What happened to me in grade five is something that has always stayed with me. I think it actually greatly shaped my social behaviour to this day. You see, this was the year I was ‘out’. I was in a grade 5/6 split class. I recall the year starting out fine. I had lots of friends and it was basically the same friends I had always had – some closer than others – for years.
The first time I felt the gutting feeling of being left out of something was coming to school on a Monday morning and hearing whispers (which in modern terms would be Snapchat stories or Instagram posts) of a sleepover birthday party that every other girl I considered a friend had been invited to. It was a big secret and it was meant to be kept from me. Well, sort of. The girls that wanted to make sure I felt it, made sure I found out. I felt panicked. Like I had lost my footing. It was excruciating. I didn’t know what I had done. Why people didn’t like me anymore. Why I was suddenly so unlikeable? My confidence. My self-esteem. My world. Crumbled. That might sound dramatic but the delicate threads of social belonging, especially at that age, were everything.
And then the hammer really came down.
Phase two of the torment exacted on me was brutal. I became invisible. The ring-leader of the girls (she ruled by fear), a former ‘friend’, had instructed all of the other girls to pretend that I didn’t exist. When I would talk, she would say things like, “Did anyone just hear that?” or “I think I just felt a breeze.” No one would speak to me. I was a leper. This went on for two months. Two months. I don’t even remember how it ended. I guess one day I was just absorbed back into the folds of the social hierarchy of my peers. I never told my parents. Even at that young age, I did not want to be perceived as weak or vulnerable or needing help.
There were, for sure, a few friends who were loyal and kind to me – and they have remained my friends to this day. As bad as it was, without them it would have been much worse.
Grade five broke me down and I never fully recovered. Thinking about it now, I am not sure what advice, if I could, I would even give myself back then. What can we say to children whose spirits are torn to shreds and then stepped on by the people they have to spend every day with? One day things will be better but those words offer no comfort. I endured that suffering. Enduring it was the only thing I could do. But I was never the same. To this day I am sensitive when I feel I have been left out or excluded from things. It will always be an open wound.
I have my own sins to atone for. I was cruel to people too. It makes me sick to think about now. And as a teacher and coach I am vigilant for the vulnerable and very direct to the ones with social power.
I am not sure why I decided to share this. I know many have gone through far worse. I think my eleven year old self needed a voice. We all feel ‘out’ sometimes. We all have to endure the terrible feeling of being excluded. And sometimes we have to be more careful with other people’s feelings.
That is one story I have needed to tell. And now I have.
