Being bullied (25.03.2003 - 10:09 p.m.)
I thought I'd take another trip back into my childhood today. I figured I'd talk about when I was bullied, as I guess that had a major effect on my life and how I feel.
It started in year 4 I think. Possibly in year 3. I would have been about 6 or 7 years old. This definatly wasn't the best time for bullying to start, what with the events that occured in the few years beforehand. I've covered some of them in past entries I guess but there are other things too. Anyway, back to what I was writing about.
I don't really recall how it started, but it ruined my entire primary school life, and the first couple of years of secondary school. What caused the bullying? Something that made me feel like it was my fault... because it was really. Well, it seemed to me it was my fault, I know now it wasn't but even so it still feels like it was. I developed a nervous twitch... or at least thats what I was told it was. I used to make noises, and twitch uncontrollably. All the time.
Literally everyone in the school picked on me. Not all of them in an active way, but those who didn't hurl insults at me every time they saw me, wouldn't associate with me in any way. I had no friends at my school for the 4 years I was there, and I felt like it was my own fault.
What didn't help was my mother thinking I was doing it to get attention, amongst the many other reasons she made up for it. I was taken to see a doctor after a year of having the problem. A year. Fucking useless bitch. And fucking useless doctor, because he told me I was doing it for attention too. I really wasn't, I couldn't help it. I couldn't resist the urge to tense the muscles.... to make the noises.... to swear.... The thing that I would do would change with time.
I think it started out as me nodding my head violently. And slowly changed to a combination of that and exhaling through my nose at the same time. Added to this was a slight whining sound. This was to be what I was remembered for even though the noises I made did change. Exhaling quickly through your nose and making a moaning sort of sound kind of sounds like the letter F. Due to this people would constantly mock my shouting "eff eff" at me. I can't to this day bring myself to tell that to anyone. I couldn't even tell Bonnie just now although I tried, so she's going to have to read it. I was also called "Fishy" which I equally can't tell people. The reasoning behind that was because something fishy is something weird. I was weird so I was fishy.
From there it developed into other noises, arm twitches, neck twitches, saying the word cunt and tensing my stomach. I tried to disguise the fact I was saying cunt by saying it backwards. Although it didn't satisfy the urge as much as saying cunt, it was the only way to quell the urge without getting into trouble with my mother. I also remember having to say the word soup and I couldn't help it. Thinking about this is bringing back those urges, because they've never really left me.
They manifest themselves differently these days, and I have managed to control them better than I could as a child, but it is so unbelievably frustrating and demoralising, to not be able to prevent yourself from doing something that almost immediatly after doing it, the urge returns just as strong or stronger.
At this point in my life I have the urge to tense my neck muscles, which pulls my mouth downwards distorting my face. I have the urge to tense my stomach, which is in some way connected with my fear of being sick aswell. I have the urge to make noises sometimes. When using a mouse I find it almost impossible not to intermittently bang the mouse on the desk. I get the urge to crack my wrists. I get the urge to scratch my tongue on my teeth, which inevitably causes me pain due to cuts on my tongue.
The only friend I had during my childhood was called Lewis Betteridge. He lived on the same backstreet as me, but he went to a different school. I remember him telling me his mother didn't want him to hang around with me so much because I was "weird". A fucking grown woman. She is truely pathetic. There were several of us who would play in the backstreet, but I would always be the odd one out, the one they ignored some days, the one they picked on now and again. The comedy kid to have around for some entertainment now and again. I sometimes wonder whether they actually liked me, I suppose they probably did and I can't blame them for being a bit funny with me - after all, they were only kids. But the people who picked on me constantly (which was most of the primary school, all 400 of them) I cannot forgive. I will hate them forever, and I will never be able to forget what they did.
I would sit as a child in my room at night because I couldn't sleep. I would usually get 3 or 4 hours after sitting in my bare room till 4am. My room held no joy, nothing to take my mind off my problems so I had to sit and think and get depressed. There was a bed. There was no carpet, just rough uneven floorboards. There was a hole into the middle of the wall where I had punched and kicked through the plaster and wood. That was my life at night, and during the day when I wasn't in the back street.
Recently I was seeing a psychiatrist. He was going to refer me to a neurologist because he thinks I might have mild touretts syndrome. I suppose I should try and get an appointment with one... maybe there's something they can do about it. Why the fucking doctors couldn't have realised I actually had a problem instead of telling me to my face I was doing it for attention I don't know. Why my mother couldn't see that I wouldn't have done it for years and subjected myself intentionally to bullying for so long I don't know either.
What I do know is that as an 8 year old child I wanted to die. I considered killing myself. I hated not being able to stop what was causing my to be bullied and outcast. I hated being the reason for it. And most of all I hated the people... the children, and the adults. I didn't see the point in growing up to live in a society full of inconsiderate people. If only children had been being prejudice towards me it wouldn't have been so bad. But adults did it too.
I guess I can't write much more about it than that. My memory isn't that good as I've intentionally forgotten most of it, but I guess I had to get that off my chest.