Your heart will fly on wings

I'm standing in a field.  The sun is glaring down on me but there's a freezing wind whipping round me, so I'm left shivering in this school uniform.  I'm clinging onto this rucksack as if it's my life jacket, it gives me something to do, something that stops me falling over.  Behind me, 3 girls are calling out 'bitch', 'slut', 'whore', 'disgusting', 'ugly', 'tramp' and various other insults that all blend into one.  I stand with my back to them, shaking in fear and doing everything I can not to cry.

And then the director yells cut.

The girls come up to me and we have a hug and a giggle about the take we just did.  The director watches it back on the screen while we wait, gradually getting more and more sunburnt, then it's time to do the scene again from another angle and we do the same thing again.  They scream abuse at me.  I hold myself together as best as I can.

And then the director yells cut.
It's oddly therapeutic.

I know that sounds really bizarre, but it's nice to know that it shuts off so quickly.  Inbetween takes the girls tell me that they love me and throw a dozen compliments just in case.  Admittedly, I do feel a selection of upset and anxiety about being put in this kind of situation again, but I'm also really proud of myself.  I'm taking the emotions from a very hard part of my life, and earning from them.  I'd like to say to the people who made me feel such negativity when I was younger, 'Thank you.  I'm richer for it now.  Sure, there's a part of me that wants to say fuck you, you bastard, but I'm also very smug right now so thank you for that.'

When the other girls left, I stayed a while to do some further additional shots.  They were pretty easy, all they needed to film was my arms.  I'll explain, CGI will be added in later to cut words into my arms: 'bitch', 'fat', 'ugly' and 'slut'.  It was that that had drawn me to the part.  Because I used to do that.  It was my punishment.  Anyway, it was quite bizarre having all these different camera shots all of my arms with me thinking, 'are my arms looking natural right now?  Are my arms acting?  IS THIS TRUTHFUL?!'  (RCSSD girls will understand).  Anyway, when they were sorting out the close up, the director came over the adjust my arms a bit.  As she did, she came across a couple of marks on my forearms - they've been there a few months but they shouldn't scar.  She didn't say anything.  She didn't have to.  She just gently adjusted my arm and gave my hand a squeeze.  And we went back to work.

After filming, the assistant dropped me back off at the train station.  We talked a bit about what the charity did and the other projects they were getting up to.  Eventually the conversation steered towards the topic of our advert.  How bullying can seriously impact your mental health.  It's true.  The two seconds you take to say a cruel word can stay with someone for the rest of their lives.  You'll forget about it because it was just an offhand comment and something just to provoke brief amusement for yourself.  But do you really want to damage someone's way of viewing themselves for a lifetime, for your couple of seconds of adrenaline?

Sorry, this is turning into a rant.  I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I feel so good for having done this.  I've learnt that if I don't like something, then I can call cut.

(Just because people keep on asking, I don't actually know yet when the advert will air and what channel(s) it would be on.  Basically, they've got to do the CGI editing etc. and then sell it as part of a campaign and blah blah blah.  It will defo be online though in the next couple of weeks or so).