7th grade wasn’t any easier. In fact, it was worse. My bullies were bigger, and much more vicious towards me. It was clear I wasn’t contagious, since no one else came back to school coughing like I was. My bullies felt like they could pick on me without suffering any consequences. Yet, I sensed that they were still scared of me. Many of the students were apprehensive about bullying me, and often looked to the ringleaders for guidance before they did anything.
By then, I had more or less accepted it, and stopped trying to change anything. I was successful only in failing almost every class. It was also pretty clear to everyone that my health was getting pretty bad. I had trouble staying out of the nurse’s office because my anxiety upset my stomach so much, that it was impossible for me to focus on anything else but my physical pain. I was also coughing a lot more too. But I’ve always been stubborn as a work horse, and I only left school when I was forced to.
My mom got more and more worried about me. She didn’t know what to do. She was in the process of looking for other schools around us, but found none that would be better for me. Meanwhile, I just did everything I could to persevere, but I was lost, alone, and depressed. My mom took me to therapy and often told me to pray, but I was having serious doubts about God, to the point I realized I was no longer a Christian. I was an atheist, and once I realized that, I almost went off the deep end into anti-religion. I decided that the Christian God couldn’t logically exist. After all, an all-loving and all-powerful God wouldn’t have done what He had done to me. He wouldn’t have given me CF or let my parents divorce. He would’ve kept my stepmom and stepbrother from hurting me in ways I should’ve never been hurt. The nail on the coffin of my faith was my middle school experience. I was convinced that if God existed, He was ultimately evil, and I was His prime target.
I continued to go through everyday on autopilot. Everyday, things got a little bit harder. I was a little more run-down. I just didn’t care about anything anymore. I feared death, but at the same time, I honestly hoped some freak accident would wipe me off the face of the earth. A month after 7th grade started, a girl in my grade jaywalked and got hit by an SUV. She didn’t die, but I found myself wishing that girl was me. At least then, I would be in the hospital watching movies and playing video games all day, sheltered from the world, rather than being forced to go to that godforsaken middle school.
However, at the same time, I was too afraid to do anything that would put me in danger or in pain. Like I said, I hoped some freak accident would happen completely out of the blue, because if I saw any danger coming, I knew I’d jump out of the way. Deep down inside, I wanted to live. But I wanted to live without the bullying and the suffering. I knew I’d be exponentially happier if my biggest bullies left the school. I’d still be pretty unhappy, since my teachers still didn’t know what to do with me and my health was getting worse. But at least I wouldn’t be crippled by fear everyday.
Eventually, my mom did find a new school to get me to. Unfortunately, it was 20 miles away in downtown Denver, but I was so desperate, that I did not care. I needed out of my current situation. So, my mom found a few more students in our neighborhood who also attended that school, and we set up a carpool to and from that school.
