Yesterday, I found this very interesting note on my Twitter wall and today I've decided to write about the moment that changed me.
I'm not sure when or why the other children in my class decided to turn against me. My Mom would tell me to not respond to the harsh words, that being ignored would make the bullies stop. She kept saying this for the five years the bullying was a part of my life. My teachers would say that it was because the other children were jealous, but no one would tell me why or what they were jealous of. The one thing that was clear to me was that it was my fault, because I was doing something to be jealous of or I didn't ignore the kids enough.
At first, it was words - witch, fatty, snail, slow poke, disgusting, filth, useless, waste of space, worthless, stupid, nasty.
Then came the addition of pretending that I wasn't there at all. People talk about being selected last for teams in PE. I wasn't even selected. The rest of the class would just pretend there was no one there when there was just me left.
Then came the violence. Snow filled with ice and rocks thrown at my head and face. My face pressed into mud and snow, depending on season. Being pushed from monkey bars, trees or the balancing beams in PE. Tripped and pushed whenever there was something painful I could land on. The water turned to freezing cold or blistering hot when I was showering after PE.
Then came the destruction of my things. A quilted pillow I had made for my Dad got cut open, the red panda plushie I was forced to take to school for "Plush toy Show and Tell" had its tail torn off, my back pack was ripped. Someone carved deep lines into my desk (luckily, the teacher saw who it was, or I would have been made to repair it) My jacket got stolen often, my shoes were hidden, and my books mysteriously lost their cover paper.
I don't think I managed to stay in school a full school day for two years. When the teachers finally figured out what was going on, it had been going on for almost five years. And then it just stopped. All it took was two parent-teacher conferences and one principal's speech to the entire school about the effects of bullying, and I was left alone. At this point, I no longer cared. Life. Death. Night. Day. I was just going through the motions of wake up, have breakfast, go to school, come home, have dinner, watch TV, go to sleep. Repeat. I was so far down into my well of despair that I didn't even consider suicide.
I went to another school for junior high and suddenly, I was among the popular kids. My homeroom class was filled with kind, intelligent, and funny pre-teens who genuinly liked me, and I could not understand why. After five years of daily abuse, suddenly, people were kind to me. It didn't make sense. So, I figured it had to do with my performance in school and in group projects. I belonged somewhere for the first time since I was seven years old, and I was prepared to fight for my place. We moved to another part of town around Christmas that year, and since some of my old abusers were in my class, I decided to change school again. In hindsight, that was a bad decision. It was hard to be accepted at the new school, but I managed to find a group of kids to belong in. I started martial arts and fell helplessly in love with my instructor's younger brother. Said instructor was also my math teacher for a while, and the whole damn school was convinced I was in love with my teacher. Someone even sent him letters in my name, which ended up in said teacher asking my Dad to tell me to knock it off. Yeah, that propelled me down into the pit again, and efficiently shattered any confidence I had in seeking the brother's attention.
Despite the set backs, I was making steady progress forward, getting more and more confident and dare-I-say happy by the week. This also ment that I worked myself up from I-don't-care to suicidal.
I was 13 years and nine months old, give or take a few days, the day I decided I couldn't stand being alive anymore. It wasn't that I wanted to die, specifically. I just didn't want to be alive. Life seemed completely pointless and too painful and too empty. I remember the light filtering in through the blinds of the one large window in my room, dancing in lines and spots on my white-with-pink-and-blue-dots walls as the blinds swayed in the slight breeze from the open window. It was a warm day for being September, but I can still feel the cold in my chest. I had located my Mom's sleeping pills and pilfered a handful when she was too busy to notice. I remember not bothering with a note, thinking that my diary would be explanation enough, even though I didn't think anyone would look for it. At sometime after 5 pm, I took the pills and layed down on my bed and waited. I must have dozed off, because it was almost 6 pm when Mom called that dinner was ready.
And I got up.
For 16 years, I didn't know why I got up from that bed. It had nothing to do with my mother's voice, the food being served (spaghetti, meat sauce, and grated carrots. Yes, that's how ingrained this evening is in my mind), or the potential grief I would cause if I died. Then, last year, I figured out that it was because I just wanted to experience more Everything. I simply wanted to live badly enough to break through the haze of too-many pills and too much pain. I had dinner with my family, I watched TV until 9 pm, then I went to my bedroom, grabbed the book I was reading ("Castle of Wizardry" by David Eddings) and the book after it, and sat down to read. I was convinced that I would die if I fell asleep, so I decided to stay awake that night. When I went to school the following day, I was in more pain than I could remember. Every step hurt, my head was just filled with buzzing, and my eyes felt like needles of ice. I managed to stay awake until 10 pm that night, and then I fell asleep and didn't dream.
I can never go back to the happy-go-lucky child my Mom tells me I used to be. The girl who would flirt with everyone and was absolutely fearless. That child died at the hands of bullies. I can also never go back to that 13 year old girl who felt that the only way to stop the suffering was to die. I don't want to be her again. That girl died on that bed 17 years ago.
I have known pain and trauma. I have experienced emptiness, coldness, and soul shattering loneliness. I was the tiny flame on top of a match in a locked, dark basement, fluttering with the lack of air.
And today, I am a woman who will never stand idly by when someone needs help. I will never ignore a child who needs support and I will never accept abuse from anyone or done to anyone, if I can prevent it. Because that feeling of betrayal and darkness is a part of me, a part of who I am, I will do whatever I can to prevent others from experiencing it.
DFTBA
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