Bullying. Its aftermath is rarely less than tragic. Some kids even die. When they do, their stories take over the media. It’s a good money-maker for the industry. Everybody loves to hate bullies. Everybody loves the witch hunt. Young people needlessly dying is a problem that we as human beings can universally join together and be angry about.
But what about the kids who outlive it? What about the kids that have experienced endless torment at the hands of their peers and survived? Are they less than notable? Does it take seeing the blood on one’s hands before we step in and put the same kind of emphasis on these kids as we do their dead counterparts? Must we see caskets being lowered into the ground before we really explore the problem?
The very nature of bullying, unfortunately, makes this the case. The tyranny of the bully keeps his prey silent, usually forever. Many bullied kids are far too terrified to use their own voice, to speak out, or to bring attention to themselves. To use their voice only brings them more trouble. To speak out leaves their aggressors all the more desperate to shut them up. To bring attention to themselves and their problems opens them up as a greater target for more of the same. Ironically, it is only when their own death, or the death of another, becomes their voice, that many of them are ever heard at all.
Nobody wants to be a loser. Nobody wants to be that kid. And when they find themselves in that position, nobody wants to admit that they are. So, they spend their lives as bullied kids burying the truth, shoving the reality of what they’ve been through to forgettable places in the mind. They distance themselves from it as much as they possibly can.
And then, those kids who were broken in their youth, grow up. And they’re still broken. As much as they hope that it will, turning eighteen and graduating high school doesn’t magically erase the past for them. It doesn’t take away the light in which a person sees himself. It doesn’t take away the anger, the hatred, or the resentment. It doesn’t take away the feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred.
And so, just as they did when they were younger, these broken adults continue hiding it. They continue burying it. They convince themselves that it’s gone. They convince themselves that they are no longer that kid from their past. They spend their adult lives wondering why they can’t control their anger. They wonder why they can’t control their eating. They wonder why they’re so drawn to addictive or self-harming behaviors. They wonder why they do things that other people would consider… crazy.
I know this was all certainly the case for me. The kid who others knew only as “Fat Ass”. The adult who was so broken that nothing could remain intact in his life. I was severely bullied and without end, yet I was such a master of hiding it that not even my best friend knew it was happening. Over time, I successfully suppressed all of it, determined to never let it define me. Certain that it had no lasting effect over me. Confident that those years in my past would remain in my past forever.
Until, that is, I started this blog, Single Dad Laughing. Bullying was the last thing on my mind when I posted my first blog entry. I started the blog as a way to keep myself in check as a parent after my second wife left. I started the blog as a way to try and find some pocket of humor in my everyday. I started it to keep from crying about the loss that seemed to always find me, and always surround me. My life kept falling apart, no matter how firmly I tried to keep it together, and I couldn’t understand why.
With time, I began tackling far more tough and taboo subjects. As I wrote about these subjects, the buried demons of my past began to surface one by one. The truths that I wished nobody to ever hear began making their way onto the very public pages of my blog. Some were furtive. Some were blatant. Within a few weeks thousands of daily visitors turned into tens of thousands. A few weeks after that, I was seeing single days with hits in the hundreds of thousands.
In the middle of all of it, a kid died. A gay kid. He killed himself. Somewhere back East, I don’t know where. Somebody had posted pictures of him having sex all over the place, and it was his final and breaking straw. It was the last piece needed to completely break him, and he took his own life. The media flared its giant nostrils. Bullying was once again the big topic that everybody wanted a piece of. I also began receiving emails asking me to write about bullying.
It was a place I didn’t want to go. It was a topic I didn’t want to write about. To admit that I had been bullied was to admit that I was a loser. So, I didn’t. I ignored the emails, I ignored the media, and I kept writing about other things. That was one skeleton that belonged in my closet.
The media coverage of bullying grew. More stories of kids dying began surfacing. People were angry. People were demanding discussion. People were looking for insight and fresh perspective. A handful of emails turned into dozens. Why did these people think I could offer any insight to this? Why did these people think that I had anything pertinent to add to the discussion? I had never written about being bullied, nor had I given any clues that foreshadowed such a truth.
And, perhaps the biggest question I began pondering was, why did so many people care? Why were so many people so incredibly passionate about it? In my own memory, I was among a very small handful of people in my own schools that was ever bullied. Even then, I never really saw anybody else being bullied. And, nobody cared when it was going on back then, so why such an interest now?
As I began thinking more about the topic, and whether or not I wanted to openly discuss it, several profound dots started presenting themselves for my connecting pleasure. What if far more people experienced bullying than I ever imagined? What if I was so lost in my own broken world that I couldn’t see the brokenness that was forever surrounding me? What if some people were desperate for me to give a voice to it because they had never felt able or had always been too scared to use their own?
As strongly as these thoughts came to me, I kept pushing them away. My blog was blowing up. It was unexpectedly rising to the top of the internet world overnight, and it was the most unloserish I’d felt in my entire life. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.
But what if I had to do it? The truth was, I knew some things about bullying. In fact, I knew a lot of things about bullying that I never seemed to hear many people talking about. What if it was on my shoulders that they were never properly discussed? What if I had something to add to the conversation that might actually make a difference in the way people viewed things? What if one buried voice coming back from the dead could make a difference?
I tested the waters. I placed a very unscientific poll on my blog and asked my readers to “check all statements that apply to you now or in the past.” I let it run for 48 hours, curious to see what the results would be. At the end of two days, more than 22,000 different users participated. It was by far the most involvement I’d ever had in a poll. But far more shocking than the number of participants was the result of the poll.
43% of participants reported they had been bullied “viciously.”
64% of participants reported they had been bullied “minorly.”
27% of participants reported they had been a bully to others.
48% of participants reported they had seen others being bullied and done nothing.
57% of participants reported they had seen others being bullied and stepped in.
And only 0.6% of participants reported that they had never bullied, been bullied, or seen bullying.
The numbers couldn’t be right. Almost half of all people had been viciously bullied? Nearly two thirds had been bullied to a lesser degree? Where was I when all of these people were being bullied around me? And where were they when I was being bullied?
I was in the majority that none of us ever knew existed. No wonder so many people were so passionate about it.
In the light of my new personal discovery, I sat down and wrote a post that I called Memoirs of a Bullied Kid. That was a year ago today. In it, I shared (through my own story) the thoughts that bullied kids think, a small piece of the reality that they go through, and the need for adults to step in far more often. In the end, I also offered my own opinion of what we all might do to combat the ever existent problem.
The aftermath was both incredible, wonderful, and horrifying. The blog post went viral. Within days, hundreds of thousands had read some of my darkest and most self-telling secrets. Thousands of comments and emails poured in, including many from past classmates who shared their own stories about bullying. Radio programs began inviting me onto their shows. Television stations began contacting me. Universities and high schools began soliciting me to come speak.
But, I couldn’t do it. In the end, I turned almost all of them down. I wasn’t ready to so openly become the voice for bullying in this world. I wasn’t ready to have the most painful parts of my past be scrutinized and publicly examined. I had opened Pandora’s box well before I should have.
I was still… broken.
