Everyone has that one big thing that happened to them, which defines them. Here's mine: My whole family and I moved back to Spain 3 years ago, into a small town on the outskirts of Madrid. I was feeling pretty optimistic about the move, that Previous year had been pretty tough, so I was really looking forward to a new begging. But at that moment I didn’t know that the new begging would become a hell. 

It was a cold windy morning. It was the first day of school. My parents wished to use  ‘good luck’ as we walked to our corresponding groups.  The rest of the day was filled with long boring presentations, but a strange thing occurred. Throughout the day I felt like I wasn’t welcome. I would soon realize that I wasn’t too far off. The next day was the same as the one before, but during homeroom, we had to introduce ourselves. When it was my turn, I stood up nervously, “Hola. Soy de Barcelona y e vivido en Japon y singapur’, (“I’m from Barcelona and I have lived in Japan and Singapore”), as I sat down I saw numerous people looking at me weirdly. After class, a group of guys came up to me, “so you’re from Barcelona huh?” “Yeah I am” “stupid f***ing independista, why are you even here“. This kind of confrontations would occur every other day until one day it became physical. As I was leaving the bathroom the same group of guys huddled around the exit. They weren’t letting me leave. So tried to force my way through, but they pushed me back, so I tried again and pushed them back nearly knocking them over which in result, freeing myself. They would then follow me around calling me names. In the result of this bullying, I would experience panic attacks. For a whole year, I wouldn’t eat or drink for the first 7 hours of the day because I was scared of the panic attacks. 

There was this guy in my classroom that was staying at the school residences. He was British. His mom passed away that day and all the kids did was a joke and laugh about the fact that his mother died in front of him. He would eventually leave school. Most actual international students that weren’t rich Spanish brats would leave the school and even the country after only being there for a couple of months. That's how bad the people were. 

The school also had a massive rape and sexual assault issue.  About 85% of males in secondary were professional sports players. The thought of themselves as gods, that everyone should bow down to their existence. This (these) egos of theirs also translated to the girls. They felt like they had the right and authority to touch them inappropriately, which they didn’t. The girls didn’t give them consent for their actions, but they didn’t care. As the girls walked by they would slap/grope their bottoms, look under their dresses, or pull them in starting weird and uncomfortable sexual conversations with them. I would complain about it to student services, which by the way was run by other women. They did not see it as bad or inappropriate they thought it was just teenagers being teenagers, which it clearly wasn’t. It was flat out sexual assault and abuse. But the school did nothing about it. Teachers would even see it but wouldn’t budge. 

 One of my female friends was cornered in the girls changing room by a group of 5 guys. The guys started touching her inappropriately without consent. But she managed to get away before it went any further. Those 5 guys tried to rape her.

Nowadays there are more and more teens depressed and committing suicide. This is because of many reasons, such as bullying, cyberbullying. Another reason which can be associated with suicide and depression is social media. Social media can give individual anxiety and stress because they don’t look like their idols, or they don’t act like them. The pressure of being liked by the masses, etc. This can cause a lot of strain on someone's life. According to suicide.org, about 20 percent of teens have experienced depression and every 100 minutes a teen takes their own life.

Now to conclude, the effect of Spain and what happened in that school is pretty large. I lost two and half years of my life being miserable, taking medications to keep me stable, nearly being put into a physic ward, missing a whole year of school, many social issues which I still deal with today. Every day I remember what it was like there, every time I leave the house, get on a bus or MRT, I stress out and have panic attacks just because it reminds me of Spain. I’m scared of going outside, I have experience physical pain when I do so. That’s the effect the experience has had on my life.  If you see anyone down or bullying stop it and help them because it will save that person a lot of pain and time, and I wish someone would’ve done that for me, but nobody did.  Thank you.