I don't find this as distressing as I thought I would. It's about a girl named Olivia Gardner who was bullied at three different schools (including a private High School), who had a web site dedicated to hating her, who had students at one school, wearing bracelets that said that they hated her. Somehow this got out to a newspaper and these two sisters, (Emily and Sarah Buder) started a letter writing campaign to her, in order to give her hope, confidence, and compassion. The letter writing really took off and thousands of people wrote her. The book is a collection of some of them.
I was bullied as a child. I was called dog, rover, freak, had rocks thrown at me, had my lunch money stolen everyday for a semester, and was sexual assaulted. I told my parents, I told my teachers, I even told the principle of one school. This was from the second grade, up to my freshman year in High School. Nothing was done. Nothing! My mother's constant advice was to hit them back. Ya, right. I had around thirty people everyday torment me. In order to not have to beat them all up (like I could), I would have had to make a "example" of someone. How would I have escaped a girl's ranch after that? Besides I was too afraid to. It wasn't so much the pain I would have to go through, it was what I would have done to them. If I had done that, I would have killed the kid, I do believe. And I knew that about myself. I was so filled with anger about what they were doing to me.
I also knew how to make movtow cocktails, and later, different methods of making plastice out of household ingredients. I often thought about fire bombing their houses. I didn't because that would reduce me down to their level. I spent years thinking about this.
In High School, I got myself put into EH (educational handicapped). This saved my life. Thanks, Mr. Lopicolo. I was physical out of that environment by doing that. I was with the other freaks, and baby, I was happy to be there.
I have blocked most of the memories, so I could get past them. But I am scarred. This has effected all of my life. I could say the reason I deliver flowers, pizzas, even although I have a B.A. is because of what they did to me, AND THE FACT THAT NO ADULT AT ALL TRIED TO HELP ME. The older I get, the more I wonder about my parents. What the hell was wrong with them? My father never ever acknowledged that there was something wrong, even although he himself had been bullied. My Mom's little act of defiance, she quit the P.T.A. Ya, now she didn't have to give up that night for reading. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, Mom.
Ya, I have issues with the adults now. I've worked through what the kids did to me. I can figure out why, what I did wrong, etc. It's what the adult didn't do, that bothers me now.
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