BULLY FOR ME
BULLY PART 1
Hi. My name is Annie. I’m ten years old. And I’ve leaped off the time line to tell you my story. However, before we get started, I'd better clarify this: You may think me older than my years, because I’ll be talking through an adult, whose voice has a tendency to pop out.
For example, a kid would not say: Don’t cha just hate it when you meet someone and the first thing you hear is a story of woe? I mean, if misery likes company then why do people go on and on about themselves instead of letting you top their sad tales with a whale of a tale of your own? In truth, misery just wants listeners to agree that life should not be so unfair for someone as caring, personable, hard working, and fun as—you.
I guess misery needs listeners to agree with 'woe is me' for this reason: We all know that life can be a slippery slope. But when the person sliding downhill is oneself, we choose to believe that the reason for our slide is someone else's fault, because—
Every victim needs a villain to blame when misery just won’t quit.
When fear twists a child's self-confidence into tongue-tied knots, the child—Whoops—I forgot that this particular child wants to speak for herself. So let's welcome Annie back and listen to what she needs to say ...
At five, I'd patted crying classmates on the back, reassuring them that our moms would pick us up at the end of our first day in kindergarten. At ten, I'd stamped my foot and refused to play until my friends eased up on bullying the new kid on the block. Though I was unaware of budding leadership skills, Mother Nature empowered MY VOICE to ring out with whatever I’d instinctively felt at my core. And clarity was mine until a storm blew in, darkening my life in such a terrifying way that reality felt too hard to bear. So here starts the misery—I mean mystery—concerning my complicated relationship with myself:
The sky held no dark, foreboding clouds on that balmy, spring day in 1953 when my family moved out of our third floor, two-bedroom apartment and into the spacious, three-bedroom-two-bath, dream house that made Dad’s spirit soar. And as my sense of adventure was eager to hold hands with Dad’s, our future seemed too secure to fret over friends left behind.
I can still feel the surge of positive energy, buoying my smile when my new teacher introduced me to her fifth grade class. Without a worry as to what fate might write upon the next page of my life, I settle myself at my desk.
As my eyes sweep the room, I spy a pretty, dark haired, doe-eyed, slip of a girl. Then my gaze lands on two blue eyed, blond, ten year old—guys.
Since children are egocentric, I assume this pretty girl with the long, dark ponytail and brown, almond shaped eyes will be my best friend. Though I’d thought that choosing a boyfriend might take more time, boy am I wrong!
At the first sign of mischief dancing in one pair of blue eyes, my heart pounds in a strange, yet pleasant way, and that contest is won. As to the other cute, blue-eyed boy—well, Mr. Nice-Quiet-Shy-and-Studious pales by comparison, so in short order, he fades back into the herd.
When the final bell rings at the end of the day, I collect my sister, Lauren at the door of her first grade class, and while walking her home, I imagine myself stepping into the center ring of the fifth grade circus where the brown-eyed creature and mischievous Leader of the Pack dub me benevolent Ring Master, over all. Then our classmates circle round, paying homage to we three, who reign supreme.
Alas, that unrealistic expectation is not to be. You see, while my mind is spinning day dreams, fate is writing every kid’s worst nightmare onto the next page of my life.
In fact, before nightfall you'll watch me suffer a rude awakening, which I'd never expected to happen to me. Then, as seeing is believing, I'll show you why my pipe dream is bound to go up in smoke.
Once this mystery unfolds and misery weighs heavy on my spirit, you'll watch me unknowingly victimize myself—repeatedly—in story after story—until I figure out exactly what messed up my mind at an earlier stage of life. At first as you watch, you’ll have no more clue than me as to what caused me to wander onto a dark, fearful path, which will enter into a tunnel-like maze, where no window or exit will appear for decades to come—until, low and behold—insight will hit, and as one insight leads to the next and a long string of insights light up, the narrowness of my self perception will continue to expand until I see my way to choosing a new path, called Clarity, which leaves murky mind mazes in the past. As I learn to hold fast to the key that opens my mind to clarity, my life will change for the better, repeatedly ...
