As
I sit here writing this, I am currently 27 years old. Most of the
events that take place in this happened when I was 11, 12, and 13. For
the most part, I’ve managed to put it all behind me and move on from the
bullying that I endured for three years. In 2010, when it was our ten
year reunion from middle school, we met up for dinner. Silly me thought
that maybe people would have changed in ten years. Instead, they laughed
about how funny it was when they had teased and taunted me and when I
told them that those things had actually hurt and had caused a huge fall
out, they continued to laugh and tell me that I was being too serious.
There
were two major reasons for my being bullied; my religion and the music
band Hanson. Let’s start with religion. I was born and raised Roman
Catholic. In the Catholic faith it is believe that when a baby is
baptized, he or she is cleansed from original sin and can thus began
their life washed anew. There are other sacraments, like first
communion, confession, and confirmation that help to keep you free of
sin as you journey through life. My classmates didn’t believe this. My
classmates were mostly Baptist with a few Episcopalians and
Presbyterians thrown in.
One
girl asked me one day when I had been saved. I remember looking around,
confused, because I had never heard that term before. I asked her what
she meant and she asked me if I had gone to the principal and prayed
with her and agreed to accept Jesus into my heart. I told her that no, I
hadn’t, because I was Catholic and had been baptized and I already had
Jesus in my heart. I was then told that I was wrong and when I went to
hell, it would be fault and my fault only for not following the true
teachings of Christ.
That’s
where the issues first began. I was 11 years old and suddenly I’m being
told that I have not in fact been saved and cleansed of sin and I’m
going to hell unless I do it their way? I went home that night in tears.
In fact, tears would be a common theme for those three years. There was
rarely a night where I didn’t sob over my dinner because of how
terrible school was. Even the teachers were in on it! They kept pushing
me to accept Jesus and every time I told them that I had, I was told
that I was a wrong and an infant cannot accept Jesus.
In
addition to all of that which was going on, during my sixth grade year,
I became a fan of Hanson. I just loved their music. As most fans do, I
had the tshirts and the books and the whole shebang. I can remember one
dress down day, there were whispers going everywhere. I didn’t pay
attention, because at that point I was tired of the whispers, but before
I knew it there was a parade of upperclassmen opening my classroom door
to look at and laugh at my Hanson tshirt.
I
was trying to hold it together, but it didn’t last very long. I excused
myself to the bathroom where I had a good cry. In that moment, I
decided that I wasn’t going to let them win. Why should I?
That
doesn’t mean that I didn’t still cry about it at night. That doesn’t
mean that I didn’t purposefully wearing things I knew they’d tease me
about, but I wanted them to think that they couldn’t get to me. That
they couldn’t hurt me. It wasn’t true, but at 11 what did I know,
really? I remember one class, we a substitute and everyone else was
being holy terrors. I had finished my assignment and was reading a book
when the substitute came over and asked me to point out my name to him. I
pointed it out and he thanked me.
At that school, we had a check system for the day. It’s been so long, I
can’t remember how many checks it was but if you got more than two
checks for bad behavior, you received detention. I was the only person
in the classroom that day that didn’t get a check mark. Oh, you can
imagine the insanity that happened. Someone tried to tell the teacher it
wasn’t fair because I had spoken to him. I think that was the beginning
of my true breaking point. They were willing to stoop that low? They
wanted to hurt me that badly?
In seventh grade is when I began to cut. At first it was nothing more
that little scratches because I was afraid my parents would find out and
I didn’t want to hurt or upset them. In school, I would dig my fingers
into the undersides of my arms with my arms crossed until I drew blood.
It was the only way I knew how to keep myself under control. Seventh
grade was also when I finally broke down and went to see the principal
and accept Jesus into my heart. My thinking on that one was that I
already believed he was in my heart, so what harm could it do?
Unfortunately, the principal announces to the school who has finally
accepted Jesus and all I got were smug “I told you so” looks from the
bullies. From that point on, I was a different person entirely. I was
defiant, I didn’t care what they wanted me to do or who they wanted me
to be. I purposefully did the exact opposite of what I was told to do
simply because I was tired of trying. I had cried for so many nights and
I had even gone to the principal about it and I was told that I just
needed to conform and everything would be okay.
Once I left that school and entered high school, things were okay. I
wasn’t bullied there, but the scars from the past remained with me. I
made very little friends because I didn’t know who I could trust and who
was going to hurt me all over again. I had people I was friendly with,
but nothing that I would consider a true friendship. However in high
school, the panic attacks started and for four years, I suffered
silently because I was afraid there was something really wrong with me.
