Bullying And Its Aftermath – The Scars I Tuck Inside

I’m taking a break from the ficitonal horror I write about here every week to address a very real horror : bullying. I know it’s the big topic of the day and there’s a lot of rhetoric out there about teachers, parents and kids taking a stand and ending it. I have 2 kids in school and I’m in the front lines with them. I can tell you that there have been ZERO changes since the spotlight was trained on it. Bullying is still a serious issue. It has the power to humiliate, defeat and even kill.

The following post was written by a wonderful fan I met last year. She goes by the name Spicy Pixi and her story could be your story, or your child’s story. Please share it with as many people as you can.

It is an unfortunate thing that teachers, parents and fellow students are just now waking up to the fact that bullying is a problem – a damn big one. It is sad to see the lives of children, teenagers and young adults broken and cut short by the pressure to feel worthless for their differences. No one is allowed to be unique unless they wish to be cast out. No one is allowed to be respected unless they are part of a crowd that can protect them. We are subject to punishment for who we are, who we want to be, the lifestyle we live, the friends we make, the jobs we do. It is all for the sake of a false pretense of peaceful uniformity; ultimately it is to aggressively oppose what we are told is different and thus must be ardently avoided or destroyed.
I grew up during a time in which the term “bullying” was viewed as commonplace – typical behavior of children, adolescents and teenagers. Most teachers feigned interest and turned a blind eye while it occurred in their classrooms, quietly addressing the issue in private with the student and their parents – if the teachers cared enough to handle the issue at all. Children that addressed their parents about the situation were told that their peers would grow out of it and see how wonderful and talented the bullied really were (“it’s the inside that counts“); twenty years ago, parents preferred to sweep the problem under the rug, having previously been brainwashed into believing that such appalling – and sometimes violent – behavior was part of growing up. In the end, the victim would walk away convinced that the abuse was “normal”. “Kids will be kids.”

I was bullied as a kid.
I was bullied for the way I looked and dressed. I wore over-sized coke-bottle glasses to treat severe near-sightedness, tinted pink as to prevent further irritation by damaging UV radiation. My gaunt appearance was the result of a high metabolism that all but prevented me from gaining an ounce of weight until I was well into my teens. My naturally strawberry-blonde hair was a mass of waves and curls running down my back and thus had earned me the privileged title of “orange poodle” for a majority of my third and fourth grade years. Because my parents had put a small fortune into my dental care, I was teased for having braces from fifth grade to eighth grade – then I got teased for having a retainer.
I was bullied for my lack of athleticism and chosen last in just about every physical activity in grade school. If I was not chosen last, then I was chosen ahead of the ones that didn’t bathe, the ones too overweight to run or the ones that picked their nose. I was purposely hit in the head by large rubber balls by the boys in my class, yelled at by my classmates if I failed to run fast enough, kick hard enough or throw well enough to win a game. By the by, I had asthma.
I was bullied for being too quiet. I was bullied for my absence of friends. I was bullied for having a higher IQ. I was bullied for my last name. (Voos? Vahz? Vase? Vowse?) I was bullied for my first name. (Anyone remember the story of *Amy* Fisher?) I was bullied for being bullied.
“Four Eyes.” “Brace Face.” “Metal Mouth.” “Window Face.”
I remember when a girl purposely stepped on a picture I was drawing during recess. She walked away, laughing, when I looked at her, startled and upset by her lack of respect for something that had made me feel good about myself. It was a nice picture; I wanted to be an artist when I grew up.
I remember wet leaves and dirt being forcefully stuffed into my school bag as I would walk home from school – until such a time that there were no more leaves to collect and the ground had become too hard and frozen from winter chill. I was left to sift through filth just to get to my school books.
I remember being pushed away from a game I had made up all on my own – and played by myself – jumping over every other letter that spelled “NO PARKING” on the school parking lot. Suddenly, I wasn’t allowed to play my own game anymore. The “cool kids” made sure of that.
My first “boyfriend” was the result of a prank played by some of the prettier girls in my grade who thought it appropriate that I should be matched up with a boy who never bathed. One day, as I was sitting by myself during recess, writing, I was told that he was my new boyfriend. Close behind them, there he was, head bowed and looking very much the way I must have – embarrassed, devalued and confused. He followed me for the remainder of the school year like a lost puppy and I was chided by the same girls who “set us up” for never kissing him during recess.

I wonder if the girls on my eighth grade basketball team were aware of me overhearing them during Library. How vicious their words were about their fellow teammate and how deeply they wound me when they talked about my playing ability!
I remember the names and faces of the three girls that made my life a living hell for the first few years of high school – on a daily basis. I remember the boys that kicked the back of my desk.

I never let on that their cruelty put me through more than ten years of therapy. I never let on that the medication I was on to help me cope with their actions was unusually high for a child my age. I never let on that I cried myself to sleep at night, wishing I had a friend to talk to. I never let on about my anxiety attacks every day during lunch – and later in the cafeteria – because I was constantly overhearing them talk unkindly about me. I never let them know about the myriad of nail gouges and scratches along my back that dulled the emotional pain they put me through. I never let on that the only reason why I wrote so much was because the only friends I had were the characters I made up in my head. I never let on that the only reason why I drew – and drew so well – was because it was all that kept me focused hard enough so that I would not shake and cry when they taunted me. I never let on that I almost took my life because of bullying and that, had it not been for the unexpected, early arrival of my stepfather home from work that autumn day, I would be dead now.
There is no justice in bullying. There is no justification in bullying the bullied, the reformed, the drug-addled, the mentally unsound, the rich, the poor, the athletically challenged, the athletically inclined, the smart, the gifted, the pretty, the depraved. There is only justice in rising above it.
It took years (of therapy, of medication, of learned coping skills) following my high school graduation to see how wrong my persecutors were about me. (In fact, for as awkward as I’d been, I was a pretty cool kid!) Looking back, I would like to think that had I been as strong as I am now (or as brave), I would have been a bully’s personal hell – and never once would have given them a breath of my time. I’d like to like think I would have spoken against the countless people who thought it okay to abuse me and others,  I would have brought down a few lawsuits on the teachers and school board that chose to not do a damn thing about what was occurring in front of them.
To the adults, parents, teachers and classmates who choose to stand by and do nothing: Fuck. You.
To the ones baring the scars of past bullying: Never let what happened then stop you from shining now.
To the bullies brave enough to read this: You are brave enough to stop the cycle.
To the ones being bullied: You are not alone. I love you.

Lastly, to MY (former) bull-…

Meh, you aren’t worth it.