A Letter To 13 Year Old Me

Anyone who has been watching the gripping adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale will know what the words in this picture mean. For everyone else, it means "don't let the bastards grind you down".

This seemed like the perfect quote to give to 13 year old me. 

This letter all came about because of Grrrl Con. Yes I promise I will stop talking about it at some point, but I think you need to understand that going to that series of workshops has given me something back that has crippled me for years.

On the last day of the weekend at Grrrl Con, I did a workshop with Cheryl Martin called 'Every Grrrl Has A Story'. In said workshop Cheryl asked us to think about a moment in our lives when everything changed. For the better, for worse, whatever. Just a moment that we thought of that we could elaborate on.

The stories that came out of that session were fantastic, and each very different as you would expect. One grrrl wrote about the moment she came out to her best friend, which was sweet but also really funny. Another wrote about an encounter she was convinced she had with a ghost when she was very little, putting us in the mind of a very young child made the story so chilling. We also heard the story of one of the grrls realising she was attracted to women for the first time, which was really heartfelt and beautiful. 

I don't know why really but when Cheryl gave us the criteria from which to write, only one scenario came to my mind. The day the bullies finally broke me.

It had been going on since primary school. I was an easy target I suppose. Small, thin, pale. I came from a broken home, mum and dad divorced, dad wasn't around much, and certainly not on the money front. Mum had three kids to raise, one of which has learning difficulties, and only benefits to do it on. She had to give up her job when my sister nearly burnt the house down (by accident). 

My clothes were mostly second hand. I had lank hair because we only had a bath at home and mum couldn't afford for us to bathe every day. I was pushed around, hair pulled, names called, spat on. The worst was when the boys would put their clammy hands up my skirt as I waited in line for lunch. Yeah, school sucked big time. 

I wasn't beaten up no. I had no bruises. But that doesn't mean that I didn't feel the words they shouted at me as if they were daggers. I hate that old saying about sticks and stones. Names DO hurt me. They still hurt me when I look in the mirror and hear those bullies as clearly as if they were standing behind me now. 

In a lot of ways I hate them more now than I did back then because they changed my life. And not in a good way. They made me leave school. They pushed and pushed until I could take it no more.

I'd snapped once before the fateful day I left school. Four years before, when I was still at Primary school. I'd screamed at a boy in sheer frustration. No words, no retorts, just aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

The boy the scream was directed at later told the teacher that I'd thrown a desk at him. Ha. Me. Tiny, mouse-like, wouldn't say boo to a goose, 4ft something, 6 stone, Kath. Threw a desk. I'll let that sink in.

Thankfully the teachers thought it was as preposterous as it sounded and no punishment was levied. It should have been though, against him. He deserved having a desk thrown at him. Maybe that's why I now have a love of female superheroes. And like to cosplay as them. It's for 10 year old me who was only strong enough to scream. 

So it carried on, for four more years. I moved to secondary school. Maybe it'll be better there? Not when most of the kids who picked on you at primary school are coming with you to high school. 

The worst thing about it was that mum was the only one who believed it was happening to me. Teachers told me not to tell tales when I was crying for help. I tried to talk to my dad and stepmum about it. Their response was that "things like that didn't really happen." Oh right. Good to know.

I honestly don't remember the exact day when it happened. When I eventually broke. But I do remember the moment when I walked out of school and never came back.

I was waiting in line for my music lesson when one of the kids who frequently bullied me said something in passing. I remember that he was shorter than me, and ginger, but I don't remember his name or what it was that he said. I don't even think it was particularly hurtful, just something stupid. But it was enough. It was the final straw that broke the camel's back as it were.

I said nothing in response, possibly for the first time ever, I just walked out. Out of the school, out of the grounds, through the little break in the hedge that the students used as a shortcut. Nobody tried to stop me or asked where I was going.

When I arrived home more than an hour early mum knew something was wrong. But being mum she made the decision that I would never be going back there. From then on I was entered into a home schooling programme. It wasn't actually that I was home schooled, that's just what it was called. It was two hours a day in a community center with kids like me, or kids that were pregnant, or kids who were also carers and who couldn't go to school.

I took five exams at the end of the two years I spent there, and I'm still in touch with my teachers from the home schooling. They, along with my mum, literally saved my life.

And yeah I might not have GCSE's. I might not have been able to step into a classroom environment until many years later. I might not have gone to college or uni, and I might now have a very average job, all because I didn't finish school. I might also be emotionally scarred. But it was what I needed to do for my own sanity.

Would I change it if I could? No. I often say that I wish I could go back and finish school. And that's true. I do wish that. My prospects would have been much brighter if I had. But I would not want to have endured one more second in that place. It was literally sucking the life out of me. And maybe leaving, making that choice, and sticking to it, has made me who I am today. And I like her. She might still hear the bullies taunting her when she looks in the mirror, but she is kind, and thoughtful and considerate of others, and she values her friends above all other things. And that makes her pretty cool in my eyes.

So, 13 year old me, my advice to you is to be strong. It will get better. You will find your people, you will find your voice, and you will get through this.