The Anti-bully Blog series Edition #15

Logo Credit to Nate Williams

I’m not even SURE where to begin with THIS weeks blog! I’m doing an editorial type piece and typically speaking, I stick to what listeners have to say, and then a follow up. THAT is usually my editorial piece! However the Mother Hubbard syndrome continues, I have a lack of listener material, so I’m on my own.

SO I was VERY lucky to come across another blog like mine BUT in a different style a couple weeks ago. My last post was highlighting it. It was refreshing to see teachers in a position where they were doing something about the bullying because in FAR too many of our posts, teachers and faculty FAILED the victims of Bullying.

WELL PREPARE for an EPIC Fail! A story made it’s way to me, it’s a couple weeks old but it’s STILL worth sharing. It’s one thing when teachers turn a blind eye to bullying, it’s QUITE another when the Teacher is the Bully. This was the case in a New Jersey School. A 15 year old was bullied by his teacher. Most of the time when some one is being bullied we try and get them to talk to some one about it. Well this boy did….and no one believed him. SO thanks to modern Technology, he caught him in the act. Check this Video out

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/133858078.html

Did you watch it? Did your stomach TURN? Mine did. THIS is supposed to be some one that student should feel SAFE turning to…not scared to be in the same room with. The video seems to get worse and worse as it progresses, to the point where he’s IN the students face and threatening him. What pisses ME off is actually AFTER the video…this teacher is on paid leave because of it…soooo VACATION?! NO! You have PHYSICAL EVIDENCE this has happened…fine if you need to do an investigation do it, but don’t reward this guy with PAID TIME OFF! Speaking to ANYONE like this is NOT acceptable but a CHILD?! This is also a guy who is in a Role Model position…can you say BREEDING ground for bullies? This is a Story I’m PRETTY heated on, but I also want YOUR feedback. I’d love to hear what you have to say about it. PLEASE feel free to share your comments here!

DON’T forget I’m ALWAYS looking for Material for the Anti-Bully Blog, and yours would be fantastic! If you have questions or something I could use on an up coming edition you can FB me or e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #14

Logo Credit to Nate Williams

So It’s Wednesday, and I was feeling rather Mother Hubbardy (I know I’m not the only one who remembers the Nursery Rhyme). I went to look at my Material for today’s blog post. Well my blog usually is Chicken Soup like, I share the stories of others, yeah I do a follow up but it’s FUELED mostly by listeners being brave and kind enough to supply me with material. I get e-mails from Bullying Canada That I keep on hand so I can read the stories and do editorials on them should I ever be in this situation (PS if EVER you see one of these, Bullying Canada WILL Receive FULL credit for the story, we’re aware I LOVE that group). So I popped over to my e-mail and typed in Bullying looking for Material and came across an e-mail that I’d never seen dated like October 25^th…Hooray for Modern Technology! The E-mail was from a Woman named Jane, who was thanking me for some of my past posts. Turns out that she was a high school teacher for 31 years and was dead set on having her class room be a SAFE place. If you’ve read older posts, you know how it usually works with the school. If you haven’t let me get you up to speed. A LOT of bullying of course happens at School. TYPICALLY speaking, it would seem that the school FAILS the victims of bullying. So the fact that this person strived to make their classroom a safe place…THAT is HUGE! Jane should be getting an award of some sort for that ALONE! BUT there’s more to the story than that. She and her Husband, who also worked in the School system are now retired. Now what is WONDERFUL is they haven’t given up! They are STILL trying to fight and make Schools a safe place. They have put together a blog you should SO check out! It’s alwaysachance.com. What I like about their page is that it’s a little more official than mine. My blog, like I said, has a Chicken Soup feel to it. I’ve learned a lot from DOING this blog and I hope you have from reading it as well. But no two people are going to have the same blog, and some times a new angle is a wonderful thing. So I DO recommend checking out their blog. I have the home page open right now, and there ALONE it has a post on Warning signs your child may be a victim of Bullying, How a bully works with their group, Tools to deal with Bullying, and even School Faculty being involved in the act of Bullying. I fired back an e-mail to them and Will be book marking this page FOR SURE. Like I said this was the home page alone, so I WILL be digging deeper into their page. Thanks again SO much to Jane for e-mailing me, I hope we can stay in touch.

Remember the Anti Bully Blog Series comes out Wednesdays, and it keeps going because YOU keep it going! Remember if you have questions about the Blog or you have a piece you’d like to do for me you can Facebook me or e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #13 Follow Up

Logo Credit to Nate Williams

I wanted to start this Blog with an explanation of what's going on here "behind the scenes" with the series! So I'd like to point out, I've now gone to a post a week. There are a couple reasons for that. For starters there is a lack of content, so I'm trying to stretch it as far as I can. Remember this keeps going because of your contributions. I post how to reach me with pieces and questions at the bottom of EVERY post, this one will be no exception.

So I wanted to cover that but I also wanted to explain why there wasn't a new post last week. My Grandfather passed away last Wednesday. I was at the station and ACTUALLY about to start writing the follow up when I got the news. So I kind of rushed to NS to be with my Fam, so sorry, but I was slightly distracted.

I kind of feel bad it's been THIS long since I posted, and feel I SHOULD apologize to this Anti-bully. I don't want them, to think I in ANY way have trivialized their piece. So without Further delay (we've had enough) I'll start into the Follow Up

I'd like to start by saying it's GREAT that this piece actually had a happy ending, because there was potential for it to not have. I'm SO glad it did because well no one wants to see the other ending, BUT this person is also a FANTASTIC person. Just think, with how many people we've lost to bullying, how many possibly AMAZING adults we have. People say they weep for the future all the time, and I'd like to point out, the bullies survive.

I know I'm a liberal person, so not everyone may not feel the same, but it AMAZES me, that in today's society calling some one "Gay" as an insult is STILL so common. For starters, the fact it's still considered the "Ultimate insult" sickens me. Secondly...that's the best you got? REALLY?

So FURTHER along in this post it brought up a topic that there has been A LOT of coverage on in the series, and it's SUCH an issue these days I'm glad it was brought up (not that it happened though obviously). Cyber Bullying. Cyber Bullying, I probably know about as much as most adults. Facebook came out when I was in college, and therefore, I've never witnessed it as a kid. I've seen it though, I have young listeners on FB and have seen them say "I'm going to punch her in the face", "What a Bitch", "she's Ugly", "I wish she'd die", "No one likes you, go away", "You better watch yourself"...and the list goes on. Notice most were actually females there as well...yeah I noticed that too. Also I love how people say block them. If you think that is where it ends, you're VERY much in the dark on this topic. We're in the age of technology, and guess what, many of the adults are not as smart as the kids on this one. There are ways around blocking. It's SO easy to start up a new FB account. Groups, those are easy to make too, and Bullies THRIVE off the sheep who follow them, on a social network think how high that number can get. PS you can also be added to groups by others on FB now too...so they can hand picktheir followers.

I'd like to point out too how this person said "I thought that because it was verbal it was nothing". THAT can be worse than pounding the crap out of some one (I said CAN not always, depends on the case). I remember I had a class in Middle School that was taught by my Guidance Counselor. It was a total bird course, but I remember a "story" he told us. It was completely cheesey but it got the point across. He took a piece of paper and wrote IALAC on it. It was an Acronym for I Am Lovable And Capable (Kind of impresses I remembered that). So he told this story to us about this kid who had his metaphorical IALAC sign, and each time he was picked on a piece of the sign was ripped off, until there was nothing left. At NO point in the story did this kid get physically bullied. SO in case you missed the symbolism here, this kids feelings were ripped away until he couldn't take it anymore. So Verbal bullying? STILL BULLYING. Humans have emotions and they're strong, so hurting them, REALLY effects them.

