Thought Experiment: The Me of "Could Be"

This is the third and final installment of a series on my personal account of psychological bullying and the long term effects thereof. Here I try to imagine how life may have been different had I been spared that experience.

     When I was really young, I believed that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up.  Being brought up in the 1960's & 70's I had a father who simultaneously encouraged me to dream of big and lofty goals while believing that a college education would be unnecessary for his daughter who would simply marry well and have a nice life with a good provider. At eleven, I wanted to be a doctor, a pediatrician to be exact. With the women's movement in full swing there was a certain amount of hope that this was possible. I imagined my life taking care of children and making a difference in the world. I also dreamed of being a wife to a fellow physician and having a large brood of happy children. I truly believed that I had what it would take to attain it all.
     By the time I hit high school, after years of continual ridicule, I no longer believed in myself or that I could achieve anything. I felt hideous and repulsive all the time.  I took refuge in music and writing. While my friends dated and experimented with relationships, I stayed home and read about psychology. I wound up marrying the first boyfriend I ever had and I did everything within my power to try to make it work, but there were indelible flaws which could not be fixed. It took me 15 years to accept things would never change and so my childbearing years were wasted in a marriage that reinforced the worst possible beliefs I held about myself. Even after I was out on my own, I worried I wouldn't make it and as independent as I was, the fear was near paralyzing!  No matter what friends saw in me that was good, valuable, skillful or otherwise, and no matter how much they said it to me, inside, I never believed in myself. Inside I was a nothing taking up space in a world where the future seemed dim. I longed to have the confidence and self determination that I was inspired by in others. I just couldn't find it. If I'm honest, I can say that I put myself in situations, jobs and even some relationships that nurtured my self-hatred.
    At 52, I still struggle to some degree with self-loathing. I can be cruelly abusive to myself with my thoughts and there are days that I have to work to not say horribly hurtful things to myself in the mirror.  There are also bouts of sadness.  Mostly however, I have worked through these feelings. They have far less power over me than they used to and I am able to acknowledge, accept and appreciate many qualities that I possess which are good. I have a great job, wonderful friends and a life full of joy, creativity and new experiences. Today, I like who I am on the inside... it's the packaging that bears witness to my past.
    But what if I was never relentlessly ridiculed?  What if I never lost the belief that I had the character to achieve my dreams?  What if the bullies did not succeed in tearing me down? What if encouragement shaped my life rather than insults? What if that awkward precocious 11 year-old grew up unimpeded and ran the show that is my life? How would my life be different?  Well, perhaps in a parallel universe that is how it played out. Let's ponder some of these answers...
     That precocious little girl I started out to be would have held on to per potential and never have put up with taunts and jeers in false hope to gain someone's affection. She would have known that people like that aren't worth her time.  She would have worked harder academically throughout junior high and high school and been close to the top of her class. She would have been involved in brainier pursuits along side her music and used her stubbornness on a debate team or speech club. Success in high school would have allowed her to apply to college and receive scholarships and aid to help her study whatever she chose. She may have held on to the dream of becoming a physician or she may have gone in a completely different direction. Perhaps, like the real Lori, she would have studied psychology, only she would have continued on to achieve a PhD.  She would enjoy success rather than fear it. She would have attained mastery over her body and emotions. She would be proud of her physical strength rather than be embarrassed by it. She may have gotten involved in a team sport or gymnastics which always made her feel alive. That version of me would have had dates throughout high school. Her positive attitude, friendly nature and willingness to be helpful all wrapped up in a toned body would be a combination of qualities which would be attractive to people in general but perhaps also to boys. She would be more open and far less afraid of being hurt. She would know deep inside that she was strong in character and resilient in the face of challenge. That girl... she would be unstoppable.
     The downside of being that girl is that I would have different people in my life. I cannot predict who those people would be or what qualities they would possess. To that I must say that I love the people in my life now as the woman I have become. They mean the world to me and I could not imagine my life without them in it.  So, if I were somehow given the chance to magically go back in time and do it over again with different choices, I am not sure I would do it. I am more than the sum total of my experiences: I am all of those plus all of the relationships in my life.  That would be an awful lot to risk, not knowing that the outcome would be as good as where I am right now, today. After all, nothing is certain, even when things are easy.
     The point of all of this writing is to make it perfectly clear with detailed examples that bullying through ridicule does real damage. It changes you from who you were meant to be into something and someone else. It limits your potential because you think less of yourself as a result. But it does not sentence you to a terrible life. There are still plenty of choices to make along the way and there are many wonderful experiences to be had after the bullying days are done.  I am glad I had the chutzpah to take a good hard look back at this demon from my past. What the result of sharing it all in a public forum might be remains to be seen. Regardless of any particular outcome, I can look out and say:  I am here. I survived. I have learned. I have grown and I thrive. If I have to carry around excess weight as an external representation of my past, then so be it.  Neither the bullies nor the fat defines me now. I get to define myself and write the rest of my life story!

