[Abby]

Unintended - found on another site by anon.

Cut by the slightest slight
Sliced by the sharpest knife
Pierced with verbal blades
Unintended
and now my heart's in pieces
How dare you break me
Daily
Unintended

My Story - I need to get this off my chest. I need to tell someone.

Looking back I now realise how much the bullies hurt me, undermined my confidence - made me think I was worthless. It’s only looking back that I realise the pain they caused and how much they changed me from a confident child to a scared depressed adult in a matter of years. In the end they didn’t need to viciously humiliate me, embarrass me, make me feel worthless, I hated myself so much I didn’t require anyone else to tell me I was pointless anymore. That’s not to say I forgot their derision, even now almost 5 years after the last insult was thrown at me I still have flashbacks, I still get incredibly embarrassed about things that no one else even thinks about anymore. Maybe that’s why it hurts all the more, they’ve moved on whereas I am still stuck trying to find myself.
It was painful to enter that classroom day after day, to walk down the corridors and hear the insults ringing in my ears. But it was even more painful to go through it alone. To have no one to talk to, to have to hide it from my friends, my family, my parents - because I thought it was my fault. I actually believed their lies in the end, and I was so scared that one of my friends would hear their taunts and realise the truth and leave me too. I did everything I could to stop the humiliation, I changed my hair, wore different clothes everything, it didn’t matter, it didn’t stop them. In fact it only encouraged them.
It didn’t matter when I told anyway, no one ever understood the effect it was having on my life. They assumed that it was childish behaviour that would eventually stop. In the end I think I stopped trying to explain the pain it was causing me, and eventually I stopped displaying any of my emotions whatsoever. I learnt that it hurt more to be misunderstood by the people I loved than the bullies’ taunts.
I remember one particular incident; I was being laughed at by the group of girls in my class. I remember the total humiliation, not only because of the comments but also by the fact that everyone in the class could hear what they were saying. I was so scared that their comments would turn the rest of the class against me. However the most pain came from the realisation that no one would ever help me. My form teacher was sat there, listening and choosing to ignore it all. Its funny actually, I think I hate her more than I do the bullies. She could have changed everything there and then with a simple word or two but she choose not to. Even now that makes me angry. It made me lose any confidence I had left - perhaps I wasn’t worth saving after all.
That memory is very stark in my mind; I think that was the start of the long slide down into depression. Even after the bullies left me alone, I still went through years of abuse - from me. I went inside myself, I put up a barrier to protect myself from everyone else not realising I was shutting the worst enemy inside. I thought that everyone was against me, that I had to attack first in order to protect myself. I now know that during that time I hurt others a lot more than the bullies ever did me, but at the time I didn’t care. I could see they were upset but I was so emotionally shut down that I simply didn’t care. Ironically it was I that made my family dislike me in the end not the bullies. Not that I could see that at the time, all I heard were the words “I love you Abby but I don’t like you anymore”. That was painful, probably the most painful experience I have ever been through - to this day I can remember every detail of that conversation. I remember it felt like I was being stabbed a thousand times, straight through the protection that I’d built around myself. I think it was that day that started the true depression. I stopped being angry and started feeling guilty, ashamed, more of a difficulty than anything else - certainly not someone to worth bothering about.
From that day onwards I felt that I had to make up for all the pain I’d caused but that seemed like an impossible task. I accepted all the blame that was put upon me until I was quite often so overwhelmed by it all. I remember often avoiding mirrors not wanting to look at myself - the person that was ugly, worthless, was so evil that they had hurt their own parents so deeply. People would say to me, "you’re really pretty Abby all you’ve got to do is make the most of yourself". I didn’t believe them, how could someone as geeky, socially inept, ugly as me ever be anything other than a failure? Eventually I hated having all of these thoughts too, not because I didn’t believe them anymore but becauseI felt guilty. How could I be this person when I had such a loving family and so many opportunities in front of me? Surely it was my fault I felt this way - which led to hating myself even more. It was a vicious circle that I could never get out of.
I still kept all these thoughts inside me; I didn’t want to cause more problems for my family than I already had. However this ironically was the source of more tension and heartbreak anyway. I remember my mum breaking into tears frequently and asking me desperately to let her in. I tried, I really did, but she didn’t understand, how could she, I didn’t even understand why I hated myself so much, why I became so angry all the time, why I felt so lonely even when I was surrounded by my family and friends. In the end, as before, I stopped trying, what was the point if she didn’t understand anyway? Often I got scared when she wanted to talk with me because I knew that I would not be able to open up and I would end up hurting her so much. It made me feel guilty to see her cry; I didn’t want to be the person that made my mother cry! It was hopeless, I couldn’t explain myself and she couldn’t understand why.
I took to withdrawing myself physically as well as emotionally so that I wouldn’t have to cope with all the feelings that being around other people caused. I would watch lots of TV in order to shut everything out, so I could forget, so I could pretend for an hour or two that I wasn’t me. I was scared that just talking to people would hurt them - I mean that’s all I seemed to do. I couldn’t risk that, hurting myself was better than hurting everyone else around me.
Therefore I had no one to talk to. It wasn’t their fault I wouldn’t let myself open up, what could they do? But it hurt not being able to talk. I felt so lonely; I was lonely. I wouldn’t let anyone understand yet everyday I hoped and prayed that they would finally understand. I wanted them to see that behind the fake smiles and laughter I was crying. No one ever saw.
I carried all the taunts from years earlier deep within. I never spoke about them again.
My friend and family know I am sensitive about it, but I don’t think they will ever know to what extent I was affected by those words, how much it has shaped my life and me. How it has taken me deep inside myself, and to hell and back. Well, at least now someone knows.

