I kept my life pretty private to the outside world so not many people knew about the struggles at home. People constantly assumed that since I’m quiet that I must be weird. I was only 12 years old at the time and I had seen and been through so many things. There were many people that assumed since I’m a white girl that my family had all kinds of money and that I had an amazing childhood. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’d see my own mother come home drunk and I had to constantly take care of her and my siblings both younger and older. No one knew my situation at home so when everyone would assume, I would tell them how I didn’t have a great life and that I didn’t have a lot of money. That only led to constant harassment and name-calling. It hurt to constantly be harassed and judged by my classmates over a situation they knew nothing about. I’m not saying that I didn’t judge people every so often but I didn’t harass them about it. From then on, I learned not to judge people before getting to know their story.

No one really knew my story and what I had to go home to every single day. I would come home to an empty apartment that was trashed from my mom partying while I was at school. I’d walk in and pick up the cups, trash, and put the alcohol back in the fridge. I would walk over to the stove and get dinner started for my brothers and me. When I heard the beep outside, I would remember to get my little autistic brother off his vanpool bus. Although he is happy to see me, all he keeps asking is, “where’s mom? Is dad home from work yet???” And I have to answer strongly with “no Robbie, they aren’t home yet.” He is too young and doesn’t understand what is going on at home. All he knows is mom is gone almost all the time and dad is always at work and only comes home for dinner and goes in his room to play video games. I am always the strong independent one in the house.

    No one in my home saw me cry, not even my own parents. I didn’t confide in anyone about what was going on at home because I feared that DCF would come and take my little brother and me away. I would go to school in the morning and hear the same things from the same kids. “Loser, weird, liar” everyday as I would walk down the hallways. “I bet you’ve had an amazing life since you’re white” was said to me every time I’d walk into school. Finally, one day I was fed up with them thinking I had an amazing life. I turned and said “actually, I haven’t had an amazing life so instead of assuming that I did, why don’t you ask me and get to know me?” All they would respond with is “Liar! You trying to pretend to have a terrible life? At least you have both of your parents!” I would try so hard to bite my tongue and not say anything to provoke them further but damn was it so hard.

    They would follow me down the hallways constantly harassing me and yelling profanities at me. Eventually, I stopped going to school everyday. I would go twice or three times a week and that was it. Everyone made up different rumors about me and I was able to hear those rumors whenever I went back to school. I ended up getting a truancy officer after I missed a lot of school. No one had tried to get to know me or my story. They would act like they knew everything about my life. I was always told to not judge a book by its cover or don’t judge someone until you know their story. Clearly, those kids weren’t taught that at a young age.

    No matter what I did, they would always harass me for it. It didn’t matter if I helped them in any way, they still saw all of my flaws. I rarely judged anyone based off of what they look like, I always tried to get to know their story first before anything. Nobody knew my story before judging me. Judgment is a big thing that we all need to work on, we all should live by the saying don’t judge a book by its cover.