Dear Bully (5 page)
Authors: Megan Kelley Hall
Then I realized you were just hitting me up for sponsor money for some charity walkathon, and I was clearly the hundredth person down on your call list, and I felt like a total fool.
I gave anyway.
I know we weren’t that close this year, but I’m glad I’m signing your yearbook. ’Cause there’s something I wanted to tell you.
For no reason at all, by the end of the year, it was over. Like a high fever that broke, leaving me clammy and weak and slightly delirious, wondering if it had all been a bad dream.
Little by little, everyone else welcomed me back in. Karen and Shoshana. Gia and Gaby. Sarah and Sabrina. Pam and Lisa. Patricia. And you. Back on the party circuit. Back at the table of ten. Like nothing had happened. Like none of it needed to be mentioned.
And so I said nothing.
Or maybe you’ve already heard? That I’m off to a new school for ninth grade?
Because, really, how can I trust you—or any of them—again? And what saddens me more: How will I ever trust any of the friends still to come?
So, in case I don’t see you around much, have a great summer (and a great life)!
Luv,
Melissa
P.S. Who knows? Maybe, someday, when we’re ancient and thirty(!), you’ll look back on this page and read what I wrote, and remember.
I know that I’ll never forget.
Today I discovered a huge, ugly bruise on my leg. I have absolutely no memory of having rammed into anything, which is weird because, seriously, this thing looks angry. How could I not know what caused it?
I was going to say getting bullied can be like that, too—you aren’t aware, necessarily, while it’s happening, that you are even being bullied. But it’s not quite a perfect metaphor, because with the kind of bullying I am thinking about, there’s no bruise to be seen—maybe only a vague but very real ache that won’t go away for a long time.
I’m not talking about the kind of bullying that comes from name-calling, taunts, shoves, or even shunning, all of which are plenty horrible. There’s another kind of bullying I haven’t read much about but that I experienced—one that comes with compliments and praise.
I had this kind of friendship over and over growing up, but I’ll give you an example with a girl I’ll call Bianca.
Bianca was my best friend. She thought I was wise and kind, the only friend she could fully confide in and count on. She told me often how much she appreciated me— especially how I would stick by her and forgive her no matter what. After she’d been awful to me in some way, she’d look deep in my eyes and apologize, berate herself for the lousy person she was until I told her no, no you’re not a bad person, don’t be silly. She said she wouldn’t blame me for abandoning her as others had, and would explain tearfully that she’d been acting out against me just because she was petty, or jealous of me, or in one of her moods. I’d reassure her that it was okay, I was okay, we were okay. She’d cry with relief and gratitude, she’d hug me, she’d shake her head about how incredibly lucky she was to have me as a friend.
And I’d feel fantastic.
How lucky I was to have a friend who so loved and appreciated me! Yes, she made rules, kind of—well, no, I corrected myself; they weren’t rules, really. It just made Bianca feel bad if I hung around with other friends or had a boyfriend when she didn’t. Did I really need to have a boyfriend or other friends? No! I had Bianca. Who could ever appreciate me like she did? It wasn’t such a big deal for me to help her with her homework (or do her homework for her; whatever) or drop all my other friends or give in to her on all the little things. She’d appreciate me for all that. Sure, she had other friends and sometimes neglected to include me. And okay, maybe sometimes she was mean to me.
But I was strong; I could handle it. If I called her on it, she’d feel terrible about herself or get worried that I, too, would stop being there for her. She had problems; life was pretty easy for me. So I didn’t really care where we went or what we got to eat for a snack—I’d much rather bask in her appreciation, when it eventually, inevitably came, than go for ice cream instead of pizza. Who cares? I was her one and only, the best person and best friend she could imagine.
It certainly never occurred to me that I was being bullied. I thought I was happy, or should be. I was stressed, of course; progressively more stressed that I would do something to make Bianca mad or jealous or embarrassed. I was always on edge about what I might do wrong. I told myself it was fine, it was great; relationships take work, everybody says. I was strong; I could take the rough times because I was addicted to the
appreciation
.