BULLY PART 2
Having never changed schools, I’d no clue that new kids rarely break into well-established clicks right away. However, that unrealistic expectation pales in comparison to the experience that's about to bring me to my knees.
With no clue that change is a mixed bag of tricks, I open the back door to our new house and follow Lauren into our brand new, olive green and melon kitchen, where Mom is waiting to hear about our day. After offering Mom a quick kiss, I slide onto one of two melon colored, leatherette benches that makes up the booth, flanking our breakfast table—which I think is really cool. Then, downing a snack I jabber away about my first day in school until Mom, pointing to the wall clock, cautions me to watch the time. At this, I gulp down the rest of my milk, grab up my school books, and run up stairs into the huge, sunny bedroom, which Lauren and I had just begun to share.
Upon setting my fifth grade texts on top of my desk, I sweep a short stack of Hebrew books into my arms, and right before running back down the stairs, I stop just long enough to glance around ... and what I see makes me smile, because every piece of French provincial furniture is new. Well ... maybe the furniture isn't really French or provincial, but ... it really is brand new! I mean in addition to having twin desks, Lauren and I are each sleeping in our very own beds! And now that Grandma Ella doesn't have to sleep on the sun porch sofa as she had in the apartment while Lauren and I’d slept curled round each other, like kittens, in grandma’s double bed, my granfma's as happy to reclaim her sleigh bed and a room of her own on the main floor as Lauren and I are to sleep in twin beds, up stairs.
As memory recaptures that moment, it’s easy to see why I assume my pipe dreams will fall in line with the extraordinary life with which I've already been blessed ... so when a honking horn signals the arrival of my ride, I dash down the stairs and out the front door with nary a care, because all I sense is adventure in the air. And with my Hebrew books pressed like a shield against my chest, I’ve no reason to suspect that my self-confident, high flying spirit is about to be shot down—BIG TIME!
BULLY PART 3
So here I stand in front of our brand new, two story, red brick, Georgian-styled house (no straw, wood or wolves to be seen) with Hebrew books in hand. As my self-image has suffered no flagrant fouls, I'm eager to befriend all of the ‘innocent’ children who, along with me, are on their way to the compassionate house of God.
With no clue that a battle with the mean minded bully on the bus is about to ensue, I climb into the van and begin to take a seat. Being unprepared for what’s to come, my vulnerability is fully exposed.
With one quick glance at me, THE BULLY spies an easy target and sets his beady sights on me. Then seizing the moment, he lands a solid sucker punch straight into my gut without so much as lifting a hand.
You see, with one God-awful roar, this mean-minded ring master reaches into my head, grabs my brain and flings my sense of logic right out of that van. If you wonder how that bully shatters my self-confidence, quick as a lashing whip tames the cat in the cage, well, here’s what spews out of that tight lipped, mean mouth:
Hey! Look what we’ve got here!
Move over! Waaaaay over!
I’m not sitting next to THAT!
HEY-YOU, make room for—FATTY—over THERE!!!
And from that moment on I am the butt (literally) of countless fat jokes, which entertain an entire busload of kids, every time I climb into that van.
So there it is—one defining moment that determines my lack of confidence with guys for decades to come.
You see, once I take this whack to the head, my brain's inner compass flies off course. In lieu of a well balanced compass, my perspective, concerning formulating relationships with guys, will veer off center for most of my life.
In case you'd like to ask: Annie, can an evil spirit really knock out a person’s self-confident, brain power in one fell swoop? I’d reply ... well truthfully, the strength of the human spirit does not deflate as fast as a blown up balloon, left untied, goes Ffffffttttt! You see self confident traits like:
Resilience and perseverance exhaust, little by little, one tortuous step at a time.
And to make matters worse, the more resilient the spirit, the more natural the sparkle igniting the smile, the more stubbornly a person endures onslaughts of negative energy until the day dawns when something HUGE flies in from out of the blue, smashing whatever is left of the compass, thus pulverizing social self confidence’s final collapse.
When that something HUGE flies in from out of the blue—a little later in this story—you'll witness roars of laughter grinding the last shards of my social self confidence into dust.
