Why am I doing this to myself? Bullies turned this girl into a wallflower.
Next Friday night I’m supposed to attend my 20th high school reunion, and I can’t help wondering why. Why am I spending the money? Why am I spending the time? Why am I putting myself through the roller coaster of emotions that I experience whenever I think about my junior high school & high school years. As many of our listeners and readers know, I was a victim of bullying while in middle school. I had no friends. I was regularly teased and taunted by classmates and upperclassmen. I cried every day. I felt ugly. I was also very lucky.
In high school things began to improve. I never went out on a date. Except when I would try, in a moment of insanity, to break out of my mold. Eventually, I moved on. And I began to recover. But it has taken me years to return to the girl I was before I started middle school and become the woman I am today. I still suffer from situational shyness (love that term). Which brings me back to my high school reunion. One careless phrase can affect someone’s body image forever. When I was in sixth grade, my boyfriend told me he didn’t care that I was fat.
He loved me anyway, just as I was. It was something along the lines of, “Tom and all those guys say you’re really big, but it doesn’t matter to me.” And instead of hearing the part about his acceptance of me, all I heard was that people thought I was fat. This was absolutely news to me, as I’d never thought about my size, weight, or shape in any way before that moment. Never considered that other people were looking at me and judging me.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I attended my boyfriend’s senior prom. Having to be excruciatingly careful with every word you say is a major pain in the ass. Can you recall a single exchange, phrase, or incident that changed how you saw your body for the worse? Image courtesy ellenantill. Bullies and Bullying: My Personal Story. One of my favorite internet video movie reviewers, Movie Bob, has recently started a second kind of video show called "Big Picture" where he talks about random ideas and theories, usually how they relate to geekdom (kinda like my blog).
It's pretty good, and his most recent video got me thinking. It's about bullies and how the victims (often geeks) react to them. Here's the link: This got me thinking about my own relationship with bullying/bullies in my personal life. It seems like a lot of the fellow geeks/dorks/nerds in my life have been significantly impacted by a childhood of being bullied. Let's look at my personal history with bullies between elementary school, middle school, and high school: In elementary school (grades K-5), I used my TOTAL AND COMPLETE GENIUS!!!! In high school (9-12), the traditional bullying all but stopped. Unfortunately I know that I'm quite a bully myself sometimes. If you want to continue having any respect for me, don't continue.