What I had shared with the world was surface-deep. It was such a small piece of a puzzle so big that I had no idea what it even was. I had spent my entire life burying and hiding the rest of the pieces. I had worked hard to forget every event, every bit of abuse, and every moment that I spent fearing what was to come.
With time, the world more or less forgot about bullying, and they forgot about my post with it. I was able to move onto other topics with my writing. I was able to tackle other issues. I was able to live a life once again that didn’t involve the very real truths and darknesses of my past.
Yet, with every deeper post that I wrote, I began seeing just how much the bullying of my past had affected everything in my life. I began realizing just how much harboring and hiding such things was affecting me. I began realizing just how broken I still was and always would be until I dealt with it.
And so, I began writing out my memoirs. The very real events, my very real feelings, and my very real thoughts all along the way. As I put together a detailed general timeline, truths that had long been forgotten began to surface. Complete memories that had been shoved into the back of a mental drawer once again saw the light of day. The puzzle was complex and it spanned twenty years. It didn’t end when junior high did. As much as it involved bullying, it involved the many twisted and broken attempts to distance myself from it as an adult. It involved horrific things that I did both when I was younger and when I was older. Things I’ve tried not to ever share with anybody. Things that would make me seem less than sane.
By the time I connected the last pieces of the puzzle, there was no doubt that I was leaving that part of my past behind me while I did. Somehow, nothing scared me about it anymore. I knew myself, and I knew what had pushed me to where I was today. Instead of exposing me, it freed me. Instead of proving what a loser I was, it proved what a loser I wasn’t. Instead of defining me, it wiped my slate clean. It filled me with possibility. It healed me.
As I thought back to the aftermath of the bullying post on my blog, everything was so easily seen in a different light. People weren’t desperate for menial conversation. They were desperate for a way to understand the burdens they themselves were carrying. They were desperate for somebody to give a voice to the demons of their pasts. They were desperate for a great many things, and my refusal to use my voice, and to continue using my voice, was only adding to the greater bullying problem.
When writing out my memoirs, I wanted to really put my readers into the minds of bullied kids through my own experiences. I wanted my readers to understand where adults often fail to see the needs of bullied kids around them. To accomplish this, I began listing out the times I remembered being bullied.
At first the list was difficult. I had worked so hard to bury that part of my life that many of the memories were fragmented. Then, as I really started to write out the details of what I did remember, further details of separate moments began flooding into my mind. Before long, I had written out 115 outlines for memoirs that would take my readers through my years being bullied and then into the aftermath of that bullying and the quest to learn who I really was.
I only wrote 15 memoirs before I put it all away. Each memoir took me deep into a place that was too difficult to stay for long. I became irritable, moody, and overly depressed. Perhaps, I thought, it was best that these experiences are never told. Best for me, anyway.
And so I stopped writing them. I stashed them, and I purposefully forgot about them.
Until, that is, I received an email from a young high school girl begging me to continue sharing my thoughts on bullying. “Nobody is actually doing anything where I live,” she wrote. “Please, the bullying is out of control and I’m not far from being pushed over the edge.”
And so, perhaps because it would be wrong of me not to, I am going to share those fifteen memoirs with you here on SDL. Today. This girl understood the power of sharing perspective with the masses.
As I share my experience as a bullied kid, I have one underlying goal. To give perspective. There is nothing really happy in these memoirs. They don’t necessarily end in some glorious and triumphant way. But that’s reality. Some kids just get their asses kicked. Again. And again. And again. And then they turn into adults who get their asses kicked, again. And again. And again.
The first memoirs go back to my time as a bullied kid. What do bullied kids think? How do they respond to things? What are the dark ways in which they view the world? The later memoirs will go into the broader journey that I took as an older teenager and as a young adult to move past it and become something else. The feelings of worthlessness. The inability to love or be loved. The desperation. The failures. The eating disorders. And, the unhealthy and warped attempts to understand , escape, and overcome it all. Finally, for those who follow along day to day here at Single Dad Laughing, I share (and will continue to share) the final and very personal moments in the journey that has led and continues to lead to my ability to finally let it all go. To finally rise above it. To finally become something else. I hope you’ll follow along.
My secondary goals of these memoirs are many. First, I hope they will open the door to conversations that few people are willing to have, but most people are desperate to hear. I hope they will give hope to those who do carry around the burden of having been bullied. I hope the rest of this blog will instill confidence in those once bullied that anybody can overcome the darkness of their pasts. I hope that they will be proof that the bullied no longer have to let the bullies of this world define them. I pray these memoirs will help them understand that they’re far from alone. I hope it all will give them tools necessary to understand themselves, and more importantly, to heal themselves.
My second goal is to offer a dynamic perspective of bullying that can be utilized and scrutinized by both the media, and by professionals seeking for additional outlook on the topic. Bullying repeatedly surfaces, and it does so for a reason. It’s always going on. It’s always a problem. And, unfortunately, it always will be.
Third, I hope the memoirs will give a voice to those who have never had one, both to the bullied and to the bullies themselves. As I delve into the memoirs in which I eventually began bullying others, the connection between the bullies and the bullied becomes more easily apparent.
Fourth, I hope they will shine a light on the way that many adults neglect to end bullying when they have the chance. I hope they will give those in a position of authority much needed perspective. I hope they will help them dissect the way small actions and reactions greatly affect those kids who find themselves trapped within the bullying world.
Finally, and most importantly, I hope they will encourage those who read them to use their own voices, and in powerful ways. In the greater effort to reduce the bullying that goes on in our schools, power will be found in numbers. It will be found in the moments that follow when fear no longer has control over us. It will be found when those in the world who have been bullied come to understand that to share one’s experiences does not make him weak. It only makes him powerful.
Sometimes it only takes one strong voice to spur the voices of millions. Imagine what we all can do with our voices working together.
The following memoirs will tell a story. But they will do so much more at the same time for those willing to read between the lines.
I hope they can in some small way, somewhere, make change happen where before such change couldn’t exist.
It is not lost on me that the greatest challenge of these memoirs is making sure that everything in them is true. How does one write memoirs based on memories that have been forced away for so long? As I started the descriptive timeline for the memoirs, I was tempted to give up many times. Events were fuzzy. I wasn’t always sure which bullies were involved in which memory. I wasn’t always sure when exactly things happened or where. I didn’t always remember which thoughts were attached to which chain of events. I can promise you these memoirs are imperfect. Please be understanding.
What I did remember were specific events. I remembered specific people. I remembered specific thoughts. I remembered specific feelings. As everything began coming together, much of what was unclear became vivid. Everything in these memoirs is true. Everything happened. Every thought was a thought that at some point (usually at many points) I actually had. Every person is real (though I’ve changed many of the names). No scene has been made up. No story invented. For a real discussion to be had about bullying, the memoirs must be based on truth. Of that I am convinced.
My name is Dan Pearce. These are my memoirs. This is my voice.
Dan Pearce Single Dad Laughing
Please note: Originally, I had planned to release these memoirs one at a time. After posting two of them, I decided that for a true and purposeful discussion, they all needed to remain intact. So, they are all here, as separate pages on this one post. Take your time reading through them. Take days or weeks if you must. Just please, take the time to get through them.
