Another Post About Death

 *As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy

When I was six or seven, I had a subscription to Sesame Street Magazine, a monthly publication based on the children's show that featured games, puzzles, and stories with Big Bird and friends. After reading and doing a few activities, I sometimes looked at the detachable parents' guide that came meshed between the middle pages of the magazine. Because I loved reading, even the parent-aimed insert was fair game for brain food. One article in the guide was about how parents can respond when their children ask difficult questions. I still remember two of the more amusing ones. One such tough question was, "Mommy, what's a dam? Is it like when Daddy says 'God damn?'" Another involved a child asking if her dead pet rabbit that the family had buried in the backyard went to heaven. At least I think it was a rabbit. My brain might be meshing the story with a scene from a Simpsons episode that came out about ten years later. 

In any case, after reading the question about the deceased pet-- rabbit or otherwise-- I asked my mother a question of my own: "What do they mean about it going to heaven?" I asked, showing her the article. "Can't they just dig it up to see if it is still there?" Mom smiled and told me that some people believe in a soul. She explained what it meant, saying that they believe the soul leaves the body and goes to heaven. Because I wasn't raised in a particularly religious household, it was the first time I had ever heard about the concept, and I responded by telling my mother exactly what I thought: "That can't happen."

Ah, yes, kids say the darnedest things-- or the damnedest things, in this case. But at age 45, my view on the issue remains unchanged. I don't believe in a soul or an afterlife. Nor do I believe in God. I was raised in the Reform Jewish religion, and since the emphasis is more on culture and tradition than strong faith in God, I was given ample room to explore, question, and come to my own conclusions. The idea of surviving one's death through a soul that leaves the body just never made any sense to me. Most importantly, today I reject the idea based on what scientists now know about how the brain works and that injury to it can drastically alter someone's personality, or even render their personality non-existent. That is, all available evidence strongly indicates that consciousness is a byproduct of complex neurological activity, and that what makes you, you is your brain.

A few people have responded in abject disbelief as to how I can get up in the morning thinking that there is no afterlife. About twenty years ago, this topic somehow came up at the Brooklyn office where I worked at the time. "What about my mother?" one coworker asked me, his voice laced with distress, when I told him what I thought. "And if there's no afterlife, then what's the meaning of life?" Not sure how to balance tact and honesty in responding to him, I did the only thing that made sense in the moment: I resorted to humor. "I don't know," I said. "I'll let you know the answer to that when I'm dead." I don't recall how the rest of the conversation unfolded, but I would hope that this coworker would realize that my feelings-- and his-- are irrelevant. But a lot of people don't seem to understand that, and that's why belief in a soul and an afterlife persists, even among people who aren't religious-- including some of my fellow atheists. 

We humans view death in a very curious way. We understand that it's inevitable, but it's also something we avoid talking honestly about, almost always sugarcoating it with euphemistic language in even some of the most horrific of circumstances. We will just as easily use the term "passed away" to gloss over the protracted and torturous demise of a 40-year-old victim of Lou Gehrig's Disease as we would for the peaceful death of a 100-year-old whose organs have quietly shut down. There is even a level of denial at some funerals, at which the body is injected with formaldehyde and made up to appear merely asleep, a practice that I have always found creepy. Additionally, we often bury bodies in expensive and ornate caskets, as if our loved one is going to reanimate and wake up and appreciate the beautiful lace trim that lines the inside.

I am not saying that people shouldn't have the types of funerals and memorials that are meaningful to them. I can see how a viewing might give people closure, but I wouldn't be caught dead at one. Rather, my larger point is that I prefer to discuss death plainly. This is something I have given a lot of thought to over the years, but especially in the past three months following the death of my longtime therapist, Oren. I realize that thinking so deeply about this issue is beyond scientific fascination: it has been part of my grieving process and that I approach grief, in some ways, differently than most people. I hate not having closure, and having only limited information about how Oren died wasn't something I could easily accept. I've lost count of how many Google searches I ran to try to paint a coherent picture of what brought his life to an abrupt end. But I was only left with more questions that will probably never be answered. Ultimately, what I understand is that a process in Oren's body failed and as a result so did all of the other biological processes necessary to keep him alive-- because that is exactly what death is. 

I found myself thinking about the worst part of the process-- the tragedy that is brain death. The human brain spends decades accumulating knowledge, understanding, and insight. It is shaped by its genetic predispositions that interact with the environment to form a unique personality. And yet, within mere minutes of oxygen depravation, that system-- which many people interpret as a soul-- is irreversibly damaged and ultimately destroyed. As decomposition progresses, that bit of precious biological hardware liquifies to a yogurt-like consistency in a matter of days. To say that my blood runs cold just thinking about that what made Oren, Oren is now in this state is an understatement.

