My yearbook quote for high school was “High School Never Ends”. I meant it as a joke, but there was a hint of truth to it. At the time, I meant it more positively. We had all spent 5 years of our lives together, getting to know each other and parts of us were going to stay with us forever. There are some parts of my high school experience that have stayed with me forever. Sadly, more like scars left from a scary accident rather than a happy memory.

My 5 years of high school had good and bad, but my first 3 years were predominantly cruel. I was bullied incessantly. For being South Asian, for being short, for being myself, the list goes on. I felt very isolated and the few friends I had made during this period were great, however I felt the need to always please in fear that they would also turn on me.

This is not a sob story on how my bullies tormented me. I believe most children get bullied at one point or the other, but this is a story on the bullying stayed with me. I hope if someone reads this and went through anything remotely similar, you find some solace in knowing your feelings are valid. You do not need to feel sympathy for the people who made your life hell.

The school was made aware of the threats, the comments made to me and there were consequences, but it did not stop the bullying. My parents were specifically told “boys will be boys” after a boy no more than 13 had told me that “how would someone have sex with someone so small, no one can fit inside you“. This was told to me, a 12 year old, who was barely menstruating. Of course, these small comments were forgotten quickly in order to cope with another day at school. I wish I could say this was the most horrid thing. Perhaps, if the school had shown more solidarity with me, taken stricter measures, it would not have reached the point it did.

One moment has stayed with me till this day, a part of me still feels uncomfortable just thinking about it

It was the end of art class and I was assigned to wash the paint brushes and other art supplies, as I stood by the sink, a boy had come behind me and showed me an exacto knife and said “Aliya, these are sharp and can hurt someone” to which I looked down and continued doing what I was doing, till I felt something in my side. I let out a yelp and realized he had done the action of “stabbing” of me, but luckily for me, he had put the cover on the knife before doing it. He walked away amused with himself and I stood there frozen. As I walked out of class, I had made a school supervisor aware of what happened, who then confirmed which exacto knife it was and then walked away. It is important to note that this student is Quebecois, pure-laine as they say.

I rarely spoke to this student, why he chose to do this to me still remains a question on my end, but every once in a while I wonder if it was simply the colour of my skin. It had been the main reason I was bullied and the racist sentiment against immigrants is still very prevalent in Quebec society. Did he fell disdain for me just because of who I was?

I remember making sure I avoided him when school was over that evening, and feeling uneasy that someone had even considered pretending to stab me. The next week, my art teacher told me that I should have gone to her because now she can’t use those knives in class. I apologized. Till this day, I regret apologizing to her. I had nothing to apologize for. Get mad at the student who thought it be funny to jokingly stab someone, not the student on the receiving end.

That student left the school after that year, I rarely spoke of the incident. It took me a while to vocalize my feelings regarding the moment and what I felt after that. He did not leave the school because of me. His punishment for this violent act, was a detention and apologizing in front of me, he was told that this is a dangerous act and not funny. I remember the look on his face, one of a kid who could not wait to get out of this room. The same kid who had thought it was funny to make a horrid joke, could not even look anyone in the eyes.

One day, I shared with a friend from high school how that incident still makes me uncomfortable, how I would never want to run into him to which I was told “He had a really hard home life“. A wave of various emotions had run through me, anger, hurt and frustration mostly. Why should I feel bad for someone who tried to hurt me? What did his home life have to do with me? It is the typical “lone wolf” story the media has used for white men who are violent and commit horrendous crimes.

Of course, what happened to me is not comparable to any crime, but to me it is still criminal that a young kid would do such a thing. Is it ok to normalize violence in teenagers if they are going through a hard time? Who do we hold accountable?

A part of me will always believe my friend does not think his actions were that bad because he had a hard time at home. Had he had a normal home life would it be bad then? My pain was easily dismissed, his action was validated.

It also opened me up to an array of new feelings that I only experienced after this conversation, one that made me uncomfortable being friends with someone who dismissed my feelings so easily.

I wish I could go back and tell those who chastised me for telling on them, that I was so alone and felt so unsafe that I had no other choice. I wish I could confidently say that I do not regret telling on them. I am not sorry that you were held accountable for making a joke at my expense. Jokes along the line of me dying or being killed are something that needed to be addressed. This person has actively shared that they are annoyed I told on them, but I forgot to share how unsafe I felt in a classroom of 30 people laughing at the thought of me dying. Once again, I apologized, because they felt they had been unfairly treated for saying something vile.

The hardest thing to unlearn was the habit of apologizing, feeling guilt about them being in trouble while I pushed my emotions to the side. It sounds silly, but high school taught me to put my feelings aside a lot. I made room for their emotions, but still felt mine were not valid.

I understand that the individuals who bullied me have grown and so have I, however many people who made me feel isolated in high school have shared their disdain for me speaking to school supervisors, but never have they turned around and asked me how I felt during that time. Why did I feel the need to speak to a school supervisor? I understand that they got in trouble and that sucks, but it also sucks to feel so unsafe in a theoretically safe place.

My biggest takeaway from this was I never had to apologize for my feelings. This was my story and my experience and I did nothing wrong.

Like I said earlier, many kids are bullied, but I don’t know if I consider this normal bullying.

At 24, I am rethinking many relationships and the ones that have taken the biggest toll are the ones from high school. The need for me to constantly minimize my experience and apologize for standing up for myself is draining.

I have had an extremely easy life, but this is definitely one of the hardest things I have been through. I think many of my high school peers did not realize the fear I felt walking into school. I don’t feel the need to be ok with what they said about me because their lives were harder than mine.

My high school quote does ring true, “High School Never Ends“. A lot of the moments I went through will always live with me. I faced a lot of emotions post high school and till this day I am processing what happened to me.

I cannot undo what happened to me, however I am now learning the tools on how to cope with it. Those 5 years taught me a lot, but I have only started learning how to validate my feelings regarding those 5 years. I hope those who felt the need to feel such harsh feelings towards me have also learned better techniques in expressing themselves.