Another thing to mention about this is that this person felt they had no one to talk to. This is why groups like Bullying Canada and Kids Help Phone.You've ALWAYS got some one to talk to, and that can be such an important thing. I know there are times I just need to talk to some one, it can make a world of difference. SO if you're going through this PLEASE remember there's ALWAYS some one to talk to.

I want to thank this Anti-Bully once again for sharing their story. Remember if you want to share yours or ask me about the blog you can FB or e-mail me in complete confidence (I never use a name or mention the sex of an Anti-Bully unless I'm given permission). nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #13

logo credit to Nate Williams

Ok so I can't remember if I asked this individual if I could use their name or not. It was a while ago I got their piece, I think JUST before I kicked off the mini-series. On that note, when in doubt, I leave the name out. SO here is THIS Anti-bully's Story

Bullying. I know all about it. I’ve been there. I’ve felt the pain. I’ve wanted to end the pain.

It has taken me a while to come out with my story. To me, I always thought that since my bullying was verbal, it was nothing. It is STILL bullying and it NEEDS to stop.

My bullying started back in middle school. I was always the unpopular kid in my class. I was small for my age and had never had a relationship up to that point. People would constantly call me “gay” because of that, even though that was not true. It was almost a daily occurrence that I would be called names, some of which are too harsh to repeat. I tried to let it slide and just ignore it all, which was probably the worst mistake I could have made.

Move ahead a couple of years. I’m in high school now, and the bullying still continues. It’s worse than when it was in middle school. I got Facebook messages and emails calling me “fag” and “gay”, still because I never had a date or relationship with a girl. I had messages telling me that I’m worthless. I even had an anonymous message one day telling me to “go die”. I still kept bottling it up. It eventually got to a point where I wanted to end my life. I thought to myself, life would be a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t have to live with this pain, if I just left. Maybe I would make everyone’s life a lot easier. It was at that point that a close friend came into my life. A friend that has changed me forever. She talked me out of wanting to kill myself, making me realize how different people’s lives would be without me, even though I had never stopped to think about that. She told me that even though it seems like I’m making things better by ending my life, it would make things worse in the end for the people in my life. She made me realize that I had a purpose, that everyone has a purpose, and that the bullying won’t last forever. Not if I stand up for myself. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

After that, I began opening up to my close friends. Because of all of this, I realized how many close friends I actually had in my life, that cared for me and would do almost anything for me. I never again bottled things up because I knew that if I did, I would be right back to the same spot I was again. The bullying continued, for a while. Once my friends knew about it, they weren’t long sticking up for me. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone. I felt like I had a group of bodyguards, standing up for me and protecting me. The bullying finally stopped.

The following year, I built up the courage to run for student council president. I ended up winning, and things went better from there. I was happy for once in my life. Things were going the way I wanted them to go. I felt like a completely different person, all because I stopped bottling up my problems.

To those being bullied, fight back. I don’t mean become a bully. I mean fight back to make it stop. Talk to someone about what you’re going through, whether it is a parent, teacher, principal, or friend. You may think talking might be foolish, but no one can help you if they don’t know how you’re feeling and what you’re going through. In my case, that one close friend became my turning point and my best friend. It can be the same for you, too. I know, I mention talking a lot, but it’s one of the most important things to help overcome your situation. Your friends will want to help you get through this and will want to be there so you don’t have to go through it alone. It DOES get better, especially with support and people to talk to.

If you see bullying, don’t stand by and think, “I’ll let someone else stop this”. If everyone thought that, bullying would never stop. Stand up! That doesn’t mean getting in the middle of it. Find a teacher, adult, someone who can help. You could make a world of difference in the life of the person being bullied.

To the bully: when you look ahead into your future, what do you see? Do you see a life full of love, life, and laughter or do you see a future of loneliness, sadness, and regret. Life is too short to make someone feel less of a human because they are different. It's never too late to stop and it's certainly never too late for apologize; It doesn't take away your "big and bad" look nor do you need to tell the world but giving a letter or a note or even a Facebook message saying "I'm sorry" can make the biggest difference in the life of someone you have or are bullying. Think about this: someday when you push someone to the point of taking their life and you turn to the family to give your condolences, will you then see the pain you cause not only in that person you bullied but to everyone around? You'll live your life with that regret.

I’d like to thank Nancy for giving me the spot to be able to tell my story. It’s a story I’ve only shared with a few close people in my life, but I’m glad that other people are able to now know about it. Hopefully this will encourage more people to share their stories and realize that they aren’t alone when it comes to bullying.

Well now I want to thank this Anti-bully for sharing his story. I'm ITCHING to comment on bits and pieces of this but I'll save it for my Follow up! I hate to say this but guys, the cupboard is looking kind of bare. By THAT I mean I don't seem to have much Material coming in. The Unfortunate part of bullying is EVERYONE has a story. I'd LOVE to share yours! you can FB me or e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 Follow Up

Logo credit to Nate Williams

I’d be lying if I said I knew EXACTLY where to begin with this one. When I typically get into a follow up I delve deeper into the topic. I go into greater detail, and honestly rant and bitch about how things happened. I think the details have been covered thoroughly on this one. I’ve come to get to know Catherine in the last few months. It all started with her son being a BIG fan of the Hot 7 @7. I’m not sure I knew the first time I had him as a 10 second co-host that I was getting to know some great people because of that. Catherine approached me with this piece back in the summer when I was DESPERATELY searching for material for the blog, which by the way, I’ll be going back to. Again, I wasn’t aware of what I was getting into. This was a piece I found myself FASCINATED with, relating to, and learning from. Considering the chats I’ve had with Catherine, I think I was shocked at how MUCH she’d actually gone through. So I guess since I can’t go into further detail really, it’s been covered, I think I’ll start by what I took away from it.

I can’t count how many times I’ve said, I wasn’t really bullied. I DO remember when I was 6 and I had about 4 boys in my grade pushing me into a wall and not letting me go home from school one day. I got home after that and as soon as I got in the door, I started crying. I remember telling my dad what happened, and he asked, why I was crying now? My response was “I wasn’t going to let them see me cry”. BEFORE school started, I was more of a “Kendra”. I was the dominant kid. ACTUALLY this was included in the toast to the bride at my wedding. A close friend of my family, actually my brother’s God Father, and a rather loyal follower of the Anti bully blog (also the parent of one of the people who have done a blog piece for me), did my toast. He said when you heard the kids in the backyard (which was usually mine, I had a BIG backyard, with a huge tree, swing set, sandbox etc) You could always hear me saying things like “Guys lets play this game”, and leading the group. When I was back in NS one time a neighbor I hadn’t seen in years came down to my dad’s place and dad mentioned something similar to that too, That I usually led the pack, even if I was the youngest one. That ALL being said, I have to retract my previous mentions that I wasn’t bullied much, because after reading this piece, I realize I was without even knowing it.

I found myself relating to some of the things Catherine was saying. I HATED Gym class, I was terrible and typically was the last picked, once or twice, I got groans, and felt rejected. I was the opposite of Catherine, I was a girl SLOW to develop, and got picked on daily for that in Grade 6, until I told my dad who told me to tell the girl doing it to me that her shoulder blades were bigger than her boobs so she was in no position to say anything to me (this actually ended it). When I hit Jr. High , I found myself feeling rejected by some of my friends, because they were becoming the popular girls, and there was one in particular who seemed to feel the need to put me down all the time. I won’t name names, however I DO have her on FB now, so I’m kind of curious if she’s reading this…It all seemed to end when I met my friend Lisa, at a volley ball tryout…that neither of us made the team for. She introduced me to her friends, all of who were just legitimately nice, and loyal people. Lisa, and another who was in this group were 2 of my Bridesmaids at my wedding. I know I was REALLY lucky to find such AMAZING friends, and even more lucky that they’re still there.

