*BOOK ONE CHAPTER 2—BULLY FOR ME Part 7 UNCLOAKING DENIAL IS NO EASY FEAT

Reflection suggests that before we'd moved into Dad's dream house, I'd been a natural leader of my peers, and since my personality had been perky, bouncy and fun, I was shocked to find myself cast as the bullied 'new kid' in that van.  I mean, historically, my friends included both genders, so though I was the only girl squished in with a gang of prepubescent guys, there was no reason to expect my vulnerability to be trounced by a mean-minded passel of pre-teen thugs.

If you’d asked eleven year old me how I’d mustered the courage to stuff myself into that sardine tin—four times each week, my defense system would have answered:  "Oh, it wasn't that bad."  On the other hand, if you direct that same question toward the adult, whom I've grown to be, today, my intelligence, relying upon a wealth of knowledge concerning defensive attitudes, would reply:  My defense mechanism of denial created a persona, which had blocked my memory from retaining more than a smidgin of a conscious clue of feeling tortured each time my self-image was tied into deeply confounded, tight knots of tension suggesting that every time my body climbed into that van, seemingly going through the motions of being present, my psyche remained protectively cocooned within denial's spell-like state of anesthetized numbness to any kind of pain.

Rather than calling forth yesteryear’s budding leadership skills each time my alter ego enters that van, an eleven year old child is actually cowering fearfully behind the pretense of her persona while the subconscious portion of her brain experiences and absorbs the herding nature of gang mentality.  And to complicate my confusion concerning this sudden plunge in my social status even more, the more deeply I shrink back into myself, the more ‘left out’ I feel.

The functionality of the human brain is truly a complex machine, made up of a myriad of moving parts, and the less we understand about our defense mechanisms, the more likely we are to find those moving parts knocking into each other, throwing the compass of our processors so far off center as to direct our think tanks to react more dysfunctional more often than our intelligence would readily believe.  Geez!

Next, you might ask:  If at ten, your peace of mind had sensed the respect and admiration of your peers so as to have empowered the self assertive portion of your voice to ring aloud as clear as a bell then why, at eleven, did you feel so unworthy of self-respect as to duck your head under a broken wing each time your persona climbed into that van where having failed to find a seat on a bench between two guys where your wounded ego might feel safely shielded from suffering torrents of insults zinging through tensely charged air as sharply as arrows aimed straight toward your heart had blocked your terrified vulnerability from feeling mortally wounded—repeatedly? (Whew!)

         
Well, the obvious answer to that question (which had not been obvious back then) suggests this:  Subconsciously, I'd begun to see myself through the beady eyes of THE LORD OF THE FLIES.  I mean how could I see myself otherwise when, much to my dismay, my full-length mirror reflects the cruel truth of those taunts, which, having insulted my body four times, weekly, magnify that which I see in my mirror  (I mean—when had I gotten so fat?)  Thus, in addition to blocking my conscious awareness from ‘hating’ those rats who'd gnaw my self-confidence to shreds on our way to and from the house of God, denial, which binds my sense of safety to my persona, blinds me from the fact that the meek and mousy guys, whose voices fail to speak up in my defense, do not warrant my fear.  In short, once my budding self confidence with prepubescent guys is nipped in the bud, my self esteem feels immersed within a swirl of self conceived disrespect.  In short—feeling too deeply aggrieved by my sudden fall from grace to depend upon clarity to rebalance my sights, I subconsciously agree with the bullies and begin to bully myself.  And though I do not spend 24/7 with them, I do with me, and no way does my persona awaken so as to shield my subconscious from releasing agonizingly deeply painful furies, night after night, which is when unprocessed emotional reactiveness that will not be diagnosed as PTSD for decades to come are freed to devil the eleven year old child, who was fast becoming a stranger to herself.  Bottom line, no one’s brain can deny deeper truths, forever, no matter how deeply our defense systems bury each one within its own hidden pocket inside your mind and mine. 

         
And with that thought stirring up our processors, here comes a piece of the puzzle that spotlights my greatest vulnerability:  As long as denial 'saves' me from feeling the pain of degradation that would have felt far too emotionally debilitating to bare to myself at eleven, here’s what I'll fail to see as the future continues to unfold:  No one will insult me as deeply as I’ll put myself down.

Seriously, if being physically 'ungainly' does not render me speechless when others are in need of my support then what causes my self esteem to feel so insignificant and insecure as to choke on my voice when the indignity of public shame targets—ME?  In short, an eleven year old child has no more clue of this next insight than do most adults: 

My defensive pattern of diving self protectively into denial empowered
Tyranny to prolong the repressed (unprocessed) state of my subconscious misery.
  
Bottom line, if I’d had the natural gumption to stand up to gang mentality in defense of the underdog before (and after) our move to the suburbs, then something must have silenced MY SELF ASSERTIVE VOICE from turning those riptides away from pounding against my self esteem each time the bully's taunts rallied his troops to smite down my waining sense of self respect—again and again.  However, since that specific puzzle piece remains vague inside my mind, you may feel relieved to know at least as much as is clear to me, today (circa 2011):

One day, the bullying looms so large that my ire rises up just enough to feel painfully aware of insults targeting my physicality.  You see, on this day, something utterly unexpected flies in from out of the blue!  And as this unexpected 'something' is HUGE, an explosion of raucous laughter ignites throughout the van, which my cloak of denial cannot withstand, meaning that my persona is suddenly engulfed within flames of humiliation, which burn so deep into my core that every ridiculed atom of repressed anger inside me screams clearly and consciously—Finally!