My Russian school photo circa 1996.
I used to go to school with a girl named Irina. We must have been 15-16. In spite of being supermodel-gorgeous and the tallest girl in class, Irina was bullied mercilessly by the boys half her size. One boy in particular was especially cruel to her, insisting that she smelled (she didn’t – while other girls actually did sometimes!). He ridiculed every piece of her clothing so bad, she eventually resorted to wearing the same plain dress, every day – just to stay invisible.
But she was never invisible to me. I stood up for her – although, it seems, not enough – telling the boy what he was doing was not cool (let’s face it, appearing ‘cool’ in front of his friends was the main reason he was doing it). What amazed me is that at her towering height, she could have easily kicked him in the nuts and told him to kiss off. But she never did, taking the abuse silently. Teachers did nothing.
Irina and I lived in the same direction, so I often ended up walking her home after school. She lived alone with her mother, who worked as a cleaning lady, in a very small space (I was never invited inside but so I was told). She spoke quietly, like most bullied kids do, and had difficulty opening up. I encouraged her to go to the modeling school – her perfect face, flawless skin and stunning green eyes should have been on the covers, not hidden away.
A few years down the line I ran into Irina on the bus. She’d barely changed, green eyes glistening against her thick, straw-colored hair. I asked about the modeling school; she went for a while but didn’t pursue it. Even with all the natural talent in the world, she couldn’t get over the shyness and insecurity. I do know of another girl who did. You may have heard of her, her name is Natalia Vodianova and she has a similar story to tell, but with a much happier ending.
Sometimes I wonder how many Irinas there are out there. Bullied, told that they won’t amount to anything, and made to believe they are nothing special. It’s unfair and untrue! I feel that it’s our responsibility – yes, ours! – to tell such girls and boys that they can do anything they want, even if their parents/teachers won’t.
On the picture, Irina is 3rd from the left in middle row; I’m in purple. Can you guess who the bully is?
Answer: most of you thought the bully was the guy with a red tie, but actually it’s the second boy from the right (the blond)! Just goes to show that bullies come in all shapes and sizes…
Ugh, I HATE bullying with a passion. I know I used to get mean comments quite a lot, but luckily I’m one of those people that just doesn’t give a shit and can brush them off with ease.
My attitude has changed quite a bit though, I’m more social than I used to be, I talk to more people now and I really think that helped show them I’m not strange or anything like that.
I hope Irina is doing better now.
I totally agree… I was bullied at school… it makes you feel like nothing!!! But I’ve got over it… and I try to be an example… how to have a blast with your life, even though people tell you that you’ll never make it!!!
And we have to believe in ourselves firt, don’t you think???
My best guess of the Bullier: middle row, red tie!!!
Fernanda Siepierski Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 12:18 pm
and I forgot to mention: Irina is BEAUTIFUL!!!
Her eyes look so sad. You can just tell from looking at the photo how much she didn’t want to be in that picture or at school. I probably shouldn’t speculate, but I wonder if there was more going on at home that left her feeling that way, in addition to what the kids at school said, because I recognize that look in her eyes. And I think the boy who taunted her probably had a crush on her and just had a funny way of showing it.
She is indeed a lovely, beautiful girl, and it’s such a shame that she didn’t (maybe still doesn’t) know it. This is precisely why we started our blog. For girls like Irina. I agree that it is everyone’s responsibility to encourage girls and young women to realize that they can be anything they want to be. <3
Jenarcissist Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Btw, I just came across this interview with Karen Elson…apparently she was made fun of quite a bit growing up; “The Ghost Who Walks” isn’t just her album name, it’s what the kids used to call her because of her pale skin. She admits she still questions her abilities even today but refuses to allow it to keep her down!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/may/16/karen-elson-interview-jack-white
I think its the boy with the red tie.
I was bullied growing up, moreso teased than anything, but still. And then I was verbally bullied by an ex-best friend who I thought would stand up for me in a drama she chose someone else and stood up for them.