Now Catherine said she found herself finding acceptance with the rejected. I related to this on 2 levels. The first being I was typically friends with the people who got bullied. I think part of me did it because they were the people who needed friends, but then perhaps I did too, so I related to these people and found friendship. A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, it’s true. The OTHER way I found acceptance with the rejected, was rather similar to Catherine’s. I became “alternative” (high school is SO a place of labels isn’t it?). I chopped my hair off, over indulged in eyeliner, sported a leather chocker and black spiked cuffs, and developed a taste for Ozzy, ACDC and Iron Maiden. AND JUST like Catherine, I found acceptance there too. I heard a rumor I was called “The Dyke” but I heard that AFTER High School AND I was in The Gay Straight Alliance, so really? Best you got?

Now a little less about me (finally) I found myself relating some things to prior pieces that have been on here. For example, when she said some times a joke is just a joke, and she’s felt herself second guessing, or feeling temporary helplessness. The person who I found myself thinking of chose to be anonymous with their piece so I can’t be specific, but it was one that I did on the first set back in the spring and said I think he was the most picked on kid when we were growing up. He said sometimes people make sarcastic jokes, picking at him and sometimes he’s over sensitive to it.

SO I think what I took away from Catherine’s Paper, is a DEEPER look at myself, and at what some people have gone through. If you’re a kid going through what Catherine went through and found yourself relating to any parts of this, know this, you’re not alone! And know this too, Catherine is a strong woman today. If you read her piece it says one day she thinks she’ll be a great mom. From where I’m standing, she got there, with her son and daughter. Just the other day she posted an invitation her son made for her daughter to play. One of the cutest things EVER for real. I think I’ll end this follow up with an ENOURMOUS thank you to Catherine, and a quote from my dad. Only part way through this series he had one word for this paper, and that was WOW.

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 9, the conclusion

logo credit to Nate Williams

I think that finding a subculture where I was welcomed was the most important thing that occurred during senior high. When I became a Punk, my self-esteem improved. The focus shifted form what was wrong with me to what was right with me. I could rebuild my identity and learn to feel good about myself again.

After School

What happened after I graduated? How did these experiences affect the adult I became? Do the themes identified in this chapter reflect my adult experience? How do they shape my everyday life?

The first theme “It wasn’t always that way” is important. Through that theme we see the supportive loving home environment and early friendships I had before starting school. I see these supports as armor I put on to protect me from my negative experiences at school. It didn’t completely protect me, but it kept me from crumbling and collapsing under the weight of the abuse I suffered. I think that I had supports that not every peer rejected child has. Having a good support system outside of school helps peer-rejected children stay strong during a very trying time. My early memories of love and acceptance stayed with me through my rejection, and gave me a sense that things could be like that again someday. Today, when things are tough, I still use these early memories as a source of strength.

Do I still feel that sense of “helplessness” I felt as a young girl in school? Not in the same way, although sometimes I feel “temporarily helpless”. I feel this way when someone doesn’t like me, when I have to find a partner for an activity, waiting for an invitation to a party, when a friend forgets to call or when someone makes a joke about me. When this happens I feel the familiar panic climb up my throat and I think, “What happens if no one picks me, likes me or calls me?” Then after I wallow in my negative feelings for awhile, I remember, I am an adult and people usually like me. It doesn’t matter if everyone likes me. My friends would never exclude me on purpose and sometimes a joke is just a joke. Understanding this is something that has just happened in the last few years and isn’t always a simple straight-forward process. That sense of helplessness I felt as child still clutches stubbornly onto the edges of my being.

The way I shape my own identity has changed radically. As a child I used to change my identity in hopes of belonging. This usually involved seeing myself as an extension of someone else’s identity, as Kendra’s friend, Paul’s girlfriend, and so forth. Now my identity involves understanding the different parts of myself: student, friend, daughter, lover, former peer-rejected child…. I realize my identity involves my relationship with others, but that my whole identity does not hinge on any one relationship. My identity changes as I grow and understand the many parts of myself. I grew up being young Cathy who wanted to fit in, than I was teen Cathy who didn’t care what others thought, than I became Catherine respected, but oblivious to my past. Now, I feel there are aspects of all of them inside me defining different parts of my personality. Young Cathy is sensitive and can share her pain and listen empathetically to others. Teen Cathy rallies against social injustices of any kind. Catherine is efficient. She can stay up all night and write a paper, unpack her house in one day and find time for the many people in her life. This new understanding has made it easier to deal with myself, and accept myself, flaws and all.

Do I still “reject the rejecter”? Am I still a rebel? Yes and No. I move freely and comfortably in the dominant culture, but in many ways I still have the soul of a rebel. I still find time to take chances that might not be socially acceptable, for example, being an “out” lesbian, dying my hair blue, becoming friends with those who don’t fit in, being a vocal animal rights activist, and so forth. These are things that may make others not accept me. But I learned as a teenager that belonging to meaningful groups is much more important than struggling to live up to mainstream’s impossible standards of what is acceptable. The difference is that now these groups do not overly define who I am. My own identity is set much more by me. Another difference is I do not reject people for being part of the mainstream or looking preppy. I realize through experience that it is dangerous to judge people too quickly, especially by their appearance. If I get to know them, they might not be as black and white as I portrayed them, they might not be as conformist as I imagined, they may be multi-layered, like myself. After all, I wasn’t what everyone in school portrayed me to be. What I have learned from being a rebel is to be proud of who I am and stand up for what I believe in, especially myself.

Being peer rejected was a mixed bag. It has in some ways made me more sensitive to other people’s problems. For a long time I have known I have has a desire to help others with their problems. This I feel comes from my experiences with peer rejection. But peer rejection has made me an adult who sometimes still feels helpless, inadequate and unattractive. I am not glad for my experiences, but am glad for what I have learned. There are better ways to learn these lessons than through rejection. Even though I am a happy adult with good relationships, I can not erase from my head “ew, you had to sit with Cathy,” “she’s on our team, aaw,” “Tissue Tits,” and “Cathy Lizzy Derry,” The sounds of these names will echo in my mind forever.

Ok not sure why this post felt the need to underline everything, but I can't figure out how to remove it. Another thank you to Catherine for sharing her paper with me, to share with you. There is only one part of this Mini series left and that's my follow up. It's coming tomorrow. Remember if you have something to share on the anti bully blog you can FB me OR e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 8

logo credit to Nate Williams

I started spending time with Kendra and her grade nine friends who were much friendlier than they had been in the past. Her friends accepted me, as I was now a member of their new religion, the cult of “Duran Duran”. Yes, I still got picked on, but as part of a group. The whole school was in the midst of Michael Jackson fever. So, my friends and I got made fun of for liking those so-called “British fag boys”. But the five of us stuck together and yelled back at them. Me and my fellow Duran Duranies, as fans called themselves, definitely thought we were more cool and cutting edge than the rest of the student population.

Our love of Duran Duran sent us out of the suburbs on Saturdays and downtown in search of others like us. It wasn’t hard to find others since we all stuck out in a crowd, with our short dyed hair and trench coats. My friends and I were slowly adopting the New Wave style of dress, similar to Duran Duran and other British bands of that era. We started to meet other girls who dressed like us, and even boys who dressed like this too. These boys were much older than us, usually in their late teens and early twenties. These boys were different from other boys I had met: they liked other boys; they were gay. My clique at school was inseparable that year. We went downtown every Saturday. Sadly, things changed for me that fall. Kendra and her friends entered senior high, leaving me back in junior high. They stopped coming downtown with me. I was left alone at junior high.

When I started grade nine I was a bit lonely at school without my clique to back me up, but in spite of this, I had a good year. Yes, I was picked on at school. People would make fun of my clothes and call me a freak. But these things didn’t bother me as much as they used to because I felt I was much cooler and style conscious than the rest of my classmates. I had my new cool friends downtown. My new best friend Ivy went through some of the same difficulties I did at school. Finally I had someone who understood me. My new guy friends were always complementing me on my clothes and hugging me. Finally I had found a place where I fit in

My attitude toward being rejected and teased was changing. Whereas before I felt they were laughing at me in school because I wanted to be a part of their group and was

denied access, now, I felt like they were mad because I wasn’t trying to be like them or be a part of their group. I felt like I was rejected THEM.! In fact, I made friends that year at school. There were a small group of girls at school who thought I was cool. They liked the same music I did and liked my clothes and hair, but they were too scared to take the bold fashion risks I took. They were scared that their parents would be mad if they dyed their hair or that the kids would laugh if they wore different clothes. I faced those consequences and found it was worth it. These girls looked up to me for it. My friends and I spent our lunch hours talking about music, clothes, and the people I met downtown. For the first time since I started school, I started to feel good about myself.

I reflect on how something as simple as liking some British pop stars affected such a change in my life. The first thing it did was make me a part of a group, an accepted full member. This was a group that saw it self as unique and did not need the acceptance of the so-called popular people. As I became a member of this New Wave subculture, I achieved something I never had before, a kind of popularity. It was not a mainstream popularity, but it was based on being different, hipper and thinking my self too cool for the mainstream. I was rejecting them the way they had rejected me. People started looking up to me because I was taking fashion risks that they were too scared to take. But then, some of those who were scared had more to lose than me; they risked not fitting in and being rejected by the mainstream. This was not a risk for me as I already didn’t fit in. I accepted this and found a new place to belong.

When I entered senior high (grades ten to twelve), I became disenchanted with New Wave, perhaps because it didn’t have a message beyond “be different”. I looked for something harder and darker that would express the anger I had accumulated over years of rejection. It was around this time that Ivy’s new boyfriend introduced us to Punk Rock. Ivy and I really identified with Punk’s message, songs about being an outsider and being proud of it. This message is typified in an early Punk movie called Suburbia. The Punks in this movie had themselves branded with the initials TR, meaning “The Rejected”. They identified with being society’s rejected people, and wore it like a badge of honor. In fact they used it as a catalyst to start their own group, where to be accepted you had to be rejected.

Finally finding a place to fit in

I was deeply entrenched in the Punk Rock movement when at sixteen I entered Saint John High, the biggest senior high in the city. The kids there belonged to many subcultures from preppy, to heavy metal, to Punk. The school had a pretty good-sized Punk Rock subculture. Once I was full-fledged member of this community, I enjoyed the rest of my senior high career. I even started dating. I was happy I had found a place to fit both inside and outside of school

I reflect on embracing the label of Punk, a movement that thrives on difference, being an outsider, and that prides itself on not fitting in, a group that laughs in the face in conformity. According to Leblanc (1999), joining the Punk Rock subculture, which is considered by society to be deviant, is an act of resistance. For Leblanc (1999), resistance “requires three distinct moments: a subjective account of oppression (real or imagined), an express desire to counter that oppression, and an action (broadly defined a word, thought, or deed) intended specifically to counter that oppression”(p.18) This accurately represents my journey to the Punk subculture; After year of oppression by peer rejection, I decided I was no longer going to let people pick on me. I thus joined a subculture that rejected the values of those who rejected me. I was doing what many subcultures in the last few years have been doing: I was embracing a negative label that others had given me and made it my own, thereby empowering myself. Suddenly being a misfit meant you were a non-conformist, politically conscious, intellectually superior, and a hell of a lot cooler. The people who had picking on me for years were seen as conformist, shallow, sheep following the herd.

The Punk Rock subculture, like any other group, had its contradictions. The rejected would some time reject one of their own for being friends with people from the popular crowd. Adopting any mainstream cultural habits was seen as a reason for expulsion from the Punk subculture. It seemed we had formed a group that was exclusive for the excluded, that rejected conformity but had an unspoken dress code and list of cultural rules to conform to. Were we that different than the people that excluded us? Yes and No. No, we weren’t different in that we too had unspoken rules and only certain people were welcome. But we were different in that inclusion in this group was under the condition that you had been rejected. This requirement differs from the rules for belonging to most mainstream social groups. The Punk Rock subculture gave those who didn’t fit in a place to belong, a place that didn’t hide how our peers treated us. We celebrated our differences and used it do feel good about ourselves.

Another Thanks to Catherine for sharing her story with us. It's been an incredible mini series, so I'm sad to inform you the end of the mini series will be coming your way tomorrow. Follow up will be Friday. So I'll be on the search for material! if you have something you feel you could contribute to the blog facebook me or e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 7

Logo Credit to Nate Williams

Paul’s girlfriend

All of seventh grade I had tried and failed miserably at finding a boyfriend. But that summer a strange and surprising thing happened, I found a boyfriend, a neighborhood boy, named Paul, who was two years my senior and fairly popular at school. Paul was tall and tan with short dark wavy hair. He was an absolute dreamboat in his blue Adidas shorts.

Paul and I passed the summer spending time with two other couples from the neighborhood. Paula and her beau were one of those couples. Paul and I used to hold hands and kiss when there were no adults around. Once or twice that summer he abandoned me for a visiting girl named Tara, but for the most part, he was my boyfriend all summer.

I was ecstatic. I felt like I was living in one of those teen romance novels. I finally felt like I was somebody and I was sure other girls at school would look up to me, considering who my boyfriend was. I was excited for school to start because I would start grade eight with a handsome ninth-grade boyfriend. Little did I know that Paul had other ideas. I started grade eight thinking this was the year I was going to fit in. Why shouldn’t I? I had a popular boyfriend! Before school even started, I had picked out all my new clothes for the year. I had adopted the preppy look, shirts with alligators, rugby pants, Adidas sneakers, loafers, and so on. How else would a girl with a popular boyfriend dress?! Little did the world and my poor parents know that this was the last time they would ever see that look on me.

I remember that first day of school, I told everyone about my summer and my great new boyfriend. The first break of the day I looked for Paul. I found him in his homeroom sharpening his pencil. I walked up to him and tried to kiss him. He moved his head away. He looked at me and said, “Look we are over. At school I don’t know you. Go away!” I ran away in tears. In my head, I fantasized that maybe he would come to his senses, like Danny in the movie “Grease”. After all Paul was a bit of a bad boy and I was a goody- goody. Maybe, he would miss me and when he did I would be all sexily made over like Sandy in “Grease”. This moment never happened.

Paul never talked to me in school, except to make fun of me. In fact he started to pick on me (see figure 2.12). When I walked to the bus stop in the morning, Paul and his friends would throw burrs at me and they would stick in my hair. On the bus ride home, he would spit at me. Sadly I accepted that there would be no magical “Grease- like” reunion. I nursed a broken heart. It was hard to forget because Paul was always in my face being mean. I couldn’t understand his behavior, when all I did was like him.

