It Hurts Still

[Katherine]

Here are excerpts of poems I wrote when I was 16 or 17 that I have re-assembled . Though my worldview has changed to something generally more positive now, the part of me is still locked in the anguish and terror and loneliness. Behind my words is how it felt to be bullied. The part of me that needs to be set free from that desperately trapped place, which is emerging in therapy now, and wanting a voice, needs to post what I wrote about 16 years ago now.

(N.B. I've changed 'the's to 'me's because I know now about owning my feelings!)

And, as I typed it, I noticed that the last verse so much relates to my therapy now, work with the emotional traumas I suffered in my childhood and teenage years, both at home and at school.

lorna

The misty cloud of my mind

Uncovered, vulnerable,

In a world of taunting

faces and people who

Do not understand.

The path to freedom is long,

with the shrill screeching

of my soul echoing

my every footstep,

closer to my mind.

The light open space of freedom

Is there, but to reach it there is

Struggle and suffering,

Pushing away the enclosing

Walls of my mind

That push closer and closer

Inwards until there is a

Scream of agony

Where my soul is contained

In suffering.

Standing alone,

Screaming silently

To a mass of uncaring people

Who misunderstand.

The lamentation of my soul,

The deep inner cry of my mind

Is all that remains,

When the hard core

Of life is stripped away.

As the light is lost over the

Mountain, greyness descends.

The shrill screeching of my soul

Echoing in the darkness of the

Watery heaviness of my brain;

The indefatiguable depths

Of my spirit.

The wandering lonliness of my spirit

Through the screaming screech

Of endless pain, never ending.

Until I batter my soul,

Clawing at the remaining lushness

Winding through the spiral

Of hell on earth.

The wavering of my soul

On the sdge of humanity,

Breathlessly waiting for my world to

return to its true spirit.

My shivering spirit has died its death

and its old naivity has been lost

And is now resurrected from the dust

Of impure pain.

Light now rises from the dusty cloud

of a painful time, when what my

soul thought was right was wrong,

And misunderstood, not knowing what life was.

The ashes of my old soul

Shiver, quivering, at the back of

my evolving mind,

Like a great engulfing darkness

which I push away and try

to forget, but which seeps through

the shell of my spirit.

[lostsoul]

(((((((((((((((((((((lorna))))))))))))))))))))))))

I too was bullied. It wreaks a lot of damage.

[lille_eskimit]

Aaaw...I really do feel for you...

I used to be the butt of everybody's jokes and snide remarks...It's like that song, "Everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms etc..."

But we all love you here!!

((((((((LORNA)))))))) :wub:

[Katherine]

((((((((lostsoul)))))))))- you too, eh? If you ever want to share some of your feelings about what happened to you, I'm here.

((((((((lilleeskimit))))))I'm sad that you had this stuff too....

thank you both for your love and caring....

I'm really touched that you both took time to read my poem and respond...

lorna

[LadyMacbeth]

I still am the butt of my family's jokes and my friends jokes. It usually stems from me "being crazy." I have learned to deal with it though and laugh along even though it hurts inside.

[lille_eskimit]

I still am the butt of my family's jokes and my friends jokes.

I think I still am, but everytime I bring it up, I'm told to stop being paranoid and to snap out of it...There's support for you!!! LOL :lol:

[Katherine]

Lady M, I feel hurt when you say that.... especially "Even though it hurts inside". Many advice books including for kids who are bullied say to behave like you have done. But I get angry to read that, Because it hurts and noone has the right to hurt another intentionally and get away with it!!!!!(nearly swearing now!!!!!)

Its up to you sweets, I'm not sure what to say, excpet that I feel sad because they obviously are uncomfortable with emotional pain. And remember, my father used to threaten to put me in a strait jacket(of course he never had one but I never knew that) and call me mad, bad, etc...but HE was the one with the major mental health problem then, I absorbed all his projections...

Sorry if I ramble here....I'm on my soapbox and I'll step down now and cool down..

(((((Lady M)))))

lorna

[Ginny]

I was bullied all the way through school - for being different - I didnt know how or why I was 'different' but they could see it. It took away what should have been the best years of my life..... I hate thinking about it, it was part of the reason for two suicide attempts before I was even 16. I hate teenage children sometimes, they are so cruel and so unaware of what they are doing....

Ginny

[LadyMacbeth]

I was diff. too Gin...I did not stick by the "norm" I followed my own path. My teachers loved me but I did not fit in with the groups. But, I think it worked out to my advantage in college bc evertyone was different. My friends today are very different and I feel more comfortable around those who are different.

[lille_eskimit]

My friends today are very different and I feel more comfortable around those who are different.

I guess the old saying that 'birds of a feather flock together' does ring true...I've found that the same for me...I'm a loner, so's David, and so are most of our mates...We're all types of people that stand at the fringes of society.

[verbena]

One of my younger sisters was like a little angel. Dreamy, tiny little blonde girl who spilled her milk everyday. I was one year older, and all I saw was the "weakness". I saw her sweet disposition and dreamy ways as weakness, and belittled her every day. I told her at one point that I hated her because she was weak. She was an easy target for my brother when it was her turn to be sexually abused. She grew a hard shell that can still be seen to this day. Luckily, the sweet, dreamy girl (who is 46 now) is also still evident. I will never be able to forgive myself for letting her go to him and all the other torture I dished out. It was a hateful fucking house. :(

[LadyMacbeth]

My high school experience was horrible more that 80% of the students looked alike, acted alike, and dressed alike. If you were different you were treated as an outcast. I could not wait to get the hell out but in the mean time I thought it would be interesting to stick out like a sore thumb.

[Tracey]

Story of my life!

bullied at shool, bullied in the RAF, bullied in civvy street!

always the butt of peoples jokes!

traceyxxx

[LadyMacbeth]

I wish that I could go back in time and spend one day living my high school experience because after high school I moved to NY and learned some street smarts from my friends in school and at work. I can now stand up for myself and I would love the chance to go back and kick the shit out of some of the people that used to get to me. Ohhh...!!!!!!!1

[lille_eskimit]

Ok, I'll confess, I've been both the bully and the bullied...I guess after being ridiculed and ill-treated for so long, I found the only way to keep it from happening was to 'act tough' (which was why I went through that period pretending I was a boy)...If you can't beat them, join them. I'm so glad those days are now behind me...Never again...

[LadyMacbeth]

I always had horrible friends and I think they picked on me because I was weak. In England, I was about six years old and I had this friend named Carla who always use to bite and scratch me. One day my friend Natalie and I were on the playground sitting on a wall playing with our syndy dolls and Carla come up to us and threatened to drown us in a puddle. I can still remember those fond memories. Natalie who I just spoke about moved into my neighbourhood and she wanted me to play in her dad's car with her and I said no because he yelled at us for playing in his car and so she told me to go home and so I went to our other neigbour's house and we were playing in the front garden with my sister and Natalie rode her bike by the house and we started chanting "We are best friends you are not!!!!!!!" So then the three of us decided to go up to the corn field up the street and Natalie followed us on her bike and she ran my feet over. I ignored her but when we got to the corn field she grabbed my ponytail and threw me to the ground with it. My sister ran home screaming to get my mum and I was banned from playing with her. I had a lovely set of friends!!!!!!!1

[Doctor Dysphoria]

I was bullied badly at my public school. I was no good at sports,socially gauche, physically awkward nothing like a public school boy was supposed to be in the early -mid 70's. There was a strange code of behaviour whereby although bullying was 'officially frowned' upon it ws regarded as a far greater sin by your fellow pupils to tell on those bullying you .

Mine was mostly viciously verbal stuff with a little physical thrown in.My brother who went to a different 'State' boarding school used to have darts thrown at him and was even thrown out of a first floor window a few times .

Thanks to that and a rather dysfunctional childhood and the psychological fall out from a problem drinking mother in denial and a somewhat authoritarian -emotionally reserved father, my brother and i have little in the way of solid self esteem.