I suppose my form of grieving and the denial that some people have about the finality of death are two sides of the same coin. The idea of simply no longer existing is too much for us to wrap our heads around, not just philosophically but also literally: how does it feel to not be conscious at all, not even in the minimally-conscious state under general anesthesia? It's a nonsense question with no answer. And in the absence of scientific explanation combined with grief, most human societies throughout history have postulated the idea of a soul or something similar. Many people still adhere to the idea to provide a comforting answer to an impossible question and to ease their grief, even while possibly harboring doubts that they don't want to face. I, on the other hand, search for answers to try to get a better understanding of the process of death and its aftermath. I don't think this has anything to do with autism, except perhaps in the sense that I'm more willing to disregard taboo and openly admit to it. 

That's not to say I don't also grieve in ways that are typical. Like many people after losing someone they care about, I cried a lot after Oren died. I fought back tears nearly every day for weeks, and had four intense crying episodes in the first month alone. I had moments where I felt a little guilt about certain interactions that I could have handled differently, even though I know Oren, having been my therapist, would not have dwelled on them. After a few days, I came to realize that I had grown to love him, and grappled with understanding why this reality never dawned on me while he was alive. I even use language that the casual observer might misread as religious: recently, I said to someone that while I would never wish death upon anyone, it is just awful that a kind, caring soul like Oren had to die while people who are destroying the country and the planet have already outlived him.* But here I was being poetic, not professing a supernatural belief.

Returning to the incredulity others have expressed as to how I am okay with the finality of death, I should clarify that I am not. But, as I said earlier, my feelings are beside the point. I care about what's true, and all of the available evidence points to death being the literal end of one's existence. Importantly, I see this reality as a call to action, a reminder of the importance of appreciating the one life we know we have and to help make the world a better place. 

In a bit of irony that hasn't escaped me, I end with a quote from the Bible: "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth."

*Do you even need to ask who I'm talking about?

See You Next Week

*Names are changed and certain details are left intentionally vague in order to protect people's privacy

Recently, I was in a local cafe doing my daily Italian lesson on Duolingo. The exercise involved one of Italian's little quirks, in which it uses the masculine article lo instead of il before nouns that begin with "s" or "z." Initially, I had to consciously consider which article to use each time I encountered a masculine noun, but lately I didn't have to think about it. I was feeling good about how quickly this mental adjustment had become automatic. Also automatic was the thought that I would excitedly relate this development in my next session with Oren, my psychotherapist of the past nine years. 

But then I felt the familiar pressure behind my eyes, the crushing weight in my chest, and the dull ache in my stomach. I had already lost count of the number of times over the past two weeks that I had to reorient myself to the painful reality: Oren was dead. In these situations, I either fought back tears or cascaded into a full-blown crying episode. Although I didn't cry on that particular occasion, I still ached with the reminder that the person I trusted the most to help me work through such intense grief was gone.

Oren's death was sudden. Although he was definitely in the category most consider "old age," he was not old enough that I ever dwelled for long on the idea that death, rather than retirement, could end things. At each of our sessions, he was sharp, alert, and engaged. When he contacted me a few weeks ago to cancel our weekly session, saying that he was feeling sick, he ended his email with, "See you next week." I wrote back, "OK, feel better!", to which Oren replied, "Thank you, Julie!" 

A few days later, I received another email. Although it originated from Oren's account, it was signed "Jeremy (on behalf of Oren)." It took me a few seconds to register that Jeremy was Oren's son-- and that he was informing me that his father had died. 

"Oh my God. No!" I said aloud. I immediately hit "reply," typed what I had just articulated, and added, "He was the best therapist I ever had. What happened?" 

To keep Oren as anonymous as possible and to respect his family's privacy, I won't even repeat the vague explanation that Jeremy provided. But I will say this: hindsight is 20/20, and although I was shocked by Oren's death, it is now clear that he was dealing with serious health issues that I wasn't aware of. He had told me a little bit when it was relevant, but I didn't know the full extent. And why would I have known? There was no reason to tell me unless, perhaps, I had suspected something and asked directly. My therapist did not expect to die soon, and he was clearly trying to avoid scaring me and saddling me with an unnecessary emotional burden. Although it's the kind of professionalism one should expect in a therapeutic relationship, it also illustrates how Oren always prioritized the well-being of his clients. Additionally, now that I realize he continued to work despite serious health problems, I see with even greater clarity what an exceptional therapist-- and human being-- he was.

