@MrsA you just reminded me of a traumatic experience I had as an adult with a bully. When I was hit by a truck and hospitalized, this gal in my drum circle (I was our 'gig booker' at the time, so I marketed us everywhere to get paid gigs) told everyone that I tried to kill myself (a total lie, this mobility van ran through a 4-way intersection and ran me over, somehow, I lived).

Then, when my drum group brought their drums to my hospital room to drum for me, she refused to go, saying that she felt they were falling for my 'act.' It got worse from there. After I was done with inpatient rehab, and did outpatient rehab (cognitive activities, walk-swimming, etc.), different people in the drum circle would carpool me to the drum circle practice nights.

My first night back at the drum circle, the only seat open was next to this horrible woman. As I sat down, she snarled at me, "I didn't know you could still drum." Trying to invalidate me already. Then, when one of the drummers had a dinner/movie night at their house and I was invited, the bully and two of her lackeys brought over a VHS tape they rented for that night, Regarding Henry and showed it to me, and the bully pointed to me laughing and said, "She's 'Henry."

I wonder to this day, what my TBI accident triggered in her. What could she have been jealous or insecure about with me? Because I booked our drum circle's gigs? Because the drum instructor let me co-teach a class with him for a semester? Because I participated in a medical study on the effects of drumming on TBI patients?

I'll never forget how mean she was to me, esp. since I was not fully recovered from my TBI at that point. I couldn't drive. I couldn't do anything without help for about a year afterward. My body couldn't regulate its own temperature for months, I was on all sorts of anti-seizure meds and pain meds and stuck living with a mentally ill, depressed, neglectful parent in an empty 3 story house, left to fend for myself. And the only good thing in my life at that time was my drum circle.