My Experience with Bullying (Katie)

Trigger Warning: Bullying, School Violence

I had never even met these kids before. One of them came up to me while I was at my locker and just said “Whatchu been sayin’ about my mama?” I had no idea what he was talking about – I’d never even seen him to my recollection. So I basically ignored him and went back to dealing with my locker.

Walking home that day with my sister and cousin who both attended the same middle high school – I was in 8th grade and they were in 7th – I saw the kid from the locker and two of his best cronies. When we walked closer to them – we had to go past them to get home – they stepped out in front of me. With no more warning than that, they started swinging.

Quickly, I was on the ground, being kicked anywhere that was vulnerable, mostly my back and legs as I quickly assumed the armadillo position, and the next thing I know one of them stomped on my head. I was dizzy, and don’t exactly know how long things lasted, but it seemed to be over fairly quickly. My sister was screaming, and the people whose house we were in front of came running out, more than one very large shirtless white guy who seemed to be hanging out there.

My knights in shining armor – or skin, as one might have it – quickly chased them off. I think they were primed to beat these kids in a much more fair fight, and suddenly the little bastards wanted no part of it. They took off running for home, and there was clearly not much left to do except pick up the pieces (primarily of me).

What these kids hadn’t counted on was my dad. We went to school the next day despite having a fair chance at having a concussion, and went to the principal’s office. The principal there actually said to my dad “What do you want me to do? Kids will be kids.” When my dad started mentioning the fact that there were a lot of Mexicans out there who could pass for students and needed $100, suddenly the principal was very concerned for my welfare and immediately contacted the police to have these little bastards walked out in cuffs.

A plainclothes officer walked me to the ringleader’s lunch period and told me to just point him out, I didn’t even need to be seen. I walked right up to the bastard and jabbed my finger in his chest saying “This is the shithead.” Right there in the middle of the cafeteria, he was put in cuffs and led out of the building.

Sadly, my confidence was severely overstated in the criminal justice system – they got slaps on the wrist, and only the lead kid got any charge. I was disappointed, but I think it was also the first time I was really scared of school. I knew from Kindergarten that school wasn’t always super safe. On the balance beam in gym when I was first in school, one of the kids just turned around and pushed me off the beam. I got back up and punched him in the chest (insofar as kindergarten kids can do) and knocked him on his back. He left me alone after that, and it was just a simple kids thing.

I got harassed throughout school, name calling, shoving, and all that stuff. Basically, the normal kids’ stuff. Third grade was when I came to know I was truly an outsider, when I was, for some reason, put into a Catholic school, and I hated every minute of it. Not only did I have other kids picking on me, but my teacher actively disliked me, picking on me and taunting me in front of the rest of the class. I was miserable.

Things were so bad, that I’d literally do anything to stay out of the class and be kept away from the kids. I once faked sudden blindness just to try to get out of class. Naturally, the nurse saw right through it, but still, the school was in an “uproar” over it. They called my Dad here in NY (I was then in the mid west), saying they “didn’t know what to do with me” and how I was terrible and this and that. My Dad told them (though I didn’t find this out until years later), “Of course they’re doing all this! They hate you! You don’t protect them or do anything for them.”

Eventually it came to the point that when we came in on the bus in the morning, I couldn’t even sit with the other kids in the gym. I had to actually go sit in my classroom by myself and wait for the teacher to come with the rest of the class because there were too many people bothering me when I was in the gym. The small upside to this was that I knew where the stash of candy bars was that he kept when doing trivia games with the class (which I never actually got called on for, I would add). At least there was a small upside.

On the occasion that I was actually thrown out of class for little or no reason, the fourth grade teacher next door made a point out of bringing me into her class. I never really figured out why, but she really liked me, and when she’d bring me in and her class would start bothering me, she’d stop them and keep me protected. She had me participating in her class and recognized that all I really needed was some individual attention and inclusion. I was learning more when I was being “punished” than I was in every day classes with my “teacher.”

Bullying was a constant theme in my life. While I was never a thoroughly innocent child – I picked on my cousins and my sister, but in the same sorts of ways that most siblings fight with each other. Most of that really ended when I was 13 or 14 as I grew up. But my family used to describe me as “a very affectionate boy” or “a very sweet boy.” I was like a cat who has its food bowl left full all day anyway, and the moment it runs empty they are STARVING and DYING OF HUNGER. I craved affection and attention, and loved to do all sorts of sweet things for my family just because.

Life, it seems, had other plans for me. Suffering through middle school and subsequently, the first three years of high school had forged me into a bitter and hardened person. Privately, I felt terrible for the events at Columbine and other school shootings, but in a way, I was relieved. I got left alone for a few months lest I go on some shooting spree too – people were afraid of me for a change, and it got me some time to breathe.

As I went through high school, I began to watch Star Trek avidly, Voyager specifically, and came to idolize the Vulcans and the Borg for their ability to be completely devoid of emotion. Like the Vulcans, deep down, I still burned very hotly, but I managed to stuff all of that emotion deep inside and lock it away where it belonged. I came to disregard the emotional responses to things, and largely contained all emotion.

Today, I still struggle with the nature of the lockbox I’d built for myself. I have long since opened the door – September 11th knocked the door clean off its hinges, and the death of my best friend last year shattered whatever remained, and things just sort of spill out on their own at all the right and wrong moments. But that temptation to rebuild that, to hide my feelings away deep inside of myself, that’s still there. Against Me!’s “Because of the Shame” says everything for me:

“Because of the shame I associate with vulnerability, I am numbing myself completely. Can you hear me right now?”

I’ve been diagnosed as clinically depressed for about two years now. If I were to speak to a psychiatrist, honestly, from my high school self, however, I’m sure you’d be likely to find that depression was there in spades then, too. It doesn’t help being a New Yorker and a rather conspicuously tall trans woman, admittedly, but there’s also a fair amount of paranoia and a sense of being watched or stared at.

Beyond a certain point, bullying simply is not just a “normal part of growing up.” It can radically alter the course of someone’s life, or, even end it. Sure, kids can be mean, and they’ll call each other names, and fights happen from time to time. We will never completely erase this from happening in schools. What can be done, however, is to work to show kids what their behavior does to others, and hopefully, some of them will learn, and things might begin to change.

For me, I’m just working on finding that sweet and loving child again, and hoping that they’re not completely gone.