Taming My Frist Monster
My family lived in Dobbs Ferry, New York for the better part of my first 10 years of life. It was a good childhood filled with family vacations to Florida and the Adirondacks, chasing fireflies on warm summer nights, playing house in a mansion and knowing all the children in my neighborhood and school. It seemed like everyone knew everyone else. It was a community of children and parents who had known each other for years. My mom had grown up in this same town. My 4th grade teacher had been her Kindergarten teacher.
My friends were a tight group of girls. I still remember their names; Toni, Catie, Dale, Helen. Toni was from the downtown area, the Italian section of town. One of Catie’s parents was an editor of a magazine in the city. I still recall the gigantic (or so it seemed to a 10 year old) playroom in her house. It didn’t matter our differences. We attended each other’s birthday parties, chased boys on the playground and shared our deepest dreams for the future. These are the kinds of friendships that stay with us all our lives, even if we grow up and move on.
Shortly after I turned 10, my family had to move. My father lost his job and along with it our home which belonged to his employers. We moved to Peekskill, New York, to a neighborhood (several neighborhoods actually) of "cookie cutter houses". Back in a time when there was no such thing as email, and a telephone call beyond your immediate neighborhood cost "too much", the move was devastating to me. Keeping in touch with my old school friends had to be done through the mail. Checking the mail became the highlight of my day. In an unfamiliar world of strangers and suspicious glances, the arrival of a letter from someone who still cared about me was a like a shining light in total darkness.
My life also changed drastically because my grandmother now lived with us, and a year or so later, my half brother moved in and took over my room. For the first time in my life I had to share a room with my sister. At first I was okay with my brother moving in with us. I was very excited to have an older brother. I had visions of him taking my sister and I under his wing and protecting us from the mean spirited children who now seemed to permeate our lives. Those visions were quickly slashed away. My half brother turned out to be the monster my parents were always trying to protect us from, the monster they believed lived in places like the woods behind our house.
I had few friends in this new place, and the friends I had were not like the friends I had in my old neighborhood. We didn’t share our deepest dreams for the future. There were no birthday parties or chasing boys on the playground. Discovering the true nature of a person became complicated. Most of the children I knew wore masks and shielded themselves from the weaknesses that others preyed upon. I am shy by nature. I am the introvert that feels more comfortable sitting in the back of the classroom going unnoticed. In this new place I stood out like a wart on a witch’s nose just because I was fresh and untainted; new blood for the children who needed to pick on the weaknesses of others to make themselves feel better. I hated riding the bus. I hated my new school. I hated this new life.
One girl in my school took particular glee in bullying others. Her name was Donna. I remember her as clearly as I remember the boy I had a mad, secret crush on. These were the people of my dreams, my sweet torturous dreams and my nightmares. Donna stomped around the hallways, shoving, name calling and loudly declaring her territory everyday. The mere sight of her filled me with a dread that rivaled the dread I felt around my half brother. There was no escape for me. There were monsters in school and monsters in my home. I was only 12 and this was my life now.
One day, near the end of our stay in Peekskill, Donna came stomping down the hallway as usual. She had found a new game of knocking books and binders out of the hands of others. Something new inside me took hold. I still don’t know where it came from. Maybe all those months of living in fear and dread had raised a strength in me that had been lying dormant. I calmly walked up to Donna and knocked the books from her hand. They scattered across the hallway floor, but the sound of them landing was lost to the cheers from the crowd around us. In an instant I had become a hero. In an instant I had also become a target and a menace that Donna knew she had to deal with in order to keep her status, and I knew it too. A moment of pure bliss for me quickly turned into a whole new level of fear.
Donna carried on like a baby. She screamed at me to pick up her books and used threatening language and gestures to try to coax me into complying. But I had made my stand and the laughter and cheers around us helped me to stand my ground. A teacher quickly interceded and much to Donna’s dislike, made her clean up her own mess. The teacher had no interest in hearing the who’s and why’s, her only interest was in getting her class to settle down and move on with the day.
For days afterwards I avoided Donna as best I could. I didn’t go outside at recess. I stayed close to larger groups of friends (I was surprisingly very popular all of a sudden). I tried to seek the advice of my parents. They advised me, as always, to ignore the bully. They had been telling me since we moved to Peekskill that the only way to combat a bully successfully was to ignore them and they would grow bored with me and go away. I knew this was not something that would go away. Much as I craved the anonymity of the back of the classroom, I had successfully put myself directly in the spot light. I knew I couldn’t hide in the lunch room everyday for the rest of my life. I would have to somehow deal with this demon.
So after a couple of weeks, I finally found the courage to go outside after lunch one day. She was waiting for me. She followed me around the playground, trying to trip me, shoving me, stripping me of my books and throwing them in the garbage. My heart was pounding and I was trembling in fear, but I wouldn’t let her bully me into hitting back. Finally she backed me against a fence and grabbed me by the hair. We scuffled around trying to trip each other, pulling at each other’s hair. We had become surrounded by a crowd, the entire schoolyard, who were all yelling. I hardly heard them, I was trying desperately to not let her trip me. I knew if I fell, she would have all the control. It seemed like an eternity before teachers were pulling us apart. In reality the whole thing probably lasted less then 15 minutes.
Although it had been a ridiculous fight with no real tangible outcome, it brought a lot of change for me. I was suspended for the first (and only) time in my school years. My parents expressed deep disappointment in my “choice” to fight, and I felt deep disappointment that they didn’t seem to understand that there was no “choice” involved. My status in the school changed. I was no longer the strange girl sitting in the corner. The boy I had a mad crush on even took notice. My relationship with my nemesis changed. Donna became sickingly nice to me after that day. She seemed to want me to be her friend, which completely baffled me.
Donna was the first real bully I encountered in my life, but she certainly wasn’t the last. My experience with her taught me valuable lessons I never forgot. I learned that I had an inner strength. I learned that standing up for oneself, or even someone else, results in an incredible rush of confidence and self awareness. I learned that bullies had weaknesses too, and that gaining their respect simply involved displaying some courage. Hiding only intensified the threats and abuse while taking control of my own emotions and responses resulted in her desire to befriend me. Lessons learned, but it still took a long time for me to put them into good working practice.
We moved to New Hampshire shortly after this event in my young life. I found myself, once again, in a strange place with strangers and suspicious glances, new boys to fall secretly in love with and new bullies who complicated my life. I am in my 40’s now, and I still have to contend with bullies on occasion, like the man who jumped out of his car at a stop light one day and started to come after me, or the person in my work place who used size and intimidation to get his way with my fellow co-workers. The lessons I learned at 12 have served me well over the years, but I am still learning how to put them into perfect practice. Perhaps I never will. We simply do the best we can and hope we can keep the bullies from tripping us up.
