My earliest memory of bullying was in kindergarten when I was 6. I was on the playground about to go down the slide when a girl the same age as me pushed me out of the way and said to me "pretty girls go first".

When I was 7 a group of girls thought it would be fun to pretend to be my friend then get me to tell them my secrets while recorded it then the put as a video message on the school notices which were projected every day on a white screen in the hall.

When I was eight I went to live with my dad for a year in different country and so moved schools and after 4 weeks a girl punched me in the playground of our school because 'I was too nice and she didn't like me.' when I tried to get up she pushed me back down against a tree and swung again this time missing and hitting the tree because I ducked. What I had not known was that a teacher had been watching the whole time. She then came over, grabbed me by the hand and took me to the principles office not even asking if I was ok or noticing a bruise beginning to form on my right cheek and on the side of my nose as well as a cut that is now a scar on my face from the flower ring she wore. I was the one who got in trouble.

When I was 9 I moved to a new school and a new country again and became the new girl, the outsider.

When I was 10 some girls wrote some quite horrible stuff about me on a wall behind the tuckshop/canteen.

When I was 11 I hated my self because I thought 'if people don't like me then it must be because of me.' It was then I shut out the world. My one beacon of light was my best friend.

When I was 12 my best friend started ignoring me, she ran away when I came near, she would sit somewhere different everyday so I couldn't sit with her, she spread nasty rumors around the school about me and she talked about me behind my back. One day her and a group of other girls threw rocks at me when I was walking home from school.

When I was 13 I started high school thinking that I would leave behind the bullies but instead they followed me and called me names as well as filling my bag with dirt and a note saying "dirt is what you are so dirt is what you get". When I was thirteen I tried to commit suicide. It was when I was 13 that I got face book and instantly got 30 friend request from different people which made me think and realise 'maybe it is not me that is the problem.'

When I was 14 I started a new school again and after 5 weeks a roomer went around school about me having no money and always wearing the same clothes.  

When I turned fifteen, I left. I started home school and came to Canada for three months with my dad to just get away from everything. It was then I realised that through it all one good friend has stuck by me. And because of that I am lucky.

I have been bullied at each and every one of the 4 schools I have gone too in my 15 short years. I have been both verbally and physically abused. And when asked why their only reason was "because it's easy". I have been bullied because people see me as an easy target. They see me, the shy polite girl in the corner and they think "oh she looks pathetic and easy, lets go and pick on her for fun." I would like to say that the bullying has made me a stronger person but it hasn't. In fact it is still happening now outside of school as I have been forced to go to another school yet again, my fifth, this time home school. That way I'm safe, that way I don't have to wake up every morning dreading school, dreading the hurtful words that would hit me that day. 

Something you should also know about me is that for about the past 3 years I have lived with something that has no official name. Imagine the worst headache/migraine you have ever had then times that by around 5 and picture having that same pain in your head every day all day. This has been called lots of names, like me. Names like, a migraine, a headache, something your mind made up, and your bodies way of telling you that you shouldn't be here. So I decided that I would name my self. A name that felt true to me so I called it 'my pain' or 'Mr grumpy' who is this type of evil who follows me around every second of every day and makes my life a misery. Just like bullying. Bullying is pain that has no cure except to stop it at the source. Now every day that I went to school I had to deal with both pains. I had to deal with a constant pain in my head and in my heart.

But that is not what made me depressed, what made me try to kill myself. What did it was that it felt like no one was there. No one stood up for me. Not even the people I called my friends. I felt alone, isolated and totally unhappy and cut off from the world. If you are reading this and can relate to at least part of it then know, you are not alone, you are not isolated there are people out there every day dealing with the same stuff as you are.

My name is layla, I am living with constant bullying but I know I am not alone. I know that I have support and that I can and will get through this.