10 years later, and I'm still not over it..."No Name-Calling Week"

Barns & Noble posted a book they're selling in connection with "No Name-Calling Week." Due to my own experience with bullying, I decided to take a look. I read some of the reviews left for this book, and I have to say, some of them make me really sad. There were comments about how it just seemed unbelievable to them that so many bad things could happen to one person, or that they refused to believe that those kinds of things could happen, and no adult would step in and put a stop to it. Some even suggested that her own attitude encouraged the bullying, in essence saying it was her own fault! Honestly, I would find it far more unbelievable if she HADN'T developed a bitter attitude.

One comment that really got to me mentioned that they couldn't believe that she could find the same kind of bullying in different schools, from different people. From first hand experience, that is completely possible. I was bullied from kindergarten on up. Thankfully, I was never physically bullied, but trust me, the mental and emotional abuse was no less painful than a punch in the face. When my family decided to move to a new house, and thus a new school district, I was ecstatic! I had friends at my old school, but I thought moving to a new school would be a fresh start for me. That first day, all I wanted to do was fit in. That made it even more painful when the same kind of teasing and taunting started all over again. The same old story, just different faces. To this day, I STILL don't know what it was about me.

Day after day, year after year, listening to your peers rip you up and down eats at your soul. I wasn't a crass, cynical, jaded, sarcastic kid in kindergarten. I became that kind of person in response to the world around me. Of course, that didn't do anything to end the bullying, but neither did my desperate attempts to fit in. My days were no different when I was trying to wear "cool" clothes and like the same things everyone else did, than they were when I finally said "to hell with the lot of you," and went Goth. The bullying still hurt, but at least it felt like I could control HOW I was being bullied. We all cope with bullying in different ways. Some collapse in on themselves in misery, and some fight back. In the most extreme of reactions, the victim becomes suicidal or homicidal. For the rest of us, we just dream of the day when it will all be over. Little do we know that, while the bullying may stop, the pain is there forever.

It's been 10 years since I graduated high school, and to my shame, a part of me still can't let go. I know I should just "get over it," but I can't. It still hurts, just thinking about it. I want to know "why?," even now. What did I do? What did I say? Was there anything I could have done that would have made it different? I don't just want these answers for myself. Now that I'm a parent, I'm constantly on the look-out for signs that my children are facing the same kind of torment I did. Maybe if I can figure out what triggered it all, I can save my kids from my own fate.

Bullying is abuse. Mental, emotional and physical assault is just as damaging coming from one's peers as it is if it were abuse by a parent. It wears you down and leaves scars that no amount of time or therapy can make go away.