It's taken me a little while to respond to this thread because bullying is such an issue with me. I grew up in a house with an older sibling who is a bully and was bullied in both elementary and junior high school.
The junior high experience was a real psychological horror, with a denouement that's worth thinking about.
I transferred to this suburban school from a city school. I had spent 7th grade just trying to survive. I was beaten up for lunch money and the school was totally out of control. My grades had plummeted to C's and D's and my parents decided to move out of that school district. This was not their only reason for moving, but it was a big part of it.Two years later, there was a major scandal about the open drug usage (bearing in mind this was 1966) and violence in the school I had left.
I then went to a school where all the girls were perfectly groomed and the boys seemed very savvy, to this geeky, chubby city girl. Because I had such terrible grades, they put me into a remedial class, instead of the accelerated class I had been in before. And that's where I ran into Susan. I have no memory of what started it, but she, and the posse that she led, bullied, harassed, and once or twice physically assaulted me. My parents came to speak to the guidance counselor, but he was no help. I grimly set to work to bring my grades back up so I could be in a better class, but it was uphill work. This wasn't because the work was hard, indeed I had learned it all the year before. It was because every step of the way, Susan was there.
One incident I remember most sharply, and it's going to sound very innocuous. After gym class, and gym class was nothing short of torture, we got back into our school clothes and stood by the door until released. I got there first and Susan second. There was a song popular then by the Boxtops, "The Letter." Susan had made up new words to it, each a vicious insult about me. She sang it loudly and proudly. And I might add, the teachers did nothing, even though they were there. To this day, if that song comes on the radio, I switch it off and sometimes start shaking, feeling trapped again with her voice ringing out.
Well, I succeeded in 9th grade in being placed in a much better class where I made some good friends and was able to relax a little. I still saw Susan in the hallways, but was able to avoid any real contact. Plus by that time she had moved on to the next victim. To my great relief, we were assigned to different high schools.
About a year and a half later, I became quite ill one night with what we now know was a gall bladder attack. My mother was sitting by my bed and trying to get in touch with the doctor, because she wanted me in the hospital. The radio was on and there was news of an accident. A group of six or seven high school kids had been joyriding on Northern Parkway. Their car flew off the overpass and landed on top of another car on the Jones Falls Expressway. The driver of the car beneath was killed; he was one of my school mate's father who owned a car dealership and had been on the way home from work. Two of the kids in their car were killed, one of whom was riding in the trunk and the other in the back seat. The girl in the back seat was Susan.
I had a high temperature and the world had already taken on a sense of unreality. Hearing that added another layer of surrealism, and I thought perhaps I had imagined it. But it was true. I am ashamed to say that I felt a strong sense of relief, although no joy in her death. I remember my mother grieving for her parents.
Fast forward 30 years.
While out running errands one day, I decided on a whim to have my nails done. This is unusual for me--I'm not usually a manicured person, but hey, it was a treat. I stopped in a salon and their manicurist was indeed free. I sat down and she looked at me. "I know you from somewhere," she said. I'm used to this. I have one of those faces that everyone seems to know, and I smiled and nodded. "No, really," she said. "Where did you go to high school?" I told her and she shook her head. Then, "Where did you go to junior high?" "Old Court." She sat back in her chair and said my name.
Then she said her name, and I realized she was one of the main girls in Susan's posse, who had actively taken part in bullying me. I swallowed hard, and said yes, that's who I was.
"I've thought about you," she said. "I'm so sorry for what we did." I accepted her apology and we both relaxed a little.
I said, "I remember so clearly when Susan was killed." She said, "How much do you know about Susan's life?"
"Nothing."
Susan was raised by a single mother, her and her brother and sister. Her mother had one philosophy about child rearing. Make no rules and therefore no rules can be broken. Susan and her siblings came and went when they pleased. They did drugs in the house and had wild parties. Their mother either did not care or was incapable of setting limits or disciplining. Susan was a child in search of her limits, and no one, not her one parent, not the teachers, no one gave them to her. Throughout elementary and junior high school, she became wilder and wilder. Then in high school, my manicurist decided she had had enough and joined a new crowd, leaving her lifelong friend behind.
The last time she spoke to Susan, Susan commented that she was getting tired of the wild life and was going to settle down a bit and work at her studies. She was just going out that night for one last party with her friends.
And indeed, it was her last party. Her brother died of a drug overdose a year later. Her sister took the lessons from her two sad siblings and straightened out her life
And finally, I was able to feel pity for this child, who was never loved enough to be taught how to take care of herself.
