I remember 2 distinct, vastly differet events, involving 2 completely different people. (edited to break paragraphs up more)
1. 7th Grade. My friends and I used to do this thing where we'd put each other in trances and communicate with our past lives. Weird, I know. Well I had a fairly traumatic experience in October of that year--the 13th to be exact--and had lost a family friend, a parent of a girl who I was fairly close with then (we vacationed with the family). Jay, the man who died, had been killed in a freak car accident that my aunt heard (and was almost in herself), leaving behind 3 learning-disabled kids and a wife, without life insurance. At 13, it was difficult to deal with, especially being one of the first in my group of friends to deal with something so freakish and tragic.
On Halloween we all got together, Trick-or-Treated, and then hugh out at one of the girl's houses. There were, IIRC, 5 of us. Myself (RJ), Jen, Becky (at her house), Kate and Mia. Becky was the one who usually "went under" but Jen wanted to give it a go, so I put her under (I was the best at it). Basically, when she was in her trance she became Jay, giving a few key details (i.e. car accident, 3 kids, recently died).
I freaked out. Ran out of the room screaming and crying. I was terrified!! They all came running after me to console me. Jen had Becky go get me a glass of water and tissues. While she was gone she apologized to me. Why? Because she. had. been. FAKING. IT! That's right, she faked the whole thing, thinking I would THINK IT WAS FUNNY! When I got *more* upset she got flustered and claimed it was Becky's idea. Becky heard Jen accuse her of coming up with the idea...
And promptly called all of us b!t@hes and threw us out of her house!! I have no idea where her mother was, or if she was even home. Eventually she "felt bad" and threw out our bags, one blanket and the phone, so we could call our parents and have them come get us.
After that, our friendships declined and the group fell apart.
2. In high school I was on gymnastics for 2 years and cheerleading for 2 years. I took one year of dance class as well. I was used to prancing around in a leotard and tights, or a cheerleading outfit, and surprisingly comfortable doing so. Junior year, for Halloween, I was a devil. I wore a black leotard, black tights, black bike shorts, black knee-high boots, a red cape, red devil horns and lots of red glitter
I did carry around black legwarmers and a black sweater, and wore them during class and when I was cold. I got a lot of complements on my confidence to wear such a thing at school, but didn't get repremanded by teachers or administrators at all, and was never told anyone had a problem with it.
Quick note: I never dressed risqué in high school. Weird, yes. But the most risque thing I wore was that halloween costume, which was really my dance class outfit with boots, or my gymnastics uniform with bike shorts and tights. I wore my dad's old clothes in high school, with jeans.
Imagine my surprise when 3 months later I opened my locker and found every photo I was in vandalized. In my own locker! My face was scratched out in each one and there was an arrow pointing to me with the words "conceited, w#0re, b!t@h" above it. I was heart broken. I went to the dean, who was the leader of one of the groups I was involved with. She kept the pictures and we stayed in touch about it. Since I had no idea who it was, there was nothing I could do but have my locker combo changed, which I did.
It continued... there were then notes slipped into my locker with the same message. Those all went to the dean as well. Eventually, it grew to online harassment. I got emails from vague yahoo and hotmail accounts, which I printed and gave to the dean. I was finally able to figure it out when someone I considered a good friend IMed me and called me a w#0re. I asked why and got no answer. She proceeded to tell me I was conceited and a b!t@ch, never giving me a reason. I logged off shortly after she told me, "you really should watch your back... you're going to get raped one day".
I immediately took it to the dean, who was wonderful. She assigned a security guard to follow me, subtly, thru my schedule, which we slightly rearranged (giving me study halls instead of free periods, or arranging it for me to have an extra gym class with my favorite teacher). She moved my locker to the other side of the school and notified all my teachers of what had happened. She also spoke with the girl who was IMing me, and got the names of 4 other people I had considered very good friends. They were punished, though I'm not 100% sure how.
The rest of my high school career was hellish. I lost my entire group of friends, spare 3 or 4, whom I distanced myself from for fear of causing myself more trauma. The group continued to leer at me, call me names behind my back (when I was sure to hear) and overall just make me feel unsafe. I stopped asking the dean for help after junior year, and did what I could to ignore and avoid that one group, but it made me loathe going to school. And yes, I considered suicide a couple times, simply to make them feel bad. But each time I decided it wouldn't make them feel bad, they'd just taunt my family at my funeral and drag my name thru the dirt at school, when I wasn't around. Eventually I started writing poetry... I'll have to post some of the stuff I wrote, it's actually pretty good.
The worst part about all of it was that when my mom found out, she AGREED with them, telling me that while being confident wasn't a BAD thing, I did potray a conceited attitude when I dressed the way I did on Halloween and "showed off my body", and that lots of people thought that it was b!tc#y. I stopped confiding in mom.
I also had body issues for years. Years. In fact, even NOW I have issues. I never had an eating disorder, but I stopped wearing shorts and looked at myself very critically, noticing every flaw in everything. I still don't like to wear shorts, but I have started to cmoe out of my shell recently and finally have started to have some decent self-esteem.
