being bullied… again

[jim_p]

I had a dream last night that I was being bullied. I was in a place that had elements of both a workplace and a public school… we were seated at office desks getting various work-type things done, but I remember having to catch a yellow school bus home at a particular time.

One coworker asked me to take a look at something, and while I was engrossed in code he dripped honey on top of my head. Another time someone showed me a tray of devices, and as I was pointing out what each one would need in order to be deliverable her friend was writing rude things on my pant leg in magic marker.

Those are the only incidents I can remember clearly, but there were a number of others. The overall feeling was one of helplessness; there was nothing I could do to stop it, nobody seemed to care that I was being humiliated, and I had no escape (just like in middle school, I "had" to stay with these clowns until the dismissal bell rang).

In pretty much all cases there was some vulnerability that they were taking advantage of (e.g. inattention) and retribution was impossible. I tried to "toink" one guy's ears, but try as I might I just couldn't connect. They could hurt me, but I was powerless to do anything to them

This just goes to show how deeply this stuff goes in. I'm 50-mumble years old and it's *still* coloring my outlook to this day. Sometimes when I bring this up, my peers (typically the ones who were doing some form of bullying themselves) tell me to "get over it".

Fuck you. The next person who tells me to just "get over it" is getting the mother of all wedgies. And in real life, I can deliver.

Comments

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I totally concur. My brother had a way of doing terribly annoying things to me at the flip of a finger, and then he was expert at manipulating our parents to turn me into a "whiner", then privately chuckling to me with his success. They were stupid things, but really annoying: changing a TV channel I was watching at the apex of the action, so that after the inevitable parental intercession that segment of the show would be over and I lost anyway. Or turning off lights in the room when I'm comfortably cuddled in a blanket reading a book, then leaving the house so I had to get up myself. Don't even mention the feeling of being in a prison with inmates defined as grade school/high school classmates. I had no place in my heart for them while I was enduring their daily nonacceptance of my humanity, let alone now for reunions, etc. It really irks me when people say "Get over it". Am I now supposed to somehow feel close to my brother because now he's a "good guy" who still refuses to acknowledge me when he's travelling near my home (I've suggested meeting in a restaurant if he's just "driving past Boston" and that's ignored)? Yet I have to endure their smoke-filled house on holidays, where they all exchange xmas gifts yet I get nothing from them except thanks for being a free 24 hr holiday nurse to my mom.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

To me, deliberate hurtfulness is one of the very few things I cannot forgive under any circumstances, and bullying falls squarely in this category. If a bully later shapes up and becomes human I will acknowledge their growth, but I still can't bring myself to forgive the damage they've done.

It's like the parable of the plate: Smash a plate on the ground, then tell it you're sorry. The apology does not make the plate whole.

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm working really hard on re-structuring the stuff in my head that I installed to get through those days. I'm not actually a box turtle, and while attempting to be one "worked" in that I got to the other side of that time alive, there are all sorts of people bits that have gotten mis-shapen, hardened, or atrophied in the process and it's difficult and painful to recruit them into adult-human-type activity and form.

As for "getting over" maltreatment that's continuing, fuck that noise.