This is definitely going to be buried, but I was bullied for not being politically correct.

I went to small catholic primary and secondary schools and have been raised in mostly right-wing environments. I even have vague connections with Tony Abbott's family, though, I don't care about politics or those connections. That being said, my family and I have never been close-minded and I wasn't political at all. When I hit secondary school, I was completely alone and very anxious about everything. I struggled to fit in, but, I did find a good group, though I still didn't really make many friends.

Around the star of the 3rd year, I was invited to join a small group of very politically correct people. They were all nice and I had fun times, but secretly half of them didn't want me there and talked behind my back. Like, one dude who I'll name B, tried to ensure I never associated with any of them again.

I was far too innocent to even understand there was a political spectrum. I specifically remember they were all talking about gender in this big group and I simply said 'how can you be a guy and also identify as a girl?' and they all looked at me dumbfounded, like I was a moron who didn't understand anything. They proceeded to blast me with insults and shame me for it, I was just confused because I had never heard of identity politics.

That was only the beginning though. See, B was LGBT (not sure if that's grammatically correct but I'll continue using it). I think he didn't want me there because he wanted a group of people to be safe with. I knew about this early because no one could keep secrets and tried to be as supportive as possible without actually interfering or intruding on his privacy. However he would always use it as an opportunity to belittle me for social leverage. For example, every time he'd complain about how he'd never get anything for Christmas, I'd offer to buy him something expensive out of my own pocket-money. But he would just shame me for being 'privileged', otherwise born into a slightly richer family. Eventually, though, he did come out to me. I was happy and supportive, despite not really understanding it, as well as his constant snipes at me.

A lot of high school drama ensured as there were lots of crushes in this small group. Somehow, though, despite not liking anyone, I was always the scapegoat of their problems, probably because I was the voice of reasoning. I had somewhat stopped talking to other people because I felt safer in this group (as it was their safe space) so I didn't really have more of a social outlet to rely on. The group sort of disbanded from this though.

Nonetheless, I was still 'friends' with all of them. B gave me lectures whenever he could over being politically correct. A good example is when they cornered me for being 'causally racist' to another asian friend of mine, who loves racist banter.

I was very confused and lonely, I think. It's all a bit of a blur, but every time I tried to help these people they'd belittle me in some political way. I eventually found a better group of friends in the same larger group after a year or two. In a group discussion over transgendered people and sports, I made a stupid meta jokes about the otherwise stupid transphobic jokes some people were making. B took it out on me and shoved me into a fence. 'You're fucked' I said, venting a couple years worth of suppressed feelings. I walked away instead of fighting him. Everyone took my side and he hasn't been around much.

I didn't expect this to be this long, but there's much more to the story I irrelevantly left out with other people like B. I like to think I'm not bigoted or homophobic or as such. However I learnt that whilst going through all of this, I had and still have horrible anxiety and low-lying depression. I think if I knew about it earlier, I could've handled things waayy better, but this stupid group of people have affected me so much and I didn't do anything about it. I mean, I've been bullied in all sorts of ways but every time I've cried and got on with life. Even now I'm causally invited drinking with most of those bullies despite never talking to them, I think I've come far. But this was something else that I feel needed to be shared, even if it's a rant.