I’m very slowly transcribing certain passages from 30 years worth of journals that I’ve written in and kept. In case you haven’t read my earlier posts, this is what I’m doing and why I’m doing it–Journaling for Mental Health: A 30-Year Journey
I’m on volume number 5, I think. I’m about to finish filling up volume 39. I have a ways to go. But the entry I transcribed recently is significant in that it marks the start of the era when high school became truly awful for me.
In this entry, I referenced something that happened on the school bus when I was in the 10th grade. Long story short, I sat at the back of the bus in the same seat with a boy and because I was slouched in the seat, everybody at the front of the bus assumed I was doing something sexual to the boy.
For the rest of that year and the two years after that, nobody left me alone about it. I didn’t actually do anything in that seat. But it looked like I did and that’s all that mattered.
Here’s the thing though, I remember, in vivid detail the things that were said to me and who said them. In fact, that’s how I determine if I’m going to accept a friend request on Facebook from someone I went to high school with. Did they make fun of me? If so, we’re not going to reconnect on social media.
But here’s the other thing, there is not one moment that I remember standing up for myself. I don’t remember ever talking back to someone who was talking so nastily to me. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t try to explain that nothing happened. I let them assume what happened. I let them believe what everyone was saying.
It wasn’t until I was almost done with college that I finally stopped getting anxiety when I would walk by a random group of people who happened to start laughing as I walked past. They weren’t ever laughing because of me walking by, but the people in high school were.
Long after I graduated high school, I would have reoccurring dreams where I’m back in high school and I actually am fighting back against all the people who made fun of me.
I know why I didn’t stand up for myself. By the time this bus incident happened, my father had already yelled at me enough times in my life for me to deeply internalize the idea that silence was safer.
I’m incredibly grateful to be at a point now where I know that I will stand up for myself if needed. I’ve written a lot this year about regaining my voice. And really, not regaining it, but finding it and using it for the first time in my life.
This is why I’m driven to write the book I have planned. Bullying is worse than ever now. Social media and smart phones make it easier than ever. But even if that happens, it gets better. Bullies don’t stay bullies. And if they do, we eventually become adults who can choose who we allow into our lives. My boundaries now are rock solid. Therapy taught me about those. I want other people to know about them too.
Want to help me accomplish my dream of writing a book and being a paid writer? Buy me a coffee!
Leave a Reply