But I wasn’t happy. I was a wreck. I was being manipulated with kind words, bullied in such a subtle way the only bruises were invisible even to me.
It wasn’t until things got unbearable that I’d break away from Bianca—and feel terrible about myself afterward. I had a series of Biancas in my life, until one day, walking away crying, shaking, shattered, from a café and an angry Bianca, I made a vow: no more bad friends for me.
No more trading my attention, wisdom, time, and kindness for appreciation. No more telling myself I’m strong enough to handle whatever abuse a friend wanted to throw at me. I
am
strong. Maybe I
can
take a lot of abuse. Congratulations, Rachel. Where’s your trophy for that? Is that really what you want to accomplish in this life? Should people after I die say, “Well, she sure could take a lot of abuse, I’ll say that for her”? Is that a good goal? Come on. Even if taking abuse meant Bianca would later apologize, beat herself up, beg for forgiveness, and make me feel like world champion best friend? No way. Not good enough. No more.
Being strong meant standing up for myself and walking away from a friendship that had given me so much, both positive and negative. I didn’t know if that meant I would have to be all alone. I was terrified of that.
It didn’t turn out that way. Once I stopped enabling manipulative, needy, bullying Biancas, there was room in my life for the warm, generous, funny, wise people I am now so proud to call my friends. They appreciate me—not because I take so much abuse from them but because we enjoy being together.
Bruises on the soul hurt even more than bruises on the leg and take longer to heal. Maybe the trick is to try to avoid smashing into stuff so much. And then to be kind to ourselves as we slowly heal.
Bullying comes in all sorts of shapes and forms. It can be as overt as a punch in the face or as subtle as a whispering campaign. With me, it began with reading.
I used to read books everywhere. On campouts and car trips. On vacations at the beach. I read in trees and can still remember the way the leaves made green and yellow opaque splotches on the pages. I loved the way books felt in my hands. Loved to stick my nose in the middle of the pages and inhale their dusty scent.
I took books with me wherever I went. I took extra books to school so I could read during the breaks. Science fiction. Horror. Stories like
Green Mansions
that were really love stories disguised as adventure novels. (I’ve always been a hopeless romantic.) I would practically run to my next class so I could plop down in my seat and get in a few pages before the bell rang. Some of my favorite books were read this way, in five- or ten-minute gulps. It was brutal having to close a book by Jules Verne or Ray Bradbury or W. H. Hudson and open my school textbook (well, unless it was in English class).
So where did the bullying come in? I was not the stereotypical guy you would think would be picked on. I was a tall, strong kid. I was a good athlete and played on the basketball team. Went cliff diving in the Tennessee River. Maybe what I experienced wasn’t even bullying in the classic sense. It was mostly so quiet, in the background, that I often wasn’t even aware it was happening until later. A few times it was right in my face. I had books knocked out of my hands in crowded hallways where I had to get down on my hands and knees to pick everything up while the guy who did it ran away. I was challenged to fights. Sometimes I fought, sometimes I didn’t. Guys started rumors about me and said stuff behind my back, all hinting that reading was somehow less than “manly.” I never could understand what made these guys so angry about my passion for reading. But in their eyes, reading for fun was simply something a guy did . . . not . . . do.
Thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure they had no idea they were doing anything that seemed like bullying. In their minds they were just guys being guys. They were raised to love cars, hunting, drinking. No doubt they had trouble understanding a guy like me. And I felt the effects. What their behavior told me was this: “You have no right to be interested in things like poetry on Mars or a mysterious girl in the jungle who sounds just like a bird. Either you will think
our
way or we will make you wish you had.”
Other than refusing to stop reading, I did my best to try to fit in. I learned to hide much of my true personality. But I realize now, many years later, that the harassment took its toll. I retreated further into my own little world. I stopped being myself, became guarded about how much of the true me I would let slip out, because I didn’t see that self as a person who would ever be accepted by my peers.
