Posted by Jamie
on July 3, 2002, 2:03 pm
Coincidentally, I just found this site while I'm going through a therapeutic process of writing about being bullied, and dealing with it 30 years after the fact. Starting in early grade school, I was like a magnet, big time, for bullies. I was a courteous, shy, kinda timid kid, the shortest one in every class, and dark-skinned Italian in a school filled with freckle-faced Irish. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was picked on every way you can think of, but it didn't get brutal til the 4th grade, when I had a nun named Sister Judith. She seemed to hate me from day one, and to make a long story short, made my life miserable. She insulted, taunted, scorned and belittled. She literally instructed the other kids to do the same. I was beat up before school, during school, after school. My clothes were ripped, my books stolen, homework torn up, you name it, every single day. I had no skills to deal with it, and I sure as hell didn't understand it. I was afraid of doing ANYTHING to attract attention to myself, so I withdrew more and more, and each day centered around Just Surviving. The worst part was that I had no one to talk do. In the first place, you don't even want to go to your parents and say "everybody hates me" ... it's embarrassing. And back then, one did NOT criticize the Catholic Church or its clergy. Had I complained, I wouldn't have been believed, and - worse - Sister Judith would have found out of course, and brutalized me even more. So I said nothing and somehow got through it. I swore I would never cry in front of any of those people, and I never did. I'd go home and hide under the bed to cry. The horrible part, which of course I didn't realize, was that that year influenced the rest of my life, and really stunted my emotional growth. Had I had someone to talk with and to guide me, it could have been a learning and growth experience, but that's not the way it happened. Part of me never stopped cowering in fear, long after there was any need to do so. What's even worse is that part of my mind BECAME sister Judith ... taunting, blaming, criticising, belittling myself...even to this day. What I'm doing now is working to exorcise that woman and those years once and for all. I spent years thinking all that was behind me, over and done with, and if I used it to explain my behaviors I was just making excuses. The sister Judith voice belittled me and told me to grow up and get over it. I have now learned how deep that stuff can go, but I feel good about opening it up to the light of day. I know I am not just making excuses, that very real harm and damage was done to me, and now I can begin to heal. Back in the Sister Judith days I went into a semi-conscious fear mode, I was afraid, bordering on panic, all day, every day. I am still coming from a place of fear, instead of a place of wholeness and love of self, but the tide is turning. I do know that I would do anything - anything - to keep someone else from having to go through that kind of pain. I'm beginning to ramble - I'm not used to writing about this stuff, so I'm going to end before I have second thoughts.
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