Writer's Block: Anti-bullying month
Oct. 4th, 2011 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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It all began in seventh grade. My school system had 7-12 in one building so there were six years to form cliques. The bullies hunted in packs and those packs were so frighteningly stereotypical: the in-girl/cheerleader types and the hot jocks ruling the school.
My family didn’t have a ton of money. I didn’t have the funds for the latest clothing fads or to go to the salons to get those fancy 1980’s hair styles. Combine that was a high IQ and glasses, and I was an instant target for the mean girls. By seventh grade I was 5’9”, taller than most of the boys, and seriously underweight, which made me just as much of a target for the ‘cool’ guys. I added fuel to the fire by reading comic books and fantasy, playing Dungeons and Dragons, playing in the marching band and always being the first hand up in class.
Over the next six years, I would start the day with nausea and anxiety, just thinking about what they’d do to me that day. I had to be put on GERD medications and the GI damage has lasted my entire life. Most of the bullying was emotional. They’d make up mocking songs and sayings about my hair and clothes. They’d steal my homework and destroy it. They stole my glasses and played ‘keep away.’ They stole my fan fiction and read it out loud to everyone and mocked it as well. They wrecked my locker, ruined my clothes in gym class, flung food on me in the cafeteria, shoved trashed into my saxophone, hit me and pulled my hair on the bus. They wrote nasty things in my year books and anything that I might need student signatures for, like student council, ended up covered in sexual slurs.
Naturally, I did make some friends, geeky kids like myself, but there really wasn’t safety in numbers. People knew what these kids did and looked the other way or blamed me and my friends for not acting/dressing ‘normal.’ By the time my junior year rolled around, I had seriously considered suicide on more than one occasion rather than face these people. I had a fairly geek coping mechanism to get me out of the worst of my depression. By my senior year, I was already looking ahead to college, to life without these people. I stopped listening to the bullies and I continued being me, even if it meant being a daily target or sitting home alone at the prom.
And that’s part of my motivation in answering this writer’s block, to say it does get better. It gets so much better. College was one of the best times of my entire life. I went to medical school after that, achieved those academic dreams.
Last year my twenty-fifth high school reunion rolled around. I didn’t have any plans on going. Those kids had made my life a living hell and they had left a lasting impression on me. I hear their voices in every self doubt that pops into my mind, every time I look in the mirror and I think I’m not pretty enough or whatever it is I think I need to be at that moment and am not. Their names and personalities were given to every villain or murder victim I wrote as a way of dealing with the residual emotions they left in their wake. I realized I harbored a lot of anger two and a half decades later.
Then I thought they would win if I didn’t go. They would have beaten me one last time. I took another look in that mirror and said I look darn good for 40-something, I’m a success and yes, damn it, I still read comic books and play dungeons and dragons every now and then and I’m not ashamed of it.
I went to my reunion, saw my geeky friends and then something extraordinary happened. The mean girls and boys talked to me like normal human beings. One of the guys talked to me for over an hour telling me I was the smartest person he has ever known and how much he admired my achievements. One of the worst of the mean girls told me she always hoped her daughters will be just like me and I’m standing there thinking to you even remember what you did to me? You want that for your kids or have you realized being cute and popular doesn’t count for that much once high school is over and people expect you to work for a living? Some of them still avoided me and my friends but you know what, I could have cared less. They lost their ability to hurt me long ago.
In the end, I got back in touch with some of my friends because I went. That said, I’m just as happy that none of the bullies wanted to be facebook friends because I’m still not ready for that. I’m happy enough with them not being in my life. Today as I wrote this I was watching Big Bang Theory where they were discussing bullying. Let’s face it Hollywood rarely does something like that well. What the boys of BBT described was too familiar and hurtful for me. I think this is also why I connected so easily with Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I had my Cordelia and the Cordettes. I was left wondering last week after NCIS if Tony and his bullying and making amends was a direct result of the recent teen suicides related to bullying. I wonder if real bullies ever regret their actions. I think some do. I think others will be mean all their lives.
If it’s happening to you now, tell someone. Do something about it. Take it from someone who stood at the edge of the abyss and looked in, it’s not worth dying over. There are other better ways and there are people who will help. This was long and hard to write and in some ways I feel better getting it out in the open. It’s one more step away from the power they once had over me.
