Confession is Good for the Soul, Part I

Once in awhile I’ve given you, my readers, my lovely lurkers, a brief glimpse into my soul. It can be a scary place. I know, I still find myself hiding under the covers to escape it. A few, close friends, have a fair idea of what went into the construction of that dark, spooky place in my head. My mother knows the whole story, my father knew part of it. My brothers probably guessed at it, but I’ve never talked to them about it. At our age and the distance between us in miles, we prefer to keep our phone conversations light. Digging about in the trash of the past isn’t too pleasant. I’ve also been afraid for a very long time of what my brothers would think of me if they knew everything. I wonder, too, would they really have the patience to hear it all?

More than once I’ve thought about opening that distant chapter and dissecting it here upon the virtual pages of my blog. I’ve chickened out a lot because that’s a hard place to visit. Two years ago, just when I thought I was ready, an email came to me from someone who was looking for people she’d known in grade school. It seems she was a reformed alcoholic who was tracking down and apologizing to everyone she’d ever hurt. That’s one of those AA 12-steps and quite frankly I believe it to be one that needs to be scratched out. Some people in your alcohol soaked past don’t want to hear from you because they’re still hurting. She wanted my forgiveness and my friendship.

I fell apart as soon as I read her name in the first sentence. I couldn’t finish the letter. I began to shake, to cry and ran into a corner of my bedroom until my husband could coax me out. His day had begun so nicely, the last thing he needed to deal with was my hysterics. Most people that I mentioned this email to later on did not understand what had gone through me. Their response was to tell me, “just delete it, no big deal”. Of course, I did just that, later. But, the damage had been done.

What had I felt when that email opened? When I saw her name? I felt like I had fallen through time back to the first day of school, 5th grade. I heard the sounds of kids voices, laughter echoing in the hallways, the bells ringing. I could smell the odor of the new carpets and the plastic-y waft of the prefab walls that surrounded our classrooms. I could hear the birds outside and smell Fall in the air. I was swinging my brand new white patent leather purse with the twisted gold chain…

I was bullied in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades. That woman that emailed was the leader of a clique of thirteen kids, almost all girls except for one boy. It was daily mental torture. I cannot begin to outline the many ways these kids, with that one girl in the lead, found to make my life hell. There was even one girl, a nearby neighbor, whom I thought was a friend, but she was a little two-faced devil who fed the clique secrets I confided in her.

Well meaning teachers, who truly had no clue as to what was going on, interfered and talked to the parents of the clique children. What was mere torture became vicious. I’m rather glad there was no such thing as the internet or my humiliation at their hands would have stretched around the world. There were many days when I’d get home late because I’d have to find new ways to make my way home in order to avoid their ambushes. Maybe I’m lucky they never beat me up, they enjoyed their mind games much more.

I couldn’t talk to anyone because their ham-fisted help only made things worse. To this day when I hear in the news about bullied victims turning on their fellows, I ask myself, do adults have any real conception of what their children are capable of? Good and bad means nothing. Sweet children on the surface can turn mean at the drop of a hat. Put them with others and they need a victim to feed on. The one bullied either must survive or break.

Those thirteen kids have grown up now. They have jobs and kids of their own. Their memories of that time are not the same as mine. So, one of them had regrets? Do I give a damn? No. I’m 45 years old and still trying to cope with life and recover from those years. Those children, believed to be such sweet, “boisterous” youngsters by their parents, stole a part of me. I have no forgiveness for them and I do not ever want to hear their apologies or regrets. I chose to delete that email and never replied.