It is in the
nature of all creatures to seek self-preservation, to fear the unknown. It is
easy to retreat when facing an intimidating foe or challenge. It takes grit and
courage to face the unknown.
Today I ran
across an article about a boy who is being bullied. Stories like this usually
recall to mind my own youth and how I handled being bullied.
I was different
from other kids, I didn’t understand how they worked. Every day I searched for clues,
so I observed others closely. I noticed the easy friendliness of some, and how
other kids gravitated to certain charming personalities. But I couldn’t
discover the trick of it. There was a swirling miasma of chaos that I was
wading through that made it difficult for me to pay attention to the
teacher and which made it seem like I was always surrounded by loud noise and
hostile people. I sought my chair quickly whenever I would enter a classroom
and would stick close to the wall when I was walking down the hall. My stomach
always felt bloated, my head ached, I was usually tired, and I was lonely,
I wished for a friend to sit with at lunch, to play with at recess, to stand
with me against the foreign environment of school.
I had a cousin
who was the same age as I, he was intelligent and proud of his intelligence. But
he didn’t understand the subtle cues of timing in order to curry favor with the
teacher and to avoid the jealousy and hatred of the other students. He knew the
answer to the questions and would blurt them out with his hand raised in
excitement and I could feel the seething annoyance of everyone else around me.
I wanted to disassociate myself with him, trying to avoid being painted with
the same brush. But I also wanted to help him and stand up for him.
School was a
testing ground. The early years were OK enough, I wandered around in the back
of the classroom and ignored everyone until the teacher called me to sit down.
It was bearable until the second grade when the mean kids started to make
things more difficult. They would trip me as I walked up the stairs, talk bad
about me behind my back, and point at me and laugh. In the third-grade things got
more intense, I would hide from them at recess, scuffling around the building
lest they call out jeers at me. Sometimes I would be able to play on the swing
set or hang from the monkey bars but sometimes I was so overwhelmed that I had
to hide.
I’m not sure what grade I was in when they decided to trap my cousin up on top of the double slide. He was screaming at them and crying, the playground monitor didn’t notice or didn’t care. I drew up my courage and went to confront them. I can still remember the acrid taste of acid in my mouth as I told them to let him down. One of them was meaner than the others and she decided to test out the fighting skills that her Dad had taught her. She pushed me with her chest, getting right up in my face saying “want to fight?” over and over. I was barely coherent, muttering to stop, stuttering “no, I don’t, just let him down.” Somehow it ended, I think one of her friends pulled her away.
I didn't feel proud of myself for standing up for my cousin, I felt scared of retaliation. Luckily the school decided that it would try an experiment, they had us divide into different classes to give us a taste of middle school. This got me away from the worst of my tormentors, most of the time. The only time I got stuck with them was in math class, I was stuck in a remedial math class (because math was a swirling miasma of confusion for me) and the mean girls pressured me to give them the answers to the homework assignments. I didn't like this, I wanted out. So I went home and instead of going out to play I sat at my desk working through every chapter in my math book and answered every homework question in the book through the weekend. Then I brought it all in to my teacher and turned it in asking that they put me in the other class. It worked, though the math didn't stick in my head very long so I continued to struggle with it through most of my schooling career.
This felt like a win but in some ways it was a defeat. Instead of facing the true problem head on, I took an unconventional way out. I suppose that is a valuable skill in some ways but a crutch in others. At least I've found it to be so when I've used this tactic in other areas of my life.
The last time I really faced these bullies was at the end of the school year in the 6th grade on the very last day. It was hot, our desks had all been cleaned out the day before and there really was no reason for us to be stuck at school except for some arbitrary requirement set by the school board. The kids in the class were bored and had turned to picking on my cousin again and I had had enough. Somehow I gathered up my courage and marched up to the front of the class and told them all off. Didn't they have anything better to do than pick on him? Didn't they know he had feelings too? What made them think they could do that to him? I think the teacher was astounded, the kids dumbfounded, my cousin shocked, but I was too embarrassed to stay in the classroom any longer. I think there was an hour left but I took off and walked home burning with embarrassment the whole way. At least I had the whole summer before I had to face any of them again. When I went back to school I really didn't see the kids from my class, in fact I've forgotten who witnessed that outburst, sometimes I wonder if I really did that or just imagined it. It seems real enough.