And though that will be that for decades to come ...
THANK GOODNESS THE STRENGTH OF MY SPIRIT’S SPARKLE WILL NOT COME UNDONE!
As I’ve revealed very few details, so far, please keep this insight in mind: the little that you know of my childhood is not all there is to know, meaning that many missing puzzle pieces have yet to be retrieved. Once every essential fact has been plugged into all of my stories' holes, a bigger picture will be revealed ... not just to you but more importantly, to me ... and not until then will the puzzle be solved as to why I was empowered to take a courageous stance in defense of others but not in behalf of myself.
As you shall see in a story yet to come, defining moments commonly occur younger than ten years of age. However rather than pedaling backward to an earlier stage in my life, let’s turn the page and check out that which I’ll endure every time I agree (?) to descend into the bowels of Hell, repeatedly, until a day dawns, when my spirit shouts—EnOUgH!
BULLY PART 4
As no one had ever held up a mirror reflecting this slice of reality, the despicable word, FATTY, has never been spat at me until today. Imagine me standing on that bus, stock still, utterly stunned, and so confused that Mother Nature alerts my defense system to kick in.
You see, as soon as instinct senses negative energy crackling through the air, targeting me, my brain floods with static, because believe it or not ... a clear and present danger signals the switch on the defense system to flip on, and once this defensive switch is flipped on, the thought-processing center automatically turns off.
As this brain switching-on-and-off stuff leaves my thought processor in the dark, I’m left with nothing more than a fight-flee-freeze rush of adrenalin shooting out, swirling round and throbbing anxiously from my brain stem throughout my head. So here I stand, like a possum, frozen in emergency mode while the bully clubs my head with mean minded words until my face purples up and my sparkling blue eyes glaze over.
Though no black and blue swellings distort my face, I am severely injured within. Unfortunately, the depths of my wounds are invisible and will go unseen, festering painfully within my subconscious for decades to come.
Clearly, my ego has never taken such a beating. Ever. Most especially not in public and certainly not with my peers. I mean, whenever a circle of peers has surrounded me, here is what I'd been accustomed to until now:
I am the ring leader in the center, the hub, taking care that every spoke is treated fairly, with kindness. (More about why that was true, later.) Though my ready sense of humor enjoys lots of good-hearted clowning around, I'm never the distressed damsel, tied to the stake, flames of humiliation roasting my body from head to toe, while blood thirsty cannibals, who’ve marked me as prey, circle round, closing in, biting off chunks of my self esteem. Denial declares, no way is that me!
In the nick of time, meaning seconds before I feel eaten alive, Mother Nature swoops into the van and calling upon Denial, she saves me from dying a terror struck death, right there on the spot. As Denial is a tricky, little defense mechanism, a sleeping spell is cast over my stunned sense of awareness, and I succumb to a state of—nothingness—in that I see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing—meaning that though I remember the experience, I do not recall the pain. In a word, Repression of Pain is the name of the game, which will dog me for most of my life. Looking back, I’ll think to know myself, through and through, when in truth, I’ll have had no clue of raw pain, layering up behind my brain’s defensive wall. Today, when I hear people wishing to tear down their walls in hopes of enjoying life and love freely, I think it’s wise to note that just as walls layer up, each layer must soften and slough before the origin of residual pain is finally fully exposed.
As you shall see in stories yet to unfold, the depth of my stunned state of terror will remain anesthetized to this extent: Though I'll remember being bullied, the pain will remain numbed, caught within the cobwebs of my subconscious, for decades to come. In fact, my mind will have numbed to the point that no memory arises, even today, as to where I manage to sit down between two guys, who'd begrudgingly been forced to let me squeeze between them on the bench after the bus driver shouts down the taunts of that mean minded gang. Hey you guys! Settle down! Leave her alone! You two, over there ... make room!
What’s your name?
Annie.
Okay—Let Annie sit down, right now!