On and off for the past 33 1/2 years (since age eleven), I have seen a number of psychotherapists and, as I told Jeremy, Oren is by far the best I ever had. Only two others came close, but even they didn't have the nuanced and thorough understanding of autism as Oren did, let alone how it presented in me. A few others that I tried both before and after my diagnosis were terrible; most were just okay. To my continuing frustration, most of these people only recognized that I was autistic after working with me for several months because of my non-stereotyped presentation that didn't include sensory issues, trouble with understanding sarcasm, or being male.

Oren was different. At our first appointment in 2016, he told me that after about a minute of listening to me talk, it was obvious to him I was neuroatypical and that he didn't find it difficult to believe that I was autistic. He said that something about the inflection in my voice-- which I guess was too subtle for most people to pick up on but obvious to him-- tipped him off. In addition, during that first session, he listened attentively. I liked him immediately, and with time I developed a deep sense of trust. I continued to meet with Oren at his Boston-area office for the next four years until COVID forced us to move to Zoom; it stayed that way when he moved out of state shortly after. 

Overall, Oren saw autism as a valid neurological variation to understand and affirm, not a mental defect. Rather than approach me like I was someone to be managed, a problem to solve, or even a patient to treat, he validated my internal reality and worked with it. He never dismissed emotional distress with, "You're overreacting," but might comment, "You're someone who feels things deeply" or "You have a lot of emotional vulnerability because of repeatedly being misunderstood." In lieu of the approach of many other therapists who offered neurotypical-standard advice and feedback such as "Just let it go," "You should have done this," "You can't do that," or "You're overreacting," he encouraged me to reevaluate how I approached or thought about certain social interactions and internal conflicts. He asked disarming questions such as, "What does this mean to you?" or "What is the outcome you are hoping for by doing it this way?" He gently reframed my frustrated declarations of "abnormal" with "atypical" when talking about my social missteps. At the end of our most emotionally-charged sessions, he would remind me, "Be kind to yourself." 

Most importantly, Oren understood me better than damn near anybody I have ever known. One could say that he spoke my language with the fluency of a native speaker. Whenever I came to him with a problem, he always knew why it bothered me as much as it did without my having to go into a deep explanation. Unlike many therapists who seemingly view their clients as someone to scrutinize based on preconceived notions rooted in popular theories in psychoanalysis, Oren listened. He never claimed to know me better than I knew myself, and his ability to listen and learn helped him achieve that "fluency" in my language. 

Oren also had a remarkable ability to get to the heart of whatever social or internal conflict I was dealing with, succinctly summarizing complex issues in one or two sentences. He might say, for example, "The reason you two had this conflict is because you were both operating in completely different mindsets." He also helped me to reframe socially traumatic memories that resurfaced from my middle and high school years in which I had blamed myself. "You were a neuroatypical kid who was not given appropriate support," he might say. "People in your life only looked at surface behavior, and did not consider the underlying thought processes. The reactions you got were based in ignorance, and you were perceived through a distorted lens." 

Talking to Oren about my personal issues was only one part of our relationship. In the nine years that I worked with him, I began to see therapy as an ongoing process, not something only to engage in when there's a crisis or when a painful memory from childhood reasserts itself. For him to help me during difficult moments in my life, it was important to put these events in context of me as a complete person with a range of emotional states, which included laughter, joy, and excitement, all of which I was delighted to share because I completely trusted him. 

Many of my "good" sessions with Oren began with me declaring, "Something interesting happened this week." He would listen in fascination as I excitedly told him about my different passion projects and hyperfocused interests, such as learning Greek, using DNA evidence to solve a nearly-100-year-old mystery in my family tree, or watching Back to the Future for the millionth time. Oren always affirmed this common-but-often-pathologized autistic trait. "When you get into something, you really get into it, and I think that's cool," he often said. He read and appreciated many of my blog posts, and also enjoyed my artwork. Since he always knew what I was interested in, sometimes this awareness followed him outside of sessions. One time, he told me that he had seen a movie on television with Alan Arkin, my favorite actor, and thought of me.

And on some of my other good days, Oren and I just had fun laughing together. He enjoyed my twisted sense of humor; hearing stories about the antics of my cat, Neptune; and laughing at the surreal dreams I had that I often joked would make Salvador Dali cringe. 

I also know that Oren genuinely cared about me, and not just because he said it more than once. A couple years ago, when I was going through a particularly difficult time, I emailed him the day before my regular morning time slot, saying I felt like I was at the end of my rope and asking if he could talk that night. He was unable to, so I grudgingly accepted that I would have to wait until the next morning. Unfortunately, my alarm didn't go off, and when I realized I'd missed my appointment, I opened up my email to apologize to Oren. But he had already emailed me-- not to chastise me, but to ask me if I was okay. I let him know what happened, and he saw me later that morning. 