This story is so much like my own elementary/middle/high school story. Wherever Irina is, I hope she is doing as well, if not better than I am. It is a blessing to have those days of intimidation behind you.
There is something about the second boy on the right (top row); the small blond boy with kind of an innocent smile. Perhaps he was innocent and it was someone else.
Thanks for sharing.
When we entered high school there was a guy called Leonard, he was really invisible to everyone but to me. Sometimes even his own classmates wouldn’t know who the hell ‘Leonard’ was till he comitted suicide three years after our entrance. It was that moving… and suddenly everyone knew him
Anna Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Kids are so mean sometimes.
Fernanda Siepierski Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Kids are so mean sometimes… true… and I believe it’s partly because their parents create this image of a perfect world for them, contributing for a non acceptance of difference!!!
That’s such a sad story. People don’t realize how drastically bullying can affect someone’s life, even years down the road! She was such a pretty girl too, and I’m sure she still is… =(. Hopefully someday she’s able to rid herself of the baggage and to embrace her obvious good looks and height. There are lots of women who would do almost anything to be taller and more slender!
On an unrelated side-note, your hair was so long! And I love the purple tights the girl next to you is wearing!
I agree with Jenarcissist, I think there’s a chance this bully had a crush on this girl. I’ve been bullied in middle school, but I was more the type that stood up to them. It wasn’t a fun period, I felt like I had no friends, I had no one else to count on except myself (my parents worked so I felt more that way). Although painful, I think it made me stronger and independent. Either way, I think you can tell when you’re being bullied if the bully really hates you or just trying to be cool, or actually has some interest in you. Anyways, it did leave an impact, I tried staying invisible most of high school and then started to be comfortable with myself in college (which is now). I wish your friend had a better ending. Hopefully she’ll find some friends that truely love her.
That’s so sad. =(
Bullying is cruel, destroying and senseless.
I was bullied myself, so I know exactly how it feels. In case of bullying I urgently advice the victim to talk about it and get help immediately.
I didn’t talk about it (even today, almost 10 years later I keep it to myself and refuse to talk about it to someone face-to-face) and now I have certain problems that interfere my daily life. I’m distrustful, I’m anxious – just to name two of it.
And yes, I hate it that even today people who certainly forgot by now that I was in their class have still that kind of power about my life.
Bullying doesn’t stop by itself.
Everyone advices just to ignore the bullies, which seems to be a clever tipp – except that it simply doesn’t work in the slightest.
Try to stand up for yourself, even if it’s hard. Try to break the vicious circle. And ask someone you trust (!) to help you.
I guess (but I could be wrong) the bully is 5th from left, back row.
Sad story, Doe. I feel so identified with that girl!!! I’ll never understand why different people receive that treatment from hatters.
By the way, I think the bully guy is the one in the middle. His got a suspicious smile… :P
We need to teach children well. Teach them to see the beauty in each person. Show them the beauty in themselves. Teach them to be honest, but never cruel. We must all live that way, too.
It looks like the boy in the black suit with the red tie!
Wow… do you know what she’s up to now? I’m going to take a guess and say the guy in the red tie is the bully. Did I get it right?
I was about to guess the boy in the red tie also.
Lindsay Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Me too! He looks very tense.
She looks really pretty, a very a-part kind of beauty. almost genderless and timeless. but so sad… There are girls and boys like that in every school on this world. Some people just need somebody to pick on so nobody notices how small and stupid they are themselfs.
But if somebody tries to tell them how wonderful and precious they are, it turns out later that everyone gets what he or she deserves.
Agnes Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 2:41 pm
btw. is she still in russia? When you visit your home next time, you could feature her with a tutorial here maybe?
the little squirt on the far left?
Top row, first from the left? (He look like a tiny bully!) lolx
Irina is so pretty!
Ha! i’m good… i immediately guessed Doe correctly (wow, she was always pretty!) as well as Irina. And i am pretty sure the guy with the red tie is the bully…
it’s so sad that girls are put down like this every day. it happens all the time in my school… and it’s considered normal and a part of everyday life. It’s not, and it should stop! Anyone who reads this… watch over those bullied girls… before it’s too late.
