January 25, 2008
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wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now
my great aunt died last night while my mom and I were watching Sweeney Todd. I feel vaguely guilty that we were peering through our fingers at spurting jugulars when Aunt Kibby drew her last breath. she was horribly ill, ostioporosis ate away her spine and her shoulder, so it really was a kindness– death, that is.
the power went out just after I started this. it’s only three houses. sigh. the p.u.d. says it should be back on in a half hour or so. one of the houses belongs to one of their linemen. the other house belongs to a detective for the sheriff’s office. not that it matters.
my daughter is feeling sick. she’s on the sofa with the barf bucket next to her. sigh.
the power’s back on. whew.
when I was a kid my dad used to spank me with a wooden yardstick. if I didn’t cry he would spank harder. if I cried too much or too soon he would say, “I’ll give you something to cry about.” once he broke the yardstick on me.
when I was nine I moved to a new school and for three months or so I was the class pariah. they bullied me incessantly and the teacher treated me like a moron. I faked sick so many times that I was sent to school with aspergum (gum that releases aspirin, I don’t suppose that they have that anymore) and was told to buck up.
as the result of these two things I internalized a way of relating to the rest of humanity: you must be extremely vigilant about analyzing your environment and carefully tailor all your outward affect and action in order to manipulate the reactions of everyone. or what? they’d extinguish me. I also learned (not that it’s necessarily true) that people are either bullies, fearful of bullies, or indifferent. eventually I learned to value true kindness and loyalty, not that there’s a lot of it out there. still there is some.
I learned to people please but not because I care what they think about me. I assume they’ll think bad things about me if it’s what they want to think. I just want to keep them from trying to actively hurt me. it’s survival not vanity. I like myself. I think well enough of myself, well enough to protect myself.
when my children cry sometimes it irritates me. I have to try so very hard to temper my natural, conditioned reactions with compassion. it makes me very sad when I feel I identify with my own former oppressors by reacting that way. no matter how happy I am, I find that sadness is not far away. I’d like to recover to the point where that’s not true, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen given my genuine temperament. I try to be okay with that.
Comments (6)
wow…i’m with you. as a young gay child..{i knew i was gay at 6} i am all too familiar with coping strategies to fend off bullies. it does leave an imprint. i totally identify with your statement that many people want to actively hurt you. rip matthew shepherd.
It’s amazing to me that similar circumstances (my parents use a belt; I was 12 when we moved but I can still remember the names of the people that mocked me) can create such different reactions in different people.
My dad got me with the belt on my bare behind until I was 17. The worst part was when he’d miss and get my back. When I was 14 I was hollaring so much it made my mom laugh. After that I swore I’d never scream again. I didn’t.
When I was 7 a boy and his friends picked on me every day and nothing was done about it (they even pushed me around-literally-at a classmate’s halloween party with all our parents in the house) . They would show off for the girls they liked by picking on me and pushing me down, punching me, hitting me…one day he had grabbed me from behind in a bear hug and wouldn’t let go…I panicked, bit him, drew blood and he never bothered me again except to call me “Little Vampire”-but he never touched me again. I will never forget that bastard’s name, and I will forever cherish the part where he had to get rabies and tetanus shots!!!!!!
Middle school girls were much meaner and I couldn’t bite them…
-M
I completely empathise with you. I was a bullied child, much beaten by my parents (and worse) and when my son cried I used to be irritated too. Surprising that the short childhood years cannot be shaken off by the many years and experiences that follow.
I am being bullied right now hence the appearing/disappearing posts that were messages (it was the only means of communication) back and forth the police station. However, normal service has been resumed
We are such soul mates, eweandi.
I feel you.
I totally empathised with your last paragraph and was filled with a weird sadness when I further scrolled to see my-absolute-favourite-book…. when I was 5. I’d forgotten about that one.