Due to the nature of these writings, each memoir may allude to other bullying memoirs that I was never able to write. Despite that, my hope is that these memoirs will each stand on their own. I apologize for any holes in the story that were created by the process this imperfect writer used.
And, if you see power in the once dormant voice of a boy severely bullied, I ask you to share this. Please take a moment and share your perspective and your story in the comments. Tweet it. Post it on Facebook. Do what you can to get people talking about the bullying problem. Because while we as a society may forget about it until another kid dies, the bullying is only getting worse.
The Memoirs:
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Forgotten Memoir #8 – Buttball
Page 3: Forgotten Memoir #10 – 4-Square
Page 4: Forgotten Memoir #19 – The bathroom incident
Page 5: Forgotten Memoir #33 – Whistling in the gym
Page 6: Forgotten Memoir #38 – The incident with the shirt
Page 7: Forgotten Memoir #51 – The invite
Page 8: Forgotten Memoir #52 – Art Class
Page 9: Forgotten Memoir #53 – The Hot Girl’s Breasts
Page 10: Forgotten Memoir #59 – Becoming the Bully
Page 11: Forgotten Memoir #89 – Extreme Measures
Page 12: Forgotten Memoir #91 – Unlovable
Page 13: Forgotten Memoir #97 - Bullies in Mexico
Page 14: Forgotten Memoir #99 – The Baseball Bat
Page 15: Forgotten Memoir #107 – The Wall
Page 16: Forgotten Memoir #115 - It Was All About Me
Page 17: VIDEO: A Voice for the Bullied
pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
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NicoleBarber
You should make these memoirs into a book.
EllaElla
People tried bullying me in seventh grade. A lot of it had to do with my race. I went back to public school in 8th grade and things were much better. I always had somebody in my corner, and I wasn't afraid to stand up for myself either. Once people saw that it wasn't worth it to screw with me, they left me alone. Sure they might have whispered about me behind my back, but after some jerk grabbed my rear end and I beat him upside the head with a giant textbook, nobody dared put a hand on me the rest of my time in school. He was a foot taller than me and I needed to get to the bus, but I wanted to make sure everybody in school saw that I wasn't going to take it. I didn't hurt him physically or anything, just his pride. Truth be told, he probably could have kicked my ass had he wanted to, but people back down when they think you're batshit crazy.
I could have easily turned out to be a bully. I had a lot of pent up aggression back then and I still do. I think that I wasn't one mainly because I had no reason to be. I've always been a person that roots for the underdog in a situation, so my aggression really only came out when somebody--myself or someone else--was being targeted. I was self-confident and graduated at the top of my class, but I was never superior or arrogant about it. I never really felt better than anyone else, even though my then-religion made claims that I was somehow special and set apart. I found the idea of sanctification annoying. I also never cared about being socially accepted or "cool." People liked me well enough in high school, but my best friends were, as you call them, the "losers." We actually liked each other and to this day they are the only people I really keep in contact with from high school.
I'd be willing to be we'd have been friends had you gone to my middle school or my high school. I probably would have gotten kicked out or worse had I gone to yours. I couldn't have watched what happened to you and done nothing, and what I would have done in response would have either gotten me injured or in major trouble with the administration (and/or police). This stuff just makes me so angry. We just didn't tolerate this kind of crap at my school. I keep having to step away from the computer because it's really upsetting me. I'm sorry you didn't go to a school where people stood up for each other.
Carbonyl
#3
It shouldn't happen and I wish sometimes that the people who refuse to believe something that awful can be allowed to go on were right for once.
I am better now. I am much, much better than I once was. I am less afraid. I am capable and intelligent and learning to ask for help. I am 21 and it's been a decade since I thought I was stupid, or wrong, or less, or incompetent, or worthless, or bad at things, or funny-looking, or helpless, or powerless. But I am still afraid. I still can't shake the fear that other people think those things. Even when I am happy, which I actually am quite a lot these days, the undercurrent of fear is there, and it won't just go away, no matter how wrong I know it to be. I am afraid to tell people, because I know they will treat me differently. It's logical and reasonable to expect that. But I am also afraid to tell them because my experience has taught me that knowing this will make them think I am incapable, unstable, less of a person and more of a walking condition, as fragile, as someone they are too afraid to hurt to actually interact with. I don't want pity and I don't want to be treated differently. I'm terrified of being treated differently, of losing what I have that is so wonderful. I am not fragile. Who I have acted like is who I am and what I am capable of doing, what I act like is who I want to be and someday my insides will be just as brave as my outsides. Don't treat me like a broken bird. I'm not. I have hurt, but I don't want it to define me, and I don't want it to define who I am to others. I let my weakness define me during the years of bullying and I will NEVER allow that to happen again, I am terrified of people defining me by my hurt or my vulnerabilities. I am as capable and as strong as I act if not more so. But I desperately want people to know what I carry around with me, so they can understand where I come from. So I can stop being afraid of them. But I can't risk losing the respect and equal treatment I am finally getting. I can't go back to being alone and treated like a pitiable creature. I am strong, dammit. I am a grownup. I can do things. It doesn't hurt me if they know, it hurts me if they treat me differently, if they suddenly treat me like I am less. Like they have to be careful around me. I can't deal with that. I want to be their friend, not their charity case.
I want to thank you for talking about bullying intelligently, and truthfully, and in a way that expresses what needs to be shared about the pain and damage it causes. About the needs bullied kids have. About the "crazy" thoughts and emotional places it drives us to. You wrote about it in a way that helped me to organize my thoughts about it, and explain it in a way that may make someone else understand. I'm grateful for this place to be able to talk about and let someone actually see and know what I went through, without having to be afraid of them.
Carbonyl
#2 (of three, actually)
The bullying mostly stopped in fifth grade. Well, part of the way through fifth grade. My youngest brother started in the kindergarten that year, and we walked home together. Kids would bully me, like normal, it wasn't anything that was new. Old pain, knew to just keep walking. But then, they started picking on my brother. Ten year olds, picking on my five year old brother. He got angry, he yelled back. I wasn't aware that yelling back was an option, I had forgotten. But more than that. They were hurting MY BROTHER. One of the few people I loved and cared about and was a good part of my life. I wasn't going to fight for me, but him? He would NEVER go through my pain, they would NEVER be allowed to do that to him, I would stop it and it would END. He would be safe.
And that was the first time I kicked a kid in the nuts. I fought back with sticks and fists and kicks to very, very hurtful places. I was half the size of the boys and I was a twig of a girl and they had no idea how to stop me. I fought with the fury of a wounded tiger protecting her young. I fought every single day. Girls learn to stay away after they see one of their number go down in a fight. Boys needed a lot more punching. Words were useless. Every time in the past my words were turned against me or thrown out. But my fists, my boney little knees? Those could not be made insubstantial. They HURT. You can't control a swift kick to the crotch by mocking it. They left him alone. They left me alone. I finally told my parents. I felt free. My baseline, every second of my formative years, had been spent under such incredible stress, in such a constant state of fear.... that what should have been normal and expected LACK of pain was like heaven. I was still broken, I am still broken. I have been afraid to talk, some of my graduating class actually thought I was a mute, unable to speak. I was afraid of being discounted by teachers, so I never asked for help and I never missed an assignment and I never brought up my ADHD if at all possible. I didn't talk to other kids and I didn't go to extracurriculars. I was left alone, I had a few friends, and my teachers only knew how smart I was. Not that I was a problem, not that I was broken, not that I was somehow less than what was expected.
