How I Was Able to Find Balance in My Brain and Heart By Listening to the Enemy
In the file cabinet in my head, I store a rather large file from my childhood stuffed full of crimes against my younger self by a trio of bullies. I never told my parents much about what happened to me at school or walking home in the afternoons. I never let on any more than what was necessary; just the facts: why my backpack was ripped, or why the pom-pom on my homemade hat was hanging off ragged and torn. I never felt it would do any good to tell them much detail anyway; that the girls said awful things about my morbidly obese mother and spread rumors around school; that they detested me for being smart, for being small, for having a boy’s haircut, for wearing glasses, for having homemade clothes, and for a hundred other things I didn’t understand.
I was a small, passive child and a complete and utter bookworm. I could never face my bullies in any retaliation kind of way. I’m still too much of a lover, not a fighter. It was always in my best interest to just find ways to avoid them at all costs. That’s the advice my parents gave me: “Just ignore them.” Or “Just walk away from them.” Well, if you did that in my school, you got snatched up and likely punched for “disrespecting” them.
I discovered the hard way that my avoidance of certain hallways or the shadowy corners of stairwells infuriated my bullies. They would find new places to catch me unawares around school or out of the teacher’s line of sight. I was pushed down a tall concrete staircase, landing bloody and winded at the bottom. I was routinely tripped, smacked, pushed, taunted, and laughed at. I had personal items stolen or ruined. They even concocted a story and lied to a teacher so that I would get sent to the principal’s office for saying they “smoked wacky weed”. Hell, I didn’t even know what “wacky weed” was at 11 years old.
I thought being bullied meant something was inherently wrong with me. Like, I was so pathetic that I made myself an easy target for bullies. I was so afraid of them that I wrote a letter to the head bully telling her how much I liked her name and wished we could be friends. I thought that if I was nicer to her maybe she wouldn’t pick on me. I mean, everyone needs kindness and friends, right? But, I was too scared to send the letter and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I didn’t want to be her friend, really. She and her pack mates were mean, violent, cruel and malicious. Worst of all they smiled sweetly when they hurt you.
I spent seven years under their reign of terror and another ten years distancing myself from those mean faced girls. At some point I lost track of them altogether as I transitioned to high school and then college, moving to a new town almost five hours away. They became a forgotten part of my childhood, neatly filed away for future reflection and therapy sessions.
Fast forward a few more years past college and I’m 23 years old, making tips waiting tables and living in a tiny apartment with my fiancé, Alex; a.k.a. broke but, happy. We had no health insurance and I ended up at the local free medical clinic in town. I have to admit, I loathed this place. It was a small office back then, so small in fact that you felt a little too intimate with every person standing in line. There was always a symphony of hacking coughs, sneezes and sniffles playing in the background. People stood in a line wrapped three times around the room with symptoms ranging from a toothache to strep throat and every communicable illness in between. Not a place you want to spend a few hours in close-quarters unless you really enjoy entertaining the bubonic plague.
As soon as I entered the office I knew that the wait line was at least two hours. The line moved about every fifteen minutes but, I was number thirty-six near the back of the line. After a half hour I was starting to question my purpose for being here, did I really need to see a doctor that badly? My feet were starting to hurt and I thought to myself, “I’ve had bronchitis before, I lived through it.” I was seriously thinking of stepping out of line when I heard a gasp from the woman in front of me.
“Gretchen? Are you Gretchen?” the woman asked.
“Um, yes?” I managed to squeak out as I looked at the woman turning towards me. Here before me stood the head bully in her early twenties, a grown woman like me, and of all the places for me to be today, I just had to be in the free medical clinic, stuck in line, behind my bully… seriously?? SERIOUSLY???
A wave of chills went down my back, my stomach clenched and it wasn't from being sick. I inwardly sighed and thought, “Well, I can’t walk away now, that would be awkward, and I can’t run and hide like I did as a kid so that won’t work.”
I felt cornered; I couldn’t run this time. I had to face my bully. But she couldn’t hurt me here, right? We’re in a public place and she wouldn’t still want to hurt me, would she? I was no longer a pushover. I had grown up stronger, more confident despite bullies but, seeing her face took me right back to the childhood playgrounds and the hallways and the stairwells of persecution.
I smiled at her and her eyes lit up and she grinned back. “Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe it. How long has it been? How have you been?” She was bright eyed, excited, gushing--like we were old friends catching up.
