‘I hoped they would pick on someone else ... that was my hope in that moment’

I was 13 when it started.

I walked through the gates of my new secondary school, quite excited but a bit nervous too. I knew there would be lots to adjust to – new teachers, new subjects, new friends. I went in planning to do the best I could.

By the third week, I had become a target.

It started with name-calling. All sorts of names, anything they could throw at me, they threw at me. There were two groups. One group mostly bullied me verbally, with some pushing and shoving. The other group seemed to watch the first group picking on me and then decided to do the same.

Pilita Clark: An inescapable tyranny that is … a bad boss

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My son stays up late gaming and refuses to go to school. What can I do?

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Bullying at work: ‘There can be so much shame associated with being bullied’

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Bullying in the workplace: ‘My boss had it in for me from the start’

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They were a year or two ahead of me. I don’t know why they picked on me. Maybe it was because I was a shy kid.

One day at lunchtime, I rang home. As I was speaking to my mother, the phone was taken out of my hands. I was pushed against the wall and they threw my phone away. They started taunting me and then put their hands around my neck, choking me. It felt like hours that I was trapped there by these guys. I tried to push myself free, but it was two against one. Eventually, they got bored. I said nothing and didn’t do anything because my instinct told me if they were ignored, they would just move on to someone else.

I hoped they would pick on someone else. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, but that was my hope in that moment. That they’d leave me alone and move on to someone else.

When I eventually got free, I went to the quietest place I could find and phoned home again. I was asked what happened because the call had just disconnected, but I didn’t tell them. I just said I tripped and dropped my phone.

The boys would push and shove me in the canteen, and pull the bag off my back. It was a constant trauma. I kept it to myself. I didn’t want my parents or teachers to know. There were the consequences of being a rat to consider. I could make matters worse for myself.

I started to have nightmares. I couldn’t sleep properly. I began to make up excuses not to go to school. I pretended I was sick on certain days, so I didn’t have to go to school.

One day in school, things seemed to be okay. I was walking to my classroom on the fourth floor of the building. Each corridor had a set of double doors. As I made my way through the double doors, there were some kids hanging around. The guy who had choked me and the group who had been shoving me were there waiting for me.

They blocked up the door. They said I had to pay them to get through. They said buck-teethed people weren’t allowed to pass through. I tried to grab the handle of the door to get through. They grabbed my bag and pushed me against the wall. Before I knew it they pushed me down the stairs. They were steep steps. I remember the hard flooring and I could feel my side, and my knees. I looked at my elbow and I had a big gash from my wrist to my elbow that was pumping blood.

They stood there laughing at me and called me names.

My chest was tightening. My stomach felt sick. My mother struggled to calm me down. I didn’t know then I was having a full-blown panic attack

The school nurse patched me up and the secretary phoned for me to be collected. My parents asked me what happened. I told them I had fallen down the stairs.

I never returned to school after that.

I tried. My mother brought me to the school gates. I think my parents were becoming suspicious of my newfound clumsiness. I started hysterically crying. My chest was tightening. My stomach felt sick. My mother struggled to calm me down. I didn’t know then I was having a full-blown panic attack.

I finally told my parents what was happening. They went to the school. The school principal said first-year students were prone to a “first-year beating”. Some of the students were given detention, one was suspended.

I tried to go back to school a few times, but I just couldn’t. I had sleepless nights, and when I did fall asleep I had nightmares. I would wake up in sweats. I started wetting the bed. I felt like I was dying.

I started to see a psychologist. She told me to take baby steps, even to start going for walks in my estate so I could realise the world wasn’t all a bad place. I was clingy to my parents, my mother in particular. I tried to start a new school, but on the first day, I couldn’t go through with it.

It was decided that I should receive home tuition, which should have brought me up to my Junior Cert, but after a year everything was cut. My parents weren’t working and we couldn’t afford private tuition, so that was the end of my education.

I saw the bullies around town a few times. One day I was on the bus and it stopped in one of the estates where these lads were from. I remember seeing them and I kept reading my magazine and tried to ignore them. But they copped me and they came over to the window and started banging on the window and threatening me through the window. They put their four fingers over their throats, saying “we’re going to get you”.

A few weeks after the home education stopped, I hit my lowest point.

The pressure of everything was getting to me.

The pressure to go back to school.

The pressure of not having my Leaving Cert.

I thought if I didn’t have an education, I wouldn’t be able to survive in life.

I thought my parents would think I was a disappointment.

I thought I was destined to be a failure.

I thought I was a burden to everybody.

I thought if I died I wouldn’t be a burden to anyone. I decided to do something, but I got distracted by a whistle. It was two friends from my estate. They asked me if I wanted to go back to their house to play video games. I went to their house to play. I didn’t tell them what I had been about to do.

Bullying has always stayed with me. For a long time, I tried to forget about it. It took a long time to uncover my natural personality again

I tried to educate myself at home. I took an interest in photography. My GP put me in touch with The Youth Advocacy Service in Galway and I was assigned a youth worker. He helped me to feel comfortable in small groups of people again.

From that I started broadcasting with Flirt FM, a voluntary local radio station. Bullying has always stayed with me. For a long time, I tried to forget about it. It took a long time to uncover my natural personality again. I am outgoing. I like to be around people. I love going to gigs. I’m 31 now. I would love not to have experienced such brutal bullying. It has, however, shaped the person I have become.

I’m now an anti-bullying campaigner and I took part in a book series called Mental Health for Millennials. Things didn’t change for me overnight, but these days, if I was to encounter rowdy groups or people sneering, it wouldn’t faze me. If they are targeting me, I just let them have their own opinion. It’s still not nice, and they shouldn’t be doing it, but it’s a reflection on them as a person and not me.

• Chris Sherlock in conversation with Jen Hogan

The Samaritans can be contacted on freephone: 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.ie