I still flinch when I walk past the school.
I still get nervous when people pay attention to me.
I am still afraid of social interaction.
I am still afraid of my friends now, the best and most wonderful friends I could have ever dreamed of. I am afraid of people who love and respect me because deep down I don't believe them because deep down inside of me is fear so constant, instincts so old and so beaten into me, that I can barely shake them. I have to expend incredible amounts of energy and courage to start conversations, to ask someone if they want to spend time with me.
I am afraid to ask for help and I am afraid to for even one second appear incompetent.
I am afraid to tell the people I love and cherish that because of bullies, I cannot trust their love. I cannot feel 100% safe when interacting with them. I cannot let them see me cry. I put on such a brave face, because the only other option is to give up. I work so hard to hide and overcome my fear. To tell it to go fuck itself and that I CAN be happy.
The list of people who I can feel safe around, who I can trust, is short. It is my family, my boyfriend, and one or two people who just managed to... understand or know what I went through. It's a small list. The knowledge of who isn't on that list would break my dear friends' hearts. They wouldn't understand and can't know. Some of them won't believe me, and I know because I tried to tell them. They don't want to believe that it can happen. They don't understand why I am broken. I care about them, and I refuse to let the actions of those bullies effect their lives, or my relationships with them.
I hate that those bullies still have control over how I interact with the world. I hate it because it isn't fair that they got to make my life hell, that they got to decide so much about who I became. I hate that whenever I try to work through it, or talk about it, I get nightmares. I hate how no one seems to get it, to understand the extent of the abuse or the impossibility of stopping it. Or of forgetting it. Or of fighting it when you are six and you are threatened by an adult to keep your pain quiet. I hate that I had to defend a five year old from bullying with my fists. I hate how other, later bullies committed crimes and harassed my family to get to my other brother. That they drove him to addiction, which led to his death at the age of 17. I hate that the police refused to do anything about it, and harassed him instead. I hate that I don't feel safe going outside in my rich suburban neighborhood when I go home for breaks because I still fear everyone who lives there. I hate that I still feel the isolation they forced on me.
It's not fair. I don't care if life isn't supposed to be fair. It's not ok and will never be ok and I don't know if I'LL ever be ok. I don't know if I will, and that's not ok.
I shouldn't have to be afraid all the time, even when nothing is happening. No one should ever have to go through what I did. No one. People need to know about these things. They need to understand what a problem it is, and continues to be.
Carbonyl
This is coming in two posts, because it exceeds the character limit.
I was bullied. I was bullied so much. From kindergarten to fifth grade (I'm not even going to go in to the twisted relationship that was my group of "friends" after that). I was kind of oblivious at the age of five, or maybe I just don't remember much of that year, but my first memories of the bullying are of me being told I couldn't play on the playground by some of the other kids. I wasn't allowed, they said.
All of elementary school. Everyone, my peers, older kids, younger kids, other kids' parents, my teachers. In first grade, I was bullied. I told my teacher. She had me talk to the principal. She (the principal) told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was my fault. That if I told anyone, not only would they not believe me, but it would get worse. I was six years old.
I didn't tell my parents. They didn't know why their seven year old cried every day, because she was afraid to go to school. They didn't know why I had panic attacks every day in third grade, or why there is still a piece of pencil lead in my finger where my third grade teacher shoved a pencil. I wouldn't tell them. They didn't know why their elementary schooler was expressing suicidal thoughts. They didn't understand why I was afraid of meeting new kids.
My home was my sanctuary. My brothers loved me and my parents loved me and my parents friends had actual, intelligent conversations with me. I was more than a smart kid. I'm a genius, I could easily get in to one of those snooty IQ clubs, I did algebra when I was four, I knew about cell cycle regulation at five. My parents told me I was special and smart and good at things. I only believed it at home.
I have serious ADHD. I wasn't medicated until 2nd grade, enough time for the school to label me as unintelligent, incapable, "problem child". I was a problem child. I was unable to make friends. I was unable to convince my teachers I was smart. No matter how high I scored on tests or how big my vocabulary or how extensive my knowledge of science was. I thought I was stupid until fifth grade. I thought I would never be as good as my classmates. I was bad at socializing because I was TERRIFIED. Every time I opened my mouth or tried to play with kids or raised my hand in class, something terrible happened. I would be mocked, teased, told to be quiet, to go away. I was taught to avoid saying anything, especially anything smart, around classmates or teachers. I spent all of my time alone. It hurt less to be alone. I feel all of the memories and I feel the pain as sharp and as dull and as impossible to prove to an adult as the moment they happened. I was helpless and tiny and scared and no one would listen or believe me. I was taught to sit down and shut up and to never ever ever ever ever show a sign of weakness because then you will have NOTHING. You will have no one if they realize you have a fault to exploit, if there is anything wrong with you, you will cease to be a person. A single fault, you don't get to be considered as relevent. Never ask for help. It's wrong, it's bad, it's scary, it won't work, it's your fault. If people act like they like you, they don't really, they tolerate you. If you make one misstep, you are gone. They will hate you, you will be a bother, you will be unacceptable, you will lose everyone, everything. If someone snaps at you, just be quiet, disappear into the corner and maybe later they will forget and you will be allowed to talk without drawing more hatred your way. I was taught that I don't count and I don't belong and I cannot be good enough to count. I wasn't worth anything to those kids, I was a burden in the eyes of those teachers. They wanted to hurt me, or they wanted me to go away. I don't know why. I ceased to look for help. I didn't think there was help. I was powerless and felt like a broken, worthless, burdensome, WRONG little kid. I didn't fight, I didn't feel like I deserved to be treated better. I had no memories of anything else and I was trapped. I spent recess alone in the corner of the playground where teachers wouldn't harass me and kids wouldn't march their entitled asses over to pick on me. I went home and was happy there. I talked and my family listened. I loved them, I felt loved. I was lucky to have a safe and supportive place, it probably was the only thing that kept me alive. But I was five, six, seven, eight, nine years old, I shouldn't have had to feel like there needed to be something to keep me from killing myself in desperation. The second I stepped outside, I felt hated, and despised, and terrified. I was stressed and panicked and scared and scarred. I wouldn't tell anyone, I wouldn't risk having any more attention drawn to myself because all attention was bad. I was in so much pain but fighting back would make so much worse because the grownups had TOLD ME, and the kids had SHOWN ME. All my world was pain, all of my memories of elementary school are pain.
