Inspired By My Best Friend

My best friend had came to me privately about her story, I was in tears but yet inspired by this amazing girl I have in my life. I was inspired because this girl has truly been through a lot in her time on earth and she is now focusing on the future and present than putting her past in front of her. She had given me permission to share parts of her story, she wants to help change people by her story, it's very deep.

It started with her in Pre-K meeting who would soon be her best friend and cousin, Taylor (I'll change names)They got into middle school at fifth grade and things changed, people were picking on Taylor. She stood up for Taylor and people turned on her.

All through middle school she was humiliated, bullied and tortured. She was watching her parents divorce for the third and last time, while still being bullied by her classmates, high school kids on her bus and even people she thought was her friends.

She later learned from people in her family that during the custody agreement her mom had picked her boyfriend (the guy she later married) over than her and she was in diapers.

She was forced by her mother to come live with her and go to high school there. Her mother was afraid her dad would come and try to take her back to her dads.

As a freshman, Brooke hated her new school for many reasons. She wasn't with Taylor, no one knew her or talked to her, she was alone at a school with her step-brother. People bullied her because she didn't talk much, she wasn't "popular," she wasn't pretty and she was over-weight for her height.

Brooke's sophomore year was about to start, she invited Taylor over to stay the night. Brooke and Taylor were in her room while her step-brother and his friend were in the garage getting drunk. Taylor invited Brooke's step-brother to come in and talk with them, the first time Brooke was getting along with her step-brother, Robert. Robert got Taylor and Brooke drunk and they forced Brooke to go in the closet with Robert's friend, Paul. Brooke was screaming no at them but they shoved her in there and closed the door, Brooke still to this day doesn't recall everything that happened, but she does know that she lost her virginity and she never planned to lose that, she was saving it.

She moved to her dads after being faced with more humiliation from her step-brother, Robert, his friends, Brooke's friends and having to sit in the lunchroom floor with kids throwing food at her. She was already by this point starving herself, cutting herself with an eraser and she got heavily into smoking.

She thought she could start new at her dads, new kids and a chance to start fresh. That wasn't the case, she tried to make friends but the girls pushed her around, they wouldn't talk to her but they talked about her. She skipped lunch to sit in the girls bathroom.

She moved back to start her senior year at her moms. People had missed her, her real friends but now people were relentless to bullying and humiliating her. Guys started to force her to have sex or they'd spread things, pictures and videos of her all over the web, the more she said no the more they blackmailed her.

Girls told her they'd shove food down her throat they'd make sure she choked. The more she spoke to her mom the more her mom denied it and told her to deal.

She was doing homework in her room before starting on the dishes, her step-father, Rodney asked her why and when she said she was doing homework he barged in and slapped her in the face with her cell phone. That led to her crying at night for her dad, cutting herself even more, her mother wouldn't let her out of the house except for school and home.

She finished her senior year at her dads, she graduated, she got into college.

She has attempted suicide twice, she overdosed on pills and had to get her stomach pumped, she has scars not just on her wrists and arms but also on her shoulders, knees and ankles from the eraser, she said the feeling of her skin burning gave her a rush she had never had.

This girl pushed me away when she needed her real friends, she's an amazing, wonderful, beautiful, smart and talented girl but she can't see it.

She's a strong woman for still being here, though she had pushed me away to seek real friends I always was there when she called. I always managed to still be in her life somehow.

So my question; why do people bully? It doesn't make the bullies look better, it makes them look low.

Please, please, PLEASE if you see someone being bullied stand up for them, be a friend or just try and help them. Everyone needs a friend, a real friend. Brooke has a real friend but never saw it with me, no matter what I did for her, I got to her too late but I never gave up on her.

 

Thank you, Tropicana.

I really hope she gets better, myself.

It's breaking my heart to see her,

Every picture she sends me, you can see a scar.