30 days of truth {day 8}

Day 8: Someone who made your life {heck}, or treated you like {poo}.
I Mormonified the question. Hope no one minds :).

Dude, I only have ONE example of this, but boy is it a doozy.

I'll try to be brief
{and it will be really funny for you
to watch me try to do that...
as it is NOT my strong suit}

We moved to Orangeville, Utah when I was in 6th grade.

I had been in middle school in Monroe before that, but Emery County school districts had "Jr. High" instead of "Middle School" so after 3 months of the "good life" in middle school, I got demoted back to elementary school for another year.

This, I did not love, but could handle.

I made friends really fast.
In small, coal-mining towns like this, it's rare to have anyone move in or out. Everyone is just kind of there for life... for the most part. So a new girl was pretty exciting. Boys wanted to be my boyfriends, girls wanted to be my best friends, and I had 2, 3, and 4 friends to play with everyday after school. It was wonderful. I really liked EVERYONE too. Life was good.

Then, my family went out of town, and I missed two days of school. When I came back, it was like the flipping Twilight Zone.

I walked up to a group of my girl-friends during morning recess and said "Hi!" and without a word, they all turned their backs and walked away from me. It stopped me cold. My heart dropped down into my gut and my nerves lit up and sent tingles all over my body until I felt numb. I was pretty sure I was going to throw up.

As the day went on, I found that it wasn't just a small group of 4-5 girls,
NO ONE would talk to me.
Not a single person.
I was so confused.
I knew for a fact that I had not gossiped or said ANYTHING bad about anyone else, so I didn't understand what I could have done.

Once we all got settled down in class, I pulled out a notebook and scribbled a note to one of my "best" friends and I said:

"I don't know what I did, but I am so sorry.
Please tell me what I did.
If someone said something bad, they are lying
cause I have never ever said anything bad about you."
PLEASE tell me what I've done.
I'm sorry."

I folded up the note, passed it to her.
Without even looking at it,
she crushed it in her hand,
got up, walked over to the garbage can,
and threw it in.

I wanted to DIE.

I wrote another note to a different friend, passed it,
and watched as it went straight into the trash can again.

I repeated this process several times,
until I realized I was completely alone.

It was hopeless.
How could I even make things right
if no one would tell me what I did wrong?

Yeah.
I know it might sound petty,
but when you're 11/12 years old a new in town,
it. is. your. worst. nightmare.

I begged my mom to let me stay home from school
to let me home school
to let me go to the school in Castle Dale instead...
but she didn't want me to run away from my problems.
{And seriously, I'm glad she didn't. I'm much stronger for having endured them.}

In the morning, I would eat breakfast,
stick my finger down my throat and make myself throw up,
and then tell my mom that I couldn't go because I had the flu
and the proof was in the toilet.
But mom caught on pretty quick, and back to school I went.
{She would hug me and love me and talk to me and give me strength...and I know it must have killed her. It would kill me to see Kort go through it. But she didn't help me run away.}

It went on for WEEKS.
I was completely isolated.
Well, not only isolated, but mistreated,
given dirty looks,
teased by boys who were
every bit as bad as the girls...
you name it.

One day after school, I got a horrible bloody nose.
{I got them often and they were MAJOR.}
My doctor told me that they were mostly due to the super-dry Utah air
and he said I should get into a hot, steamy shower to help get them to stop.
So I did.
But it didn't stop.
Blood just kept pouring and pouring and pouring out of my nose.
After about 30 minutes,
I started seeing little white spots
and my ears started ringing,
and my vision went black...
and then I thought,

"Oh sweet mercy, I am going to bleed to death right here and now!
Thank HEAVEN, this is it. I'm going to die, and it's not
'my fault' so it's okay, and I don't have to do this anymore!"

I don't think I could remember a time when I was happier.
I was blanketed in peace and so excited to just. be. done.

Then, the bleeding stopped.
And I started to cry.
And then I cried harder.

And then I started hitting myself in the face,
{um, like, HARD}
willing it, BEGGING it to start up again

PLEASE.

But it didn't.
So I sat there on the shower floor and sobbed.

Um, that was probably my lowest point... just a guess though.

A week or two later, my mom called me into her room and said that one of the girl's mothers had called her and she said that this girl came home and broke down into tears and told her mom what had been going on and that she was sorry and miserable, and couldn't bear to do this to me anymore and that she wanted me to come over and she wanted to apologize.

Wow, I don't even think I can tell you what that felt like. "Good." or "Really good." or "Unfreakingbelievable." would be a start. So I went over to her house, and she hugged me and cried. And I asked her, "So, what did I do?"

Her answer?

"You didn't do anything."

It turns out that a girl who had pretty much been the "queen bee" {or whatever they might be calling it these days} before I had come to town was a little threatened by my sudden popularity. So, when I wasn't at school, she gathered a group of girls up and told them not to talk to me because, well, "it would be funny." Then everybody got in on it. Then, when they realized how fun it was to feel all sorts of powerful and see me grovel and feel miserable and insecure... they decided to keep it up for, oh you know, a couple of months. Awesome.

Also, I suspect a lot of those kids went along with it because, hey, "WAY better for it to be ME than THEM!" Can't say that I blame them. 6th grade is a scary stinkin' place!

Anyway, the girl who "came clean" went back to school on Monday, and with confidence that was AMAZING for a 6th grade girl, she announced that treating me this way was ridiculous, and she would no longer have any part of it.

And shock of all shockers, EVERYONE followed.
I will love her forever for doing that.

A few weeks later, the girl who had started all the trouble in the first place rallied a few other girls and tried to do it all over again. But, my friend stayed by my side this time, and I told them they could go shove their "friendship" up their little bums...

And when they realized I wasn't going to take it anymore
- or care at all about whether or not they liked me -
they gave up the game for good.

But that was messed up.
We've all grown now.
I don't hold any grudges.
I mean, if people held beliefs about me based on "who I was" at varying points throughout my life, well, that would sure stink for me. So, I allow for the fact that others have grown, just as I pray that others will allow for the fact that maybe, just MAYBE I have grown as well. Thank heaven that most of us are no longer our sixth grade selves...

Whether we were mean, petty, selfish, or just terribly insecure, it's nice to have it all behind us, yes?

But yeah, that's my true story of the time when someone treated me like {poo}. And then got a whole lot of other "someones" to treat me like {poo} right along with her.

The end.

Happy eighth day of truth to ya!

{Oh, and I thought I would end on a happy note:
I grew up, married the man of my dreams,
had two ridiculously cute babies (so far)
and adopted some crazy-great-dog-a-logs from the animal shelter.
So yeah, in retrospect, I'm glad the bleeding stopped cause, ya know
6th grade DOES end.
And so does high school.
Isn't that like, the BEST news ever?}


P.s. Totally read the next post.
It's funnier-er.
And will hopefully make up for all of the depressingness.
{And yes, I know that's not a word but this is my blog and I do what I want yo!}