School

School was this horrible.fucking.experience. Not because I wasn't a good student. Being scared to death of not pleasing the adults around me assured my 4.0 status from the get-go.

I was a victim of bullies.

It began slowly and early.

Children watch and wait to see who is the weakest, the quietest, the one who has something that is easily pointed out as inferior. They begin their campaign with the friend at the desk next to them. Once there is a consensus they jump.

I was an obvious choice. I was over weight, as I am now. I was quiet and desperately wanted to be liked so I would never stand up for myself in fear of angering further the perp or their friends, as I am now.

And... I had an abusive mother.

My mother didn't believe in washing clothes after wearing once. Or twice. My mother, as well as my father were heavy smokers. I can imagine now just how badly I must have smelled. Everytime I smell cigarette smoke on a child I get a violent reaction in my stomach and it sends my heart into near tachycardia.

My mother also didn't believe in washing hair more than once every 7-10 days. Bad enough in a child but imagine as I grew into puberty. Once I remember being pummeled with rotting tomatoes on the way home from school and being nearly hysterical by the time I was home because I was certain she would be angry at me for messing up my hair and wouldn't wash my hair until I was "due". As I got older (upper grades of elementary) I would hurry home on Thursday because she had joined a bowling team and she didn't get home for 30 minutes after I got home. I could wash and dry and pretend it never happened before she walked in the door. God bless bowling.

In my last months of 6th grade, (elementary still) my only friend moved a few blocks away and next door to a family with a 15 year old boy. The story of what happened with that boy is a topic all unto itself and deserves a post of it's own as well as years of therapy. But from the outside it was just another thing the "in crowd" could attach to me. We were all growing into sexual beings at that age. In a staunch Mormon community. There were good girls, priesthood worthy boys, wild boys, and sluts. I carried my black sheep status into high school with every negative label they could attach to me. Boys were teased if they showed interest. Yet they all bragged about "getting it". The girls were just mean. The ones who weren't would apologize to me because their mothers wouldn't let them hang out with me. After all, a girl like "that" did everything.

Eventually I had had enough. I fabricated a threat against myself in a note and stuck it in the slats of my locker. When I "found" it I broke down crying. The note wasn't real (no one ever, until now, knew that) but the tears were. Years of tears. I was done. Finished. I wanted to die. Disappear. Curl up in a corner and rock, forever.

I finished the next 3 years of school through visiting teachers in social isolation.

THAT was school for me.

Today I registered for school. I am studing Pharmacology. I start in March. It will take me 22 months to get my Associate's degree. I had to take a valium just to get there. From 1987 to 2006 I hid inside marriage, being the dutiful wife until I knew I would die if I didn't "confess". For a year now I have been putting it off hoping my life would take me in a different direction. I finally realized it was never going to happen. Before I live in a cardboard box I MUST learn to take care of myself. This is my last chance.

Carrie whispers to me

School walls steal my breath
Bullies loom beyond my peripheral
Humiliation echoes, echoes, echoes...

I am a student again.