Well this was definitely is not the year I learned to fit in. This final heart-break made me stop caring about fitting in altogether. This is the year I learned to not fit in and

make a statement about it. My mother refers to this year as the year I completely changed, the year she lost her little girl. In grade eight I started to form my own identity.

I reflect on the absurdity of losing one’s identity, being known as someone’s girlfriend to obtain the identity of being popular. According to Griffith (1995), when we leave parts of ourselves behind to belong this leads to feeling of being inauthentic. When I chose to identify as an extension of someone else, I left Cathy behind. All these changes were my attempts at fitting in, at being like everybody else. I hated who I was and wanted to be anyone but me.

If part of oneself is left outside the circle when one joins a group, that part has been de-valued by the group. Further, if the person has to behave as if ashamed of parts of themselves, or to actively campaign against them, then the person is acting as though she agrees with the group’s evaluations. This is dangerous for self-esteem. (Griffiths, 1995, p.118).

As I grew older and was no longer peer rejected, I built a new and stronger image of myself. When I met new friends, I tried to hide my past from them. The new me seemed so different that I felt unconnected to my childhood self; in fact, I want to bury my childhood identity. Eventually I tried to hide the past even from myself. In the following essay I try to explain and resolve the conflict between the confident adult me and the rejected child I was.

What’s in a Name?

What does a name mean? It can mean who you legally are. I was born Katherine Joyce Miller. When my parent’s adopted me, I became Catherine Elizabeth Derry. When I was married I was Catherine Elizabeth Lynch. I divorced and became Catherine Elizabeth Derry once again. These are all very formal version of my name as it has changed over the years. When I hear someone’s full name it is always for a very formal reason. Signing legal papers, graduation, or when you’re in trouble with your Mom. This is not the use of one’s name that I am pondering.

What I am interested in is the name that those who know us well call us by: friends, family, teachers, coworkers and even enemies. What people call us can shape our identity, how we act, how we see ourselves, how we feel about ourselves Our everyday name holds behind it a lot of identity-forming and meaning-making. I have two names and might I say two identities or personas. There is Cathy and Catherine.

Catherine is my legal first name and the name I choose to go by now. Cathy is a shortened version of my name that my parents choose to give me the day I was put into their arms. A name that my family, old friends, former classmates and old acquaintances still call me. A name I have been trying to run away from for the last twelve years.

Why do I hate the name Cathy? It is not as simple as just not caring for the name. I feel like there are two of me (no I do not have a split personality). Cathy and Catherine are two basically different personas shaped by life experience. Cathy was shaped during all those awful years of schooling and Catherine is the adult I chose to be, unconnected to Cathy’s pain.

I should backtrack and start at the beginning. When my parents called me Cathy it was with love. My dad always dreamed of having a baby girl and calling her Cathy. My Mom wanted to call me Judy. My Dad won out. Judy did survive as the name of one of my first dolls. Of course my parents gave me the full name of Catherine Elizabeth, as all good Catholics had the habit of naming their children after saints. Before I entered the school system Cathy was the name I was affectionately called by my parents and my early playmates. To this day I let my family still call me Cathy because the love still rings true in their voice when they say it, just as my cousins still let family call them by ridiculous childhood nicknames.

I did not really find offense in hearing my name called until I started to school. Once I started school, my name started to get used in childhood taunts like “Ew you have Cathy germs”. It got used in negative ways on report cards such as this excerpt from my grade one report card “…Cathy still needs to take her time and take some pride in her work.” As I got older, it was some times heard in the laughing voice of a bully.

In junior high my named got used in a new taunt. “Cathy Lizzy Derry”, implying that I was a lesbian. Barely grasping what the term meant, the adolescent Cathy started to chase boys like mad. I also figured out that the key to popularity was getting a boy to like you. Cathy tried this and failed. I remember hearing boys saying “Gross, Cathy likes you”. How did Cathy feel? She felt ugly and unattractive and pined for a real boyfriend.

When Cathy was fourteen, Cathy changed her look in hopes of acceptance. She became a New Wave, alternative girl. This just made the kids at school make fun of her with taunts like “Cathy is a freak. Is it Halloween already Cathy?” But Cathy discovered in the next few years that this look made her attractive to some boys, older boys, most of whom were not in school. I found that these boys would be really nice to you if you did what they said. But not for long. Pretty soon these boys and their friends start calling Cathy a slut and “easy” and many other horrible names. How did Cathy feel about herself? She felt she was too easy, unloved, and ugly. Maybe if she was nicer, prettier, a boy would actually fall in love with her. She felt she was no good and didn’t deserve love. She knew the only way she would find some acceptance was by pleasing whatever guy she liked at the time.

Not liking who I was at eighteen, I tried to make people call me Catherine. This worked when I lived in a different city. I remember the year I was nineteen, going to college in Ontario, and newly single. I had asked my friends, classmates and teachers to call me Catherine. How do I remember that year? I remember Catherine did well at school, had a lot of friends, had a few boyfriends (even one who claimed to love her) and went to lots of great parties. I remember at the end of that year being sad I had to go back to Saint John and be Cathy again. In the years I lived in Saint John after that, I would live in fear that new friends would find out who Cathy really was from people who had known me in school. Sometimes new friends would hear stories, but it never deterred them from liking me as I feared it would. In the Fall of 1996 I moved to Halifax, determined once again to start my life over as Catherine. This time the name stuck. I was very happy with my social life there. The same was true when I moved to Montreal as Catherine, not Cathy.

How would I describe these two personas? Cathy is ugly, careless, and stupid. She doesn’t have many friends. It is probably because she’s a crybaby. She is too sensitive for her own good. This is what makes her a target for ridicule. She tries too hard to make people like her. Everyone laughs at her. Boys think she’s ugly and do not want to go out with her, but she sleeps with boys in hope of achieving validation and acceptance. It never works. She does what people want so people will like her. This only makes them think less of her. She is a coward and never stands up for herself or others. She is everyone’s doormat. She has no friends and never will. She will never amount to anything. Nobody will ever fall in love with her. She will become a crazy old cat lady, and die sad and lonely.

Catherine is fairly attractive and has a great sense of fashion. She has many friends, new and old, that find her amusing, supportive and loyal. She is very intelligent and excels at school. She will make an excellent therapist or professor someday. Catherine likes herself and does not need to sexually please men. She is a proud confident lesbian. She is capable of love and has been loved by men and women. She will probably make a great partner and will someday make a great parent. She will spend her life surrounded by friends and family, very much loved.

This is why I chose to be Catherine. She is who I strive to be and am proud to be every day. Even though I choose to be Catherine, there are times when I feel like Cathy. I have started to accept this. I can’t be this idealized Catherine all the time. I am starting to love the Cathy in me because she needs love and acceptance. It’s time I give her what she needs to heal. I can’t heal Cathy until I accept that she’s a part of me. But I still prefer to be Catherine, unless I know you really care about me unconditionally. Then calling me Cathy is fine because she needs unconditional acceptance.

My essay illustrates the power a name can hold and its relationship to identity and self-image. After hearing your name used in so many negative ways, it becomes another enemy for you to escape from. Before I started school, I did not hate my name of Cathy. It was only once I associated it with the negative traits bestowed on me by my peers that I began to hate it. Each slur they labeled me, like ugly, gross, stupid, slut, was layered on me like too many winter clothes until I couldn’t breathe. I had to escape and recreate my identity. Today I realize my identity is multiple and complex and includes all of the parts of Catherine and Cathy, from the sensitive little girl to the take charge-of-her-life woman

This brings back the question of whether the self is a unified ‘I’ or fragmented selves. To me it depends on where one is in one’s life. As a child, I saw my identity as a unified ‘I’ and I kept trying on different identities, hoping one would make me like myself. As a young adult, I saw my identity as fragmented: the Cathy I despised and the Catherine I was trying to be. Today, I see myself as an ‘I’, but not an unified ‘I’. It is a multiple ‘I’ in which all my selves are allowed to exist together as a whole. I think that just as identity changes over ones life, so does ones conception of identity and self.

