Hi, I'm Macs, and I was bullied as a child, starting from the age of 8 all the way to 14, with the worst of it being when I was 10 till 13. I'm here to tell you that it does get better - until it doesn't.
It's not that I don't want you to have hope, because that's not the case at all. I do, however, want you to get through the experience with a realistic idea of what might happen to you for the rest of your life as a result of being bullied.
The experience will leave you traumatised to varying degrees, and although you probably know this, you might not know what I'm about to tell you: the trauma will come back to you one way or another, at any point in time, whether you're happy or sad, because there will be things that trigger it.
Speaking from my own experience, here's the damage list.
Depression
To date, I've had several episodes of this mental nasty since I was 10. Bullying can cause depression, as most of us well know, but did you know that experiencing depression at a young age can make you prone to it for the rest of your life? I didn't.
Being the Queen of Hiding Shit So Others Won't Worry, my family never cottoned on until I had got over each episode. Until my final year of my undergraduate degree, that is - because I finally realised what was going on and went to a doctor for help ('cos, you know, I'm smart like that). I was days away from becoming a vegetable and on the verge of being unable to do the basic things we need to survive - like eat, sleep, shower, communicate, and move. I was living in Hell and couldn't do anything about it 99% of the time, until one day I was lucid enough to freak the fuck out and drive my ass to a doctor. The problems this beauty of a beast aren't simply health-related, oh heck no. They are:
- Financial, because psychiatrists don't reduce their fees just because you only need a prescription for a lower dose, and antidepressants are a monthly expense;
- Social, because you can no longer drink alcohol - and while I'm fine with that and perfectly happy without it, people I have to spend time with in alcohol-related situations (weddings, family gatherings, gigs, clubs, parties, bbqs, and anything adults use as an excuse to open a bottle of wine or down a 6-pack of beer) find it a downer - until you explain that you're on medication and mixing alcohol with your meds will be a very, very bad idea, which is when...
- ... people find out you're on antidepressants and have one of three reactions: 'OH I SEE! NO, you're not allowed to drink alcohol, and anyway you don't need it' [the rarest reaction and most appreciated], 'You don't need pills/I don't believe in pills' [go FUCK YOURSELVES, you insensitive and ignorant retards, because you know exactly JACK SHIT about the situation and the benefits of antidepressants versus being a useless meatsack], and lastly 'Oh come on, a little won't hurt/So much the better, you'll have SUCH a buzz!' [ oh, the inanity. Seriously. I have. No words. INANE!]
- Stigma: there's a taboo on mental illness and all treatments of it, along with emotional distress and its treatments too. Some of you will stop reading my blog, because I'm supposedly crazy [I prefer 'certifiably sad', thank you] and omigosh crazy people are scary! [ -_- ... Inanity!] Some of you will look at me differently - I can just imagine... 'She's such a liar, she's always so happy, she couldn't possibly be depressed!' [*head-desk* I'm cured, and it's a hormone imbalance, not a character flaw]... and 'Wow, I had no idea. She must be so sad, poor girl, what if she's suicidal? Omigod!' [Whoopdeedoo, no, no, and no, in that order]
- Self-doubt: when you're undergoing treatment, or you're fine, and you feel sad, you find yourself saying 'Am I depressed again?', and 'There I go again being sad' and 'Can't I catch a break?'
- Future health: I could relapse when severely stressed, I get the blues when I don't see sun for a week which makes Winter a potential enemy, and I'm a prime candidate for baby blues both during pregnancy and after.
- Offspring health: depression can be hereditary, and in my case it is, from both parents. This doesn't mean I was bound to get depressed at some point, this means I'm more prone to it than other people. And so will my children be, if I have any. There's also the terrifying thought that since depression can involve suicidal thoughts, I could be suicidal while pregnant and harm my unborn darling, or suicidal after said darling is born and leave s/he an orphan.
Moving on...
Trust Issues
People you thought were your friends or at the very least, not people who would harm you, turned on you as a child, broke your heart repeatedly, destroyed your self esteem, made every potential friend afraid to befriend you for fear of receiving the same treatment, thus effectively turning you into a pariah, and did their very best to trample you into non-existence [in my case, without using physical contact at all]. How do you go about trusting people ever again?
Well, you don't, not really. My paranoia was so honed by the time I turned 12 that anyone who so much as glanced at me was thinking that I was weird and sneering at me. Never mind that they were looking through me because they were staring into space and caught up in their own problems, or that there was someone behind me they were looking at, nope, they were looking at me, and thinking bad thoughts, the bastards. I'm delighted to say that I got this mental goblin under control some years ago, so nowadays instead of thinking everyone thinks I'm pathetic, I just automatically assume that they'd backstab me, use me, or forget I exist in a heartbeat.
A Seriously Warped Self-Esteem
When people pick on you daily, call you names, say hurtful things, exclude you, and only include you to use you as a target for humiliating games, you know that you feel like shit because they think you are shit. You know that when you leave those people behind and make friends, finally, somewhere else, you'll feel fine or great, because there won't be anyone to think you're shit. Except yourself, really. How long can you listen to people say you are something until you believe it? A week? A few months? A year? Regardless, the changes are you will eventually believe what they say, and become your own worst enemy. Second-guessing every decision you take will become the norm, and you'll be able to nod knowingly at the phrase 'you are your own worst critic'.
The only way to deal with this is to acknowledge why you criticise yourself and learn to see what's really there. The drawback to this is that you develop a dual commentary: 'I look pretty today/Ugh, I look lame, why do I even bother?', 'Wow that was a tough assignment, so glad I finally finished it/If I weren't such a lazy retard I'd have done that in a quarter of the time'. All I can say is ignore the negative voice, or use the positive one to argue it into shutting up. It may seem like you have 2 people inside your head until you succeed, you may get headaches from the effort, but it does work eventually. And on the other bright side, it teaches you to argue like a boss.
So, does it get better? Yes, of course. You'll leave those useless meatsacks behind and grow into the person you're meant to be. But you will be set for life with the kind of baggage that will sabotage you if you don't do your best to kick it down the stairs and out the door. It's doable; it's a never-ending battle, but it's doable.
I took 7 years of people saying I was different in a bad way, I was weird, I was crazy, I was a freak. At 14 I tackled the 'weird' and 'different' and 'crazy' parts by saying to myself 'They want weird? I'll show them weird'. And that worked so well that they backed off. I wrote an angry suicide note on my desk one day, and discovered 3 of my tormentors pouring over it during break. They had the gall to ask if it was directed at them. I shrugged and said 'if you've done anything of what's written there, then yes'. They never did anything to me again. The reality is that after years of being miserable, I stopped being miserable and got angry, and channelled that anger to do what I wanted to do, and it worked. Not so for everyone. Look at Columbine, and all the other school shootings in the US. If I had been there instead of in Malta, and suffered in the same way as I did here, I would have made the headlines. Rage and hate can take you to the ugliest places of your being, and you'll be lucky to see them and turn your back on them. I did, because all along I knew I was better than that.
As long as I live, I swear I will not forget that I did that for myself. Me. What those bitches did to me for 7 years, effectively ruining my childhood, and fucking with my mental health for the rest of my life, was still not enough to break me. And just in case you're reading this, you pathetic excuses for humans that you are, you lost, I won. Suck it and drop dead.
Sincerely,
Macs
