A Spell of Survival from a Former Target

🎭 Before the Curtain Fell

I was aware of bullying before I was ever bullied.
The summer before 5th grade, I even wrote a little play about it. My teacher had this charming marionette theater in her classroom, and I was absolutely enchanted watching older students put on puppet shows. So I thought—why not write one about standing up to bullies? It felt important.

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⚔️ A Plot Twist I Didn’t See Coming

Then life decided to throw in its own cruel rewrite.
At just 10 years old, I ended up in the hospital for three weeks fighting for my life. I caught pneumonia at the pediatrician’s office—just a routine visit for the flu—and it wrecked me. My left lung collapsed. Twice.

Two lung collapses and three chest tubes later, I came home different.

My hair went limp, then frizzed like it didn’t know what to do anymore. My energy was gone. My body softened. I had changed, and middle school kids have a sixth sense for sniffing that out.

🕷️ From Puppet Strings to Punchlines

My so-called “friends” started calling me Hagrid Head.
They mocked my hair, my clothes, my weight.
I wore skirts over jeans and hoodies that swallowed me whole, thinking maybe invisibility was possible if I tried hard enough.

It wasn’t.

By the time my mom started looking for apartments—splitting from my dad—I asked her the one thing I never thought I would:

Can we leave Springport?

And to her credit—we did.

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🌒 Surviving the System

That move saved me. I managed to dodge the bully radar for the rest of my school years, skimming the surface just enough to breathe. But I can’t say the same for my siblings.

Jessie got bullied for helping a special needs classmate.
Demi got bullied for standing up to their own friends when they started bullying someone else.

Because apparently, kindness is a threat in public school.

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✨ The Magic Between the Landmines

Honestly? School sucked. Except when it didn’t.
There were teachers who saw us. Friends who made it better. Moments of magic between the landmines. But I still think about that little girl who wrote a play about bullying—only to walk into her own starring role a few months later.

This one’s for her.
And for every kid who felt safer in a hoodie.
For every sibling who stood up and paid the price.
For anyone who learned early how to survive a system that lets cruelty hide behind lockers and laughter.

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🛡️ The Armor We Earned

Some of us didn’t come out with medals.
We came out with armor.

And sometimes? That’s enough.