"Bullying Made School A Living Hell" Megan Barton-Hanson, Nadiya Hussain & Calum Scott Open Up

0:00Hello and welcome to We're Talking. This week, we're shining a spotlight on Anti-Bullying Week and showcasing the powerful stories of our guests who have first-hand experience of bullying. From the playground to parliament, in person, or on the internet, bullying can affect both adults and children. I hope these stories of vulnerability can help spread awareness and empowerment for anyone affected by bullying.

0:39What are some of those other incidents that happened while you were a little girl at school? Because there are many that you've talked about. Yeah, I was really badly bullied at school from the age of four to about 17, 18. Same two boys. And I never told anyone about that. they would flush my head down the toilet they would expose themselves to me they have tried to sexually assault me while I was in the street they have held me down and smashed my fingers into hinges of doors they have ripped my hair out it was every single day from the age of about four or five to about 17 or 18. Every day. Every day.

1:38Yeah. I even went to an all-girls school but they were next door in the all-boys school so they would wait for me to come out. So it's almost like they got their fix. And the reason why they bullied me was because I was the I had the darkest skin in school. They were very fair, rosy-cheeked Pakistani boys. So they're pretty much, you know, they're the same sort of culture as me. But they were bright white with rosy pink cheeks and dark black hair, and that's what our community celebrated. Fair-skinned men. Perfect. Tick-tick. They're perfect. And there I was, short, dark-skinned girl with really big curly hair and they just, they, they just, that's, that was their, that was the thing.

2:33And they, they bullied me every single day, every single day. So this is one where, uh, there were some incidents that happened, uh, for me when I was a child, but sparingly. Okay. Yeah. And what's interesting for me is it's not until I've started having these conversations here, uh, with, we need to talk where I've begun to contemplate on how those incidents have shaped who I've become today. You had, this is severe trauma that's happened for an extended period of time in your adolescence when you're trying to figure out who you are and what your identity is. So how do you think that impacted how you saw yourself as a little girl?

3:20I think it's made me really, really protective of my feelings and it's made me really insular I think it's made me not trust people because I don't trust people easily um but it's also made me a people pleaser I think I'm I just want to make everyone happy because I don't want like I don't want negativity and I just want like people pleasing all the time it's like as long as everyone's happy as long as everyone's happy But that's probably partly to do with the fact that, you know, I grew up in quite a volatile home. You know, my parents always argued. I just wanted everyone to always be happy.

4:08We didn't talk about anything bad. It was just always be happy. But it's, yeah, it's also made me really strong. It's also made me a really good mom. Okay. But as a little girl, how do you think it impacted you? It got so bad that one afternoon, I remember my cousin, they were a little bit older than I was, and we were watching a film, clearly not for me because it was like an 18 or something. And somebody committed suicide. And I was like, oh, so that's it. So if you commit suicide, you're just dead and everything else just stops. So in my head, bearing in mind at this age, I don't know what death is.

4:54I don't really understand death. Yes, you were how old at this time? 10. You're 10. Something twigged in my head at 10 that that's what I should do. And this person had taken loads of pills. I thought, wow, there's pills lying around everywhere. Because there was no such thing as a safe cupboard for pills. It was like paracetamol here and blood pressure meds here. So I took out back in the day when you could get 100 paracetamols in a pack. I was like, that'll do. Took those off the shelf, went upstairs with a big glass of water. I thought, I'll just take as many of those as I can. Because that's what will happen.

5:33I'll die and then I don't have to go to school tomorrow. That is how innocent it was. It was if I die, I don't have to go to school tomorrow. And that's what I did. So I was like, OK. And I was 10. I couldn't swallow pills and they were huge. So I was trying to swallow them and I probably had a litre of water in me at this point. My bladder was bursting and I was like, right, I'm just going to have to crush them and just chew them. And I think I started to chew them and crush them in my mouth. And then I was just like swallowing them. I was like, this is gross. And I just couldn't do it. I may have got through maybe three or four.

6:16Okay. That's it. Three or four at best. And my dad called us all down because he had something to tell us. So I thought, okay, I'll give this a break. I'll go down. So I went downstairs and then he told us that my mum was pregnant with a baby. And then I went upstairs and I kind of packed everything away and I said, okay, well, I'll do it once the baby's born because I really want to meet the baby. Wow. And then that baby was born. And I fell so in love with him. And he's 30 next month. Look at that. Yeah. Would you say he saved your life? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I say that to him all the time. That is one of those where I can see you as this little girl.

