by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2013 | Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Teen Bullying |
Why is it always us?
I’ve noticed that we’re the one’s who are targeted by bullies. The tall people like me, the short people, the people who are unique. Anyone who stands out.
Why us?
Why anyone? We are unique: tall, short, neat, unusual; people live in the world like everyone else. So why do we get bullied? We are the ones that get bullied.
But, we always get back up. I want to see change – at my school, for myself, and close friends, I’m tired and I’m taking a stand. I’m changing this.
Wish me luck!
by Band Back Together | Aug 23, 2013 | Anxiety, Childhood Bullying, Depression, Fear, How To Heal From Being Bullied, How To Help With Low Self-Esteem, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem, Shame, Trauma |
This is her story and her wish for her son:
I can feel the panic rising in my throat like bile.
We are at the pool and my son is showing off for a group of boys; trying desperately to be noticed and loved. This brings it all back: being the social outcast from grade three on up. The teasing, the ignoring, the bullying the tears. Hours of wishing I could belong.
My only recourse was to NOT belong: if they thought I was freak; then I would be a freak.
He is two. Only two. Is the need to belong so deep inside our biology that it begins so early? Tears are in my eyes even now, as I think of it.
Please don’t let him be like me. Please let him be okay. Please don’t let him go through what I did.
It’s not about being popular; it’s about being okay. I don’t want him to go through what I did. On the other hand, I sure as hell don’t want him on the other extreme; the type of person who made my school years hell.
I see him striving for attention, to be noticed, to be loved. Already. At two.
Please, please don’t let him be like me…
by Band Back Together | Jul 29, 2013 | Childhood Bullying, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Rape/Sexual Assault, Teen Bullying, Teen Heartbreak, Teen Rape, Teen Sexuality |
Anyone who claims the teen years are the “best of your life” is lying.
This is his struggle:
I was born in 1998, and until fourth grade, I was the big kid everyone knew and liked; I was popular and well-respected. No one bullied me. That all changed in fifth grade when I moved to Arlington, WA and started over at a new school.
My first – and worst – mistake was mistaking a jackwagon of a “friend” (who’s not much of one now) for a girl I liked.
You see where this is going – I was called “gay” and “bisexual” until the end of seventh grade when people forgot about it.
In the summer before eighth grade, I had my first real girlfriend. Over that summer, she sexually abused me, and I was traumatized.
After I ended it with her, I was scared of girls, until I met my previous girlfriend whom I dated for seven months. She was too scared to tell me when I was doing something that made her uncomfortable, so she left me. She broke my heart when she told that I made her feel like a “slut.”
It killed me to hear that.
After that, I screwed up, continued texting her, tried to be around her. That was a colossally bad idea. Things got so much worse.
People who’d been my friends turned on me because I’d hurt her, even though I wasn’t aware I’d been hurting her. Only few people tried to comfort me, trying to help my broken heart.
One day after a long track practice, I was finally getting over her, and a few buddies were fooling around, relaxing and telling stories. We were chatting about cars, girls, and fishing and I brought up some stupid (yet true) things about my ex-girlfriend. One of those guys told her.
After a month, I texted her, asking who’d told her what I’d said. She confirmed it was one of the guys from my track team. I lost control and punched him in the mouth – not because he’d told her, but because he’d lied to me; telling me he hadn’t told her.
Her parents showed up at a fourth of July parade and stopped to pet my dog. I looked in her Mom’s eyes and shook her Dad’s hand. My ex hid her face behind her hair.
I learned that her new boyfriend is one of my most trusted (well, WAS trusted) and close friends. I have ADD, an unusual form of OCD, which means that it’s far harder for me to get over things. Something a normal person forgets about in, say a week, takes me months. Since what I’m trying to get over is heartbreak, it takes more than months to work through.
I was sentenced to eight hours of community service for juvenile assault. I’m finding ways to express myself – music, friends, and cars.
I’m now helping a friend who was sexually abused get back on her feet, and spending more time with my girlfriend. Wish me (and my friend) luck, The Band!
Thanks for reading, The Band.
Do you have any advice for me?
by Band Back Together | Dec 4, 2010 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, Fibromyalgia, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Parenting, Rheumatoid Arthritis |
A couple of weeks ago, we finally got an official diagnosis for Alana, one of my twins. The doctor confirmed our suspicions. She definitely has Asperger Syndrome. According to the doctor, there are changes in the works in the medical community to eliminate the separation between Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism by referring to them all as Autism Spectrum Disorders. That’s just a dressed-up way of saying our family has yet another mountain to climb.
I guess the formal diagnosis shouldn’t really change much in our lives. We’ve suspected for several months and we’ve already taken steps to try to help her. We’ve eliminated red dye from her diet, learned to remove her from situations at the first sign of sensory overload, and tried different coping methods to work through the inevitable meltdowns.
But somehow, having the words written that will forever label her…well, it does change things.
Last night, I went through my nightly routine of teeth-brushing and face-washing, and then I checked on the kids. They are five and two, and I still can’t go to sleep without checking on them, making sure they’re breathing, and saying a little prayer over each of them.
I got to Alana’s bed last. I sat there on the edge to watch her sleep for a minute and give her a kiss. As I looked at her, the reality of her diagnosis hit me.
Sure, we expected it. And just like I do with my health issues (RA and Fibro), I’m constantly doing research, trying to find tips and tricks for handling this. I’ve thrown myself completely into figuring out what’s going on in her brilliant mind and helping her through her struggles. But I don’t think I’ve let my heart in on the process. And last night it learned what was happening and screamed in protest.
“THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE FOR HER!”
