Sticks and stones may break my bones...

As the story unfolds on national news about the young girl who killed herself because of bullying from classmates, I am taken to a time very long ago when I was that girl. The girl who wanted to die because it seemed the whole world hated her! Countless comments made by thoughtless children had reduced my self-esteem to a pile of ashes and my self-worth was non-existent!

To recount every word spoken is not possible, as now, many years later the feelings are fading and well, I feel I must protect the guilty. I am certain that eyebrows are raised in wonderment over my need to protect the guilty. Yet, I feel that dragging those years into the limelight would only serve to glorify what was said by school children who could not see the whole picture and did not understand how much their words can hurt. Each of those children who tormented me as a child grew into constructive, and mostly likeable adults.

The tormenting began when I was in the first grade. I was tall for my age, with very crooked teeth, coke bottle thick glasses and stringy hair. We were poor as my Dad had been hurt in a chain-saw accident in 1963 leaving him with a bent and broken hand that no longer allowed him to work like he was used to. My Mom worked two jobs to support our family and was tired most of the time that she WAS home.

Children see things at face value, they rarely think how their careless words might affect another and they say things that seem childish and hurtful. Simply because they ARE childish and hurtful!

I endured seven years of torment at the hands of children who did not know better! To chastise them now and paste their actions all over the internet would serve no purpose and the names of those children will forever grace the pages of my therapists diaries and no other pages will bear their names.

Yet the pain inflicted by these children only served as a daily reminder in my adult life as gospel truth spoken by someone who must have known what they were talking about. I took those words and made them so much a part of my life that I believed every single word of them. When I looked in the mirror I saw ugliness because I had been told over and over how ugly I was. I could not see the pretty face that God had really given me. I could only see the hurt.

Years have passed and the taunts of school-children formed my very identity. Those words affected every area of my life. Every man I dated, proved that they were wrong. The words went through my head even though I probably didn't even like that guy!

Finding old friends on Facebook has brought many of those school-children back into my life. Although the two ring leaders have never surfaced on Facebook, most of the other school-children did! Thirty five years later I sit and look at the pictures and the names smiling back at me. Telling me of lives lived, children born and how they have aged.

It was one such evening that I had a chance to speak to one of my former classmates. A boy who joined in the tormenting from time to time, even though he was not worst. Inside my heart burned and I wanted to scream at him. To tell him how much they had hurt me! How much my life had been affected by the words so carelessly spoken. The words of mean boys and girls are just words. It dawned on me that this man smiling back at me with his gray hair, had no clue that he had anything to do with the many hours of therapy I had gone through. He had no clue that my life had been so affected by the words spoken by careless children.

The realization that I was the only one keeping this story alive blew the wind right out of my anger. It was no longer about THEM, it was about me! The anger, the hate and all those years of hurt came tumbling down. I was the only one keeping this story alive. And it really needed to be put to it's final resting place.

The anger is gone now and I no longer hold a grudge against those smiling faces. My life is what I make it, and in some odd way I might almost be thankful. My life is what it is, and I would not be who I am today without EVERY piece of my life fitting together in a puzzle. It is not to say that I condone such behaviour. I do not, and I do not recommend that anyone read these words and think they are growing character by bullying another child!

Those puzzle pieces may not be what God wants for us to go through, but He is so merciful that if we let Him, He will heal those hurts. He took the pain and showed me that I had hurt myself far more, by letting it get to me for so many years, than the actual words that were said.
Recently I have made contact with another boy from my old life and this story has a very different ring to it. He was the boy I watched walk by every time I saw him. He was my first crush. I thought he was the cutest boy I had ever seen! Now he is a grown man and now, we are friends. I have heard his perspective of how things were back then and how he saw me. He did not see an ugly duckling as I called myself, no, he thought I WAS one of the pretty girls!

This part of my life has come full circle. God has placed those in my path to teach me that my thoughts were skewed. God has shown me how HE see's me. To God, I am one of the pretty girls and the words spoken by thoughtless, school-children hurt God too. Because they hurt me. God thought it necessary to teach me that He did not see me this way. I am not an ugly duckling and the words said to me were not true. Through God's intervention I am healed from that pain.

It is not to say that I won't remember it, and I won't draw on tha experience if I need to. But, most likely it will be to say to some pretty little child that the words others are saying to them are hurtful.....but....they are not true! God does not see you as the child the school kids say you are. God see's you as HIS beautiful creation! Words can never be taken back, but it is up to you to take the knife out of your side and quit digging it deeper. You are the only one needs to let the healing begin.

(c)copyright 2010 danni