Bullying

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Rheanna Cartier wrote:

"It was really hard," Cartier said of the rough times. "I changed schools almost every year because we moved house a lot." "I moved back to one school at 13 and I just remember my first day this group of girls in the year above just started calling me names. I had been talking to a boy in the year above who was quite popular and I think it was just jealously," the Kingham, Oxfordshire, teen said. "I remember on one occasion one of them saying 'Why don't you just kill yourself?' – it was quite extreme."



"I remember not having any friends as nobody wanted to be friends with someone who got called names and it just escalated." At one low point, when Cartier was 12, she got picked on by an older girl who was nearly 16. The harassment continued, and she got into a fight – prompting her parent to intervene.

When the Miss England hopeful was 14, a family friend suggested she spend a year at boarding school for a change of scenery and pace. Cartier soon shipped off to Skals Efterskole, an international school near Viborg, Denmark, a positive experience she called "transformational." There, the student was able to study for the GCSEs and find confidence among a new group of peers.

"Without that, I don’t know what I would have done. I would never have recovered and I think it would have got worse," she said of the clean slate at Skals Efterskole. "It proved transformational – I started eating healthy and working on myself and doing a lot of self-care."

Rheanna Cartier recently won a spot in the wild card round of the Miss England finals, slated to take place in July 2021. The 17-year-old is excited to use the platform to help victims of bullying and promote inclusion, having been bullied in school herself at a young age,

Source: Teen overcomes bullying to become Miss England contestant

My experience of public school was only transformational in a negative way i.e shy to social phobia to depression to a Ist psych admission at the start of what should've been my A level term . A culmination of almost 5 years of verbal bullying. The one memory that stands out -a dozen or so boys looking at me and making monkey gestures and noises while we're waiting for a geography lesson to start.

It is good to hear that she could take the damaging effects of bullying and transform it into a positive message of anti-bullying. It is much harder to do than most realize.