She’s not supposed to have to struggle to make friends. She’s not supposed to get so anxious over a picture she’s drawing that she starts crying because she messed up and thinks other people won’t like it. She’s not supposed to have a compulsion that makes her chew the skin on her fingers until they bleed. This should NOT be happening to my child!
There are so many things that are much worse than ASD. I know that and I thank God every day for the health of all my children. But I think every parent can understand that I had a vision of how things are supposed to turn out for my kids. They’re all going to grow up and have plenty of friends, go to college, have a great career, get married to their soul mates, have beautiful healthy babies, etc. And while I know that they will ultimately forge their own destinies, I guess the common thread in what is supposed to happen is an absence of pain.
Pain is part of life.
There’s no question about that. As much as we want to protect our children from it, it’s going to happen. Our job is to be there and help them through it. And while I watched her sleep, I realized that she’s likely to be dealt much more than her fair share of pain. There seems to be new stories every day about children with autism being abused or bullied. The last few months that Alana was in daycare proved that it starts early. The four-year olds didn’t understand her anxiety and meltdowns so they would pick on her about it. It brought me to tears.
As much as I worry about her in social situations as she grows up, I am constantly amazed at the gift that Asperger Syndrome has given her. We always knew she was very smart. As I home-school her, though, I’m seeing evidence every day of just how different Alana is by comparison.
For instance, a few weeks ago, she got her Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten Level 1 book and started reading it to me. She sat for an hour and a half straight going through the last seven lessons in the book. No DVDs, just her. I feel like I’m not even needed now when we work on reading. We’ve completed one-quarter of Kindergarten and she’s reading every one syllable word she comes across.
Beyond scholastics, she understands things on a deeper level than even I do sometimes. Since our last appointment with her doctor, she and I have talked a little bit about what makes her “different” than most other kids. I told her that the symbol for Autism is a puzzle piece because we still don’t know much about it and we’re trying to fit the pieces together.
A few days later, she brought me a piece of paper with a few colored pieces glued on randomly. She said, “Mommy, this is your puzzle. Every day when we figure out something else about me you can glue on another piece until we have it all put together.” Just one of the many things that surprise me coming from a five-year old.
I admit, I had a rather weak moment last night, sitting there on Alana’s bed.
I try hard to be positive and look for the bright points. But sometimes the worry, the pain, the fear all break through and dark clouds roll in. Then, Alexis giggles while she wrinkles her cute little nose, or Avery tells a 2-year old version of a knock-knock joke, or Alana says something really profound.
Then the light comes back, reminding me of just how blessed I am and how much I have to be thankful for.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, Gender Nonconformity, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Intersexed, Transgender |
Get out! You’re a girl!”
The shout rang out from the men’s room in the Chicago airport, and I heard it all the way in the women’s room next door. My husband had taken our son, Sam, who is seven, to the bathroom between flights. It was not the first time I’d heard such a shout. I ran out with my daughter to find out what was happening to Sam.
Sam looks like a girl. Even that day—wearing khaki pants, a blue t-shirt, and grey sneakers—his long hair and pretty face trumped his boyish clothes. People inevitably think he’s a tomboy. His natural femininity makes boys in restrooms across America feel justified in screaming at him, believing that their knowledge of his gender is greater than his own, lunging, as one boy did at a New York airport, ready to strike until my husband stepped in. Kids in his own California elementary school tell him he’s in the wrong bathroom, ask him if he’s lost or stupid, and, if he stands up for himself and says he really is a boy, tell him to drop his pants and prove it.
A few years ago I read an article by New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown. Brown wrote about adult transgender and gender-nonconforming people who face discrimination when they try to use gendered public bathrooms. I had no idea that it would one day be relevant for my own child
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2010 | Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, Gay Is Okay, Gender Nonconformity, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Teen Bullying, Transgender |
This post originally appeared on my blog on October 17, 2010
A while back, I was Facebook-friended by someone with whom I’d gone to elementary school, a woman I hadn’t seen in 15 years. In that same week, I was friended by another schoolmate, a man I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I’ll call these two people, who are not Facebook friends with each other, Leia and Mork.
I was happy to be back in touch with Leia and Mork. Leia and I, and Mork and I, in separate sets of messages, chatted in the way that long-lost friends do, telling each other where we live, how many kids we have, what we do for work. We exchanged several messages. A few messages in, both Mork and Leia asked me what sort of writing I did. And so I told them, as simply as I could: I write, under a pen name, about my son, who likes to wear a dress.
And you know what? Both Leia and Mork never wrote back.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe the conversations just dropped off in the way conversations eventually do, and it just happened to be after I dropped the pink-bomb on each of them. Maybe they both got busy, sick, or their computers went on the fritz.
Or maybe they got freaked out.
Because people sometimes do.
I notice that the tomboy in Sam’s grade who plays on the boys’ soccer team is cool and socially in demand, while Sam doesn’t get invited to many birthday parties. Sometimes people look at us strangely when we disclose that Sam, the long-haired kid they’ve taken for a girl, is a boy. Sam’s school administration can talk eloquently about diversity and acceptance up and down, except when it comes to gender, when they get all panicky and quiet.
I make it my business to talk to as many people as I can about Sam (while being careful of his privacy and his safety), to make gender nonconformity something that gets talked about, not something swept under the rug. Because when we hide something, we make it shameful. So I open my mouth, maybe even more than I should, and occasionally I lose an audience member or two, like Leia and Mork.
But maybe the next time they hear about someone’s son who wears a dress, they’ll remember that the woman they kind of liked back in elementary school mentioned something about her son wearing a dress, and maybe that will make it a little bit more OK.