It all began in seventh grade. My school system had 7-12 in one building so there were six years to form cliques. The bullies hunted in packs and those packs were so frighteningly stereotypical: the in-girl/cheerleader types and the hot jocks ruling the school.
My family didn’t have a ton of money. I didn’t have the funds for the latest clothing fads or to go to the salons to get those fancy 1980’s hair styles. Combine that was a high IQ and glasses, and I was an instant target for the mean girls. By seventh grade I was 5’9”, taller than most of the boys, and seriously underweight, which made me just as much of a target for the ‘cool’ guys. I added fuel to the fire by reading comic books and fantasy, playing Dungeons and Dragons, playing in the marching band and always being the first hand up in class.
Over the next six years, I would start the day with nausea and anxiety, just thinking about what they’d do to me that day. I had to be put on GERD medications and the GI damage has lasted my entire life. Most of the bullying was emotional. They’d make up mocking songs and sayings about my hair and clothes. They’d steal my homework and destroy it. They stole my glasses and played ‘keep away.’ They stole my fan fiction and read it out loud to everyone and mocked it as well. They wrecked my locker, ruined my clothes in gym class, flung food on me in the cafeteria, shoved trashed into my saxophone, hit me and pulled my hair on the bus. They wrote nasty things in my year books and anything that I might need student signatures for, like student council, ended up covered in sexual slurs.
Naturally, I did make some friends, geeky kids like myself, but there really wasn’t safety in numbers. People knew what these kids did and looked the other way or blamed me and my friends for not acting/dressing ‘normal.’ By the time my junior year rolled around, I had seriously considered suicide on more than one occasion rather than face these people. I had a fairly geek coping mechanism to get me out of the worst of my depression. By my senior year, I was already looking ahead to college, to life without these people. I stopped listening to the bullies and I continued being me, even if it meant being a daily target or sitting home alone at the prom.
And that’s part of my motivation in answering this writer’s block, to say it does get better. It gets so much better. College was one of the best times of my entire life. I went to medical school after that, achieved those academic dreams.
Last year my twenty-fifth high school reunion rolled around. I didn’t have any plans on going. Those kids had made my life a living hell and they had left a lasting impression on me. I hear their voices in every self doubt that pops into my mind, every time I look in the mirror and I think I’m not pretty enough or whatever it is I think I need to be at that moment and am not. Their names and personalities were given to every villain or murder victim I wrote as a way of dealing with the residual emotions they left in their wake. I realized I harbored a lot of anger two and a half decades later.
Then I thought they would win if I didn’t go. They would have beaten me one last time. I took another look in that mirror and said I look darn good for 40-something, I’m a success and yes, damn it, I still read comic books and play dungeons and dragons every now and then and I’m not ashamed of it.
I went to my reunion, saw my geeky friends and then something extraordinary happened. The mean girls and boys talked to me like normal human beings. One of the guys talked to me for over an hour telling me I was the smartest person he has ever known and how much he admired my achievements. One of the worst of the mean girls told me she always hoped her daughters will be just like me and I’m standing there thinking to you even remember what you did to me? You want that for your kids or have you realized being cute and popular doesn’t count for that much once high school is over and people expect you to work for a living? Some of them still avoided me and my friends but you know what, I could have cared less. They lost their ability to hurt me long ago.
In the end, I got back in touch with some of my friends because I went. That said, I’m just as happy that none of the bullies wanted to be facebook friends because I’m still not ready for that. I’m happy enough with them not being in my life. Today as I wrote this I was watching Big Bang Theory where they were discussing bullying. Let’s face it Hollywood rarely does something like that well. What the boys of BBT described was too familiar and hurtful for me. I think this is also why I connected so easily with Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I had my Cordelia and the Cordettes. I was left wondering last week after NCIS if Tony and his bullying and making amends was a direct result of the recent teen suicides related to bullying. I wonder if real bullies ever regret their actions. I think some do. I think others will be mean all their lives.
