Sara's Story

I used to be best friends with Kelly. She knew all about my brother’s problems, and I thought she used to understand that I wasn’t always able to do things like her, or that sometimes straight after school I would have to go home to care for him.

Then she started to be nasty to me and started name-calling and making stories up about me which weren’t true, and she would spread them through the school so I was always having to deny these cruel rumours.

After about 17 months of bullying I started to take it out on my younger brother and sister. My mum realised that something was wrong and she asked me to talk to her about it; I remember getting really upset, so she rang the school up and told them about it. They just got one of the teachers to take us out of tutor to try and sort it out, but it did not work. After about another month my mum realised it was still happening, so she rang the school up and demanded to talk to the head of my year. She had a go at them because the school is against bullying, but when it was brought to their attention the teacher who was told to sort it out didn't do anything except give Kelly a warning. The head of my year eventually managed to stop the bullying, and Kelly was nearly excluded for it.

In the end the bullying lasted for 18 months. I wish I had had the guts to go to a teacher right at the very start of the bullying instead of just hoping it would go away because it didn’t. I still don’t know why she did it, but I have been told she was jealous of me. The bullying got worse around the time I started at my local young carers group.

It just shows that you don’t always know someone, and that the people who can hurt you the most are the people who know you best. I think I must have picked a bad friend who just took advantage of me, and she didn’t like it when I started making new friends and doing things without her.