In order to climb into that van twice every Tuesday and twice every Thursday, a disenfranchised state of my mind offers me salvation from experiencing excruciating pain. As my supportive peer group has melted into the past, following our move to the suburbs, my high spirited, strong self esteem secretly melts down into a puddle, leaving a confounded, lonely child huddling limply in despair; my heart, like a little bird with wounded wings, flutters round in its attempt to escape fear, secreted deep inside subconscious pockets of my mind.
*All in all, our move, coupled with this unexpected, confounding state of humiliation, is too much for my mind to absorb, so the last person to whom I'll bare the depths of my vulnerability or misery is—me. At this point (or had this been my pattern ever since I was three?) my mind will split into these two parts: A silo of misery will be invisible, especially to me, while sparkling joyfulness befriends, one and all.
To make matters worse, this mini-bus-from-hell is equipped with three benches, rather than pairs of seats. By the time hell-on-wheels arrives at my house, all three benches—which run in vertical rows straight down the length of that van—overflow with sweaty, preteen gremlins, whose sharply pointed, poisoned taunts penetrate my numbness, straight into my brain’s subterranean core—however, as denial dulls each barb, pain seems not to pierce my thickly walled nervous system from the top of my bouncy, brunette pony-tail to the tips of my cheerful, chubby pink toes—or so I'd 'thunk'. Thank goodness, emotion flatlines—twice every Tuesday and twice every Thursday—until bedtime when darkness abounds and subconscious night terrors strike.
Each night a dark, gremlin-like presence closes in on me while I lie in bed, tossing, turning, itching incessantly to get out of my skin. Though I scratch deeply enough to draw blood, the truth of subconscious misery fails to break through Mother Nature’s wall, which separates defensive denial from all sense of conscious awareness.
As classic mental gymnastics stretch out over many months, who knows for certain whether this most recent flare up of eczema is due to seasonal allergies, repressed misery—or both? I mean, bouts of eczema have been my nemesis since I was a tot, barely able to walk on my own. If my second hospitalization had been due to eczema, my first had frightened my parents more. Whooping cough threatened a tracheotomy, but my lucky star saved my neck from any surgery, which would have left a visible scar.
*On the other hand, decades later, I’ll learn what takes place when a child's psyche scars down, causing the veneer of a persona to layer up: The complex pathways of a brain, grown defensive for sound reason, bury truths, too painful to bare, behind defensive masks, which we don't know we wear.
*Behind our personas, we play mysterious mind games with ourselves. Those mind games remain undisclosed until we muster the courage to learn the reasons why one side of our brains needs to play tricks on the other and thus on—ourselves.
Whereas other children, who repress fury and fear, may feel the need to tantrum or shrink back, hiding pain behind 'I don't care' masks, my path differed in this way: My sparkling spirit and ever-ready-to-please smile shielded me from recognizing negatively focused changes weighing heavy on my self esteem—and the weight that I’d carried would not feel 'ready' to reveal itself for many a year.
Story by story, you'll watch denial repress subconscious fears behind this cheerful persona, meaning that:
*I'll have no clue when I'm acting fine vs. when I'm feeling fine, meaning that I won't know when I'm being true to myself vs when I'm lying to myself. As long as I need to lie to myself, I’ll not know when I’m lying to others, as well.
Seen in this light, it’s no wonder why love and life offer each of us one game after another, simulating whose on first! In short, being true to self and true to others is the same.
For decades, I'll not recognize when my defense system fools me into believing that I can handle my problems while my body is sending signals alerting me to the fact that the opposite is true.
For decades, I'll have no clue as to which of my dating problems stemmed from pain suppressed on that bus. (Or ... did my voice choke on that bus because of an earlier trauma repressed at the vulnerable age of three? Or another at the age of five? Whew! Tis important to note that the complex workings of the brain are more convoluted than we know. Perhaps that's why we hear that the brain is the body's sexiest or most repressed organ ...
