I haven't been writing a lot lately, not because I didn't have any time, but because all the things I felt like writing about were sad things, angry things, useless things--things that, really, wouldn't benefit anyone reading them. I thought I'd write this anyway.
When I was younger, I was bullied by a teacher who thought I was too smart and too conceited for my own good. For four years there would be weeks on end that each school day was hell for me: full of snide remarks and insinuations, and public humiliation, and the painful disappointment of having an authority figure not only deny her approval, but even her basic respect. I'd come home unwilling to talk about it, because it's hard to talk about those things that pain you the most. It gave my mother a lot of pain, my refusal to talk, but I think that we should be able to keep to ourselves, even for just a little while, the things that bring us the greatest sadness and despair, just so we can decide how to approach them. Just so we can put up walls where they need to be put up. Just so we can deal with being bullied.
It occurred to me today that it's like history is repeating itself. I am no longer the wunderkind (is there a way to feminize the word?) who got up the nose of an old lady who took her frustrations out on an unsuspecting adolescent. I'm a twenty two year old medical student who has a degree and, I used to think, at least enough self-confidence to get me through adulthood without too many mishaps. But it's like I'm still standing in the same classroom, letting someone make me feel bad about myself. Allowing someone else that power.
My teacher was a bully, and I think she knew what she was doing, though she might deny it to herself. She never said sorry for any of it, after all--grading me differently from everyone else (and this conclusion was supported by one of the Sisters, who took it upon herself to look through my grades), humiliating me in class, writing snide remarks on my papers which were half begrudging compliment, half commentary on my supposedly huge ego ("You know *very well* that you write very well!"). And so many other things, all adding up to make the high school experience a boiling pot of misery and paralyzing self-doubt. I've forgotten most of it by now, having chosen to forget the less savory part of high school.
But I remember what being bullied feels like, and now that I'm twenty-two, you'd think I'd be safe from all that. But I think I'm not. Sometimes I think, wow, this feels familiar, what the heck is happening? My tormentors are not, I think, consciously setting themselves up as bullies. I think they're pretty satisfied with themselves, actually, morally, physically, and on any other level.
I don't know why I allow myself to be sad about the things that are said to me about my personal appearance--things hidden in jokes, things that are outright insults but that you're not supposed to take offence at since, after all, it's all in fun isn't it, and don't be so balat-sibuyas? And I know I'm guilty of making the same kinds of remarks as well, though never as directly and never as meanly, never with the intent to make someone feel so small that, through daily abuse, the fortress of their self-esteem is slowly eroded and all that's left is a mass of nerves and social anxiety. As if there weren't enough social anxiety to begin with!
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. I guess. St Josemaria's mother used to tell him to be ashamed only of sin. After all, it's only God's opinion that matters, when everything is said and done.
Bullies will see your imperfections (and may forget their own, thanks to that wonderful myopia we all have about our own flaws), but they don't see the way you pray, the things you sacrifice, the number of times you say no to your own will (and yes to God's) in one day, the things that involve your taking the harder path--they will not ever see the things that matter. They don't see you trying to overcome your painfully persistent shyness to make friends, and they don't see how you offer your work to God, daily, consciously, silently, blending in with everyone else. They won't see you crying about your mistakes and being sorry for them, and they won't ever see you getting up and struggling, despite past experiences and the prospect of few rewards, to be a genuinely better person.
It's okay, Kay. Possumus. Nulla dies sine cruce.
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