TW abuse, sexual assault

Today I am going through old boxes that my mom found in storage.

In one box I found my transcript from seventh grade.

I skipped school an average of 4 days a week, just walked around the bus stop and kept walking, because I was relentlessly teased and ridiculed (verbally, physically and mentally) for being fat. My mother was a very absent alcoholic and the rest of my family was pre-occupied dealing with a messy divorce so days of absence piled up unnoticed. Walking through especially bad parts of town I encountered a lot of danger. I was mugged for pocket change on more than one occasion. Groped and pursued by strange men. And even sexually assaulted. I still refused to get on that school bus, that’s how scarred and unsafe I felt there.

Feeling safe on a school bus is thin privilege.