Letters to the Editor
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"he was gone a lot" - the hurt of distance
I think about a kid going out to face the world, and how tough that is without someone in your corner. Boys look to dad for a guide, or even a clue about how to handle hurt, loss and aggression. Even an angry dad, or a critical or controlling one sends a message that the son is important enough to have feelings about.
You learn to put things in perspective because someone more important then your schoolmates thinks you're worth his time and attention. Stuck's dad may have loved his son and missed him when he worked, but Stuck didn't seem to get that message. How do you face the (inevitable, ordinary) meanness of kids at school without the abiding love of a powerful adult?
Through Stuck's letter, he puts himself down for his strong feelings about the past. Stuck, what I wish for you, first of all, is that you just feel for that kid that you were. Look at him on the long walk to school the day after his friend turned on him. Tell him you know it's hard. That lots of great people had troubles like his once, and that you're proud of him for finding a way to keep going. You'll feel what to say if you watch him for a while.
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I understand
LW,
I understand your feelings very well; my childhood followed a very similar path, down to the former friend turing on me with no warning. As a happy, sucessful 44 year old woman, I can still get a sad hole in my stomach when I see her throwing an egg at me (with another friend who'd sudden turned against me) and laughing. I still don't know why they did that. But I've come to learn (through very helpful temporary counseling) that I'm no longer the helpless confused little girl. I am a sucessful adult who can solve my own problems. So if that memory pops up again, I consciously redirect what I think about and draw different conclusions. Instead of thinking "why did they do that? I felt so lonely," I now think: "that WAS scary, but now I can stand up for myself. I'msso proud of what I've become and the strengths I've developed."
What had been a memory that could make me depressed is now a benchmark of how much strength I've developed and how much I've acheived.
good luck; you'll be OK
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Make up some stories.
Here's something that might help: make up a story for every person who tormented you. Figure out something that would have given them the motivation to do what they did to you. Maybe one of them was taunted by his older brother for not being tough enough. Maybe one of them felt a lot of pressure from his parents to be popular, and the only way he could think to be popular was to make fun of the less popular people.
The idea is not to excuse what they did but to explain it in a way that diffuses your anger toward them. If you can have compassion for the screwed up kids they were, you probably won't be as upset about the whole thing anymore.
Plus, if it makes you feel better, you can imagine what terrible things have befallen them since they were so mean to you. I think I'd start with cheating wives and bratty kids, myself.
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Being alone
Cary's point about the hurricane is dead-on. Perhaps the loneliness and emptiness of his father's death is the same feeling as the loneliness of being abandoned in school. For myself, one kind of sadness can trigger others that felt the same, even if it's completely unconnected. I experienced a similar bullying in school, also having some solid friends throughout. But the pain of having people hurt you can't be made up by someone else being nice. And perhaps it's that inconsolable pain of the loss of his father that's triggering this memory.
The only thing that I found helped me deal with resentment as it bubbled up later was to volunteer to help those who are vulnerable. I still protect my friends and others with a vehemence they don't always understand. There are plenty of vulnerable people in the world. Helping protect them just might help curb the urge for vengeance.
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Abandonment issues
Cary's advice was loving and kind and right on the mark. I'd like to add that probably the reason this came up now is that the letter writer probably felt abandoned and betrayed when the friend turned on them, and now that the father passed away the writer is experiencing the ultimate betrayal and abandonment. It's appropriate to feel angry, even if it's not quite socially acceptable. Maybe the hardest issue I've had to deal with as an adult is the feeling that people who say they care turn against you, neglect you, or abandon you (through actions or death). And each time it occurs it reinforces the rest. I don't want to become untrusting, negative, or think that I'm deserving of this, so I'm coming to terms with the fact that people are imperfect and, in one form or another, each hello will become a goodbye.
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Cary, not everyone is you
Surely this "boy" is a woman, no?
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A different outcome
Like SiR, I found myself at the recieving end of some spectacular bullying in the 9th grade. It was outside of anything I had ever experienced before- five to seven guys who seemed to live to torment me.
Unlike SiR, my dad was around, but it still wasn't easy coming to him and asking him to pay for martial arts classes for me- which he did. But more importantly, like Mr. Tennis said, he advised me on how to repel my attackers, and that he understood that I may well get suspended or expeled for fighting and that if it came to that... well, you worry about the boys, son, I'll fight the school.
The next day I was more able to cope with the bullying, the next week I started Taekwondo, and three months later I did get in a fight (... complete disclosure: a loud shoving match). There was no fighting the school or expulsion, the world did not crack open and swallow me up, I got to go to the college of my choice. In college I got to teach martial arts, where I met all my current friends and my wife. A happy ending, right?
Wrong!
There are times, lonely stretches of driving, where I find myself back in the horrible months before 'the fight'. I had what was probably the best of all outcomes in the situation, and I've caught myself kicking myself for not putting them down early on, wondering why I was pushing when punching was clearly called for? Heck, I even had the added bonus of meeting one of the guys years later- in a taekwondo class and he left before we ever got any ring-time (wimp!).
It's the internalizing that is the killer. That's what haunts people. I had five or six months of it, SiR had 4-5 YEARS. I agree with Carey that the loss of SiR's father has stirred up some very powerful feelings (which themselves may have been internalized)... and I'd gamble that he's re-playing these events in his head because he wants a different outcome. He wants his father to intervene, he wants to have the mettle to dish out the punishment on his antagonizers.
I am a bit short on answers, though. All I have is that, since he can't turn back time, that he take boxing or martial arts or play rugby- that he dish out (and have it dished back) the punishement.
As a martial arts teacher, I'm amazed at the number of meek men and (and women and kids) who, after a lot of hand-wringing and worry, come to thrive on sparring and competition.
And this is where my dad's wisdom comes back- they weren't afraid of getting hurt, or even of hurting someone else, as much as they were of getting in trouble. Boxing matches, karate tournaments, they take away the bully's greatest weapons: surprise (it's a boxing match, duh) and that YOU will be in trouble if you fight back. There's no intimidation or threats once the bell rings.
I'm not saying it will solve SiR's problems, but I'll bet it will make him feel better.