Thanks for reading
Abby

[ltlredvett]

Abby.....

I am so sorry that you have experienced so much pain in your life. In many ways I could realte to your story. Like you I experienced a lot of verbal and emotional abuse of a long period of time. My abuse came from my wife of 19 years. She was very manipulative, used emotional blackmail to get what she wanted. She would use fear, obligation and guilt to taunt me and get her way. She would threaten the most hurtful things and say the most hurtful things to get me to behave as she wanted me to behave. And, worse yet no one saw it but me. No one would believe that she did those things. I would always hear "she is such a nice person".

It is very hard for anyone, particularly if you are young, to withstand such abuse without it affecting you. Like you I became very depressed and ultimately divorced my wife and the depression got even worse. Like you I withdrew from friends and family. I also found myself acting in ways that were totally contrary to my upbringing and value system. This behavior only increased my guilt.

I tell you my story because like you, I think I became harder on myself than anyone else. I was overcome with sadness, loneliness... then guilt and shame for what I had done. I thought it was too late to salvage anything.

But, I was wrong it wasn't too late. You have a choice. Your one choice is to allow the "bullies" of the past and your past demons to continue to run your life. Or, you can chose to stand up to the bullies and the demons and conquer them. You may need help in doing this, in fact you may need a lot of help. But first, you have to want to conquer the bullies and the demons, you have to have the motivation. You can't just say it, you need to act upon it.

It can be done, and you would be surprised how liberating it can be. You may find that you have lost some of the relationships you had when you walled yourself off. I know I have. But, you will find the relationships that are left are the truely strong ones, those are the people that know your inner soul, that love you and know your value as a person. But, more importantly you have to love yourself first.

Please fight back. Don't let the bullies and the demons win.

[nowheretorun]

Abbey,

I know the scars you mean... those resonating chirpy laughing echoes....

They must be amplified in our minds, cause no matter where I am, if I concentrate closely, know one is talking about me, and if they are? Too bad for them not to have anything better to discuss, in fact, hell, let them discuss me... i know what i am better than they do....

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius

[Rapunzel]

Abby,

I know what you mean. I was beat up by bullies frequently when I was 6-8 years old, walking home from school. Emotional abuse by bullies hurts just as much as physical abuse, and it can get vicious. It wasn't until I had to write a paper about bullying for one of my classes that I realized how much impact the bullies had on my entire life. It was somewhere around that time that I lost my self-confidence and started being depressed. After that, I couldn't trust other kids - even when they were nice to me I was suspicious and thought they were teasing me. Sometimes they were, but I couldn't tell the difference anyway. And I also have resented, much more than the bullies, the adults who did nothing, and especially the ones whom I told what was going on, and that I felt like the entire world hated me, and who did nothing to help, and told me that the kids who were picking on me were just being kids and I shouldn't get upset about it.

There is so much that can be done to prevent children from being traumatized that way, but it's hard to get the needed programs put into effect. Mostly it involves training teachers to teach children to work together effectively, to understand their emotions, and to develop empathy. The teachers I had didn't consider any of that to be their job. In fact, 14 or 15 years ago I was taking an education class and the topic of social skills came up. I said that developing social skills was one of the most important things that teachers needed to help kids to develop, but pretty much the entire class, including the instructor, disagreed with me, saying that teachers don't have time to worry about that stuff, and it's the parents' job. Unfortunately, a lot of parents don't teach social skills very effectively, and that's getting worse. But teachers are being trained more and more in that area, and that's a good thing. I know that, but I still find myself being resentful that nobody cared when I was that age.

I'm glad that you were able to tell us about this and get it off your chest. It helps to find people who understand.

{{{{{{{{{{{Hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}},
Wendy

<font color=orange>"If we are going to insist that people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, we must ensure that they have boots."</font color=orange>

[Fuzzybear]

Abby, I can relate to this too, and to the poem ...
I am glad you posted {{{{{{{{{{{{{{Hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Take care,
Fuzzy

[dexter]

Hi abby

I was also teased and bullied all of my early life. I pretty much retreated into myself and became very self sufficient, but also very lacking in the ability to socialize and make friends. I really had no friends through early school, until I went off to college and things started to change.

For me, while those times were very painful, I was able to get past them and make a lot of friends throughout the rest of my life. I also credit those times for being able to survive alone and not rely 100% on having friends around all the time. So for me it worked out well in many ways. Of course all of this is from the perspective of looking back.

The best thing is that you are recognizing these things and the impact they had on your life. And that you are able to give voice to them here. Keep talking about them, it will help you understand more and hopefully begin to come to terms.

Good luck Abby. I've always been very impressed with your self-knowledge and that will be a great asset in helping ensure an excellent future for yourself.

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--http://www.idexter.com