7:07Yeah. Just saying, I just don't want to be, it wasn't even, I don't want to go to school. is that I don't want to go through that pain of those nasty boys. Yeah. You know? And in that one moment, your brother, who is not yet here, saved you because of your love. Yeah. For him. Yeah. Similar to your grandfather. Yeah. Who had this love for these children who were not. Right? But you had this love for your brother. You know, it hurts me to hear that you had no one to talk to during that time. you know so where and how did the bullying start i mean it wasn't severe bullying where i'd be like okay no that's a lie it was basically slut shaming bullying and for my appearance as well But things like that, I could just kind of think, well, there's more to me than my looks.

8:15But I think all kids get bullied at school to some extent. Kids are cruel and they're going for their own shit. Load of hormones, loads of insecurities. So if it made someone feel better one day saying, oh, my God, like you've got a big nose or your ears stick out a bit or whatever. It hurt, but it wasn't like the be all and end all. And then a guy who was in year 11 was talking to me. So I was like, oh my God, I'm so popular. Like, he wants to talk to me. Asked me to send him a sexually explicit video, but I was too scared. And thank God I didn't. Didn't send it to him. And he goes, oh, I bet you haven't even, like, masturbated, have you?

8:53And at this point, honestly, I hadn't. But to seem older, I was like, yeah, I have. The next day, my life was a misery for, like, the next year until he left school, basically. That's the girl that fingered herself. Oh my God, she's not even that hot. Like, oh, that's disgusting. Why is she doing that? I'd walk down the corridors. That's the girl. All my girlfriends were like, why would you say that to him? We're so embarrassed. I barely wanted to hang out with me anymore. It was hell. And then imagine going home and I've had all that all day and I can't even tell my mum because it just wasn't spoken about in our culture, like in society for women to speak about masturbation.

9:32So I can't go home and say, oh, I was trying to impress an older boy. I didn't send him the video. I ever said yes, I had done the act, which I hadn't. And now I'm getting bullied for it. It was so hard. What was being made fun of by whom and why? So my ears like stuck out so bad. When I was talking about the bullying to my mom, I didn't feel comfortable telling her about the sexual side of it. But I could tell her about the appearance side. So I'd go home crying. Just say, look, mom, you can't even go in school. Everyone's bullying me for my ears. Please, please, please. They had no money. So he went to the NHS and was like, look, she's getting bullied.

10:10And they'd done it on the NHS for my ears. Really? When I was 17. Because it was, like, school was hell. I'd get anxiety. I used to remember being sick in the morning because I was so anxious to go in. We would sit in assembly, and I remember vividly hearing guys say, look at Megan and look at, I don't know, they just make up her name, Polly, who's my best friend at school. Look at the difference. there's no competition poly so much horror and I was just like damn like not only is my life a misery to deal with that older asshole now people are like ripping into me for my looks I was like what and I'm not good at class like what the hell it was a lot right so so what is that is that procedure is it literally it pulls your ears back yeah permanently permanently but they'd done it But in such a mild way, it barely made any difference.

11:04And because of my age, when you wake up from the anesthetic, the only painkiller they're trying to give you is paracetamol. So, oh, the pain. It was bad. Oh, my gosh. So do the kids at school know that you then get this procedure? She didn't think this far ahead, did she? Went in with a bandage around my head like an absolute... Wow. One of the boys that bullied me slapped my head with the new ears. imagine i had that blood poured on my net it was just kids are evil honestly i feel like if i have kids they're being homeschooled because that is a feral environment yeah is this this horrible it's horrible and then does anything change do they now become nicer to you where nothing has changed well they can't say shit about my years but they still are like still the slut shaming was there but i don't know i feel better i guess because i just thought fuck you you've said something that he was bullying me for I fixed it now what are you gonna say but I'm just I don't I think you do as a human you build up resilience and tolerance whether that's pain physical pain or emotional pain you do like there's only so much someone can take so I was just like at that point I just thought whatever at least I fixed it you're still fat you're still a bully whatever I'm better than here.

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13:33So we're back in the Hull. Yeah. Okay. and I picture the way that you've described it is it is I mean you know the boys are boys the lads yes they're not boys they're lads yeah yeah right uh and you were you were a lad I was yeah I mean yeah I I was a skateboarder I wasn't afraid to fall and injure myself and you know I was I was one of the boys, it was all of us was, you know, there was no girls in our group at all. So it was all just lads that used to build tree swings and, you know, and go out into the field and build dens and skateboard and BMX and stuff. It was all very sort of laddy in that way.

