Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by @HoldingOutForAHero36

I grew up in a super small town where my parents were friends with everyone else's parents. I was friends with everyone, too. I was always the taller, slightly bigger, girl. The other girls in elementary school were short, skinny, and had perfect hair. Back then, I wasn't worried about boyfriends or how I looked very much. I was friends with boys and girls.

Around fourth or fifth grade, the 'popular girls' group formed. They were the prettiest girls whose parents had the most money and they dated the same guys from kindergarten to seventh grade. I had earned social standing for the rest of elementary school because I had dated the cutest 'popular' boy in second grade. In fifth grade, some stuff came out into the open and I just recently found out all of it. Anyway, we lost our house and had to move about fifteen minutes away to a different community. I stayed in the same school for a month or so. At this point, my parents had been separated several times.

My mom decided to home school me. I don't know why. I was homeschooled for four months when my mom had a car accident less than a mile from our house. Her father died a few months before and that was so hard on me. She got really messed up and they sent her to a hospital four hours away. I stayed with my grandma until she got out. She got better over that summer, and my dad got disabled at work. We bought a house in another small town and I had to go to school there. I was scared because my grandma went there and said they were really cliquey.

Well, they were. I thought I would have a friend because my cousin went to school there, but I didn't. The kids were sort of nice at first. They weren't mean. I made several good friends. We were in sixth grade then. This one girl was my best friend. Let's call her 'T'. We were outside at PE one day and they had those big, gender-segregated outside bathrooms. There wasn't a lock on the doors so she asked me to go in with her to guard the door. Now that I think about it, wouldn't I have watched the door from outside? So I faced the door. A boy opened the door, then he shut it when he saw me. We left the bathroom and started walking on the track. I remember people staring at us.

Then one of the teachers came up to us. She said she was writing us up because a boy told her that we were in the bathroom together. Soon after, the rumors had already spread. I was at my locker and people whispered. They were calling me a lesbian and things like that. I didn't give it much thought. T went home with me after school and she told me that a popular boy in our grade told the teacher we were kissing. This teacher later talked about it to the class, whether it was our class or not. I wasn't worried.

Time passed and T stopped being friends with me because people started making fun of her. I spent the night with a girl in a higher grade and she went to school the next week and told everyone I had shaved my legs on her bed...? It wasn't true, but everyone believed her. None of the girls would talk to me and the boys were ruthless. Then they started on my clothes. I was sent to the vice principal's office because her nephew was one of the boys. She told me a bunch of useless stuff. I begged my parents to let me homeschool again, but my dad wouldn't have it. It had to be my dad's way or the highway.

On a few separate occasions, we were in class, not doing anything. I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, alone because everyone had refused to sit by me. One of the boys threw a lid to a bowl at me. They kept doing it and saying mean things to me - sexual stuff. I was picked on because of a boy I liked. He and his friends would start more rumors. I went to a dance once and that was when kids were crazy about those little Nintendo DS's. I had mine and this girl in a grade below me borrowed it. She was being nice. I looked at it the next day and she had set my screen name as 'Lesbian', then wrote 'big fat lesbian' on my notes.

I hated everyone and I didn't have anyone. I cut myself with a kitchen knife a few times, but we didn't have anything sharper, so I had to work at it. My mom found out and my dad still wouldn't do anything. I had missed so many days both semesters and I would have to repeat the sixth grade.

The torture wasn't as bad the second time. By this time, my body started developing. And trust me, from then on to tenth grade, everyone noticed. I was a "whore" because I had big boobs and a big butt. I couldn't date guys at my school because my bullies were in a grade above us. In ninth grade, one of those boys was in my science class. He would spread rumors that I was dating kids in the special ed classes. But I was friends with all of them. And some of them stopped talking to me.

All that bullying and meanness influenced me to act differently. I thought if I acted like them, they wouldn't be mean to me. It didn't work. I lost my virginity at 16 toward the end of ninth grade and after that, a guy I was friends with-  who I had 'dated' a couple of times - told people I gave him blowjobs and other things. He would tell me that people said I had had sex with this person or that person. I didn't know who these people were. I couldn't concentrate on my school work anymore and I wasn't learning anything.

In 2013, my mom finally took me out of school when my dad's health fell fast. It was November in my tenth grade year. I got better and I didn't think about hurting myself for a while. Then I experienced a different type of bullying. I lived with my mom's mother while I attended online school. She would talk about my weight, say bad things about my parents. Once, she asked me if I thought she was prettier than her sisters. I said no, because I thought they were all pretty. My grandmother is overweight. She's always on these fad diets for three days. She got mad and said she thought my sister was prettier than me. My sister is shorter than me, skinny, tan, and has dark curly hair. I'm tall, fat, pale, and have ugly brown hair. It hit me hard and I struggled not to cry. I told my sister about it, but she didn't know how to be comforting. She just said she was stupid for saying it. It kept my mom up at night. She texted my grandma one night, asking about it, and of course she told us both that she never said it. I remember being so stupid every time she called me names and talked mean to me. I would get in the shower and get a lotion bottle. The plastic ones that stand on the head with the corners on the bottom. I would get the bottom and dig it into my skin hard.

When I told my grandmother about the bullying in school, she defended my cousin who helped the bullies and said I didn't need to be so sensitive. She tells my sister in law that I have sex with multiple guys, but defends my 16 year old niece, who is popular, one of 'those' girls. She sends naked pictures, and has had sex with so many boys I can't even count anymore. It's so frustrating and hurtful sometimes. I'm 18 and still can't stand up for myself. My niece only talks to me when she has a problem. She calls me ugly and she got mad when I said that my sister would be my maid of honor when I get married, which obviously isn't soon! She said my sister doesn't even like me and no one says anything to her.

The truth is, people are never going to stop being mean and calling you names behind your back. You'll lose friends and gain some. But you have to be strong and help yourself. For me, the way out was dropping out of school. But I finished high school this past May and I'm starting college in January. The baby I had a miscarriage with from that first time having sex - yes, it can happen the first time - would've been almost two now. Most of those bullies dropped out of school and never finished, never went to college, got pregnant or got someone pregnant, or are on drugs.

The important thing to remember is that you'll be okay. Even though right now you don't feel like it. You can't give up. You want to do what I almost did and commit suicide, but that's not the right option. You're the only one that can help yourself. I'm sorry to anyone who read my story and thought it was a waste of time and everything... I hope it helps someone and I want to help people in the future. You're not a waste of space. You're not a whore or a slut. You're not just for sex, whether the rumors about you were true or not.