in my education and it paid off ——> I am working at Tumblr how cool is that <————-