When I was thirteen, I once again changed my look. This time it was not about being popular at school, in fact it was for the opposite reason. Slowly, over the next few years I did a hundred and eighty degree change: I went from a sad little girl who wanted to fit in to an angry adolescent who thrived on being different and not fitting in. I became part of the New Wave/ Punk Rock subculture. According to Griffiths (1995), when girls are rejected, they sometimes stop wanting to be part of that in-group, and create a new identity within a new group. “This is a process born of rejection and not to be confused with freely choosing such a group because she feels at home in it, however happy she feels later with the new group” (Griffiths, 1995, p.91). I gave up on being a popular kid and became a teen-age rebel and joined with others like me who rejected the values of the dominant culture. How did all this start for me?

Another Big Thank you to Catherine for sharing her story with us. I'll be posting the next part tomorrow. I'm kind of sad to say this week will be close to the end of the mini series, it's been incredible and I'm worried to see how long my follow up will be on this one. Remember if you have something you feel you can contribute to the series fb me or e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 6

logo credit to Nate Williams

Being Kendra’s “best friend” did not make me feel better about myself, perhaps because it wasn’t really a healthy friendship, even though at the time I thought of it as such. Vaughn et al. (1993) found that having one close friend can make the difference in the life of an unpopular child. Yes, it was a secure feeling to have a friend, but with Kendra, I felt I wasn’t as good as her. It was evident in her actions she didn’t think I was good enough to be included in all activities. It was not an equal friendship. In fact, I realize now that it was a form of bullying. From that first time that she ran over my toes with her tricycle, Kendra exerted power over me and made me feel weak and controlled. Her relationship with me differed, however, from traditional bullying in that we had genuine affection for each other.

School was a place of many terrors, somewhere I dreaded going to each day. But in fourth grade something happened that made school a little bearable. I discovered I was good at it. My grades had been rising steadily. By fourth grade I was one of the top students in the class. This was something that made me feel good about myself. But by fifth grade, it had become another reason for the children to pick on me. I decided it was time to change my identity, so I would be more like the others.

Playing dumb

Before fifth grade, most of my classmates had ignored me or refused to play with me. It was lonely, but not unbearable for me. In grade five I remember the name calling started. This was probably because I started wearing glasses and I got very good grades. I was the perfect portrait of the nerd. I remember getting called the typical names, such as “Four Eyes”. That wasn’t too bad-my Dad had told me what to expect, because he had gotten glasses at a young age too.

I knew that getting good grades in school and being the teachers’ favorite made me much more unpopular with my classmates. I can remember one incident where the class had done rather poorly on a spelling test and I had one hundred percent. The teacher kept the whole class in at recess, except, that is, for me. At lunch the kids blamed me for getting a good mark. This was the first time I realized that doing well in school can make you unpopular with your peers. I was firmly established as the class geek. The kids use to call me geek, goody-goody two shoes, ugly. People would touch me and touch someone else and say, “Ew! You’ve got Cathy germs”, and no one would be my partner in gym class. I knew there was nothing I could do about my glasses, I needed them to see and my mother had told me contacts were out of the question. The only thing I could dowas change my academic status. And so I stopped trying in school, in fact I tried to act like the ditzy girl, a behavior I retained well into senior high. The kids still picked on me, being a ditz had not made me popular, but at least now I had one less bad quality for others to hold against me.

According to Griffith (1995) sometimes people have to do something called ‘passing’, adjusting their actions to be part of a group. “ Having to ‘pass’ means at least playing down aspects of oneself” (Griffiths, 1995, p.117). Orenstein (1994) noted in her study of junior high girls that girls feel it is more important to be nice and sweet than smart. Like most girls, I gave up something I was good at in the hopes of gaining popularity. “Passing in one group may affect membership of other groups” (Griffiths, 1995, p. 117). I feel that I lost doubly, because not only did I not become popular, I gave up my identity of “smart girl” something that made myself and my parents proud of me. I wonder, as I write this, if this is what drives me so hard at school now? Am I trying to reclaim the identity I freely gave up in fifth grade?

When I started junior high (grades seven to nine) I thought maybe if I changed the way I dressed, if I adopted a more mature fashionable look, I would fit in. I poured over fashion magazines all summer trying to find the right look. I told my mother I would not wear clothes in the children’s section anymore and I wanted my clothes from the trendy stores such as “Smart Set and Suzy Shier”. On the first day of school I decked myself out in what I thought a fashion plate, destined to be popular and admired by all, would wear.

Fashion disaster

I am looking at a picture of myself taken on the first day of junior high. In the picture I am in my living room, standing beside the organ. One hand is resting on the organ and the other is clutching my first purse, which is beige with multi colored zippers. My new Adidas school bag is in the background behind me. I have long blonde hair, with big glasses (that take over most of my face,) under which I am wearing pink eyeshadow (my first time being aloud to wearing make-up). I am wearing a red checked blouse with white frills at the collar, breasts and cuffs. Around the collar of this shirt I have placed a bow tie. I am wearing a long denim skirt with frills on the bottom, white knee socks and black loafers. The western look, the men’s look, and the preppy look were all popular that year. I seemed to have mixed all those looks together.

When I see this photo, I think two things. I remember how excited and grown-up I felt leaving for school that day. But the adult me looks at it and thinks ,‘Oh. My God! That poor child, I was such a geek!’ The adult in me sees the awkward child who, back than, I could not see looking in the mirror. I had high hopes for that year that were not fulfilled. I did not make friends in my class and I was still picked on.. This memory makes me think of a song called “Grade 9’ by the Barenaked Ladies. The lyrics express the awkwardness of not fitting in:

I found my locker and I found my classes.

Lost my lunch and I broke my glasses,

That guy is huge! That girl is wailin!

First day of School and I’m already failing.

Chorus

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine.

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine.

I’ve got a blue-and-red Adidas bag and a humongous binder,

I’m trying my best not to look like a minor niner.

I went out for the football team to prove that I’m a man;

I guess I shouldn’t tell them that I like Duran Duran.

Chorus

Well, half my friends are crazy and the others are depressed

And none of them can help me study for my math test.

I got into the classroom and my knowledge was gone;

I guess I should’ve studied instead of watching Wrath of Khan.

Chorus

They called me chicken legs, they called me four-eyes,

They called me fatso, they called me buckwheat,

They called me Eddie.

Chorus

I’ve got a red leather tie and a pair of rugger pants,

I put them on and I went to the high school dance.

Dad said I have to be home by eleven –

Aw, man, I’m gone miss Stairway to Heaven

(Barnaked Ladies, 1992)

This piece brings to the forefront the hopes of popularity a lot of us have when entering a new school. If we just obtain the right look or join the right groups, we imagine we will achieve the popularity never possible before. But of course this doesn’t always work; in fact, it usually fails. The rejected students stay rejected. This song speaks to the experience of entering junior high, negotiating a place to fit in, and not succeeding.

In shopping for that first day of school outfit, I chose a physical transformation, which is a common strategy for adolescent girls. According to Weber & Mitchell (1995), our identity and ideas about identity are influenced by pop culture images. Further, the clothes we wear play an important part in the social construction of the self (Weber & Mitchell, 1995). Teen-age girls are told by magazines that all it takes is a good makeover and you will be popular and adored by boys. Unfortunately, for most girls, this is false hope.

