It seems that now days bullies are all over the news. They have always been in the movies and in literature, but now they are actually getting the attention they deserve… or don’t. I was A bullied kid. No one ever hit me and made me fork over my lunch money; probably because I had free lunch, but I was terrorized in other ways.
From kindergarten to the third grade, I seemed to get along with everyone. I didn’t know yet that my favorite red and white, oversized Snoopy sweater and purple pants were not “cool” together. I didn’t know that being stupidly happy and loving Barbie’s was a mortal sin and I clearly had no idea that being a cute, smart, blonde girl would make so many other girls hate me. I also didn’t know boys teased you if they liked you, and ignored you if they didn’t.
Or that some boys just hated everyone.
At that time, my biggest concern was hoping that I’ll get to watch Punky Brewster or Dark Wing Duck and figuring out how to do those tricks on the jungle gym like all the other girls who could twirl around and around. I tried once and landed on my head.
It was about the third grade that I discovered that there were mean kids. I was also in the third grade when I started to worry about being fat. Let me make it very clear, I was no where near fat; I was a tiny little thing, but somehow I got it in my head at 8 that I was fat and that feeling never ever left me.
As mentioned in other blogs, in the 4th grade we moved around a lot, 4 times in fact. In some schools, I was the cool new girl who could play soccer and run fast. In others, I was that dumb new girl who can’t do long division and has a bike with a banana seat on it. I never was really able to keep friends for very long because of it.
The real bullshit started in the 5th grade. I suddenly realized my clothes were uncool. Well, I should say that it was brought to my attention. I started giving my mother trouble about what I wanted to wear. I wanted to look like the other girls. We had seven kids and one of them had a fatal disease, we couldn’t afford nice things. I knew this, but the mean girls didn’t.
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| I did not know yet that I was not cool. |
I visited my father in California for Xmas break. I was to change schools after the break was over back to a school I had attended in the 3rd grade. I was scared I’d have no friends. My dad bought me this really cool jean skirt. It was long and came with a matching over-shirt. It was the nicest, coolest thing I ever had. I obsessed about what I was going to wear for my first day at the new school. I had never done that before. I had never had that fear that I wasn’t going to measure up before. That night I had a dream that I had to go to school, but I spent all my time trying to figure out what to wear and missed my first day.
In the morning, my mom French braided my thick, blond hair and I chose to wear nylons for the first time ever, with colored tube socks, fake pink converse and the jean outfit my Dad bought me. I didn't know much about makeup being 11, so I stuck with eye watering hot pink blush that my mom had to tone down quite a bit.
When Mrs. Ice walked me to Mrs. Springer’s class, I was excited. Mrs. Springer stood with me at the back of the room and announced that the class had a new student. The whole class turned around and looked at me. I smiled, and waved. I wasn’t nervous at all, I mean I had done this routine a million times before. I could hear the girls whispering and my smile twitched a little.
At recess, on my first day, a girl named Michelle and her sidekick Heidi came over to me and asked me if I thought I was cool.
Yes? I thought, but I could tell that if I said yes, that would probably be the wrong answer,so I looked at the ground at my fake pink converse.
"No?" I said...
"Good!" she said and whipped her long brown hair to the side and walked back to a group of girls hanging out under the monkey bars. They whispered and giggled to themselves. I made myself at home on the soccer field away form them and their gazes…in a long skirt. Yes, I was that cool.
Weeks went by and I had made frienda with the smartest girl in the school who also just lived down the street from me. She was so much more mature than me and an only child. She had her own room and the coolest stuff. She used words I had never heard of and I knew I could ask her anything and she would know the answer. We played the most awesome games.
We clung together. I wasn’t as smart as she was, I was pretty much a fraud and she wasn’t as sporty as I was, but we made it work. We had one thing in common, the other kids hated us.
Whenever Mrs. Springer was absent from the class for any amount of time, the kids used that time to mock me in some way. Once I wore a skirt that I barrowed from my friend and a boy named Clayton made it a point to push desks out of the way to come over to me and say,
"Look at you. Think you’re pretty in that skirt?"
The kids laughed. The girls were huddled in a corner talking about whatever cool kids talk about. I could tell they had sent him over. I just stared down at my desk, I could feel my heart beating in my throat and my eyes and nose began to sting. I prayed to God. “Please don’t let me cry in front of him God! Please!?”
That year my boobs got huge. I was a “B” cup already. I couldn’t help it. I was still too young to realize how much "they" were drawing attention because the idea of dressing in a way to accentuate them didn't come into my radar yet. I was still playing with Barbie’s for Christ sake; this was the 5th grade! I didn’t realize that the other kids had noticed them and the other non developed girls hated me for it. My friend pointed this out to me one night when I was staying over. I felt horrible.