The attacks were random, but they all had the same common theme :
death. I was so afraid of what comes after that I would end up
hyperventilating, unable to breathe, crying, shaking, and sweating. If
the Baptists are telling the Catholic they have it wrong, and the
Muslims are telling the world that they have it wrong (I was a sophomore
when 9/11 happened), then who was right?! I couldn’t handle the stress
of not knowing. I tried researching and I realized that there were
common themes in all religions but I still couldn’t find the answer that
would calm my panic attacks.
The self mutilation got worse in high school. Or rather, maybe I should
say it became more frequent. I was honestly afraid that I was downright
mentally insane and I was going to be put in a mental hospital if I
spoke a word of it to anyone. So I hid it and didn’t say a word. Every
time I had a panic attack, I would bite my hands or my arms almost to
the point of blood and then I would stop. For some reason, the pain
centered me and brought my mind out of it’s panicky fog.
I remember one attack. I was sitting in religion class and I suddenly
felt like … like I wasn’t in my own body. That feeling where your skin
is all pins and needles and prickly and you can’t tell if this is real
life or if you’re dreaming. Only my mind interpreted it as “HA! You’re
not alive! You’re dead. This is death and you are trapped in this school
forever!” I remember running from the classroom with permission to the
nearest bathroom. I was so panicked and so shaken up that I began to
vomit and couldn’t stop.
Once again, I turned to self mutilation to calm my brain down and when
the shivers and shakes had finished, I washed my face, rinsed my mouth
out and returned to class. My teacher looked horrified. My eyes were red
from crying, my hair was matted down from being so sweaty. I gave her
my best smile and told her that I wasn’t feeling well and since it was
last period of the day, she told me to lay my head on my desk and rest.
From 2003-2008 I dealt with a lot of death. I lost a beloved aunt to
ALS. We lost a wonderful family friend due to old age. I lost my
grandfather in 2006 and the hardest one of all, my gran in 2008. She
died of a massive and sudden heart attack. No one was expecting it and
to this day, I go to pick up the phone to call her or send her an email.
Luckily for me, in the summer of 2004, I had a panic attack so bad (I
know that doesn’t sound lucky, but it really was) that my mom finally
clued into the fact that something just wasn’t right.
I had been napping on the couch and had gotten overheated in the humid
summer air. For some reason, heat is a huge trigger for me. If I get
overheated and can’t cool down, a panic attack is guaranteed. That
afternoon I had a dream that I was headed off to college (which I was. I
went to RIC in the fall of 04) and while I was in my dorm, someone
broke into my house and killed my family and when the cops came to tell
me, the first thing they said was “The man came for you. If you had been
there, your family would still be alive.”
That panic attack was so bad that I ended up in the ER two days later. I
couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t sleep, I felt like there was a rock
lodged in my stomach. I lost 9 pounds in almost three days because of
how horrible I felt. I remember, the day of the attack, my mom sitting
with me on the couch and it finally all came pouring out. The six years
of attacks, the reasons why, why I didn’t want to
tell
anyone, all of the reasons why I was so scared to be me. She called my
pediatrician that day and we set up an appointment for three days later
but ended up in the ER due to dehydration because I couldn’t keep
anything down.
The doctor I was referred to was amazing. He was patient and kind and
he listened to everything I said, everything I babbled out. Both of my
parents were there at the appointment as support and he asked them
questions as well as me. Both of my parents were surprised at the
symptoms they had noticed but had assumed was normal adolescence. When
we came out of the appointment, I had a sample box of Paxil to try and a
slew of diagnosis.
I currently (as of the writing of this article in 2013) have been
diagnosed with bipolar II, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder,
post traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Now,
as a medical person myself, I do know that most of these are caused by
imbalances in the brain chemistry. But what I also know is that the
bullying that lead the onset of my panic attacks didn’t help. Would I
have developed panic disorder anyway? Maybe. It’s certainly a
possibility.
But I also know that when therapists and doctors ask me when all of
this began, I can pinpoint it. I can say to them “It started in middle
school and got worse through the years”. This isn’t a piece on who is
right and who is wrong when it comes to religious beliefs. I consider
myself agnostic now as I try and find the pieces of who I am and what I
believe. This is a piece that I hope even just ONE person reads and
realizes how serious and traumatizing bullying can be.
People
take their lives because of bullying. I’m a lucky one. My parents are
my rocks and without them, I don’t know what I would do. I know I’m
lucky but there is one child out there, right now, who won’t be so
lucky. I write you this story, this piece about my life, in the hopes
that maybe someone won’t have to turn to suicide to feel better about
who they are. We’re all amazing. We all have potential. We just need
someone to believe in us.