It's Personal

     There has been a lot of press on the subject of bullying lately and for the longest time I thought how horrible it was that kids are bullied to the point of hopelessness and suicide. My heart breaks a little with every such report.  In my mind, being a kid and feeling hopeless should never meet.  Don't get me wrong, I remember a scant few instances of teen suicide back in the late 70's when I was young, but we didn't talk about it.  Not really.
     Mistakenly I had a very narrow view of what bullying is and my view always had the victim being physically battered or having his or her physical well-being threatened. My views changed when I started reading the stories of relentless ridicule especially to gay teens who were committing suicide; at least their stories were getting the press.  Again, my heart breaks a little with each one. It both saddens me that these kids feel there is no other way to escape but death; At the same time it angers me that other kids are so mean. If that is not enough it simultaneously infuriates me that there are no adults in these kids' lives putting a stop to it.
    I started reading blog posts about the subject and the stories themselves, though compelling, sometimes paled in comparison to the individuals who were moved to reply with their own experiences.  The people replying, some of them barely out of their teens, still trying to make a life for themselves as adults were relaying stories of insidious bullying that had nothing to do with being battered with fists and everything to do with being battered with words. Sometimes those words came quietly.  These young adults talked about how those words affected them and how they continue to be affected by them years later.  They talk of how despite their best mental fortitude they slowly began to change from their authentic selves into twisted versions based on relentless bombardment of name-calling and the cruel descriptive images. Some victims changed from outgoing to reserved and some... some changed into the forms of what they were continually, relentlessly, though falsely, told they were.
     It was reading about this verbal bullying that caused me to stop dead in my tracks and look behind me, look decades behind me and review with new eyes what I experienced, how I chose to cope with it and how 40+ years later it was all still in my head and affecting who I am. The words of others repeated over and over again for nine years of my youth set up an ugly image inside me of what I am and how others must perceive me. Those messages were internalized and over time became beliefs.  The mind creates what it believes: What we deeply believe ourselves to be is exactly what our brain causes us to become.
     In third grade it started with a crush. I had my first little crush on the boy who sat in front of me. Even back then I would say what I felt and though I don't remember how I communicated my adoration, the message got through. The recipient however recoiled from the message and fought back by giving me my first nickname: Turkey.  At first I was notably upset by this name and I remember telling my mother about it.  She said what parents did back in the 60's. So I heard all the cliches, "Oh, don't believe what he says. He's just being a boy."  "It's only words. Pay no attention."  "Just ignore him and he'll stop." They were platitudes. I remember taking it a lot more seriously than my mother did, but I got my marching orders so it was never mentioned again. The name caught on with boys and girls alike and I was known as Turkey until the end of grammar school. That was three years.
     Although the name hurt me, and thinking of it now 45 years later I can still feel the twinge that hearing it caused, it taught me some coping skills back then. I turned it into something funny, which gave my classmates and perhaps myself the illusion that I was above it and in control of the situation. There was no way I would let them think they had power over me.  In fact, it turned into a daily recess game of "If I could catch him, I could kiss him," which pitted the boys against the girls in a very serious game of hiding, spying and revealing, all while running. There was lots and lots of running... and running was not my strong suit. In fact, my running fueled the fire when it came to calling me Turkey.  So did holidays where turkey was served. The jabbing and the jokes reached a fevered pitch then.  It was personal.  I was being compared to a farm animal, a fatted up one that gets consumed and the carcass thrown away. Even a child understands that metaphor and it was very, very personal. But I laughed first and loudest. No one was going to get the best of me... at least not to their knowledge.