It was surreal.
All I could see at first was the frightening girl who used to take pleasure in seeing me cry. Then, she began to talk and talk and talk as if nothing had ever happened between us.
She asked if I was married. No, engaged. She told me she was dating some guy. Her last man was “no good”. Did I have any kids? I told her no. She had five, all from different fathers. She was struggling to make ends meet. She said that the men in her life either abused her or ran out on her. She didn’t graduate from high school but, she did get her GED. She wasn’t working and it was really hard with her kids’ schedules and the conversation continued in that vein.
I can’t remember a point when I wasn’t terrified of being so close to her. I was so tense that my lower back was screaming from standing so long in line. I was nauseous and felt lightheaded. I felt that icy panic from childhood slink down my spine. This wasn’t the moment to let my guard down. I stood paralyzed with fear as I tried to keep my knees from buckling. So caught up on regaling her past, I don't think she noticed.
Listening to her freely share all of her difficulties in life I soon realized that her life never got better after being a bully. In fact, those years of torturing me were probably the last years when she felt she had any control over her life, even if in a negative way. Each story she shared was sadder than the previous one. She had been abused for years by her alcoholic parents. Her dad left her mom. She had failed several grades in school leading to persecution by others. She had her first baby at 16 years old. She was on welfare and other government programs. She lived with whoever in her current life had a place to live. The longer I listened I felt my emotions shift from fear and anger to judgmental pity to heartfelt compassion.
This woman in front of me was a perfect example of a wounded child who had known very, very little kindness. People liked to use her up and spit her out. But, she just kept going. She never gave up on life. She was now dedicated to her kids. I just didn’t have the heart to throw all of the past ugliness in her face while we stood in line in a free medical clinic as she poured her heart out to me. It just didn’t seem right.
It's an interesting study of the self when it comes to how we react and respond to life. I had always thought that one day, when I was older, given the chance—I would confront my bullies. I thought I would be older, stronger, wiser, and that I would be more confident to tell them how awful they had made my childhood. Years ago, it seemed so very important to my young self--to have my day and my say.
I had waited for this opportunity, waited for the time when I could vindicate my younger self. So, you can imagine my surprise that when the time came, instead of telling her off, I felt my heart crack open in sympathy, in compassion. Somehow my heart and soul were shining through as if saying, "It's OK, you got this, she can't hurt you."
As she continued to talk to me, a small observer part of me observed, completely incredulous, that I wasn't imploding or exploding or vanishing into thin air just by being in close proximity to my bully. Instead, I heard a much sadder tale than mine that had been going on for her whole life. I also knew what she was saying was the truth; I felt it at my core. This was no woman telling tales of woe for sympathy or attention. She really had lived it, experienced it. She confided in me as if we had been long lost friends, sisters. Ironically, I was so at a loss for words to say to her that I was able to listen to her fully. I also heard the things she didn’t say and knew there was more pain inside her beneath it all.
Although it didn’t happen the way I had planned it in my head, the Universe lined up everything to present me with this opportunity to meet her again and learn what she had become. It was difficult to stand there in line and take in all the experiences that had created, formed and shaped my bully but in retrospect, I'm glad I stuck it out. I was surprised when I came to the realization, "I'm not going to confront her about bullying me for years." It was strangely disconcerting to have imagined this day of reckoning and know it wasn't going to happen in any way I had previously imagined. But somehow, that was okay too.
I am reminded again today, in recalling this time of my life, that sometimes, if at all possible, we need to find the strength and courage to refrain from reacting and just listen from that heart and soul centered place within us. Take a deep breath and another and pause. Although I thought I would have a lot to say to her, certain experiences don't need a running commentary or even need to be agreed with, they just need to be heard and acknowledged.
I know my bully situation is unique. I am not making a statement on the too-numerous-to-mention stories of bullying from around the world, and this isn’t a story of condoning bullying in the least. Rather, it a story of my experience and how I came to better understand how bullies are made by life experiences and the poor choices they make in life.
If you know children that are being bullied or would like to become an advocate, please go to: https://www.stopbullying.gov to learn more.
For more good information about the bullying of children with eyeglasses, please see this link: https://myvision.org/guides/bullying-from-glasses/
If you would like to learn how to attune with the beautiful inner place with yourself where your heart and soul connect, reduce your stress and achieve a deeper sense of calm, please send me an email for your FREE copy of my audio MyHeart Meditation Guided Visualization.
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