There was another girl who was over developed and she was much taller and larger than the rest of the girls and also the meanest girl. She was both the ring leader and a lackey. It seems the hierarchy wasn’t completely set in stone yet and Snarla and Michelle often traded places for leadership of the popular girls.
Snarla, was mean to the bone. I was physically scared of her. She was so much bigger than the rest of us, I thought she could pick me up and break me in half. She also was the first of the girls to get acne and my friend and I would make fun of her when we were in the safety of our own homes. It was the only way we could get back at her....in our own private little conversations.
One day Heidi came up to my friend and I while we were racing across the monkey bars.
"Michelle and I aren’t friends anymore," she said. I looked over her shoulder to the pack of hyenas that were looking in our direction. I knew it was a set up. I may have been an idiot, but I caught that really fast. Before I could stop my friend she spouted off with a surprising, "Good, she was a bitch anyway!" My eyes widened. I watched in horror as Heidi smiled, turned and walked over to the group of girls.
"She was lying to you," I said. "They wanted to see what we’d say."
”I don’t care," said my friend and hopped down from the ladder. No sooner had she done that, did Snarla come over to her and punch her in the face.
Heidi had pretended to be my friend once before and got my home phone number and I had gotten prank calls ever since. I wasn’t falling for that crap anymore.
My mom called the school, but it didn’t stop them. At least my mom knew why I cried when I came home from school.
I was cool with the soccer kids. When I was on the field I was an asset. I could run fast, but was a little awkward with the ball. That didn’t matter, as long as I could get to the goal before anyone I was golden.
I didn’t realize spending all that time with the boys made me an outsider even more. They didn’t tease me as much. To them I was someone to pass the ball to and they cheered for me when I made a goal.
The coolest boy in the school, AND the best soccer player, was a kid named Ronnie. He had the most amazing blue eyes and long dark hair. Ronnie was also smart, though I wouldn’t find out how smart until much later. Ronnie befriended me I think out of pity, and often stood up for me to Snarla, who never ever went against Ronnie, not that I ever saw anyway; but if he wasn’t around, she mouthed off, and made threats. Ronnie always sat with her and the other cool guys at lunch. He never sat with me, but after lunch on the playground, we were buddies. Ronnie also had the sharpest wit for a 12 year old. Sometimes he seemed like a small adult. No one could ever come back with anything sharp to say back to him. I wanted to be him. That sounds strange to say coming form a girl, but he was just cool, at least I wouldn’t be teased. I didn’t want to be Snarla because even she had to answer to Ronnie and with the constant squabble over leadership with the girls, I didn’t want to be either of those girls.
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| I wont put a picture of Ronnie up for obvious reasons, but from here on out, he will be represented by the coolest guy I can think of. Christopher Walken. |
One day, my friend and I decided to go to the school and play on the playground. We got to talking like girls do about the mean girls. I grabbed a stick and wrote Michelle loves so and so. We got a great kick out of that. So we proceeded writing the most horrible things we could think of at 11 about each girl in the mean girl club. One statement included that Snarla was in love with Ronald Regan.
Yeah pretty hateful stuff.
I hated them and I felt good getting revenge in the dirt around the track that encompassed my sanctuary. It was like a protective spell written in runes around the field; meant to keep the mean girls away.
Well…it worked.
That following Monday we were met by a group of crying girls in the hall. One girl threw up and had to go home. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked into class. Mrs. Springer stopped me before I could get to my desk and told me to "knock it off. Just stop it." Oh really? I thought teachers were impartial because she never came to my aid a single time those girls sent me home crying and throwing up.
I realized at that time that teachers are ex popular kids. Not really on our side. The dork side.
Then end of my 5th grade year we had moved and I wouldn’t be going to the same middle school as my friend or the mean girls. I knew I would know some of the kids, but Snarla would be long gone. I was so excited. The last day of fifth grade I planted my knees in the middle of the soccer field, threw my hands up in the air and gave a William Wallace freedom shout he would have been proud of.
If getting held back in school wouldn’t have been considered emotionally detrimental, I would have begged to be held back in the first grade like Mrs. S. wanted. Not because I was an idiot, but because I was not emotionally ready to be in the 6th grade. I was the youngest middle schooler and even the 6 months some kids had on me seemed to put them in a whole other maturity bracket. I still ,STILL played with Barbie’s.
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| Me in my early Barbie playing Career |
At first things were ok. I knew some of the kids from other schools I had attended and I made some new friends pretty fast. Middle school was so much bigger, there were more people like me there. I fell into line really fast.
I played sports every lunch time, enjoyed the crap out of P.E., played in the band and loved the whole idea of having a locker and going from class to class. That is until going from class to class became a total nightmare.