If it’s happening to you now, tell someone. Do something about it. Take it from someone who stood at the edge of the abyss and looked in, it’s not worth dying over. There are other better ways and there are people who will help. This was long and hard to write and in some ways I feel better getting it out in the open. It’s one more step away from the power they once had over me.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 02:58 am (UTC)Some of mine actually grew up sooner than college. I remember one of the most horrible of bullies, one of the meanest of the mean girls, in Junior High--I hadn't seen her in a few years, High School was much bigger, after all, and I ran into her on the stairs. I remember being terrified, I was meeting her alone and she was sure to do something horrible to me, and you know what happened?
She greeted me kindly and said hello and "it's been a long time," and something else nice -- and went on to be one of the "nice girls" in high school.
The worst of my bullying comes from Junior High; by High School I had a circle large enough to keep the worst of the bullying out; drama geeks and band nerds and choir geeks and journalism nerds in our school formed a good-sized ring. We only got bullied if we got caught alone.
It definitely gets better.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:19 am (UTC)I'm glad it got better for you even before college.
Ii tell you this, when I was forced into student teaching, it was the middle schoolers I loathed. It's like I'm teaching college. Why are you making me do this? I see WHY middle school teachers burn out in 3-5 years.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:30 am (UTC)I've never been ashamed and I think that merely made them angrier
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:04 am (UTC)And when my 10th reunion rolled around I didn't go at all. Had some people try to get in touch with me through facebook and when I told them "No. We were not friends in high school, you tortured me for my choices and made me generally miserable, why would I want to 'friend' you on facebook? So you can now make fun of my kid?" This one girl persisted to the point I changed my facebook name to Sonja Jade and took my high school off completely so those same people couldn't find me (my real friends would know to look for Sonja Jade anyway)
I am glad to hear that some of them were kind to you even after all they'd done to you. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:04 am (UTC)I'm so HAPPY that I never had to do a 6th grade student teaching ever! The only grades I haven't taught at least one lesson in are 2nd and 6th.
Oddly enough, the worst of my bullying was Freshman year (upperclassmen would make shit comments) and my Senior year. I dated a pretty popular guy from the end of Sophomore year until just before Senior year.
He'd been the insulator from one of the meanest groups of mean girls I've ever seen.
One of them waited on me at Pizzeria Uno. She was utterly embarrassed and said, "I'm so ashamed of what we did to you."
I've NEVER heard that from the ringleader, the President of the School Board's kid...
It did finally come to an end when they were stupid enough to pass an obscene note around my college prep English class. They wanted me to see it. The DIDN'T think I'd keep it.
That was the last straw. They'd involved my sister. I took it home and showed my Mom. Before that I'd just stopped smiling and started wearing black and being VERY fearful.
Our pastor had been an attorney before keeping his promise to his father and becoming a pastor in his 50s once his kids were through college. A photocopy of the note/pictures was made and the original put away someplace safe.
A meeting was called with the principal and it must have been epic. The calm and collected, soft-spoken Rev. said, "This stops now. Forever. H will be 18 in a few months and can file suit. If she chooses not to, I'm sure the press would love to see what Mrs. T's daughter gets away with. The district wouldn't want a scandal." (most definitely paraphrased... this is how my Mother related it to me.)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:06 am (UTC)And the people who acted nice were either forgetful or DEEPLY ashamed of what they did, but too chicken to mention it.
I felt so bad for DiNozzo. :( Even if he THOUGHT he'd been the one giving a mega wedgie flagpole ride.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:18 am (UTC)Well at least one of them had regrets. Some of them need suing
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:28 am (UTC)luckily none of the mean kids bother me on FB
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:01 am (UTC)or probably still didn't see they did anything wrong
honestly I fast forwarded that part of NCIS. I found it acutely embarrassing
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:36 am (UTC)But you know what? Fuck 'em. You're right, it does get better. I have a fabulous BF, good friends, and I get to do what I love, every day. I've also had the immense pleasure of blocking some of these people when they've come to me on FB asking to be friends. And I have the courage, when I meet people like that in my adult life now, to walk away from them.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:36 pm (UTC)and yes I'm not entirely over it myself but like you I no longer allow myself to be bullied as an adult. i will deal with them and harshly.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:54 pm (UTC)