On meeting my old ghosts

Today's post will be about bullying. Partly because there was an article in the papers last week about a kid who killed himself because of bullying. The article affected me so greatly that for a minute I actually had flashbacks. Not really something I like to happen at work. But I think the main reason is because, and I'm not kidding you, during the past week I've come face to face with not one but TWO of my old bullies. Several things have contributed to my problems with self harm but bullying is one of the main things. You name it, they did it to me. As usual I have altered the names.

I was picked on from pre-school and all the way through high school. I think the fact that I was new in class, had rebut I have to admit that the years between third and sixth grade were the worst.  Practically all my classmates joined in the bullying, from peer pressure I guess. As I said in the beginning of the post, I met two of them last week.

The first one, let's call her Annie, happened to get on the same train as me when I went to the folk highschool reunion last Saturday. Generally I try to aviod my old classmates and I hadn't seen Annie for a few years so at first I wasn't sure it was her. But then I caught her staring at me and pretending not to whenever I looked up and when we were about to leave the train she made a great show of heading for another exit. And yes, we were the only two at that specific exit. Ironically, we headed for the same bus as well. I don't really have any feelings of animosity or hatred against her, she never joined in actively when it came to the physical abuse and the few times I met her without the rest of the gang she was OK, but it still felt slightly unnerving seeing her again. Part of me kind of hoped that she was going to apologize but no such luck.

Emma, on the other hand, was the leader of the wolfpack as I like to refer to them. I was on the bus home, and suddenly there she was right beside me. Not fun. I hadn't seen her since I was thirteen but some people you just never forget. Hell, I still have nightmares occasionally. I think my reaction would have been less severe if I hadn't been to therapy an hour prior to seeing her. To my credit, my only outward reaction was that I started to breathe slightly faster but no one reacted to that since the bus was overly crowded. In reality I was fighting against memories, such as a strangling episode and being told every day that everyone would be better off if I were dead. Every single part of my brain was shouting "Run!" and as always when I feel threatened, my scars started to itch. It's psychosomatic. And had the bus been less crowded I would definitely stepped off earlier. Since that was not an option I used a technique I learned from one of my therapists. I think of something I like, for example my dog, and then make a list of things I know or like about her while concentrating on my breathing. It worked partly. I still wanted to disappear, but my breathing slowed to near normal and I was able to get off at my stop in an orderly fashion. instead of just elbowing my way out.

All the comments, taunting, punches ( both physical and psychological ) that I had to endure over the years have definitely left a dent, and I don't know if I will ever to be able to put it behind me completely. But I do know that I am a much stronger person than either Annie or Emma or any of them..

Good evening!

Since I had to cancel my dressage training this week I decided to go for some aqua exercising instead. It's one of the few forms of exercise I can do without throwing my back out completely. That and regular swimming.

I'm fortunate in the sense that my scars are relatively faded and eight times out of ten nobody bothers me. On the occasions that people do comment and stare I'm nowadays strong enough not to let it get to me. A few years back ( I think i've written about it in another post ) I stopped going to the gym because two women kept staring at me and later asked me to leave. 

Anyway, today there were some kids playing in the pool just before the session was about to start. One of the participants told them to leave but since one of them didn't speak Swedish I translated, telling him that he was welcome back in an hours time. While I was talking to the boy, I noticed how the participant kept looking at me. "Here we go", I thought and sure enough, the kid had no sooner left the pool before she  told me that she thought I was disrespectful for letting my scars show, that I should be more considerate to others. 

What really got to me wasn't the comments in themselves, I'm used to dealing with that. No, what got to me was the fact that not even a year ago, she dropped the exact same comment! I know that I never should have started self harming, but unless someone invents a time machine there's nothing I can do to change the fact. Last time I got so angry at her that I was actually thinking about leaving. This time I looked her straight in the eye and told her that we had already had this discussion once before. I also told her that no matter what she thought I have to same right as her to be there and that she was the one being disrespectful. 

For me, this is a great step forward. Who knows, soon I might even be able to apply for a new membership at the gym.