music, books, love and kindness

I don't think I truly realized how un-pretty I was until I hit middle school and I started hearing the word "ugly" tossed around. Insulated by the constant comfort that I just didn't really care about being popular or having boys like me I mostly ignored the taunts about my weird hair and the clothes I wore. I tried my best to just read during recess (when I was allowed to) and homeroom and just pretended the world around me did not exist.

I was lucky that my being teased was not 24/7 and only a matter of who was around at the wrong time. Art class was fun, for instance, because I had nice classmates there and at our table we would always talk about Duran Duran or Boy George before the last bell rang. Plus, our teacher was awesome. She encouraged us to be free spirits with our drawing. Of course the very fact that I liked my teachers and did well in school was also part of why I was such an easy target.

It was always the girls who were cruel, not the boys. Sure, some of the boys would say mean things and call me "weirdo" or "brillo pad" or "orphan Annie," but it was the girls who got violent or really knew how to hurt with their words. I remember one girl threatening me for not letting her copy off me during a test. I was afraid and started running down the hall when a small group of the kids who always tried to sneak cigarettes in during lunch stood in front of me and the girl to buzz off. To this day, I have an affinity for smokers.

I am very grateful that I was a teenager in the 80s and not now when social media can mean being bullied long after the school day is over. The worst part about not being pretty and the way people treat you because of that isn't the cruelness experienced in middle school for being different. That pain goes away in time and, in some ways, can make you stronger and more ready for what comes later. 

Sometimes the girl who isn't asked out all school who becomes invisible later on in life. I think I grew into my non-looks so that instead of being picked on I just became a non-entity in the world of love and romance. And, in a way, I'm almost grateful to the teasers for helping me learn early in life that I may always be a wallflower...and that I'm okay with that.

Still, for those who are tormented much worse than I was, the damage is not always slight: 


http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain