Mad Hare Speaks

Mad Hare Speaks

Achievement Unlocked: Recovery of Self

 It was my 11 year old self's favorite shirt, more truly a blouse, most likely a hand-me-down from one of my older cousins; most of my clothing was. Since the year was 1975, of course the fabric was a silky polyester. In addition to the stylin' oversize pointed collar, it had billowy sleeves that ended in extra wide cuffs, each fastened with a single line of multiple buttons. Fierce, if understated in beige. CONTENT WARNING - Trauma dumping ahead

School had almost always been a blast up to that point and I'd felt reasonably popular though I didn't often think about social ranking.  Occasionally some boy would take issue with me but it didn't affect my daily experience. I preferred to hang with the girls. Disdainful of team sports and roughhousing in general, I was really good at playing jacks and jumping rope, even double dutch.

Home was often a lonely, rigid and anxious space, except when my dad was home from work or we apprehensively had company. At our church every Sunday, we were either there or another church more evenings of the week than not. 

I instinctively avoided my impossible-to-please mother whenever possible. Since she clearly wanted me out of sight but never beyond the range of her judgement, I learned to be quiet and to blend into the background. As desperate as I sometimes was for attention, there was seldom anything gained and always something lost by attracting hers.

Away from home I remember getting absorbed in things that interested me, feeling frequently overwhelmed by loud noise or too much visual input, and sometimes feeling bashful. I loved nothing more than being in the woods near my parent’s house, finding hidden spaces underneath the tree boughs that swept the ground. Adults referred to me as precocious, ornery, gifted and a smart mouth. It would be decades before anyone, including me, would understand that I am autistic and transgender.

I'm sure that when the first day of middle school arrived I walked with a skip in my step to the bus stop at the bottom of the hill, glad for the escape back to school and excited as well as a little nervous. Returning to school in the Fall had always been something I eagerly anticipated. Elementary school had generally been a great experience but I wanted to get going & start growing up. 

I was used to catching the bus to elementary school from the same stop though it had always been a bus heading away from town and toward the village of Lone Pine. As only the second or third stop of that particular bus route, for five years I had been accustomed to boarding a nearly empty bus with my pick of seats. I always enjoyed the ride to school, eagerly waiting for certain other kids to get on at various stops along the way. 

The new school bus turned out to be entirely different.

Unlike the bus I rode from grades 1 through 5 this one was heading in the opposite direction, toward the nearby town rather than toward a rural village school. I didn't know it while waiting at the bus stop that first day but my stop was now one of the last on this route. The bus didn't only transport young kids; it was a mix of 6th graders through high school seniors. The younger kids sat toward the front, the older ones toward the back. 

When I boarded the bus was already full. That was the first surprise. The second was that seemingly no one wanted to make room for me on any seat. Teasing started after only a few steps down the aisle. As I moved further into the bus it got worse. My eyes sought familiar or friendly faces, but were met with either mockery or side-eyes of purposeful disinterest. I didn't like the look of the big kids, practically grown-ups to my eyes, who were laughing and populating the last few rows of seats. It was all very loud and confusing.

Whether someone shoved over and gave me a place to sit that first day I honestly don't recall. Occasionally kids would do that over the coming years, or there would be fewer on the bus some days and I could easily find a seat. In particular I remember one teenage girl who looked like she probably took cosmetology classes. She'd take pity on me from time to time and invite me to sit beside her. Perhaps she liked the attention she garnered when taking me under her wing. 

All too frequently I would be forced to stand in the aisle, bracing myself as best I could to keep from falling down whenever the bus lurched to a stop or around corners. Standing in the aisle usually turned out to be tacitly taunting the bullies to pounce. A few times the bus driver would refuse to drive on while I stood in the aisle, providing bullies with a new game to play.

It was a reasonably short ride to the middle school, maybe 4 or 5 miles with a few stops along the way. Many times I just closed my eyes and did my best to turn away from it, at least in my mind. I remember ironing on a passive expression while inside I was begging God to make me invisible or to prompt someone to make it stop. Sometimes I silently sang hymns to myself.

I learned that bullying is something people found easy to ignore. Perhaps some looked away out of fear while others secretly enjoyed watching someone smaller & weaker getting abused. Maybe It triggered the secret shame they themselves carried so they felt compelled to look away. I learned that praying wouldn’t help. God must have just wanted me to suffer, I remember thinking. Something I'd heard often at church would echo through my head; "deny self, take up your cross, and follow me."

The abuse was a humiliating shock to me. I was ashamed to tell anyone so I did my best to deny it even while it was occurring. It’s important to me that it be noted there was always an adult nearby when I was being assaulted and humiliated, often within their line of sight if only they’d cared enough to turn their heads and look. 

Sometime during 7th grade, during the second school year of bullying, my parents realized what had been occuring. After so much bullying I had coniditioned myself not to cry while on the bus, but would still begin to sob once I was dropped off and the bus had pulled away. On the day of my parent’s epiphany I had not been able to stop crying by the time I reached the house. Once they learned that the bulk of the worst bullying happened on the bus, I never rode it again. Instead, my dad drove me to school and dropped me off on his way to work from then on. 

There was more bullying from other kids while in middle school but nothing that felt as bad as it had been at the hands of the high school guys on the bus. Not even the few times someone hit me in the back of the head with a hardback book when they passed behind me in the school library. By the time I reached high school the bullying had tapered off and I’d learned to ignore my feelings about what had been done to me.

For the next 40 years, if pressed, I would acknowledge that I'd been bullied but only spoke of it casually and with no real thought. It was just "something that happened" and "in the past". I had convinced myself it didn't have any lasting effect on me. But now, all these years later, I had to start recognizing that it did. 

The bullying, and my denial of it, certainly has played a part in my 30+ years of recurring depression, compulsive behaviors, self-esteem and gender issues. Once Obamacare required health insurers to provide parity for mental health coverage I was finally able to get the therapy I'd needed but could only previously get covered when I was 'in crisis' and considered to be an active risk for suicide. 

Life, with all the usual ups & downs, is so much better now. Throughout my adult life I have felt an irreparable loss of identity dating from the bullying. There were moments when it felt as if I had excised parts of myself from my soul. However, once my buried feelings from traumas of the past were excavated and largely worked through with the help of a gifted therapist, it turns out nothing was lost that could not be recovered. That school photo in the polyester “pirate shirt” is now one of my favorite childhood pictures, instead of the reminder of shame it's been for most of my life.