I developed a new nic-name by the middle of 6th grade. TB sort for titty bouncer. The school called my mom and said I needed a bra. By the 6th grade I was 87 pounds with a “C” cup. Something else weird happened to me too. My hair. My hair went from a beautiful golden blond frock with gentle waves to A CRAZY crazy mass of Einstein, Don King, Beethoven type weirdness. I don’t know what happened. It was straight on the top and curly on the sides and back. This caused me to have a Bozo the Clown look. I couldn’t have bangs because they immediately turned into curls and no matter how much hairspray I used I couldn’t get the huge flower poof the other girls were sculpting their hair into. My hair always looked messy and unkempt. the hairspray gave me acne and dandruff. I also started to develop more muscle than other girls. My claves were huge. I looked like I lifted weights. My arms were well defined and I almost had a six pack at 12.
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| Look for the one with the weirdest hair (not my step dad with the mullet) and you'll find me. |
I really became aware that my clothes were old and out of style. I began hearing remarks like;
"Nice shirt, is that on backwards?”
“Did you get that at goodwill?”
“Your mom shops at K-mart.”
Sometimes the girls would come up to me an tussle my hair or sniff me and runaway saying I smelled bad. Once a girl tussled my hair and another girl told her that she better wash her hands because I was gross.
What was gross? I didn’t make eye contact with them.
I was ugly, and when I made eye contact, they made a face at me or said something mean. I just kept my face down.
By 7th grade, I was known in the sports world as a contender. In class I was known as a “know it all” and in the halls I was a geek. My boobs earned me the slut title by some. You could hear my name being called out and mocked as I walked by, but again, that all changed on the soccer field or when we played soft ball or even football. It was the only time I felt like I was worth anything. I wanted to be a boy. Everything seemed so much easier for them. Me being the idiot I was actually said out loud that I wanted to be a boy to a friend in PE, and then the rumors flew that I was a lesbian. At that time I didn’t even know what that word meant so I wasn’t too offended, but I did know what a slut was, and I wasn’t one of those.
By 8th grade, I wanted to kill myself or kill someone else. I thought I was fat and ugly and an idiot. My hair was even worse then before, my boobs wouldn’t stop growing. It seemed like every class I walked into some kid had to give me hard time about something. We could be doing silent reading and I would hear my name being belched or whispered, or screeched in some mocking manner. Spitballs found their way into my hair. One time a boy named Joey even flipped my shirt up. Actually I think that happened a few times. And a few other things happened to...
Sometimes the girls would let up on me and I could walk down the hall without too much trouble, but then Snarla transferred to my school and life got worse.
She didn’t shoot up to instant fame. Nope at first she was just the new girl. But it wasn’t long before she had something in common with the other girls.
Me.
I heard her tell them how she went to school with me somewhere else and what a tard I was there.
Meanwhile, the altercations grew worse and more physical. Girls would yank on my hair while I was reading in the library. Sometimes they went Oz hunting and would track me down where I was hiding on the rainy days when I wasn’t playing sports. They’d mock me, yank the book form my hands and toss them. Once after school, when I was waiting for my grama to come get me, some new kid, came up behind me, his cousin Molly who was one of the popular girls, in tow. I heard her say to him, “What about her?" and when I turned to face her, she had this sick grin on her face. I stopped. I don’t know why I didn’t keep going; morbid curiosity maybe? I just felt cemented to the ground, like I couldn’t move. He touched my hair; it was rock solid from all the hair spray in it from my desperate attempts to make my hair behave. Did I mention my grama even gave me afro sheen for my blond curly hair in an ettempt to weight it down? All that did was make me break out.
The boy said "If you lit a lighter around this one, she’ll blow up.' and he produced a lighter. A pink lighter which he thumbed the wheel making a scratching noise as it ground on the flint.
I made eye contact with this kid. I was taller than him and had way more muscle. I could have easily kicked his ass, but no. I walked away as they laughed. I took way bigger boys down in “smear the queer”. (sorry all, that’s what the football like game was called and I didn’t know what it meant!)
He followed, clicking the lighter.
I ran like an idiot.
To my delight, Ronnie appeared. I swear to god I didn’t even know he went to that school. He must have transferred over and I just never saw him. We both stopped in our tracks…I had to refrain from showing how fucking happy I was to see him. I turned to look and that little bastard with the lighter vanished with his cousin close behind.
The remainder of the school year Ronnie didn’t spend a bunch of time standing up for me or anything, but the classes I had with him, were the only classes where I had any peace. No one fucked with me as long as I sat by him and his buddy Ben, whom by the way, I had a huge crush on for years and years. When I talk about being tested for tag in middle school in previous blogs, I was in the same testing round with Ronnie. It was clear we didn't fit in, but we were both smart enough to be there.
In High School I was teased pretty badly at first, but I started hanging out with a tougher crowd and the taunts lessoned. One girl in particular was especially bad; Kristin S., she was as bad as Snarla.
