A bit of an explanation: the boy I was dating had a brother who was being severely bullied at school. They kids there played a game called the “I hate N game” and it was a group of kids who would say “I hate N!” and the last one to put their hand up “lost.” Z was confiding to me about this, and it made me so angry and I wrote this entry. N was just this amazing kid who was so smart, funny, and interesting. Thinking about it still makes me sick to my stomach. It’s a long entry, but I feel it’s an important one, and I hope that maybe it can help someone else :)
“I don’t know what upset me the most. Was it that such young children were such cruel people? Was it the tearful anger I heard in Z’s voice as he told me about the ‘game’ they played? Or was it that I understood—completely. Thinking about it, I now realize that I have blocked out a lot of my childhood experiences, and have a lot of blank spaces where memories should be. What kind of a childhood is that? But there is so much I remember, so much that still haunts me.
I remember in 8th grade, when we started taking Spanish and MM was walking alongside me to class. “Hey, how do you say ‘chest’ in Spanish?” I was so excited that the boy who hated me most wanted help…from me! “Pechuga,” I said. “Oh.” A few seconds passed and he asked “How do you say ‘flat’ in Spanish?” I couldn’t put two and two together. “Llano,” I replied, eager to help. “Oh, I thought maybe if I said it in Spanish, you’d understand. I don’t like you because you’re estupida, irritando, and you have a pechuga llano.”
What about CL who told me that she couldn’t be my friend because it was keeping her from getting a boyfriend? Or JH calling me “the baby” for all of second grade because I was a year younger than everyone. Or DC who called me a bitch everyday in science class and adopted the term “five cent whore” for me. I was 9 years old. Or when I put blond streaks in my hair to try and fit in, and TW said “why bother, you’ll never be pretty anyways.”
Crybaby, know-it-all, teacher’s pet, bitch, five cent whore, dirty jew, smart ass…all before the age of 10. But I’ll never forget one event. We all started personal webpages (it was the cool thing to do). We added guest books so we could leave each other funny messaged and whatever. I checked mine religiously to see if anyone said anything to me. First mesage: “Hey! I hate you so much, you stupid bitch.” Second: “What’s up!? Did you have sex with your cat last night? I bet you loved it.” A total non sequitur, but it destroyed me. I begged my mom not to take it to the school’s administration, and she promised she wouldn’t. I was so grateful, because I knew that it would only make things worse if she did. The next day she was there with a print-out of the guest book. I felt so betrayed, and that’s when the “five cent whore” started, and none of my teachers did anything but exacerbate the issue. It makes me wonder how I made it through without killing myself, especially when Mark died and they made fun of me for having a God-brother with cancer. And that was just middle school. If I talked about high school, we’d be here for ten more pages.
This all just makes me want to reach out to N so much. I don’t want to be that obnoxious adult figure that’s like “I understand, feel free to talk, I’m always here.” Fuck that. But I want him to know he’s not alone, and that…just that I truly, honestly get it. Often, people say they understand. But being teased is not the same as being emotionally abused. There is simply no comparison, and I wish I had known that I was not alone when this was happening to me. Neither N nor I had normal childhoods, and for that I want to reach out to him and let him know that it does get better.”
I often still wonder about N. They pulled him out of traditional school and sent him to a different type of place with other kids who weren’t socially “normal”. I really hope that worked out okay for him. He was just the coolest kid, and I tried to let him know how awesome I thought he was whenever I saw him. Anyway, for anyone who is reading this who may currently be experiencing something similar, I want you to know that it gets better. Know that you aren’t alone, and that there are so many people like you who made it out alive and are truly awesome and amazing people. Hang in there <3
