I WAS A BULLIED VALENTINE
How Age Can Make You Rat Proof
Valentine’s Day brings back a lot of memories for me. As a child I was so excited to get Valentine cards with dollar bills inside from my great aunts and little boxes of powdery candy hearts with special messages from my dad. And I loved making that really fancy Valentine box back in the third grade.
But I also remember a February years ago that taught me a huge life lesson.
When I think of him, all I can see in my mind’s eye is a skinny body with a big rat’s head. He loved being mean, making cruel, insulting remarks. He would routinely call me names on the bus, “Look at her chest; it’s as flat as the seat back in front of her.” Which was kind of true, but he didn’t need to point it out to everyone. I was sticking as much Kleenex as I could in that training bra. Ha!
One day when we were in the eighth grade, he got on the bus and started spitting all over the floor in front of me. That night at dinner I told my parents how disgusting he was, not thinking that my dad, a school board member, would turn him in to the principal. I hardly ever talked to my parents and that was the time I chose to be a chatter box???
Well, even though the bully wasn’t on the bus for awhile after that, he had the other kids treat me as if I had the bubonic plague. They laughed at me behind my back when I walked by them. No one would talk to me for two weeks because they thought I was the biggest rat of all.
But that wasn’t the worse part. There was a Sadie-Hawkins-like Valentine’s Day dance coming up at school. You’re not going to believe this —- I actually asked the boy with the skinny body and big rat’s head to go. My parents were furious that I was such a mouse. I was disappointed in me too. The Rat and The Mouse went to the party. Everyone talked to them — but The Mouse had a terrible time.
Although it was painful when I was young, I can chuckle now when I remember that childhood memory. I wish I had realized way back then that you have to be stronger mentally than the rat. And it takes work… But it’s another good reason to celebrate aging — because with age we become more self-confident and have less of a need to please others. We surround ourselves with good people and cave in to others’ demands less & less. As our lives unfold, we become more powerful, making better choices for ourselves.
According to Psychology Today, however, aggression is a very stable social style of interaction suggesting that some childhood bullies grow up to become antisocial adults.
So just in case some rat still tries to sneak up on you, you should know the smell of peppermint oil keeps them away. I’m not sure if it works on the human kind, but I keep a tiny vial of it in my purse just in case a skinny body with a big rat’s head tries to come my way. Ha!
Happy Valentine’s Day! xoxo
It’ll Be OK.
“My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.” ~ Tina Fey
COMMENT: Did anyone ever try to bully you when you were young?
Yes, I remember clearly and his name - even though it was 75 years ago . I was in the 4th grade and he was in the 8th. I'm sure he wouldn't have remembered, but I sure did.
I was bullied in sixth grade by the most popular boy in class and his friend group. He picked a different girl every year. I'd stay late after school, but they patiently waited, then followed me home, loudly talking about how fat, ugly and stupid I was. I wasn't any of those things, but it took me a couple of decades to figure that out. And my parents didn't know what to do. He lived next door to us, his father worked for mine. They told me that was his way of showing he liked me, he was flirting like the boy who pulls your pigtails. HAHAHAHAH! Boy, that was a fun one to unpack with the therapist last year. He literally said, Umm, it DOES sound traumatic, but why does it bother you so? It happened almost fifty years ago. I sobbed, I don't KNOW why, but it does. And just like that, another layer of that horrible onion of childhood disappeared. Examined, and POOF. . . gone. (I'm restacking, but NOT sharing this note. ;)