About a year ago, I embarked on a journey to resolve longstanding feelings of hurt and resentment toward women who rejected and bullied me way back in middle school.
I decided to contact those women as well as other women classmates to ask them about their experiences with cliques, bullying and peer exclusion during middle and high school.
I couldn’t find all of my former classmates, and some weren’t willing to talk to me, but many of the women were enthusiastic and happy to share their memories. I received heartfelt apologies from women who excluded me from the “cool girls’ clique,” some of whom didn’t see themselves as “cool” at all, and an especially poignant apology from a classmate who confessed that bullying me might have been a way of coping with the sexual abuse she was experiencing at home.
My first article about what I came to call “my project” appeared in Lilith magazine in the fall of 2020. I was gratified by the positive response I received on my social media accounts. Then last week, my second article about the ongoing project appeared on Huffington Post.
To my amazement, the response was overwhelming. The article went viral and my phone was exploding with congratulations, thank-yous and emails from people wanting to share their own stories. Apparently, my story hit a nerve with adult readers, parents, teachers and even a well-known folk singer! Ironically, I received more Facebook friend requests than I could handle.
Finally, I’m the popular girl!
Clearly, bullying and peer rejection are damaging to the mental health of so many of us. Resolving unfinished business in middle age is better than not at all, but finding effective ways to prevent bullying and peer exclusion before they happen would be so much better. So far, interventions by schools and mental health professionals have had only minimal success. We shouldn’t give up trying.
To read my article in Huffington Post, click here.
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