I think this experience is common for many girls, not just those of us who are peer rejected. What’s the same is that this physical transformation does not make girls popular. What’s different for peer rejected girls is having the added burden of still being peer rejected; in other words, it’s a double disappointment.

After this failure I was depressed but not defeated. I was just becoming a teenager and was determined I would be well-liked. I went back to my teen magazines and novels to look for answers. They all seemed to point in one direction, “get a boyfriend”. According to what I was reading, if you had a boyfriend you would be happy and people would like you. In fact the more popular the boy was, the more popular you would be. So I set my sights on getting myself a boyfriend. I had my first boyfriend the summer I turned thirteen.

And I will continue to thank Catherine for letting me share her papers from school, and her experiences. REMEMBER, if you have something to contribute fb or e-mail me! nancy.wood@mbsradio.com! Happy Freedom Against Bullying Week!

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 5

Logo Credit to Nate Williams

Bullied out of school

That first day of school, I was pushed down the stairs and my locker was sprayed with shaving cream. Worst of all, Peggy, a girl who had been tormenting me since grade nine, escalated her bullying. Peggy, sat behind me in homeroom, thanks to the teachers

alphabetical order of seating. It seemed like everywhere I turned that first day, there was Peggy yelling, pushing or shoving me. I went back to school, the next day, full of dread. Every time I saw Peggy my heart would start to race with fear.

Peggy was just as mean the second day of school. At the end of the day, I was walking out the door of the school to catch the bus when Peggy jumped me from behind. She pushed me face first to the ground and rubbed shaving cream in my hair. I was scared, angry, and embarrassed. I got on the bus, sat by myself, and wouldn’t talk to anyone. As I walked home from the bus I started crying. By the time I got home, I was sobbing. When my mother saw the state I was in, she asked me what had happened and I poured out the whole story. My very angry mother phoned the principal and got me transferred to a different senior high.

As I reflect on that fall day in grade eleven, I think it was one of the worst school experiences I ever had. Yet, it was a catalyst for change. After that day I never felt I was peer rejected again. It was like something changed inside me. When Peggy was on top off me I felt very helpless, I couldn’t do anything to stop her, she was bigger than I was. This was the most physical my harassment had been since Marvin beat me up in elementary school. It was like it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had finally had enough. Up to then, I had thought I had put up a wall, that I didn’t let my peers' rejection bother me that much, and that I didn’t let anyone else know it bothered me so much. But when this incident happened, it was like the walls weren’t high enough to protect me. I broke down and it hurt. But I knew I was never going to let it happen again. I was never going back to that school. Luckily, I got through to my mom and she supported me in this decision. My life changed after that and I stopped continually thinking of myself as the one they pick on.

Identity

Amy is bold. And brassy, and strong-willed. Like any teenager, she tries on and discards different selves as if they were so many pairs of Girbaud jeans, searching ruthlessly for a perfect fit (Orenstein, 1994).

What is this thing we call identity? Scholars have defined identity in many ways, and as being a unitary ‘I’ or fragmented selves (Griffiths, 1995). Feminist theory has favored a view of identity as fragmented selves or or as multiple selves (Griffiths, 1995; Mitchell & Weber, 1999). Griffith (1995) sees one's identity as a complicated web with many parts.

Self-identity is to be understood, as a kind of web, the construction of which is partly under guidance from the self, though not in its control. Thus it is marked by competing constraints and influences which overlap and fuse… Each individual creates her own identity, although she is constrained by circumstances in doing so (Griffiths, 1995, p.93).

Identity construction is influenced by material and social conditions (Griffiths, 1995). According to Griffith (1995) the most important social conditions that affect identity formation is our relationships with others. This is affected by how we experience love, resistance, acceptance and rejection with society. “Being loved or rejected or being in a position to love or reject others affects how loveable a person seems to herself” (Griffith, 1995, 116).

Peer rejection made me define myself as undesirable. It made me hate who I was. It made me search for an identity that others would like. I was trying to find a way to make the kids at school like me. To do this I adopted many identities. According to Griffith (1995), people often try on different selves when negotiating identity. Sometimes these changes would work and I would achieve partial acceptance and sometimes they would fail miserably. After not fitting in, during my first two years of school, I decided to take part in an extracurricular activity to boost my popularity, I joined Brownies.

I was a Brownie leader

In Brownies I really excelled. I got almost every Brownie badge available. I became the sixer of my group. For those unfamiliar with Brownies, I will explain further. The Brownie troupe is divided up into groups of six. Each group has a name such as sprite,s pixies, elves. Their leader is the Sixer, which was the position I held my last two years of Brownies This made me highly respected by the other girls in Brownies. I eventually went on to Girl Guides where I achieved a similar rank.

I remember I was very excited to join Brownies, It felt very important to put on that brown uniform. Once I started achieving in Brownies, I thought it would spill over to my relationship with girls at school. It didn’t. The same girls who accepted my leadership in Brownies would not play with me and even made fun of me at school. I found this very confusing. I remember wearing my uniform to school on International Girl Guide Day. I thought people would see the badges and see how important I was. This did not happen. Finally, I accepted that I would only be accepted at Brownies, which at least gave me something to look forward to every week and a way to feel proud of myself. I continued attending Girl Guides until about grade seven, when it was deemed geeky to be a Girl Guide and I had enough problems being called a geek without adding to it.

According to Griffths (1995), whether or not a person is accepted or rejected by a group can affect one's self-worth. As a child grows older, the situation becomes more complicated because they start belonging to more than one group. “The individual can belong easily to some of them, and is rejected by others” (Griffiths, 1995, p. 116). Achieving in Brownies made me feel good about myself. According to George & Hartman (1996), unpopular children tend to find relationships outside the classroom. These supports can help the peer-rejected child, but can not make up for the damage peer rejection does to one’s self-esteem.

A central way I identified myself during my childhood was by my relationships with others. Social relationships are the way one forms self-identity and evaluates ones self-worth (Griffiths, 1995). In my elementary years, this was characterized by being best friends with Kendra, which I thought this was definitely the key to popularity. After all Kendra, was pretty, smart, artistic, athletic, older and popular.

By the time I was eight, Kendra and I were inseparable. We went everywhere together. We dressed our dolls alike and sometimes we would dress alike. I particularly remember a card I received from Kendra on my tenth birthday. On the outside she wrote “You’re my very best friend! Happy Birthday!” On the inside she wrote, “Happy birthday to the BEST FRIEND anyone could have!” I remember feeling so happy when this was read aloud at my birthday party. In my life it seemed that rejection was everywhere- at school and from some of the kids in the neighborhood .This made Kendra’s declaration of friendship blissful. It was worth any price. It seemed like no one had ever liked me that much. I was under Kendra’s spell.

But having the identity of Kendra’s best friend came at a price. I quickly found out everything was done Kendra’s way or this wonderful affection was not given. Her friendship was conditional. Kendra only played games she was good at. In make believe games I was always assigned the less desirable role. At school I was Kendra’s friend, but I was not often invited to join in games. I could watch or take secondary role. But as soon as we were back home, Kendra would turn into the most affectionate best friend.