14:19You know, back then, I mean, I was 13, 14 years old. I wasn't even looking in that direction. I wasn't even thinking about girls or sex or anything like that it was very much like i'm with my boys innocently i guess and it was only when my mates started getting girls in our group and part of our group that was a bit like you know like oh girls suck like i just want to skate and they're taking attention away from us and and and then you know then it would be like oh well surfy's got a friend that thinks that you're good looking and why don't you get with her and then then it was questions and it was like why do you not want to have a girlfriend and i was like i'm a skateboarder i'm fine there's like yeah but like you're just going to be the only one that done and it's weird and and i think that sort of questioning had gone deeper than i had thought it would okay and you know i'd go home and i'd i'd think about all the time and it come to a point where i wasn't eating properly I wasn't sleeping properly and I was getting ill with it you know I was questioning myself at a young age about why I was different you know so you felt different how I just felt like I all of a sudden didn't fit in didn't feel like I belonged all of a sudden all I wanted to do was feel part of something so then as soon as there was the questions about you know why I didn't want this why I didn't want that I felt segregated and immediately all that fear and all that anxiety and worry about self-worth all came back there had come a point where I was with one of my friends on sat up on this half pipe and you know he was just talking and it came up again and I was just so down and fed up of the questioning when he asked me I was like I don't know if I'm interested in girls and he was like what are you trying to tell me you're gay and in that split second I felt like my world was either going to change drastically or I would hide it and I would take that darkness and I would live it alone so I made the decision to say maybe and he was like all right and then he skated away and he told all the other boys and then we all went home and then the next day nobody came to call for me nobody came to to walk me to school and I went up to school and none of them wanted to talk to me at lunch and you know it that was my whole my whole life was my friendship group at that point so for me that my life was ruined from something I didn't even really understand.

17:05And that was horrible. That was probably one of the lowest times in my life, I'd say, personally. Just feeling like all that rejection, all of those doubts about self-worth just came straight back to self. There was almost proof that I don't deserve love, that I'm not enough, that all the things that I was trying to tell myself I wasn't, that for me was clear proof that, You know, I wasn't worth it. Who do you or who did you go to in that time? So we've gone from a fun-loving, you know, big energy with the guys to then, you know, being the polar opposite of that. A couple of people had started to notice and one particular guy had come up to me and he'd said, like, I've just noticed that you're, like, on your own a lot more and stuff like that.

18:00like, is, like, everything cool? And I was like, yeah. Obviously, didn't want to say anything to anybody else for fear that that might happen again. And he was like, do you mind me asking you a personal question? I was like, yeah. He was like, are you gay? So I was like, no, no, no. I might buy probably or something. He's like, I'm gay. And I was like, oh. And for a second, I was like, oh, okay, I can relate now. I feel like I'm part of something again. Right. and he I mean we were best friends for a long time and after Britain's Got Talent we drifted which was sad but he saved me I'd say he saved me from myself, he saved me from the darkness that I was feeling because I had somebody who I could relate to he was unforgivingly himself he was unapologetically himself and people knew that he was gay and he was like I don't care and that confidence i was like it was like looking at my sister again right it's like somebody who is just confident enough to be able to show their heart and soul to people and to just be like i'll give a fuck right right but you were at that time though you had still not publicly stated and and i think that internally you were questioning yourself yeah yeah so you thought maybe maybe Maybe I'm bisexual.

19:20Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah. Right. So how do you begin to then truly identify sexuality? You know, as kids, like you'd see FHM magazine or you'd see, you know, the magazines that, you know, my mate's dad would have. Right. And you'd look through and you'd see stuff and it'd be like, I didn't, I wouldn't feel any way about it. And so then you start thinking, okay, well, maybe I am gay then. And then, you know, I'd start to explore that. And I found quickly that I was more attracted to men than women. Still, I'm attracted to women, but just not as much. And I think, you know, I still wasn't confident in my sexuality.

20:02And in fact, because of the loss I'd had with my friends, I resented that part of myself. And I had done for a long, long time. I think I would say in the last, I'd say five years, have just gone full 180 on it. And I'm like, I love who I am. But that's only in the last five years. Oh, yeah. So in your teens, in your 20s, so I would imagine that friendship group that you had, they never came back. No. No. And, you know, I look on it now and I go, I don't blame them. We were young. Sometimes what you don't understand can scare you. and I don't feel anything towards that. I don't hate them. I'm not sort of, like I said earlier, I wouldn't change it because I am who I am because of that experience and I have the compassion and the love and the need to want to help other people through their situations because of what I've experienced.

21:01So I wouldn't change it. And so in that way, I don't resent them and we've seen each other out since and it's fine. It's fine. but there was a lot of hate a lot of internalised hate for a long long time I always used to tell people if I could almost like a matrix red and a blue pill if I could take a pill and get rid of being gay I'd do it instantly now I'd bat them out of your hand

21:39You