When I was little I never had a shortage of playmates. I was one of those outgoing, lovable kids that made friends everywhere. I was used to kids wanting to play with me and receiving compliments from the adults because I was "funny" or "really smart for my age".

In middle school I was part of the popular crowd, I was that girl that everybody wanted to invite to their birthday party because I was "fun to be with". In my personal opinion, I was just a clown that had fun while entertaining people.

But when I was 12 things started to change...

One afternoon, as I was entering my house, my next door neighbor told me my skirt looked "good on me". I did thought it was a weird comment to make, but only because my skirt was the same skirt I had had for a few years now..

From then on my neighbor kept making comments like that every time he saw me, it didn’t took me long to realize he had memorized my schedule so he could be standing on his door every time I had to go or come back to my house.

(I imagine you might have already guessed this part but my neighbor wasn’t a cute boy my age.. he was a grown man of around 50 years old who used to babysit me when my parents had to go to the grocery store)

By the time I was 13 almost 14 the comments had escalated to “your ass looks so good today baby” and “why don’t you come closer so I can actually tell you what I think about your legs?” despite the fact that I had starting wearing clothes 3 sizes bigger.

Now imagine being afraid of even going close to the windows inside your own house, don’t even let me start on actually going out… I was so terrified, I started to develop this sort of routine for when I had to enter or leave my house. The game consisted of being as quiet as possible and figuring out new routes I could take home every day.

My friends stopped being my friends at some point, I’ve forgotten exactly when…  I never blamed them though, I had stopped going to do sports because that meant leaving the house, the only time I did left the house was in the morning for school. Because of that I started gaining weight.

By the time I was 16 I was now the “fat girl” everyone would make fun of because she didn’t have a life outside of books and school.

One day, when my little brother was 12 he entered the house in a rush (an “I’m being chased” type of rush). I asked him what was going on and he started crying telling me that he was scared because our neighbor had told him something.. He was crying so much I couldn’t understand.

That same day we told our parents and even went to the police. I was NOT about to let my little brother become me.

The police couldn’t do anything though, the only proof we had was the word of two little children. I honestly didn’t care because the very next day, while coming back from school with my brother I screamed at my neighbor at the top of my voice everything I had wanted to say for the past 4 years. It wasn’t even enough..

I’d like to say things got better at school but they didn’t. I was stilled being bullied; the only difference was that now I really didn’t care. I felt powerful!

It’s been two years since I finished high-school now and I can honestly say I’m happy.

I have friends that actually know my story and think I’m awesome just the way I am (quirks and everything). A family that loves me and I’m studying what I want.

I can’t say I know a magic trick to make it all better but it does, you just have to know that there’s always someone there for you (even if you don’t think so).

It DOES get better.