Another HUGE thanks to Catherine for sharing these personal papers with me to share with you. Remember if you'd like to contribute to the blog you can FB me OR e-mail me nancy.wood@mbsradio.com

The Anti-Bully Blog Series Edition #12 part 4

logo credit to Nate Williams

So if you're just spotting this post, we're into part 4 of a mini series. If you haven't been following it up until this point I WOULD recommend checking out the earlier posts. Believe me if you don't odds are you're going to be going back to see how we got to this point anyway, because this is a story of epic proportions. One of my loyal listeners who I'd dare to call a friend now studied bullying and behaviour and such. She herself was a voiceless victim, and in her studies she did a paper on her own personal story. She has been so kind as to let me post it here in the Anti-Bully Blog series. So a HUGE thank you again to Catherine, and here is part 4 of her story

During this period of my life, most of the kids who picked on me were in Kendra’s grade, probably because I spent most of my time with Kendra and her friends. A lot of her friends didn’t like me. My reputation for being a “misfit” spread around our small school fast. According to Paley (1992), a child’s reputation usually follows them from kindergarten through all their school years.

It was mostly the girls who harassed me in late elementary school. Most of the harassment centered around the fact that I went through puberty early. According to Hazler (1996), the worst time for children to get victimized by their peers is during puberty. Although peers can be a support to each other as they go through these changes, those who are not going through these changes at the same rate as others are often targeted for abuse. Girls who mature early really stand out as different from the rest. The fact that I developed early made me one of those easy targets.

They grabbed my tits

By the beginning of grade five, I had been wearing a bra for a year. My breasts were bigger than those of most of the girls in the school. Not believing my breasts were real, the other girls called me “Tissue Tits”. I used to try to explain to the girls that my breast were real, but they wouldn’t listen to me. One day, the girls who teased me went too far, they sexually assaulted me.

It happened after lunch when I went to the washroom. Some grade six girls were in there fixing their hair, and they started calling me “Tissue Tits”. But they didn’t stop there. I told them adamantly that my breasts were real and I did not stuff myself. They asked me to prove it, a request I strongly refused. Not accepting my refusal, they grabbed me and pulled me into the stall and two of them put their hands inside my bra and squeezed and pinched my breasts hard. They were silent for a moment, realizing that they were real. But after a moment they decided the truth was unimportant. One girl grabbed a handful of toilet paper and put it in my shirt and yelled “Tissue Tits, Tissue Tits!” The other girls apparently thought this was a great idea. They started yelling the name and throwing toilet paper at me.

yelling the name and throwing toilet paper at me. The bell rang and they went back to class. I stayed in the washroom for a few minutes to pull myself together and to make sure they were gone.

I was upset for two reasons: I felt shame and shock that people had touched my breasts, and anger that after they assaulted me and found out my breasts were real, they kept the truth to themselves and continued to call me “Tissue Tits”. This name would follow me for the next three years. Its effects were so long lasting that a girl I met in my twenties, who was friends with some former students of that school, asked me if I stuffed my bra when I was young. Names called in school can cling forever.

I had felt helpless before, helpless to make friends, to stop people from laughing at me, to stop from getting beat up. But this was the first time I was helpless over an intimate part of my body. My budding private parts had become public, my sexuality was not my own. People touched my breasts without permission and made their own judgements and there was nothing I felt I could do about it. This feeling of powerlessness became deeply ingrained. As I grew older, I gave up even trying to stop people from fondling me. I let people touch me because I had learned I was helpless over my body, my protests meant nothing.

When I entered junior high (grades seven to nine), peers continued to pick on me. Some of Kendra's friends made fun of me and harassed me consistently. Increasingly though, the most embarrassing harassment came from the boys. Whereas the other girls in junior high were starting to get noticed by boys, I became the butt of their jokes

Barney’s big joke

I remember hanging out with Kendra and her friends and being approached by Barney the grade eight class clown. He walked up to me and professed his love on his knees. I told him to go away. I was embarrassed because everyone was laughing at me. Barney grabbed my leg and wouldn’t let go. If I moved I would drag him along with me. Everyone thought this was hilarious. Things like this happened on a regular basis in junior high.

By the end of grade seven I was begging my mother to let me transfer to a new school, where no one knew me and I could start over, but she would not listen. She thought I was exaggerating because she couldn’t comprehend that people would not love her beautiful baby as much as she did. I kept most of the severe abuse happening at school to myself as I was very embarrassed about it.

During my stay at junior high I wasn’t just helpless, I was fearful and embarrassed. According to Hazler (1996), fear is something a lot of victims of bullying experience because they feel powerless to stop the abuse. It seemed to me there was no where safe in school from these attacks and ridicules. These situations made me feel very

embarrassed that there was an audience seeing me in this situation. Transferring to a new school was the only way I could see out of this mess, but that wasn’t about to happen until senior high (grades ten to twelve).

Unfortunately, some of my most vulnerable feelings of helplessness occurred during my first year of senior high, when I was forced to attend a small all-girl school. The girls at this school were very intolerant of difference and I dressed purposely in an unconventional style. I do remember being happy that a girl named “Jill” befriended me or so I thought.

Back-stabbing bitch

I met a girl named Jill when I started senior high, who pretended to be a great friend. She was popular and she actually seemed to like me! I was surprised and happy. We sat together in English class everyday for weeks. Finally, I decided Jill was such a good friend I could trust her with a secret that was bothering me. I confided in her the painful details of being sexually abused by a friend that summer. The day after I told Jill this secret, it spread like wildfire around the school. The girls at school made little jokes up about it and used to yell them at me in the hall. The abuse that I had wanted to forget had made me, yet again, become the butt of everyone’s joke. What’s worse, by confiding in Jill, I had been unknowingly instrumental in my own undoing.

As I reflect on this memory I still remember the betrayal I felt. My good friend Jill had betrayed my confidence. I felt stupid because I had learned in the past that I shouldn’t trust kids in school, that they will always pick on me and there was nothing I could do about it. I had hoped now that I was older that things had changed. But Jill’s actions made me feel as helpless as I had been in kindergarten. Jill wasn’t the only girl giving me a hard time. A group of senior girls used to enjoy making jokes at my expense. I particularly remember trying out for the school play.

A fledgling actresses dies

I had always wanted to be an actress as far back as I can remember. I tried out for several plays in junior high, but never got a part. This had not quelled my thirst for the stage. When I reached senior high I was even more excited about it, because senior high plays were performed on stage in the auditorium, and members of the general public, not just parents attended. With a giddy enthusiasm I tried out for the school Christmas play. When my name was called I jumped up on stage. As soon as I walked across the stage, the other girls waiting for their turn started laughing and calling me names. I turned around and left the stage without finishing my audition.

This is just a small sample of the things I had to face at that school (see figure 2.9). Every time, I walked down the hall I would be called a name or tripped. There were girls who threatened to beat me up if I didn’t stop spiking my hair. Again, there was no where at school to escape rejection. By this point I was so fed up with rejection that I skipped school whenever I could so I wouldn’t have to face this treatment. A lot of victims of bullying, fearing maltreatment will try to avoid school (Hazler, 1996).

This year of senior high was very painful. It seemed teasing was harder to take as I got older. I think at fifteen, I was starting to feel like an adult. I had friends outside of school and I was even dating, so it was humiliating to go to school and be treated the same way I had been treated as a small child. But again, I was helpless to change my situation. Some of the girls in the small senior high I attended had gone to junior high with me, and had brought my old reputation with them. It doesn’t take long for the stories to circulate around a small school. Researchers have differing opinions on why children are rejected, but most agree that reputation can keep the cycle going. As I started my second year of senior high, things got even worse. The name calling escalated to dramatic proportions.

Another HUGE thanks to Catherine for sharing her story! Next Edition will be coming you way Wednesday! Remember if you have something you'd like to contribute, or questions you can facebook me OR fire me off an E-mail nancy.wood@mbsradio.com