Dan, I just read through all of your posts about bullying. Wow. Bullying has gotten so out of control. Schools either don't do anything, or enough to stop it. Kids have the right to an education, but not at the expense of another child. Schools need to step up their game and put an end to this in the schools. They need to let kids know this is not acceptable at all. Kids are taking their lives over this. There has to be a better way. My child is being bullied, but has told me about it. He is being transferred out of the school and to another one. I will do what ever I can to help. I think that these posts should be distributed to every school in the country. I hope someday you decide to speak at schools. You are a courageous man for sharing your story.
emmaharr
All of these memoirs affected me in some way, but the one that resonated the most was "The Wall." You expressed exactly what I've been feeling lately--I grew up in two households, a product of divorce, with one loving family, and one abusive family. It took eight years of living with that abuse for me to finally tell someone what was happening, to finally tell my mom. I'd been through the depression cycle many times by that point. (It's not often third graders try to kill themselves, but I was one who tried.) After finally finding freedom and sanctuary away from the abuse, I went through the rest of my high school years trying to rebuild myself. And I made a pact with myself that I was never going to let anyone EVER take away my identity again.
Now, I'm realizing the side effects that attitude has had on my relationships. My current boyfriend and I have fights about this a lot--I get so defensive with him. I get angry so quickly, and I shut him down, whether I was right to do so or not. It pushes him away when I get that defensive--and this post helped me fully be able to see what I've been doing without fully comprehending it. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to push away people that I love, the man that I want to be with. And yet, I don't quite know how to tell the armored troops in my heart to stand down. I feel like I have this wall built up inside me that houses all of my most precious vulnerabilities, and it's so developed and intelligent, it finds a way of its own to fight back when I feel threatened, and I can't control it. Now I see how much I need to address this issue. How much I need to work on releasing those walls of anger and defensiveness--or I may never be able to have a successful, loving romance. I'd be too much of a bully for that. I don't want be an abuser the way I was abused.
HeidiB
This is one of the most powerful things I have ever read. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and bringing home to us the need to help every child learn how to behave towards others, and that they are loved.
kyle_delaney
I'm dumbfounded at how that Mexican family let their precious little 13-year-old girl go off with some man twice her age night after night. Just the idea of such a young girl with a man makes me shudder, but to have it happening right in front of the girl's parents and everybody saying it's normal? I'd at least think they'd be reluctant to let an outsider witness it. I thought the Middle East was bad, but then this sort of thing is happening in a country right next door. I've spent months in that country for crying out loud.
MiaHess
I'm in my 50s and was bullied both as a child and adult because I have a vision thing. (Challenge, disability, whatever.) It still happens to me. Some days, I can handle it, some days....it hurts. Some days I "fight" back and tell the bully that's intolerable and I won't put up with it, other days....
Kids today don't think us "older folks" get it. Yeah, we do.
Thank you for writing this..
cwfrodo
I was lucky, if you can call it that. I started getting bullied in my elementary school because I befriended a girl who was partially handicapped and stood up for her when others tried to bully her. We were good friends, and helped each other, but then she ended up moving, and the brunt of the attacks moved to me. I had no true friends, and was bullied by literally everyone my own age. The only time I felt comfortable was when I was with the teachers, which made things worse in a way, because then I was called "teacher's pet." But, as I said, I was lucky, because we moved from to a different state when I was ten, and although I did have some trouble with bullies in other schools I went to, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been in my first school. But the damage had been done. I went from being an outgoing, friendly little girl who liked to talk to everyone, to being the shy girl who only spoke up in class. Fortunately, I ended up in a high school where most of the people saw me as shy, and were nice enough not to torment me, but they didn't really make friends with me either. My senior year, I opened up a little because I got involved in a select choir, and then I realized that there were people I had been going to school with for SEVEN YEARS, who I never even had a conversation with until my senior year. That's when I realized just how broken the bullying had made me.
I didn't trust people. I would get compliments from people, and was convinced that they were mocking me. I was afraid to open up to people and tell them how I felt about things, because that had been used against me in the past. It was easier to be a bystander than to get involved in things.
I'm 30 years old now, and my husband (we've been married for 2 years) has trouble believing I was that shy. The thing he doesn't understand is that I am still shy. It is so hard for me to reach out to people, every time I do I am quaking inside, afraid to get lashed out at, or mocked. It took me years of work to get this far, and I still have missed opportunities I regret, I still don't know how to talk to people. I have very few friends that aren't also family of some kind. And like I said, I was one of the lucky ones, the true bullying stopped when I was ten.
Something has to be done about this. I love that you are posting about this, and I hope it makes a difference.
chantyshira
Read these all in one shot. I remember wishing in high school that I could forget the worst of what I went through because the memories were so painful. For better or for worse, I think that actually happened because there are long stretches of my life that I don't remember at all. It takes real guts to force yourself to remember everything in such detail, let alone post it on the internet for the world (and your family) to see. Thank you.
Stormyz Mom
The thing that got me most about these memories? The numbers. So many were missing. So how many more horrible memories are there really? How can we stop it? How can we protect the children? My heart hurts.
Dina Dunkelman
Not ashamed to say I shared this article on my FB account, outed myself as someone who was pretty severely bullied from age 6 to 13, and I'm not shamed to say I cried myself to sleep last night after reading. Still dealing with the feeling of inadequacy that was fostered in me during those years... that nothing I ever do or say is ever good enough to avoid abuse or harsh criticism. I deal with these feelings at work, vis-a-vis my fiancee, with my parents...
The issue of avoiding things, whatever scared me. Anything that needed me initiating contact with other people. Job interviews. Having a job. Keeping it. It scared me to death and it took me 7 years to get my first job. Yes, my first job was at age 26. I'm sure the experience of being bullied and targeted just for breathing in class hard-wired into my mind that this is how people are, and if you want to survive, just avoid people.
Music is what prevented me from committing suicide at 12 - new school, new bullies, no friends, family too busy with other stuff to really count on for strength. I was alone. Among all that darkness, there was the radio. The only friend that would make me happy. Several years passed with a new gang of friends who made everything else negligible. The common bond with us, again, was music. It didn't take away the hurt, the feeling of essential solitude I was hard-wired to feel. Somehow it didn't feel real, even though we spent hours on hours together.
Then at 18, still dealing with all the hurt from my bullied years, depressed and just after a breakup from my first b/f.... Latin music came in. It sounded like someone who kept walking with a smile on his face. The sound of surviving and still knowing how to live. And it made me grin for no other reason but being there. It was the first time I heard music that was really happy to be alive, just because.
So I went where I could find it the most. I became a dancer - a really good one. I know I can boast beause I worked hard for it. At the salsa club I got validation. I got compliments for the first time in my life (outside my family circle).
I'm still dealing with the hurt. I've been dancing salsa for nearly 11 years. It opened me up to people, it helped me heal enough to get that first job, to go out and dance and meet people and stop being so damn afraid all the time. I'm still questioning how much further can I take it now, that I realize the effect bullying had and still has on me. How much more free can I be from the self-worth and self-esteem issues, the anxiety, the inadequate feel that haunts my every step.
Your post opened this up, and it'll help me a lot. I can tell. Thank you for being brave enough to open all of the demons in you. I can't do it quite yet.... but I'm getting there.
Jacqueline
I want to thank you Dan, if it was not for the video you made, then one of the people who bullied me at school would not have just said sorry to me. Out of the blue, he remembers who I am & said he never meant to cause me so much pain.
If it was not for that video, and me sharing it on my high school facebook page then he would never have known, would never have said anything to anyone. Thank you Dan, because of that video I love you more than ever, cause you have given me some hope.
