"You're not going to contribute to the conversation anyway because you're so quiet."

My group of best friends in elementary school consisted of three of us. Once we got to middle school, our friend circle expanded, but I remained a very shy person. My "best friend" would always sit next to me at the long lunch table, turning her back completely to me, while she faced the rest of the group and I sat on the end alone with her back in my face.

She would do this any time we were in a big group. Even at my own 13th birthday party. I had invited a bunch of kids I was too shy to actually talk to. Everyone sat in a cluster with their chairs to talk, and she stuck her chair right in front of mine to block me from the group.

One day, I finally got up the courage to tell her to stop doing this. I guess a tiny piece of me still believed that she wasn't aware of what she was doing, that my best friend couldn't be that unnecessarily cruel on purpose. 

After I confronted her, she said, "I could stop doing it, but you're not going to contribute to the conversation anyway because you're so quiet, so it's pointless."

She never stopped. 

We are grown up now and haven't seen or spoken to each other in decades. I am much stronger now, and have acknowledged that I never deserved to be a victim of her sadistic acts of micro-cruelty. And that she was a completely miserable human being.

But nevertheless, the way she made me feel during adolescence will always stick with me.

"You sound like an evil witch."

My friends and everyone else always loved my laugh. They would tell me that it was unique and that it made them want to laugh, too. 

I remember sitting in the classroom with my friends, doing our work. We had a substitute teacher that day, so it was just fun stuff.

At one point I was laughing so hard that my friends were laughing with me. Then the substitute teacher interrupted and said, "That's your real laugh? You sound like an evil witch. Don't laugh."

The rest of the day I was completely quiet. She was the first person to hate my laugh.

Dirty Shoes

I was a new student, just moved from the south side of town. At age seven, I had no idea what class was, or that I was in a different social class. 

A girl told me I was poor and that my shoes were dirty.

She bullied me and picked on me all the way until high school, making fun of the way I dressed.

I will never forget her. She made me feel terrible about myself. She taught me what "poor" meant.

"That's a perfectly acceptable thing for her to say"

My group of middle school girlfriends consisted of five of us total. The other four would often pair up against me in subtle but intentional ways, like ordering two Caesar salads at Cheesecake Factory for each pair to split while laughing at the fact that I was left out.

One day the five of us were hanging out with my longtime childhood friend who went to a different school, and we were all joking about how we wanted to violate all of the school rules on the last day of middle school, because there would be no consequences.

One of them joked that she'd wear a spaghetti strap tank top with her bra straps showing. Another said that she'd wear a miniskirt. I chimed in and said that I would wear like three hats.

There was an awkward silence and they all stared at me.

One of them said, "Ummm....ok..."

My childhood friend immediately reacted to this. "Whoa, why are you acting like that to her? Hats are also not allowed in school. That's a perfectly acceptable thing for her to say."

My friends didn't know how to react. They had never encountered someone standing up for me, since I had never done it myself.

It took this simple declaration from my old friend to really put into perspective how unfairly my middle school friends treated me for no reason.

Once we got to high school, we all parted ways.

"Too fat"

I was an active fifth grade girl. Average build and outgoing. One day at the pool an older boy told me I was too fat for a bikini.

For the next five years I wore suits that covered my stomach and wouldn't show a lot of skin. I still have self image issues.

It didn't help throughout high school, my "BFF" would tell me that they needed to remodel the school to fit my fat ass. She would tell me to stop eating and poke my stomach.

I look back at my high school pictures and wonder how no one noticed how sickly I looked.

"Don't you have any other friends?!"

When I was little, I was extremely socially awkward and anxious. I had one friend who I spent all of my time with. She was also really socially awkward and shy, and looking back now, I realize that we probably used each other as a security blanket, allowing us to brave the terrifying abyss of kids on the playground. Simply having her by my side gave me a huge amount of comfort and peace, and I'm sure I did the same for her.

One day in fourth grade, we were on the playground together, and someone came up to us and said in a confident and booming voice, for the whole school to hear, "You two are together all the time! Don't you have any other friends?!" 

We both felt embarrassed and ashamed, and didn't know how to respond. I don't think we even said anything back. 

Those words would have stung no matter what, but they were extra hurtful because they were coming from our teacher. A teacher who was beloved and celebrated by everyone. 

He died a few years ago, and the whole community was devastated. 

I was only moderately devastated.

"Thank you."

When I was in second grade, I wrote a ton of songs. There was one in particular that I was really proud of. I decided to share it with my music teacher after class one day. He listened as I sang, and then he said "thank you."

As a second grader, I wanted to be praised and told it was a great song, so his simple "thank you," which may have been sufficient in his mind, was the biggest rejection I had ever felt. 

I kept writing songs well into my teens, but I never again shared them with anyone.

Professional Draw-er

In first grade, I loved drawing. In my heart, I truly thought I had a shot as a "professional draw-er."

But on my report card, my first grade teacher wrote (to paraphrase): "[NAME] loves to draw. She wants to draw for the rest of her life. I don't think she has what it takes to do that... but I know that she's going to be something big, somewhere big, and I'm gonna read about her in the news one day." 

This completely broke my spirit and discouraged me from pursuing this dream.