http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37_ncv79fLA
This pretty little girl...clearly smart, creative, sensitive....bullied at school. Good for her for having the strength to speak her truth...out loud, in color, and underlined.
I can't say I was ever bullied. Teased...yes. Not sure when the line crosses into bullying. I was an easy target. I struggle to recognize sarcasm. People who have a really dry sense of humor intimidate me. I never know what is supposed to funny. I've learned to recognize certain facial cues...twinkling eyes, half-smiles, but without that....I'm pretty much at a loss. It takes me a few moments to process a joke. I tend to understand it about 30 seconds after the rest of the room. I haven't figured out if I am too literal or too abstract. This pretty much painted a red circle on my forehead from the time kids were old enough to figure this out about me.
I was called stuck up. Told I walked weird. That my breath smelled. That I was ditsy. Tree trunks for calves, cankles, etc. I still struggle to show my ankles in public. I didn't know I looked any different until a boy at church pointed it out.
Sometimes I'm watching tv and I feel disdain for a woman I don't find attractive. Now, where does that come from? I remember watching "Will and Grace" and the Grace character came back to the show after giving birth and I felt resentful because she had gained weight.
I know I just saw myself in these women. Not pretty enough. Not thin enough. Not enough. They were mirrors. Psych 101. All the voices become echoes that resonate in our heads. And we project those echoes onto our own hall of mirrors. And they just bounce back.
I try really hard to whisper to my children waking and sleeping that they are special and beautiful and smart in hopes that my echo is simply louder.
On a lighter note....I woke up last night having some sort of weird pre-menopausal hot flash. OK--I'm not hot flashing yet but regardless I woke up drenched in sweat. So all morning I kept walking into my room thinking...my God...I can't believe my sweat is still smelling up the room.
And then I found the cat poo. All over the clean laundry. Not sure how this ties into bullying. But somehow it seems relevant.
I tell my girls everyday they are beautiful, smart and sweet. I hope they will believe me and hear my voice over any negative ones they may hear later.
ReplyDeleteAnd holy moley -- how hard does blogger.com make it to post a comment?
ReplyDeleteBeth, thanks for posting this. There's so many avoidable hurts I want to keep my girls from. That said, I also know that it's through the pain, embarrassment, and down right awkwardness of being human that these first brushes in life help break us down and build who we will become. I hope that not only as my babies grow to little girls and then young women, that I successfully give my girls the confidence to not be a bully, to cope with being bullied, and to stand for the victim of being bullied. The problem, so often, isn't that 1% who bullies, but the 98% who don't take a stand for the 1% being victimized.
ReplyDeleteAs for the cat smell. Let me add that I hate it when I discover our cats' protests over their meal in the form of cat puke on my bare feet.
amen on all counts including cat puke. :)
ReplyDelete