Does it really get better?

[brigid]

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

I don’t really have friends.

That sounds weird and possibly pathetic, doesn’t it? I mean, who gets to be in her early thirties and doesn’t have friends?

I keep most people firmly in the “acquaintance” category, in my head. This includes people I’ve known for over a decade; people who I spend holidays with; people who I’ve helped move and who’ve helped me move; people who invite me to parties and who I invite to parties; people who, I’m sure, lump me firmly in the “friends” category. And if I were “normal,” I’d consider them friends and feel how very lucky and secure I am in having so many close friends to whom I can turn in times of need. But I don’t feel I can turn to them, and that’s entirely not their fault at all.

Rather, it’s the fault of every single person who bullied me throughout grade school and made it very very clear that I wasn’t worth being friends with; that nobody liked me, would ever like me, could ever like me. I meet new people and I just wait for the other shoe to drop, for them to realize how disgusting and socially inept I am, to realize how undeserving of friendship and human contact I am. Even when I meet good, kind, intelligent, awesome people I still feel that way. I don’t get fully involved, I hold back, and I assume that they like everyone better. This happens in social situations, and this happens in work situations. People make friendly overtures to me, and I assume that they are either being polite and don’t really mean it, or they want to get me into a situation where they can dig at me and hurt me.

I am 31 and I’m still afraid of people.

I’m married to a wonderful person and I have a son who I love with a deepness and intensity I didn’t think possible. But even with them, I often feel on the outside, like I don’t really belong. They are human beings. I’ve been told over and over that I’m not really a human being, and this was reinforced by the teachers at my very small, tight-knit grade school.

I remember when I was 7 years old, lying in bed in the crushing grip of insomnia, staring up at the ceiling and wishing I’d never been born; that I didn’t exist. A few years later I stumbled on the concept of time travel and spent hours concocting elaborate fantasies about discovering how to travel through time… and prevent my mom from conceiving and giving birth to me.

This is what bullying does. It destroys people. And the onus is often, so very often, placed on the victim of the bullying. Sticks and stones break bones, and name calling and shunning and shitty behavior stay with people forever. Teachers shrug off the complaints– if the victim is able to pull their shit together enough, brave up enough, to make the complaint in the first place– or, in my case, join in on the abuse.

Schools have zero tolerance policies for things like bringing plastic knives (to spread cream cheese on a bagel) to school, or bringing a plastic squirt gun to school, or playing hands-on games like “tag.” How many schools have zero tolerance policies for bullying? How many schools are actually invested in protecting the most vulnerable– and most likely to be targeted and bullied– students?

There are kids dying right now because of bullying. What leads a person to feel so miserable, so unwanted, so torn up and alone, that death is the best and most viable alternative? Take a guess. A lot of the media and blogging focus right now is on kids who were bullied because they were– or were suspected to be, or who lived in places where this was the worst insult possible– gay. But sexual policing, sexism, is often a component of bullying, as is racism and classism and ablism. I’m so, so glad that people are noticing that kids are dying and noticing that this is a problem. I’m glad there is outreach to young people who are queer. But this is a symptom of a larger problem.

Bullying needs to end. It needs to stop. Schools need to take a hard line against it, and need to teach children from a young age that it is not acceptable. Every single school that does not prevent kids from bullying other kids is responsible, directly responsible, for what happens to the bullied kids. There is blood on the hands of the school administrators of those kids who killed themselves, those kids whose souls were murdered by their classmates and peers. Every teacher, every class and hall monitor, every principal, who did nothing to prevent it is guilty.

I spent a really big chunk of my life wishing I were dead and resenting other people. If my high school experience had been different, if it had been at all like my grade school experience, I probably wouldn’t be here today. I don’t think I could have slogged through another four years of that soul killing crap. It’s important for young people to realize that there is life beyond school, that there is life beyond whatever crap hole small town they might be in. But any damage that’s already done is still going to be there, and life usually doesn’t magically improve just because you finally escape a shitty situation.

Comments

[sara]

Yeah, I have seen some useful commentary lately on how it's not just that it magically gets better, it's that we have got to MAKE it better for kids moving forward. Which I think is more to the point.

[brigid]

And most of the people for whom life is better... did things just improve, or did they MAKE life get better? In part because they had the resources to move someplace else or tap into help (help which isn't available everywhere)?

I mean, I know people who grew up in judgmental shitty religious towns and still live there as adults because there is no realistic way for them to leave. They're dead broke & have no transportation, they have health issues, they have dependent family, whatever.

[phoenix]

" But any damage that’s already done is still going to be there, and life usually doesn’t magically improve just because you finally escape a shitty situation."

Yes. Now, I am someone who can say "it got better for me" (though with sadness I relate to your post, past and present) and "it gets better" was a mantra from the age of eight or so. But when I got out of the situation, nearly a decade later, I hurt in ways I'm still discovering. There are mines laid in my heart and my relationships with every other person. It gets better. It shouldn't ever be so bad that "it gets better" is all a child has.

Are you comfortable having this post linked? Usually I assume so with a public post, but I want to be careful with this.

[brigid]

Yeah, feel free to link.

And things aren't as bad as they were then. Life DID get better. But better is relative and it's not really ENOUGH, you know? It's cold comfort to tell a person "don't worry, in 2, 4, 8, 12 years you won't want to kill yourself all the time!"

[serendipity8791]

I was bullied from grade 4 until halfway through grade 10, by the same group of people. I was also shunned by most of my non-bully classemates because, if a group of semi-popular boys were bullying me, either they were scared they would also be victimized or they figured I wasn't worth hanging out with.

In grade 10, after years of ignoring them, they got sick of my not reacting to them, and they started getting physical, hockey-tackling me against walls and whatnot. I complained to the principal, and he told me to keep ignoring them. The physical attacks became more violent shortly after, and lasted until I grabbed the ring-leader and swung him, headfirst into a wall, so hard I'm pretty sure he saw stars for a couple of seconds. (I'm 4'10", he was close to 5'11" back then.)

But all that bullying did not do wonders for my self-esteem. In fact, between that and a toxic friend who liked to stab everyone else in our group of friends behind their backs, oh, and getting date-raped at 21, I have trust issues with people.

I totally get it.

I really wish that a law could be passed, everywhere, that if a kid who committed suicide due to being a victim of bullying, and has identified their torturers (yes, it's psychological torture and abuse) both verbally to adults and in their suicide note, those people could be charged with murder.

Yes, even if they were family members or peers.

Because it is. It's a murder of character, and it drove the person to suicide, therefore, it also is, indirectly, the murder of a human being.

Some kids go into schools with guns and kill random schoolmates over being sick of being bullied. Let's not forget those either. Who's the real monster/killer, here? Indirectly, it's still the bullies.

[timeasmymeasure]

As hopeful as the "it gets better" message is. It's seriously flawed and untrue. It also reeks of ignoring the problem- placing the responsibility on the victim to just get through it instead of the bullies, the institutions, that allow and encourage this to happen.

[jeeps]

got here through my network; I hope you don't mind my commenting. you have very much just articulated the discomfort I've felt with the "it gets better" slogan, as well intentioned as it is by people who have certainly gone through similar things in their own lives. sometimes horribly oppressive situations do get better, but you will always have the scars from them. and sometimes they don't get better, because not everyone becomes a world-famous figure who ends up transcending their situation forever.

[brigid]

Hey, welcome.