Bullied, Broken, Ignored… This Story Shows What They Never Saw | A Real Healing Journey
Kadie was a gentle child—bright-eyed, soft-hearted, and deeply in love with animals. She was the kind of little girl who talked to everyone, who trusted easily, and who believed the world was just as kind as she was.
Preschool had encouraged that belief. She thrived there. She learned quickly, made friends easily, and woke up excited for each new day. She couldn’t wait for kindergarten—the next big step, new friends, new lessons, new adventures.
But kindergarten was the year everything changed.
Her teacher’s explanations left her confused. Concepts that once came naturally suddenly felt tangled. By the end of the year, Kadie—once confident—had forgotten her alphabet. Instead of feeling supported, she felt lost.
The confusion didn’t go unnoticed by her classmates. Children who once played beside her began to whisper, giggle, and point. When testing finally revealed that Kadie had a mild learning disability, she was placed into a resource room for reading and math. There, she finally understood the material—yet the better she did in the resource room, the worse she was treated in her regular classroom.
Names like “dumb” and “retarded” followed her down hallways. It didn’t stop there. She stopped taking care of herself. She gained weight. And the bullies used that too.
“She’s so fat the floor moves!”
The cruel jokes, the stomping sounds behind her… it never stopped.
Kadie wanted nothing more than to be accepted. She tried telling stories—stories meant to impress—but they only gave the bullies more ammunition. School became something to survive, not a place to learn.
The bullying didn’t end at school. It followed her onto the bus. It followed her home. Even her brother joined in. And her parents, believing they were helping her lose weight, compared her to other overweight people—thinking it would motivate her. Instead, it made her feel smaller, more ashamed, more broken. She didn’t want comparisons. She wanted someone to look at her and say, *You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You matter.*
There was no safe place. No soft landing. No one who truly saw her.
Over time, Kadie began to believe the things she heard: that she was stupid, ugly, worthless. At only sixteen, drowning in hopelessness, she attempted to end her life. She took pills and slept for hours. No one noticed. No one asked if she was okay. That loneliness cut deeper than any insult ever had.
Desperate to avoid pain, she withdrew from everyone. Silence became her shield. But silence isn’t healing—it’s just hiding.
Eventually, she gathered the courage to talk to the school counselor, who helped her get into therapy. She wanted to open up, but the words felt dangerous. What if speaking her truth only hurt her more? When her therapist couldn’t reach her, they assumed she wasn’t benefiting. Kadie took that as another failure—*I can’t even do therapy right.*
Thoughts of suicide returned throughout her teens. She believed nobody would care if she disappeared—until someone she knew took his own life. Seeing the devastation left behind changed everything. Kadie promised herself she would never inflict that kind of pain on another soul. She had always cared deeply about others. She had already vowed never to bully anyone, never to hurt someone the way she had been hurt.
As an adult, Kadie finally found ways to express what she had never been able to speak. She started writing. She started drawing. She helped others, and in doing so, slowly helped herself.
The scars are still there—self-esteem issues, fear of meeting new people, the constant worry that someone will turn cruel. Bullying doesn’t simply disappear when school ends. Its impact lingers in the quiet moments, in the way a person sees themselves, in the fears they carry.
**Kadie survived. But no child—no adult—should ever have to carry the weight of what she endured.**
If you or someone you know is being bullied, speak up.
Reach out.
Tell someone.
**Silence is where bullying grows.
Support is where it ends.**
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Music by Advocatus Diaboli and the Grim Leafer Band
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