Kids Are The Cruelest Animals

I was...nine. Well, it started when I was eight, but I was nine for most of the school year. An advanced student. The one they moved up early.

I was in a Montessori school, so we learned in three-year groupings. I had transferred in as a second-year elementary student, but given third-year work. The following year, the administrators advanced me to the upper elementary class as a fourth-year, and my teacher was giving me fifth-year work. So I was a third-grader in fourth doing fifth, and the girls in my class didn't like that.

It was worse because I was super social. I was friends with most of the school and basically all of the teachers and adults. The girls in my class, all of them at least a year or two older than I was, didn't like that either. I didn't understand at the time what it meant when my mom said they were scared of my 'charisma'. Looking back, they were just upset I was more popular than they were, and therefore did exactly what stereotypical preteen bully girls do: shunned me.

Led by the girl with the richest parents, hereafter referred to as the queen bee, I was completely closed out. None of the girls wanted to go against her; the one who tried, I was wary of as she was the queen bee's best friend. They wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't work with me unless they absolutely had to, wouldn't sit with me or even near me, wouldn't eat with me... as an elementary schooler, it was devastating.

I've never been what most people would call normal. I was homeschooled for two years before entering Montessori and never had any siblings, plus we moved too much for any long-term friendships. I have never really used social media unless Prose counts. I haven't had television service since I was six. My only big hobby was and still is reading. So to my classmates, I was weird. I didn't fit in. I was a threat to the queen bee's perfect little kingdom.

But because I'm a stubborn twit who was determined to be herself (at least somewhat) and also because I didn't really understand the situation, I didn't even try to fix it. I was friendly, but that made it worse, so I said f*** it (or rather, the fourth-grade equivalent). I carried books to school, did every assignment that could be completed solo. I was fine, academically, and I wasn't bored, but I was lonely. That was the first time I discovered that it's possible to be lonely in a room full of people.

It worsened over time. The boys couldn't have cared less about the girls' war; they talked and joked and worked with me just fine, but they were preteens and immature and got awkward at random moments, and I was nine and didn't understand why. They were also obsessed with video games, most of which I had never heard of. (Even years later, I would really appreciate it if I never have to hear the word 'Minecraft' again.) My crush was being shunned by the boys and I was being shunned by the girls, and I was too scared to stand up for him or myself. As it turns out, for as much as I was a headstrong child, I didn't really like conflict then either.

Slowly, I retreated. I began to avoid the tables where people formed groups, choosing to find a stool and a corner where people would leave me alone. I would eat at the table that only held two people, with no hope that anyone would join me. I became a ghost-like presence, the phantom that just happened to be taking up that seat. My teachers either couldn't act or didn't. My parents fought about whether or not to pull me out, and decided to have me finish the year.

Bad decision.

I ended the year with almost no self-confidence, but a greater sense of self-reliance and knowledge that I could, in fact, complete assignments perfectly well with no assistance. Ironically, I was also more attached to my few friends than I had ever been before. I became clingy and prickly simultaneously in a strange duality.

These days, I'm only the headstrong, social person I was as a child when I'm with only my family or closest friends. I've regained some of my confidence, but now it comes in the form of 'I don't give a s***' and ignoring people entirely. I've not come out of ghost form, really. I just function better within it. (To use video game terms I've since learned, I kept the skill and outgrew the debuff.)

I don't know if I actually answered the prompt, since I can't really consider that a maturity shift or a sudden growing-up moment, but that's the biggest shift I've had.