Was this courage? Or was this weakness? I'm not sure. It felt like a bit of both.
Later in life, in my marriage I found myself alternately facing things head on and retreating. I do the same at work (though to a far lesser degree).
What does courage really look like in life? I think that facing things, not letting them slide is a big part of courage. Subtle things can make or break relationships so facing them is an important aspect of a courageous relationship. This isn't about nit-picking, it is about acknowledging boundaries and speaking up when a boundary has been broken.
There is more for me to learn about courage, and facing my weaknesses. The child I was is still there, I need to stick up for her, I can find a way.
SG
I’m not sure what grade I was in when they decided to trap my cousin up on top of the double slide. He was screaming at them and crying, the playground monitor didn’t notice or didn’t care. I drew up my courage and went to confront them. I can still remember the acrid taste of acid in my mouth as I told them to let him down. One of them was meaner than the others and she decided to test out the fighting skills that her Dad had taught her. She pushed me with her chest, getting right up in my face saying “want to fight?” over and over. I was barely coherent, muttering to stop, stuttering “no, I don’t, just let him down.” Somehow it ended, I think one of her friends pulled her away.
I didn't feel proud of myself for standing up for my cousin, I felt scared of retaliation. Luckily the school decided that it would try an experiment, they had us divide into different classes to give us a taste of middle school. This got me away from the worst of my tormentors, most of the time. The only time I got stuck with them was in math class, I was stuck in a remedial math class (because math was a swirling miasma of confusion for me) and the mean girls pressured me to give them the answers to the homework assignments. I didn't like this, I wanted out. So I went home and instead of going out to play I sat at my desk working through every chapter in my math book and answered every homework question in the book through the weekend. Then I brought it all in to my teacher and turned it in asking that they put me in the other class. It worked, though the math didn't stick in my head very long so I continued to struggle with it through most of my schooling career.
This felt like a win but in some ways it was a defeat. Instead of facing the true problem head on, I took an unconventional way out. I suppose that is a valuable skill in some ways but a crutch in others. At least I've found it to be so when I've used this tactic in other areas of my life.
The last time I really faced these bullies was at the end of the school year in the 6th grade on the very last day. It was hot, our desks had all been cleaned out the day before and there really was no reason for us to be stuck at school except for some arbitrary requirement set by the school board. The kids in the class were bored and had turned to picking on my cousin again and I had had enough. Somehow I gathered up my courage and marched up to the front of the class and told them all off. Didn't they have anything better to do than pick on him? Didn't they know he had feelings too? What made them think they could do that to him? I think the teacher was astounded, the kids dumbfounded, my cousin shocked, but I was too embarrassed to stay in the classroom any longer. I think there was an hour left but I took off and walked home burning with embarrassment the whole way. At least I had the whole summer before I had to face any of them again. When I went back to school I really didn't see the kids from my class, in fact I've forgotten who witnessed that outburst, sometimes I wonder if I really did that or just imagined it. It seems real enough.
Was this courage? Or was this weakness? I'm not sure. It felt like a bit of both.
Later in life, in my marriage I found myself alternately facing things head on and retreating. I do the same at work (though to a far lesser degree).
What does courage really look like in life? I think that facing things, not letting them slide is a big part of courage. Subtle things can make or break relationships so facing them is an important aspect of a courageous relationship. This isn't about nit-picking, it is about acknowledging boundaries and speaking up when a boundary has been broken.
There is more for me to learn about courage, and facing my weaknesses. The child I was is still there, I need to stick up for her, I can find a way.
SG
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