GraceOverflowing
Thank you for going there, for being brave enough to open your heart to us all. Thank you for bringing the discussion home.
TriciaMontez
I believe your memoirs will make a difference to many. I was thinking as I read this how I didn't have much self-esteem as a child for a few different reasons probably, including some bullying. I was somewhat bullied as a child, not mercilessly, but it happened. I forgave those that bullied me and became friends with them as we got older.
One truth I have learned is that there is usually something missing from the life of those that bully. As I was reading your memoirs, near the beginning and middle I was put in your place and had thoughts about what could be done, and thought about teachers punishing those that were bullies or parents doing something about their children who are bullies. Near the end though, I realized or maybe remembered that people who bully are many times abused or bullied themselves. A lot of times those who are bullied feel controlled by others and bully others as a way to find something to control. Bullying is a bad cycle. It is like abuse. It is an abuse. Just like abuse, people hide it. They feel bad about themselves, and think that if people are treating them like they aren't loveable, they must not be.
I am so happy for you, Dan, that you could heal or start to heal from the damage bullying had on you. I really liked your last memoir a lot. It's awesome that you learned to love yourself, and I like how you shared your perspective on how you knew that you loved yourself when you saw those around you as beautiful.
Another truth I don't always like to remember is that a lot of times the things we can't stand in others is a reflection of ourselves. What or how we see others can be and I think usually is a reflection of how we see ourselves.
farahbelliard
Your memoirs are so poignant. It was extremely brave of you to share them, and just that your simple act has changed the lives of thousands. ♥
[email protected]
Do you think this has anything to do with your germ fears?
AshleyWF
Just read your first post. I read these in hopes that should these things be happening to my son at school, I might be able to pick up on it, just from a way he acts.
He is seven and a little on the hefty side. He’s a shy boy, and very sensitive. I worry that should he ever be bullied he would take this harder than other kids, so I constantly watch and listen.
Out of my own fear of him being bullied, we are watching what he eats (without him knowing) He has joined mixed martial arts and we try to stay as active as possible. I talk to him every day about how his day at school went, and watch for signs that his feelings may be hurt. So far so good from what I see, but it seems you may never know. I never told my parents about the two times it happened to me.
I didn’t experience bullying in elementary school, but did in high school, at 29 it’s still something I have never forgotten, and It was only on two occasions!.
Thank you for sharing your story, it’s hard on the heart! But it can help so many other kids, teenagers, adults and parents~!
Ash
sharonstjohn
In response to InklingK........
"We are as sick as the secrets we keep" . That applies to individuals as well as family systems. There is another axiom about families that goes something like this..... "Children act out their family secrets." For example, if there is a child who bullies or is bullied, if we look into the family system, do we see that dynamic being played out in the family? Who is pushing around whom? Who is aggressive, who is a passive victim? Who is arrogant and entitled and who is a door mat? Who is sexually inappropriate? Who is prudish? Who who who...........
It might be an interesting task to do a family genogram. This is different from genealogy. To discover the differences, go to http://www.genopro.com/genogram/
Genealogy is a family tree in pedigree form. Genograms allow a person to quickly identify and understand various patterns in your family history which may have had an influence on your current state of mind. The genogram maps out relationships and traits that may otherwise be missed on a pedigree chart.
My point is, your family may appear shocked by your revelations, but I doubt they will truly be surprised. There will be a deep knowing and recognition that this has happened somewhere else in the family history. Like.........."Ah, yes, remember Uncle Jack. He used to_________________"
Look backwards, upwards....... and you will see your "shameful behavior" has already been acted out by someone in a previous generation. It's a freeing experience.
Jacqueline
You know right at this moment I am being bullied on a forum. I have about as many friends as Hitler would have had, I can actually count them on one hand. They seem to be the only ones standing up for me....against 72 other people at the moment. It never ends. My life sucks at all times, and then when I go somewhere I think is safe it starts all over again. Right at this point in time, I wish I was dead :( sad as that would be for my family...I would prefer it to that all day.
I have lies made up about me, then get called a liar cause I try to tell them that it was THEM that made up the lie. I get harassed on my own website & told my work is pathetic & will never amount to anything (I am at the moment an amateur photographer). I get told I may as well stop studying (I am finally studying at the age of 36 so I will have some qualification finally) and that I am not worth the air around me.
All of this from so called adults that state that I am incapable of empathy, sympathy or emotion. I wish I was dead.
InklingK
The biggest problem that I can see is not the bullies themselves, who, as has been pointed out, are often also the bullied, but the adults who are in a position to stop it and instead turn a blind eye, or worse, join in. There's only so much to be done to stop bullies themselves from bullying I think. Kids can be, have always been, and always will be, extremely cruel at times. Bullying is a problem, that, I think, can only be minimized, and is one of those problems that will never fully go away as long as human beings have free will and the desire to exercise power over others. Nevertheless, I think it's getting worse because adults let it. Once upon a time, such behavior earned offenders a slap on the wrist with a ruler, or a mouth-washing with soap, or similar. Nowadays, teachers, I think, are afraid to get involved. Afraid that if they interfere with as much harshness as it would take to really put a stop to the bullying, that they'll end up taking as much punishment as the bully, if not more. Plus with so much overcrowding in the schools, it's as easy for the adults to lose track of what goes on in the halls as it is to be lost in them. I don't know how, but I think adults - teachers, parents, principals, bus drivers, etc. - need to be given the education and the tools to #1 recognize bullying when they see it happening right under their noses, obvious or not, and #2 act appropriately to stop it without fear of rebuke on themselves or of retaliation on the bullied by the bullies later on.
Keep being awesome, Dan! No matter what anyone else says, you are amazing and we are all extremely proud of you and impressed by you! You are loved! :)
P.S. Sorry I'm so long-winded! Every time I go to comment, I resolve to only write a few terse sentences and it turns into a freaking novelette! ;)
InklingK
Anywho, I also wanted to share the thing that struck me the most about your memoirs. The adults. Yes I cried on cue, I empathized all too much, but what *really* struck me as the part of society that needs to change the most is the reactions of the adults. They're the ones with the real power to stop this crap, but they're either too blind, too ignorant, too scared, or too ... *something*. I have a lot of holes in my memory from my childhood that make me think I was bullied more than I care to remember. I was never the cool kid. Never the one with the expensive name-brand stuff, or athletic prowess. I had my own weight issues, though I was never truly obese. I have a lot of vague memories of being hurt by people saying and doing things, putting on my metaphorical shell, and letting it wash over me into the background. But there are a few instances where it went beyond the lower-key name-calling and teasing to something really cruel. And what really stands out in my memory is not what the kids did, but what the adults did. At one point I remember being shoved into a wall and pushed to the ground and screamed all kinds of cruel things at during basketball practice, to the point I was crying and helpless and staring desperately at the coach to stop her. The verbal abuse was a regular thing with her during practice, but the coach always turned a deaf ear. He was too busy worked with the talented, athletic types to pay any attention to the heavy-set girl who dribbled on her own feet and spent more time either chasing after the ball or daydreaming than playing basketball. On this day, however, when the abuse turned violent, all he did was half-heartedly call her off me, letting his voice grow sharp enough to actually get her to back off only after it had gone on long enough to tug at his thin excuse for a conscience, earning me a killing look from her and even worse verbal abuse after practice. The coach didn't care and it was infuriating. Another time, right in the middle of class when we had a substitute teacher, one of the popular boys began teasing me, making loud farting noises with his mouth and blaming me, until the whole class was laughing hysterically at me, *including the teacher*. I'm sure in reality it only lasted no more than a couple minutes at most, but to me it seemed to drag on for hours while this boy humiliated me and the adult who was supposed to be on my side laughed in my face along with everyone else. Later she backpedaled, saying she wasn't laughing at me, but at the look on my face (as if that's so much better!), until I muttered that it was okay, no problem. But the damage was done. There are more, and probably more my self-erected mind-shell won't let me see.