Thank Doe Deere for standing up for Irina! If only more kids would stand up when they see someone being bullied. When you’re the victim of a bully, it’s easy to interpret the silence of everyone around you as if they agree with the bully. But it can be very scary to stand up to a bully or call them out. So, if you see someone being bullied, but you’re scared to speak up, you can just privately tell the victim that you think the bully is wrong. That will help them to understand that silence does not mean that people agree. I have been bullied, and if some classmate had told me, “I think she is wrong to bully you,” it would have made me feel better. I have also been a bully to someone before, and I can tell you that if she had stood up to me, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I only picked on the girl (once) because I thought she wouldn’t fight back. I thought it would make me feel better to turn around and be a bully to someone else, after I had been bullied. I have to say, it felt much worse. I still regret it.
I really hoped it was her while reading. She is stunning and I was drawn to her immediately. I have seen these things far too often and I try to tell people as often as I can that you can become anything you set your mind to and that everybody is beautiful.
Bullies are often the saddest people around… the ones with the hardest time. Sadly enough they spend all their time on pushing other people down in the dirt instead of feeling any empathy.
I hope Irina is happy now.
Lola Reply:
May 17, 2010 at 5:39 pm
She looks like Clare Danes in ROmeo + Juliet! :D so beautiful ^^
I always hate when people,people who where mostly likly horrible bullies themselves, say things like “They are just kids” or “It didn’t do me any harm”. It makes me so mad. As a person that was bullied and now a teacher I see everyday the destruction that bullying causes. From other students, teachers and, in what breaks my heart, families. You can see the light just fade in their eyes. I tell them that one day it will be over and you will be able to live as the what to. But I know that that suffering and humiliation will be with them for ever and they may not overcome it. I hope they do.
What a great post! I find often girls are bullied in submission, because they aren’t told to stand up for themselves. The extremes that come out of teenage years are really quite terrible. Most girls either 1. know they’re really pretty or 2. think they are worthless. Thank you for taking a stand, Doe :]
Love and Turtledoves,
Jaco
I hope things are going better for her now. She is very pretty.
So which one is the bully?
Irina’s story, and those of several commentors, vividly illustrate the psychologocial damage that bullying causes. It’s so sad.
Helping those targeted for abuse is critically important: we need to reassure victims that they’re not alone, that they’re not deserving of mistreatment. Let’s fight bullying and support those under attack.
which one is irina?
I can relate to this, I’ve been bullied severely throughout my school life. I was isolated, made fun of, tricked and even beat up. It was hell, and it was a constant thing. but now when I see a boys from primary school they try to chat me up and ask for my number, and I happily decline!! I know that I’m beautiful, intelligent and full of worth. I tell every girl (or boy) that I meet that they are too, and I especially want to raise my daughter to have that strength and self-esteem I didn’t when I was growing up.
Poor Irina, I really feel it for her. you can see the sorrow in her face :( it just goes to show what bullying can do to someone. I truly hope that one day she will come out of her rut and realize how wonderful she can be :)
WOW! Your hair was so long! Beautiful. You should write a post on how you take care of your hair. :) And I would address the bullying issue too, because it’s such an awful problem, but everyone else has pretty much summed it up very eloquently already.
I was bullied in school and got called a “freak” a lot…Even by people that had never talked to me before! Meaning that people had called me a freak enough for others to join in without even knowing anything about me.
I also used to get called Michael Jackson and ended up shouting at a teacher who wasn’t listening to me. I walked out of the class. The deputy head teacher made the teacher apologise to me for not listening….I’d been in tears and she only wanted to tell me that she didn’t want to listen and that I was being naughty because I refused to do the work.
Why did I refuse? The boy I was told to work with had been insulting me and calling me Michael Jackson and took the worksheet so I couldn’t do the work!
I got called Michael Jackson because my nose is thin and slightly pointy. I used to sleep on my face to try and make it “normal”. How pathetic.