This feeling lingered a long time. Even years after I stopped worrying about what someone would think of me as a reader, I still didn’t want anyone to know what I was reading. Whenever I temporarily had to put a book aside, I always turned the cover facedown. Why? Because if someone saw what kind of book I was reading, they might figure out what I was really like on the inside. How strange. How
different.
I have come a long way since then, but I don’t know if I will ever be able to completely shake this feeling. It has echoes to this day. When I published my first book, I kept it a secret that I was a writer. I was certain that if my coworkers at my day job knew that I loved to read and write, the “inner me,” the real me, would be completely exposed, and they wouldn’t like what they saw. And it all goes back to those days when I was a secret reader.
I have run into a few of those “bullies” from my childhood since then in stores and restaurants. They are invariably nice and remember us as great friends. And I realize now that I often took things people said or did too seriously. But that’s exactly what some people do. So being accepting and tolerant is more important than almost anyone knows. You can alter the course of someone’s life—for better or worse.
Midsummer’s Nightmare
by Holly Cupala
I’ve been a dreamer all of my life.
Monkeys at my window. Shadows waiting to capture my hands and feet as I slept. Frantic chases, nuclear blasts, streaks across the sky.
I’ve wondered about dream interpretation—if my dreams will tell the future, or if they somehow interpret my past. Sometimes they are gibberish. Other times, they have taken on a prophetic urgency I can’t help but think disguises some deep and mysterious truth.
What I know with certainty is that two of my nightmares saved my life.
I met Xander one blazing night at a Summer Shakespeare cast party, where pretty much anything could have happened. I fell in lust.
He was confident, in control. The kind of guy who knew exactly what he wanted, and he walked right up to me and took it—first a kiss, and then he took my breath away. It wasn’t long before we were inseparable.
He liked that I was an artist and a writer, which must have given me a certain mystique in the commodity of cool girlfriends. He displayed me to his friends, who we hung out with constantly . . . rarely, if ever, did we hang out with mine. He gave me what I craved—direction, protection, and an intense kind of attraction that sometimes terrified me . . . and always racked me with guilt. Pretty soon, I was afraid to be without him.
I should call these the lost years—I lost myself in him and his world completely, until he was telling me where to go, what to wear, what to eat (or not eat), how to think. I wanted someone who would take control so I wouldn’t have to. I wanted him to make me stop hating myself.
I would do anything to win his approval, anything to avoid his criticisms, which had become more and more frequent. There were the subtle put-downs and the more obvious ones. He didn’t like my parents or my friends or my opinions. So I changed what I could. I didn’t know to call it bullying. It was the subtlest kind—not with fists but with words.
In a rare moment of independence, I went on a trip with my best friend. That’s when the nightmare came:
It was night. All around me were brick walls and people I recognized. But everyone was focused on one figure—a man, sitting in a chair, with a rod in his hand. As each person approached, they instantly fell to the ground with one touch of his rod, under his control.
I looked around for some means of escape. There was a girl about my age, thin and stringy, almost hollow. A doorway loomed behind her, but she made no move to leave—she was already beaten, already belonging to him. I knew that girl was me.
I woke up screaming.
Maybe it was the nightmare, or the separation. Maybe I finally listened to my friends, who had been subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) telling me to get away from him for a year. Or maybe some part of me knew the truth—that I could become that girl forever, if I didn’t walk out that door.
Fast forward a few years—past another unhealthy and doomed relationship—to a guy I met through work. In one swift moment of attraction, I graduated from painful and damaging to downright dangerous.
Erik and I had explosive chemistry right off the bat. He took me to amazing places, complimented me (when he wasn’t criticizing), and lavished me with gifts and attention. But something about him reminded me of not one but
both
bad relationships I’d had in the past. Somehow I missed the red flags and kept going out with him.