InklingK
Dan, I am so impressed with you! I started a blog ... well, opened a wordpress account ... last week after rereading "Perfection" with the full intent of baring my soul to the world..., and I haven't written a word in it. Not because I'm afraid of what complete strangers will say about me, but because of what my friends and family would say or think if they read it. There are things I've thought and done and been that would hurt some of them deeply if they knew about it. I have clinical depression, huge self-worth issues, and yes, bully issues that I didn't even remember I had until reading this post. My mom in particular would be devastated to know about some of things I've kept carefully hidden all these years, some of the things I did in her very house, the daily thoughts I harbored all through high school. I want to bare my soul like you've done here, to be free of my monsters once and for all, to be Real with myself and everyone around me and know the true friendship that would come of it, but I just cannot bring myself to do it knowing that it would at the same time bring pain to those I love most in this world. How did you do it? Do your friends and family even know about this blog? I know ex-Mormons whose Mormon friends and families disowned them completely and cut off all ties and communication with them after they left the church, so I wouldn't be surprised. My parents, though, follow my every move on Facebook and talk to me on the phone regularly, and my mom is the Gossip Queen of my family; if there is anything you don't want known to the entire rest of the family, don't tell her about it. In other words, if I tried to share my blog with only a few select friends and family excluding her, she would still find out about it eventually, and be even more hurt by the fact I excluded her. Plus, if she found out about all my hidden skeletons, she would want to talk about it, and even though I'm prepared to bare my soul on the web in written form, discussing it with my mother is definitely not something I feel ready to do.
kyle_delaney
InklingK I too have a gossip queen mother and don't tell her anything. But... honesty is the kindest thing you can give someone in the end. Maybe they'd be hurt, but maybe they'd appreciate knowing the truth even more.
davjaxx
I always considered myself a "protector". I wasn't the biggest in my class, in fact, I normally took my position in the front row for pictures of any grouping. My brother was 5 years older than me and although he never really bullied me on an ongoing basis, he regularly made the age difference well known.
It was because of this inequality that I chose my "protector" role. I hated indifferences that bullies relied upon as their greatest weapon, and I felt it was my duty to level the playing field. I wasn't scared, of anybody. Whether it was because I knew the worst thing to happen would either be a wicked beating (and hopefully my brother would level that field even though he only came to my aid once), or a strong reputation. Either way, i didn't usually care. I was always one of the smallest, yet in hockey I played defense. I felt like I had nothing to lose. I could take on anyone and if I beaten, well, he was bigger than me. It was always my disclaimer.
I hated bullies, but not as much as I loved catching them in the act. You see, I knew why they did it. They were building themselves up, they were trying to make themselves better than everyone else. They were trying to over power those around them. What I did't realize was that they were over correcting, over insuring that they weren't the ones being bullied, probably like they were at home. I took great pleasure in ripping down a bully who had caught his prey. Those that stood around and watched the free show were almost worse than the bully himself, because they were a driving force, a motivator for him to keep going. I felt glorious in the moment I knew I had taken the predator and made him my own prey. I had a way with words that should have earned me more black eyes, but instead earned me respect. I wasn't trying to be the bully, I was trying to help the weak. And I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. And I'm sorry. I wasn't really helping, not in the long run anyway. I was trying to make those who were wrongly self-empowered to understand what it was like, not knowing they probably knew more than I ever would. I did what I thought was right, whether it was or not is another debate. I tried, and I tried hard. It wasn't often I couldn't denigrate someone enough to over power them in their strongest moment. I don't know if that makes me a hero, or no better than they were. As I read through all of these memoirs, I cringe at what happened to all of you. I read these not just as memoirs of Dan Pearce, but samples of all those whose childhoods were nothing more than prayers to make it through the day without agony. I'm sorry, and you're welcome. I'm now on the fence of my own actions.
gramma bettie mae turley
davjaxx way to go!!! being a "protector" is way different than being the "bully" - i think that you were sooo right in acting as ya did. gaining a strong reputation as an equalizer of inequality is a grate rep to have. if more peoples could find the courage to stand up for those unable to stand up for themselves, then the bullys will have less and less power.
my boys grew up in a much smaller world than kids do today. there wasn't so much mean-ness as there is nowadays. but there have all ways been bullys around. my two oldest sons were built big n tender-hearted like their daddy n nobody would much think about messin with them. n they never was the ones to instigate a confrontation. but there was many a time that they would step in as the "protector" n the bullys soon realized that they themselves was the ones being watched. purdy quick the bullys would mellow out n start to gettin along with others better.
but my yungest son camed along about ten years later n he was all small n wirey likes me n he did get some picked on by the bullys. so for him, his daddy n me had to talk to him about standin up for himselfs. not to be the one to start the fightin but when push came to shove, it was all rite to fight back against the bullys. in no time at all, he got that reputation of some one not to mess with n then the bullys left him alone n he started in to being the "protector" cuz he knowed what that felt like to be picked on for no reason.
i agree with ya that the bullys probably are being picked on at home or somewhere n that is causing them to act out. but you earned their respect by your actions n ya showed them a better way to treat others. you really were helpin in the long run . . .
JeffCoopes
I wasn't until i was in my 40s before i stopped being mad at the bullying i endured from 8 until 13. My son endured bullying when he was in school. I had no idea how to help him. I complained to his teachers who said he brought it upon himself and/or was making it up. i cried more during that time than i did than when i was bullied myself.
KelAsselstine
I can't even read a whole part in one sitting. I've cried because of what I read so far. I was bullied, even by teachers. One day I hope to finish reading all the parts to this, but where I've stopped has left me feeling very heavy.
Excellent topic to delve into, Dan.
LucySkyDiamonds
A friend posted the following on Facebook today:
I just heard the best description of the effects of bullying: In a primary school class, the teacher passes out a nice, clean white sheet of paper to each student. Then tells the students to crumple it up, rip it stomp on it; basically do whatever they want to it... After about a minute.... she stops them and says, "Now, smoothe it back out, put it back together; make it ...like it was when I gave it to you and tell it "I'M SORRY"... The kids tried and tried, but of course, all the papers were still all wrinkled up and still ripped... the teacher then tells her students, "This is what happens when you bully someone with your words... Even though you try and put things back together and tell them you're sorry--they're still crumpled and torn."
mojo2011
What a beautiful example. So true.
airmetaj
I can only remember a few handfuls of experiences where I was actively bullied, although I did a good deal of self bullying. It takes a lot of courage to stand up admit to both being bullied and bullying others. I understand that monster inside.