Fuck ‘em. I’m glad that I went through what I did because if anyone gives me shit or treats me badly these days, they can fuck right off! And they’ll know I don’t tolerate their bullshit ignorance. :)
Thanks for this post!
I was bullied too. As a kid and once as an adult when I started working. Trying to ignore it doesn’t make it better. It actually made it worse for me because the bullies just thought that they could get away with whatever they wanted. When I tried to tell my boss, he took the side of the bullies. After a long struggle, I ended up quitting. Even though I have to look for a new job now, I was proud of myself for taking a stand. You have to teach people how to respect you and if they can’t, I think the best thing is to try to get yourself out of that situation A.S.A.P. No one deserves to be disrespected. No one.
That’s a sad story but asking people to guess who the bully is, is a bit ironic. You are asking people to judge the kids in the picture by what they look like. “Ohh, well he looks angry, it must be him.” You had me until “guess who it is.”
Me Reply:
May 18, 2010 at 1:00 am
Read the answer. :) She was making a point by posing that question.
Lorna Reply:
May 18, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I thought it was quite an interesting point. The bully is quite short by the looks of things – he was probably picking on the pretty, tall girl because he felt inadequate.
I have always been bullied about being naturally thin and rather pale. The bullying really got to me, but one day a girl came along – like Doe here to Irina – and said, “You know, you stand out. Everything about you just looks interesting! I do modeling, and you are so pretty and neat I think they would just LOVE you!” Since then, I’ve always had this secret confidence boost, and it’s really helped me along in tough situations. I guess I am saying that I bet you really did change that girls life in ways you don’t even realize, just by pointing out how beautiful you thought she was, and showing her you cared.
you look so pretty Xenia!
i feel terribly sad for Irina and I hope where ever she is, that she’s living a happy life!
I identify with this story all to well. I too was one of those bullied children. For most of my life I was bullied for either not being rich enough, or being overwieght, or just being different in general. In third grade I had one friend in the entire school. The rest of the kids would run around and spray fake shields on themselves to protect them from the “Demma disease”. I have spend alot of time with little to no self esteem. I started getting self-esteem when I took a self defense class and then I got involved in the renaissance faire world. Here I discovered a whole world that loved larger women. Mind you, I still have esteem issues but they are not quite as bad as they were. I look back and realise that though it was worng, it has made me the person I am today.
I relate to this story well. I am 21 years old, and I have always, and I mean always been a little over weight. It wasn’t till I got out of highschool and working, and learning what I couldn’t in that environment that I started feeling beautiful. I’d dye my hair all the time, act different because I was made to feel so different. But now that I’m in my 20s. I own the world. It is mine. I am BEAUTIFUL! NO matter if I’m a 0 or an 18. I have curves, I have brilliant eyes, beautiful skin that never breaks out, and dimples. Every girl should feel like I have become to feel, comfortable in the skin you are in. No matter what. Ignore people, wear cute clothes, get dolled up and tell the world to kiss off!
btw great class picture..:)
There was a boy who bullied me in class when I was in 5th grade.For months and months, whenever I passed by he would hit me on the head, so hard that I would cry in pain.For no reason, he would do that many times a day.One day, I woke up with the worst headache that I was rushed to the ER. My mom went to school, talked to the teacher then she also told the class what’s going on and she cried in front of them. That boy cried too, he felt so ashamed of himself. He never did what he did ever again.
20 something years later, we found each other almost 7,000 miles away from home. He apologized for what happened and told me I’ve always been his dream girl.
My point is that little boy who did that to Irina probably liked her so much but did not know how to deal with the attraction because he was way too young and that feeling/emotion was all new to him. Lots of boys do this because they could not process such a strange feeling. I feel bad that Irina was not able to get over such a sad event in her life. Someone should tell her that she is not to be blamed.That it was never her fault. I’m sure somewhere out there, there’s a blond guy who still remembers her and still has the biggest crush on her and would want to apologize to her.