     By the time I was in 5th grade, the boy on whom I had this crush was not the least bit interesting to me and by the end of that school year I had a new crush. This time I kept it to myself. I kept it to myself over a couple of years as my secret feelings grew.  I kept silent until 8th grade, the second year of Junior High School. It was then that I let the cat out of the bag. After a year and a half of sitting as close to him as possible on the bus and interacting in silly girly ways, I finally said something.  Of course I did not tell him directly. No, I shared my feelings with a friend who would do some reconnaissance to determine if he liked me back. He did not. Surprise! Surprise!
     Well, in 8th grade secrets are not kept very long and the news got back to the object of my affection and he immediately turned it into a joke. He turned ME into a joke. How could he possibly like me, he stated. He could he ever like me! I was fat! That was personal. Looking back at pictures I can see that it was not  at all true.  Back then however, it felt very true. After all, it confirmed all of the years of being Turkey.  But this time the sting was stronger... more visceral... more poisonous. Again, I laughed first and loudest. I accepted his daily jabs with a "Bring it on" attitude. I pretended that the attention he gave me meant the opposite of the message it brought. I appeared impervious to his taunts and teases which were often accompanied by just as cruel insults delivered by his ever present best friend.  Still, I sat as close to him as I could. Still, I maintained my adoration.  I was good at hiding my hurt feelings. I got so good at it, I hid them even from me... and I laughed.
     By 9th grade my laughter egged him on and he started putting real effort into his ridicule. He started to take popular songs and rewrite the lyrics so that they were musical insults about me. Sometimes he did just the chorus, sometimes a verse too and sometimes he would rewrite entire songs. He would sing them to me in the back of the bus. He would write new ones regularly and refine ones he had already done to make them more and more hurtful. It was personal... and I laughed. Sometimes he would call me and sing them to me over the phone. Once he changed the the lyrics to Tom Jones' Pussycat, Pussycat and he left the lines "Pussycat, Pussycat I love you, yes I do" intact and that was all I heard. The scathing attacks on my physical appearance and character melted away and held on to that one line in the innocent adolescent hope that it was the truth.
     One day, he sat on the bus with a new creation of which he was very proud. This one I remember: It was personal. He took the entirety of Paul and Linda McCartney's song Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, all 4 minutes and 49 seconds worth and he changed every single word into the penultimate work of tawdry insult. He debuted his masterpiece in the back of the bus one morning.  Now mind you when he sang these things it was not in a hushed tone just for me. Oh no. He was more than happy to share his efforts with whomever wished to hear, and laugh. I can still see his face and hear him sing, "You're so ugly, Lori [My last name]. You're so ugly that I think I'm gonna shit. You're so ugly, Lori [My last name] and I think it's because you don't have any tits..."  That was personal! ... and I laughed.
     One would think that after being the object of such debasement any leftover feelings of attraction would wane and disappear, but adolescence is a time of great personal irony. Several months later upon graduating from  Junior High School after 9th grade, I had a graduation party.  It was there that this boy gave me my first grown-up kiss. My diary states that it lasted about 3 minutes and 45 seconds, the timing of which was derived from the length of the song during which it occurred. Now , as an adult, I know he did not deserve the honor of my first kiss. Sadly and perhaps even sickly I continued to pine over this ASS for at least another year, until our high school paths diverged.  But I never forgot. I remembered his insults and I remembered those songs... I remembered that song. I am sorry that I remember that much, and thankful that I remember no more. In fact, typing it out just now produced a palpable and all too familiar wave of hurt and self-loathing. It was personal... It IS personal... and it contributed to shaping me.

... continues

In the continuation, I will discuss how these experiences were factors in shaping my adult life, how I moved on in spite of them and how recent introspection revealed how in one very basic aspect they still haunt me. Perhaps as I shed these thoughts and share their insight, I can once and for all rid myself of the effects of my experiences and their ever present physical representation. Perhaps indeed.

Note: I understand that the paltry ridicule which I experienced does not compare to the hell others have endured. These things felt big to me at the time and I am only now seeing and acknowledging how they may have affected me. This writing is a catharsis and hopefully proves to be at least therapeutic and if I am lucky, healing.