Reading all these memoirs has awakened in me a lot of pain that I try to forget. I struggle every day with loving myself, or even admiring the truth of how much things hurt. In fact, writing something like this is terrifying for me. I'm struck with both the desire to hide all the pain inside, and the conflicting desire to make it known.
Thank you for sharing these Dan. The bad, the ugly, and even the brief points where things actually were nice. I found the experience with Rick particularly touching. I love the message spoken by the hole in the wall.
-Andrew
CherylAnnWood
You are right, I can't read them all at once. I can only take a few each day. too much to handle. My emotions are just always right there at the top. My heart hurts for you. For me. For all the kids like us. What a rotten world where this is the truth. I have homeschooled my kids through these years. Just so they don't experience this. So that they make it through to high school before they have to endure the cruel world. We send them out with prayer and I hope some skills to face things like this. God protect them. Thanks for your raw honesty. You are VERY brave. Thank you Dan.
CherrylMaddox-Smith
Dan, This post took alot of courage to write and share... I think you are an amazing human being! I hope this post does what you are hoping that it will do inspire talk and action to STOP the cycle of abuse.
sharonstjohn
I am deeply touched by your series on bullying. I watched as my brother Keith bullied and tormented my brother Pat. He made him do some of the most degrading and sexually debase acts.... acts that 12-13 year olds should not know about. In my life when I experience white rage, I think of Keith and how he deserved to be killed by Pat and me. Now 60 years later, after a life time of bullying his wives, his children and still Pat and me, we are thinking of the same thing. When a 64 year old man bullies his 88 year old mother and cheats her out of money, I am fantasizing of his eminent death. It's just a helium filled fantasy,
midnightagenda
Wow.
"We were never fighting. We were always defending. Neither of us were ever attacking, we were always reacting. We never hated each other, we were scared of the other hating us. We were never mean, or evil, or hurtful to each other. We were both simply determined to protect ourselves at any cost."
Jacqueline
I have just spent a while reading these out to my 18yo son. He was in tears, just like I was. I'm sorry you had to endure all of that Dan :(
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Beth Stubbs
Thank you so much, I am still reading, your memoirs have been helping with myself and the old demons as well my 6 Y/o who is being bullied. I will be commenting bellow the memoirs soon just taking it all in. I am temped to print them and send them to his school. I can't help but feel like you are leaving out all the subtle crap the that grates on a bullied kid every moment of every day that is not physical just emotionally violent. I feel lame telling my son to ignore, that shit really hurt me when the people I got the nerve to tell said "just ignore them," really is that what they were telling themself about me and my pain? Anyway thanks your the VOICE.
Mary Passler
I'm behind you. Thank you,
Mikki Joiner
I was bullied in primary school, by an overweight girl who was my "bestfriend" and by other people who I suppose just thought they were better than me. As a ten year old I viciously hated myself, and life. Later in life I suffered depression. I'm not depressed anymore but when I think of the low life's that made me feel that way I feel so angry it's easier to just forget about it. And those people have no excuse, it was a small town and they didn't have horrible home lives or anything- they were simply cruel.
April Lutz
Thank you Dan. I ended up writing my response in my own blog: http://aprilinva.blogspot.com/2011/10/because-it-needs-to-be-talked-about.html. There are no bigger words than thank you because I feel like a weight has lifted.
Eve Page
I was bullied from age 10 to 14. Without parents caring, neither did the schools. People I didnt even know would gang up & "jump" me. Home life had its own abuse. I couldnt believe NOONE seemed to care at all what was happening to me. I took tape recorders to prove my innocence in the fights & seek some protection, but the adults never cared. I ended up bullying a friend of mine a few times to feel some control. The ONE time police were called, it was her, after I had already bullied her, to protect me from bullies that tore off my clothing. We were only ten yrs old. We ended up in different schools & that was the last time anyone cared about the abuse being done to me.
Joanne Epe-Dishko
Wow! I started reading today,and had to take breaks,for what you went through....brought all the pain a parent feels realizing what their child has gone through! My son was bullied his WHOLE school life...and I threatened a few kids,which would work,went to the schools,which didn't! He even had his aunt watch while he was being held by two guys and hit by a third! I am done with this shit and I am determined to change the laws in Saskatchewan and then the rest of Canada! I am sick of the kids dying,the kids still going through this,and sick of the bullies getting away with it! I am trying to go to the government and other bullying trainers to figure out how to change laws...schools...everything! I THANK YOU for sharing these memoirs, you are going to help so many! I am going to print these off for my son to read, he is 18 and angry and everything you said in your introduction! Thank you for being so brave and strong!
Alecia Laux
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Annabelle Berrios
Thank you so much for writing this; especially the post called "The Wall" - tears clear my vision - I read them all & made a list of the messages & belief systems to see which still operate. Again, so grateful for your courage to bring light to the monsters so others like me can benefit, see, hear & heal. Transformation is mutual indeed. Much love & blessings to you dear one.
Jeff Coopes
I wasn't until i was in my 40s before i stopped being mad at the bullying i endured from 8 until 13. My son endured bullying when he was in school. I had no idea how to help him. I complained to his teachers who said he brought it upon himself and/or was making it up. i cried more during that time than i did than when i was bullied myself.
Kel Asselstine
I'm sharing this on my page, Dan. I hope you don't mind.
Matthew W. Turcotte
Thank you for sharing those, Dan...believe me when I tell you that you have a kindred spirit. I actually started up a Facebook group devoted to helping victims of bullying find a voice to speak out.
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The bullying never really got bad until middle school. In sixth grade I went from being a happy kid who'd honestly laughed off the boy who'd tried to bully me in elementary to hiding in the library constantly. An older boy followed me around, asking me out and laughing before I could say a word. Other boys from my own grade mocked me, called me a stupid nerd, lumped me with the 'loser' of the grade telling us that we were the only people that could ever love each other and so we should give up and start dating. They stole my pens and pencils and sometimes my entire backpack-one notable time in seventh grade they stole my backpack the period before a big project was due and put it in the boys bathroom. In sixth grade I got so wound up by the bullies that I actually started trying to beat up one of my bullies right outside a teacher's classroom. She broke up the fight and didn't report it, which I was always grateful for, but looking back she knew exactly what was going on and decided not to intervene.
Once I started letting them copy my homework and tests it mostly stopped being so overt. I helped the bullies with their schoolwork and they pretended to be my friends, because the few friends I had... my best friend in freshman year walked away one day and never spoke to me again. My one friend in sophomore year was this anorexic girl I'd befriended to try and get her to eat and stop cutting. And she was so ashamed of me that when I tried to group with her and her friends in English class for a project they all ditched me and let me fail instead. And she never said a word.
The worst part was in Sophomore year when I got nominated for Homecoming Duchess, and I thought, just for a few days, that maybe people actually liked me. I got really excited and got my mom to buy me a gorgeous dress for the dance and made plans to go with some other people...As it turned out, I was a joke nomination. I was nominated by a landslide vote and got maybe fifteen votes for the actual election. The people I arranged to go with bailed-all six of them.
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