Just a truly horrible bitch.
She was the one who started the rumor I was a lesbian, and a slut. She was the worst offender in middle school and apparently over summer vacation into the 9th grade she had decided she really didn’t like me for whatever reason. As long as I was in my protective bubble of leather wearing, Marlboro smoking band of friends, she kept her mouth shut. Alone… and she had something nasty to say.
Now in school there were two levels of Stoners, with whom I was associated with. The cooler stoners mostly Juniors and Seniors hung out at a place called Hodges. This is where Ben and Ronnie Hung out. Me, I was not quite as cool and I was stuck hanging out in Caveman Corner by the Swimming Pool. It was a rare privilege as a freshman to get to hangout at Hodges Corner with the cool kids.
These two places were like “base” on breaks and lunch and the Asshats couldn’t bother us there. I say US because each of us alone was bullied by the same assholes, but together…we were a force to be reckoned with. Or so we thought anyway.
Still I had very few classes with my friends. I was forced to sit in class with Kristen and my sports nemesis, and Prom Queen Lindsay H. while they resurrected the 5th grade tactic of terrorism by giggling at me in the corner or making faces. They even accused me of being a devil worshipper so I made some fake blood and brought it to school and threatened to throw it on them. I told them it was goats blood and I had cursed them; they were going to be fat, ugly housewives now.
Ok yeah…so pretty dark and random stuff.
This time in my life was pretty difficult. Not just because of these horrible brainless, classless little bitches, but because my parents were getting a divorce, my sister was dying, puberty was happening, and some other pretty bad shit was going down that I can’t even talk about here. I also managed to get some shit head boyfriend to help me screw things up for myself as well. I thought of suicide every day. EVERY SINGLE DAY. I wanted to go to school and go all Carrie on all of them.
By my Senior Year I had very little to do with the Assholes. I had a baby. Opted to go to an alternative center where I graduated with a real High School Diploma and got the hell out of there.
For years, I always felt like no one liked me. That people were talking about me. That I was a dork, a loser, a fatty. I believed I was fat so much that I gagged myself after I ate. Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be over? High School was over…who was picking on me now?
ME.
It wasn’t until college that I realized that people DO like me. I am funny. I am smart. I am as cool as Ronnie, and I can whip up some ball breaking, awesome comebacks.
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| Yeah that's me. The cool kid in the super sexy awesome badass glasses I found in the glovebox of my smokin (literally) Camaro. |
I ran into some of the girls that teased me so bad in school and guess what; all that glitter and gold they had way back when, is gone now. For Kristin, it appears that my fake goat blood curse worked. I ran into her at her place of employment. I thought, maybe she’d changed, maybe she had grown up, but nope and it was everything I could do not to tell her what a horrible bitch she was in front of everyone.
But, I have to be an adult now.
I have come across a lot of those kids that teased me then and their lives aren’t that spectacular. Being popular only matters in High School. Don’t get me wrong, there are bullies in the grown up world too, but as adults there are ways to beat them and it’s not with your fists, IT’S WITH YOUR MIND!
If you’re one of the bullied and teased, I just want you to know, that those kids…they don’t matter unless you let them matter. After High School they become fat housewives, strippers, child molesters, PE teachers who don’t know they aren’t cool anymore, crack whores, rehab hotties and meter readers. It’s the art nerds who have the cool jobs. It’s the geeks that design your video games and run multi billion dollar companies such as Blizzard Entertainment. It’s the Nerds that are your bosses. It’s the stoners that clean up their act and own businesses while the cool kids end up on welfare or in dead end jobs because being cool was everything to them. Karma pays these kids back. This I promise you.
I look back now and realize that those kids were popular because others were afraid of them. Why? because they had better comebacks and the almost magical ability to make you look stupid no matter what you said? Yup! That pretty much sums it up. So in reality...they are better at being total douchebags than you are, better at looking for the negetive in everything, better at manipulating people. Now that you know this, ignore their bullshit. If you ignore it, they don't have power over you. Yeh, It sucks when you hear people laughing at you because you have a crooked tooth, or big boobs or a galaxy of freckles, and you're not the only one being picked on either. The next time some fucker says something rude to you in the hall and his/her douchebag friends laugh...imagine that the lead fucker grows up to be a 40 year old, alcoholic, divorcee living with his mother sharing stories about how he was awesome at football to any drunk bastard that will listen. He doesn't pay his child support and hits on younger girls who think he's creepy. Suddenly what he says about you doesn't matter because beng mean, though it is a skill, will only drag you down. After you have imagined him fat and balding, forgive him, for he is pathetic now and will always be.
To those who aren’t being teased, be a Ronnie, stand up for someone who is. You have no idea the difference you make. You might be the only thing stopping a kid from making a terrible, terrible mistake.