I was bullied as a kid too, like many of the commenters. I’ve moved past it in some ways and I intellectually recognize myself as someone worthwhile, beautiful, smart, and I am still ambitious as anything. Over all most people think I’m successful and pretty now. I find myself sabotaged throughout my life by a deep-seated lack of self confidence though, which I know stems from the bullying I received as a kid. In my case it was that I was different because I got a nice pair of “assets” long before the other girls, which I was so self concious about that I now have a permanent slump, even though I’ve realized for awhile (and some girls later admitted), they were just jealous and my chest looks great!
The slumping ironically caused people to call me hunchback in high school, but finally now in college in my 20s I am taking the steps to physically present myself as someone I know I really am. I hope I can move past my slumping and self-esteem problem to reach my goals in life, but it’s difficult even if I intellectually know that I shouldn’t let the old bullying issues bug me any more.
Yep I had the same experience, moved schools as a young teenager and ended up going out with the school bully without realising how horrible he was, broke up with him after a few days and he went on a bullying rampage (presumably he was humiliated at being dumped and thought he needed to look all mach about it) and got all the other boys involved telling me I was fat and ugly constantly and writingit around the school. I ahd never considered whether or not I was pretty or fat before it happened. nearly a decade later and I still have zero confidence never managed to recover I’ve always been a very sensitive soul. it drives my boyfriend crazy he can’t understand how I have such low self esteem.
I was bullied alot but sometimes I fought back….people are complicated maybe there was more going on then just the one guy teasing her. That is rad that you stood up for her. I hope what ever her goals are she will have the strength to reach them.
I was bullied very much in middle school.
I’ve been overweight for awhile now (probably since about third grade), and I was also the quietest and shyest person in my class.
I had been bullied in elementary school too, but never to this extent.
In sixth grade a girl moved to my town and made plenty of friends at school. After awhile some of us were sure of how we felt about her though. She often told inappropriate jokes and was very rude to our teachers. Soon she made me and another friend of mine outcasts in our group, teased us behind our backs, and became an enemy to some other girls in the class.
In eighth grade was when the worst happened. This girl openly mocked myself and many girls I was friends with; making fun of the way we dressed, how we talked, what books we read, etc. She made fun of my artwork, which I have been proud of my entire life, then spread a rumor that I was drawing naked people in my notebooks. She stole a Halloween decoration from one of our teachers, denied it, then, even though the teacher knew she took it, refused to give it back or apologize. She spread a rumor that a girl in our class was pregnant, then said a friend of mine started the rumor. I spent most of the last month of school in the guidance counselor’s office trying to make amends with her.
We attended a private Catholic school. While the guidance counselor helped, administration did nothing. The girl now attends the adjoining Catholic High School and from what I’ve heard, she hasn’t changed.
No one in my class stood up for me, you have no idea how happy I am that you tried to make a difference.
You’re such an inspiration to me
I can identify with this. People used to make fun of me, and I was so sad. The experience has left me damaged and I find it hard to trust people. People say that I am beautiful but I don’t believe them.
I hope Irina found her way in life and recognised how gorgeous she really is.
I was also bullied a lot at school, and later I became a bit of a bully myself. I agree with what some people say here, she looks like there might have been more problems than school. I feel really sorry for her, specially because she reminds me a lot of a girl I went to 8th grade with. She was russian (I can’t for the life of me remember her name) and she was also bullied.
She’s the second from the right: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=76763&l=ea9ac8aa6a&id=1071100219
IRINA IS GORGEOUS!!!!
You must find her…. the affects of being bullied stays with people for YEARS. Love the purple ;)
i have nightmare stories about being bullied from 1st-12th grade (middle eastern descent living in a small town in the midwest. oh yeah, that was a total blast). i’m more angry i was too afraid of getting in trouble to do anything about it.
in the end, i moved out of the midwest, got skinny, and in some of the words of people who have found me on fb from hs “got hot”.
the best revenge is when you didn’t even have to try to do anything.
He just liked her and wanted her attention. That’s what all the boys told me when they “grew up” and stopped making fun of me.