This might be a rehashing of something I've already written about but I've been thinking a lot about bullying and forms of emotional and social abuse on children. I'm trying to dissect my own experience as I try to better understand why it happens, how to stop it and how some children seem to be either resilient or deflect and nullify it as it's occuring and others don't.
Back story. My relatives are heretics: they adhere to pre-Vatican two Catholic dogma. Though this hasn't been confirmed directly, I assume my (paternal) grandparents insisted I went to a Catholic school. Since my mother was/is a progressive Catholic and was very early on turned off by the severity of their stance (they told her she was going to hell because she only had one child and barely qualified as a mother/wife), so she refused (my father was apathetic) to have me go to the school that all the rest of my local cousins attended, and made a compromise with Catholic school that was in our neighborhood. That is why I was there and why I stayed there.
Under normal circumstances, I suspect my parents might have removed me and placed me elsewhere, but there weren't any other Catholic elementary schools in the area, so I was stuck.
Unfortunately for me, I never belonged there, as decided by the other children there more than me; I didn't fit in, and in the eight years I was there, out of the 60 kids in my cohort, I retained two friends, neither of whom were ever my classroom or sat adjacent to me. The girl I was most close to, was just as heavily mocked as I was. We were only given the opportunity to interact at recess.
Obviously I hated it there and remember even thinking about what it might be like to not be anymore, but it made me too sad to think about not being able to be with my mom and dad and my grandparents so I never took that thought any further. I was/am an only child and so I had lots of opportunity to contemplate such things. I had very little in the way of peer-to-peer socializing skills, and though I was comfortable with adults, very few of my parents friends knew how to interact with children so mostly I was alone. So I just assumed, since I was pretty sure the adults and dieties in my life were aware of how miserable I was, and were either apathetic, powerless, or otherwise incapable of helping me, I was just expected to put up with it. So I did, and never considered questioning it. (Don't get me wrong: I was loved and knew I was loved but this was by my parents and grandparents and of course they loved me - it was everyone else, my peers who apparently thought I was odd, or didn't fit, and only gave me unwanted attention )
Let me rephrase. I was harassed and treated unfairly and meanly and just accepted that it must just be me and there was no chance my life would change. I was and would always be a reject. I had no self esteem, except the rare times when someone noticed I was "good at art."
In our school play in second grade, when a girl named Shannon and I had a scene together, it was the first time I understood what acting was. We weren't actually friends, we were just pretending on stage. The truth was she had long since abandoned me and befriended the popular girls. But my character was an artist and had drawn her a picture to make her feel better so she had to pretend she was grateful.
It wasn't until 8th grade anyone openly aknowledged I had any talent. Opportunities didn't come up much since art wasn't a regular part of our school curriculum. I assume if I might have thrived in another school (I thrived in high school and other places where the social structure was different) or if my gifts as an artist we're aknowledged or given any light.
How would they (the adults) have known? What would they have done?
jimmyeatworldofficial
romaincrisis
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