My daughter was bullied. Simply put in just those few words.

Bullied by over 200 students because a sixth grade English teacher decided it was OK to discuss this one teacher and my daughter felt comfortable telling her “He hit me”.

“He” admitted to hitting her.  “She” was harassed by students and parents told me “But he gives recommendations to the high schools for (No need to put it in, this isn’t really about him or what he taught)

It wasn’t until we received death threats that my LMFT husband who is very calm threatened the principal with suing that he was (a) only suspended for 2 days and (b) this helped the teacher to decide to leave the school altogether.  That’s great right?  Wrong.

Flash forward a couple of years.  My daughter is now in 8th grade, getting great grades, and warming up to a few, yes only a few people.  She prefers to not go out and her friends, close ones are ones from elementary school who didn’t go to middle school with her for sixth grade.  She has a hard time trusting people and I…..

Worry more than I think people think I should that my daughter will self harm again or kill herself.  Dramatic, no.  This lovely 13 year old girl has self harmed and she’s smart so she did it in places she thought I’d never look….when I saw my eye brow shaping tool in the shower….I looked.  I cried, I got angry, and I hated “him”.

I’m always afraid of someone or people bullying her again.  She’s in therapy weekly and her therapist said “I” need to heal too.  Didn’t really think that “I” needed to heal because I was too busy taking care of her.

I remember her coming home from school crying all the time, finding food she said she was eating in her trash because they all called her fat, her way of dressing going from caring to not at all because she was being called ugly, her friends abandoning her because who wants to be friends with the girl everyone hated, and her thinking it might be better if she were dead.  The fact she thought that a couple of times was more than enough times for me.

I cried….I yelled at some kids….I felt targeted…I felt let down by her school…why didn’t I do more?

I was afraid what would happen to my daughter.  She was already being bullied, imagine if I did more.

What brings up all these old feelings?  My daughter thinks this boy is cute and they’re friends, only friends.  He told her that another girl who she thought was her friend told him to ask out my daughter.  He asked her why and she said “So you can break up with her and break her heart”….

Her tears and my fear came right back again.  I spent yesterday worried all day.  Worried would she hurt herself?  Worried what would happen at school?  Worried one day she’d kill herself.

Those were dark days in the past and she’s so much stronger and I have to let her cry and know that teenage girls really do suck at times and that she’s found ways to heal and that she has a woman she talks to weekly who is not me that she can share with and that she’s not the same sixth grader so scared and feeling alone.

I believe from my own personal experience that being the parent of a bullied child takes healing as well.  We feel the pain they go through and want to protect them and when they self harm we get in fear of the “What ifs?”   I have to get past that and know she’s not at that school and know that she’s doing great in her school and know that just because “ONE” bratty teenage girl is rude to her that it’s not sixth grade again….she’s OK and I have to trust that.  I have to heal.