Well anyway, if you wonder how I manage to muster the courage to dash out the front door—again and again—knowing that a bus load of bullies lies in wait to pummel my ego into a chunky, black and blue, subconscious lump of fury and pain, well we might want to reconsider everything we've just 'heard' about Annie's conscious awareness fleeing from that terrorizing reality into Denialand four times each week. Like the Emperor's new clothes, Annie has been walking in public, crowning herself just fine, since the age of three. Unlike the Emperor, Annie's pain remains invisible while her clothes are plainly seen. What body conscious Annie will never see as clearly as others are positive changes recurving her body. In short, the reason that unresolved issues are sure to layer up is due to layers of trauma, weaving together, which cause Annie's self image to distort in highly complex ways.
So okay—its time for this spunky, ten year old mind to close up shop for today, because the wee hours are creeping in, and it’s time for adult Annie to rest her mind, curl up in bed and get a good night's sleep ... Uh—wait—One last thought ...
BULLY PART 5
Though many years have passed since I'd last read GONE WITH THE WIND, Margaret Mitchell's tenacious heroine, Scarlett, just popped into my mind. So here I am, picturing the resilience of Scarlett’s high spirited, never-give-up self, leaping off that bus, arriving home, to Tara, time after time. On the other hand, I don’t recall rushing up stairs, as Scarlett, most assuredly would have done, to peer anxiously into the full-length mirror, hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I don’t remember wondering if those insults to my body are true. I don't remember anguishing over the hour glass curve of the waist that had not yet developed. I only remember shutting the front door behind me and calling out: Hi Mom! I’m home! What’s for dinner? I’m starved! And a-c-t-i-n-g just fine, I move forward just like always. Channeling Scarlett's sister-in-law, Melanie. Or so I’d thought.
You see, denial did not gain control over my mind at ten years old. I'd had sound reason to become an academy-award-winning actress way before construction on Dad’s dream house had ever begun. As denial had long been my pattern, it's no problem for me to act just fine while squished between the sweaty bodies of two smirking guys, whose hips shove rudely into mine from both sides while they grumble back and forth about how much bench space I take up as this van from hell conveys us to the house of God. And if, from time to time, the red, hot poker of humiliation does hit a live nerve, well my trusty defense system presses a dimmer, which pushes awareness of agony ever more deeply into that black hole, where self consciousness—seething with anguish—is mercifully knocked cold. In this way the defensive, repressed part of my brain safeguards my spirit from feeling as insignificant as a sardine trapped inside a tightly packed can, where biting insults terrify this fish of being eaten alive!
Every time the bowels of Hell convey me to the house of God and then back home, this high-spirited child, lovingly nurtured by both of my parents, disappears into denial. However—rideafterrideafterride—my social self-confidence does what my body cannot. It simply shrinks up.
*Over time here's what develops in its stead:
Subconscious insecurities loom HUGE behind my spirit’s sparkling, consistently smiling mask’.
As this cheerful persona walls off conscious awareness of emotional pain, my self image gets stuck in a very dark place, meaning that I’m blind to prepubescent changes curving up and down my body. All I know for certain is that, at some point in time, I actually develop a waist. As to the rest of me, my curves seem to shape up as ‘Rubenesque’, which as you can imagine, does not portend well during the time of Twiggy. Petite I am. A waif with no hips I am not. I come from good peasant stock, built to breed.
As years pass and Mother Nature empowers my mind to wall off despair, I seemingly cope with situations beyond my control. In order to keep my baby blues closed to truths too painful to bare, my heels dig ever more deeply into Denialand, every day. Eventually, rather than visiting Denialand, I pretty much live there, afraid to open a door where reality is mirrored by a host of others, who welcome me to see positive changes, which, evidently, are apparent to them if not to me.
As to my nights—well when that high school story, concerning night terrors, unfolds, you’ll see what takes place when repressed furies stir in the dark, tearing my peaceful demeanor to shreds ... therefore, I’m sure you can understand why I say, repeatedly, thank goodness, tomorrow is another day!
And as it’s getting late, my friends ... and since ...
The sun will come out Tooomorrow …
I’ll hope to see you then!
J Annie
(This seems like a good time to break ... BULLY PART SIX will continue until that traumatic day when something flies in from out of the blue and I can’t get myself to step into that bus, ever again ...)
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