Erin Quigg's Testimony

Testimony: "a formal written or spoken statement"

Picture a young nine-year-old girl with nothing but happiness in her life. That's me. Showing horses in 4-H, a cheerleader, strong dancer, and advanced A student, there was nothing I wasn't prepared for at that point in my life. Until the day I began to be bullied. Imagine sitting in class, when a girl you thought was your friend and classmate who pulled on the hair on your legs. She says "you're so fuzzy you could be our class pet" thus, my first nickname was born: class pet. Lucky for me, I didn't have to imagine. I was apparently one of the only girls my age who had not yet shaved my legs and it was subject to all the girl's ruthless words. Next thing I knew, my whole class was in on the "class pet" joke and I had people that would pet my leg and would pull at my hair whether on my leg, arm, or head, nothing was safe. Eventually, I told my mom as any young kid would, and that night, I learned to shave my legs. At nine-years-old in the fourth grade, I had to shave my legs to stop my class from calling me names.

In the fifth grade, I had the same class once again, and I was picked on for being small and quiet. I wasn't weak, but I also wasn't strong. I was one of the shortest kids in my class and would never hear the end of always being in the front row and looking scrawny. That year in cheerleading, I doubled as not only a flyer, but a base. I was trusted by my coaches to hold up people, and I became committed to become stronger, and I did as the year went on. Ever since the class pet incident, I felt silenced, so I never talked. Even when I was called on in class, I was as quiet as a mouse, afraid of saying the wrong thing and being subject to my classmate's relentless words. Moving into middle school, I was out of that class, but still quiet, but I had made some new friends, one of which I shared a locker space with. We were great friends and had sleepovers often, but a rif in our friendship group put me between a rock and a hard place, making our friendship never the same, and soon enough, my locker space, my lunch table, and no where I sat during the classes we had together were safe for me. I felt trapped and disrespected and it was hard to escape the friend group at school and online. I ended up switching lockers and finishing out sixth grade with no friends, but I found supportive girls in my new teammates on the school's football cheerleading team.

With my best friend from fourth and fifth grade and all my new teammates, we breezed through the rest of middle school having each other. I would still receive mean comments and glares from my bullies from previous years, but walking by them next to my best friends made it easier. I walked into high school with all the hope I could possibly have in that all the bullying and memories would be left in the past, but I was wrong. Still being the quiet kid, I had no status at the school. The only way people knew me was by cheering on the sidelines at the football games, but even then, I was invisible standing next to what were arguably the most popular girls in my grade. Eventually, just being myself wasn't enough in my friend group. I began to be singled out at practice, in class, and in the lunchroom. I began to be someone to get homework answers from, and not a friend to everyone I once called my friend. I eventually would eat lunch with my freshman english teacher or in the girls locker room (it was a lot less disgusting than you'd think) to escape from the situation of no longer having a seat saved for lunch and hearing the whispers and giggles that erupted from my friends that they didn't think I noticed, but I did. Eventually, their bullying became more pronounced and it affected every part of my life. I was ridiculed at cheerleading practice, and in class and it started to affect my grades. By the end of the school year, it was decided that I needed to switch schools to allow me to safely learn.

My new school was an adventure. I was welcomed onto their equestrian team and cheerleading team with open arms and made the most amazing friends, ones that I still have to this day. When I started school in my sophomore year of high school, I was excited. My teachers were all nice, and my history teacher made it clear that he was a cool guy that would advocate for any of his students if the time ever came. I even dated a guy on the football team and held the cheerleader and football player cliche, and we were both captains, to make it even cheesier. With my grades and spirits up high, I finally started to become less quiet and found some sort of a voice for myself at school. But then, I turned 16. I know what you're thinking, Erin it's your sweet 16, what's so horrible about that?, but there was so much to it. Over a snow day, my relationship ended, and after a few weeks, all the schools shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, but I was glad to have time to do my own thing. I got to do virtual dance class, rode my horse almost everyday, got to go on walks all the time, and developed a love for virtual classes, but I was hurting. It was hard being apart from my friends at school. I missed the friends that I could call sisters, and it made me crave sisterhood more than anything, so I made the decision to apply to be the 2020 National American Miss Michigan Jr. Teen. I missed my NAMily more than I even realized, and to my surprise, I was awarded the title! I gained sisters from across the country and soon after being crowned, my dance studio held an in-person outdoor showcase to get us all together, and I got to go to my county fairs "show-n-go" where we hauled in for the day to show our animals. My life felt great once again and my heart was so full of gratitude. Until school started again.

