Nothing is harder than watching our children struggle as we have.
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…