Students at my school had the choice to either stay online or come in person with masks to school and I chose to go in person, not understanding what being fully online would entail. I was also a part of my county's CTE program "Medical Occupations" and needed to go in person for that, which made my in person decision an easier one to make. Two weeks leading up to the first day of my junior year, every single social media platform of mine, including my NAM titleholder Instagram which wasn't my account, was FLOODED with all types of harassment and hate comments from people at my school that were football players and their friends. Most of them spoke about rumors of which held no truth, but the other ones were so horrible that my instinct was to delete them. Amongst them were even death threats. I presented these comments to my school guidance counselor and principal in hopes that something could be done to the one with obvious usernames at least, but nothing was done. So I would wake up every morning and delete the comments that would generate every night. When I went back to school, half of my friends were virtual schooling and half were in person, but I was glad to be with friends and see them all at cheerleading practices because they've always supported me and had my back, especially in the hallways. When I walked through the hallways, those hate comments were now being screamed at me in the hallway by those same boys. Hearing them aloud was even worse than reading them, so my friends did their best to walk with me in the hallways. When it became too much, I made the decision to transition to virtual classes and only go in person to CTE in the morning, and I honestly loved every second of it. It also gave me more to focus on my NAM title. However, those hate comments were still very prominent, and one night, it became too much. A death threat and commenter went too far, and I found myself within four safe walls of an adolescent psychiatric unit in the hospital for one week. With no phone, no school, and no reign to focus on at that time, I went through group therapy with teens my age that struggled with the same things I did all day. We also played Wii Mario Kart and Just Dance in our free time and I even learned the proper way to shoot a basketball during our gym time in the hospital. It was a chance to relax my mind and begin healing what truly needed to be healed, and a nurse I had was the person that helped me to do it, which was healing my heart. I discovered the power of affirmations and a support system, and started to step into my true potential.

Upon my discharge, a lot changed. Some of those bullies apologized, and some continued on as if nothing happened at all, but I realized something important. I was never bullied for something I did, and those bullies showed me their true character by being a bully, but they didn't know mine. So I had a choice to make: I could either let them continue to belittle me and have power over me and wait for someone to save me from them, or I could save myself. With being a state queen in my mind, I made the choice to save myself and stand up for myself. Almost overnight, I developed a voice for myself and a mentality that no bully could break, and I was on a mission. It took me almost eight years to realize that I had a voice, and boy was I going to use it. I wrote down a plan on how I just achieved what I did, and I used my time as Miss Michigan to tell everyone who would listen about it. I began hosting Zoom conferences to teach bullying victims to develop positive thinking and conflict resolution skills to be able to make the choice that I had made.

After my year as the Michigan Jr. Teen came to a close, I came up with the name "Be an Upstander" to put a name to what I was doing for the past year, only now my goal was to teach anyone that would listen to develop their own voice to step in and intervene. When I was being bullied, I realized that no one ever stepped in and told any bully what they were doing was wrong or inappropriate, and no bully ever got so much as a side eye, so I decided to change that. Now as a college student who is still bullied to this day, I am proud of my journey and am proud to teach people to be the person I wish I had when I was nine and began to be bullied, and to have the voice I wish I had when I was younger.

I was once told that I should never wait for someone to change the world because we never know when that one person will make that decision. Instead, we should be that one person and change the world NOW, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

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Hi Upstanders! I hope you enjoyed reading about my loooonnng testimony! If you would like to share your story of overcoming bullying, please email eaquigg@gmail.com or send me a message on Instagram @theerinquigg! I would love to publish your story and let more people know that they're not alone in this world!