When I got on the Zoom call with Oren, he looked and sounded profoundly relieved, saying, "I was really concerned when you didn't show up." I assured him that while I was overwhelmed emotionally, I never would have done what his concern implied. He didn't charge me for the missed appointment. 

Oren also showed how much he cared through his exceptional generosity. One time, when I was forced to switch insurance companies to a policy he didn't already accept, he signed up for it. I only learned recently what a significant gesture this was, with the amount of paperwork and negotiations involved. While he waited to be approved for this new insurance, he continued to see me. I had to pay out of pocket, but together we agreed on an appropriate rate that I could afford. Last year, after I got laid off from my job and couldn't find a new one, it looked like I would have to move in with my parents in my hometown in Pennsylvania. I asked Oren if I would be able to continue seeing him. He said he didn't have a license in Pennsylvania, but that he would look into getting one. That, too, involves a lot of work and bureaucratic interactions. Fortunately, he never had to do it, as I found another job and was able to stay in Massachusetts. 

Every week for almost a decade, Oren remained a constant in my life. He was a person I shared my complex inner world with, someone I brought what was confusing, painful, joyful, or simply interesting. After exchanging greetings, he often began our sessions with a smile, asking, "What can I do for you?" and ended them with "Let's stick a pin in it," if a conversation was left unfinished. In a variation of his typical closing, he ended our final session with "Let's put a flag in it"; in hindsight, this seems oddly prescient. 

Although I genuinely liked and trusted Oren and could not imagine anybody else as my therapist, I never could have anticipated how much losing him would affect me. In the weeks since his death, I have thought intensely about how much I missed his kind eyes, his warm smile, and his joyous laugh. That is, I found myself missing Oren on a personal level. I have cried multiple times and fought back tears almost every day, and also found myself deeply worried about what his final moments were like. 

Was Oren asleep when it happened, or was it painful? Was family with him, or was he alone? Was he scared? Did he know what was happening? It deeply hurts to imagine this warm, kind, and generous man possibly dying in a horrific way. That Oren's death has affected me in such a visceral manner made me realize something important: I loved him. 

Of course I loved him. How could I not have loved someone who knew, understood, and respected my inner world so well? Initially, I couldn't comprehend why this reality had never crossed my mind when Oren was alive. However, love in this particular context is not always obvious, as it develops quietly and subtly within the appropriate bounds of a therapist/client bond, and only crystallizes when the connection comes to an abrupt end. It has neither the electric spark of romantic attachment nor the unbridled altruism of a familial bond, but it is a type of love nonetheless. I am confident that the feeling was mutual, and I will always treasure our relationship.

Oren was a rare human being. He had an acute sense of compassion and was warm, kind, open-minded, knowledgeable, deeply philosophical, brilliant, and principled to the very end. For nine years, I trusted him profoundly. I laughed with him on my good days, I cried in front of him during difficult times, and now I cry for him alone. I will deeply miss him.

My one solace is knowing that the world is better for having had Oren in it.

 

"The Elephant in the Room" or "The Television in the Bar"

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

8. Closure Pt 3: What Could Have Been Done

9. Running Saved Me Pt 1: A New Support System

10. Running Saved Me Pt 2: How Running Saved My Brain

* As always, names and details have been changed to protect people's privacy.

Over the course of the past few months, I have written ten blog posts in which I revisited painful experiences in middle school, running the gamut from losing friends to being bullied on a minute-by-minute basis; this eleventh post closes the series. The previous two entries discussed how my experience running track at the end of 9th grade gave me new friends, a supportive coach, and the chemical boost in my brain that enabled me to stand up to the bullies. With such a positive resolution and a high self-esteem at the end of the year, how is any of this still relevant-- especially to someone just a week from her forty-fifth birthday? I must have put it completely behind me, right?

Honestly, I thought I did. But let's address that elephant in the room-- or, as a more apt metaphor, that television in the bar. Upon recent reflection, as illustrated in the first post in this series, I hadn't put this nonsense behind me. Not completely. The events of middle school were core memories, created in the formative years of my life when my brain was still developing. As I only recently realized, they impacted how I would think about friendships throughout the rest of my adolescence and well into my adult life and, to a lesser extent, to this day. Even if I wasn't thinking intently about these memories, they were a constant backdrop, akin to a television playing in a bar. When you're at a bar, you are not directly focusing on the television, but you are constantly aware of its presence in your peripheral vision and hearing. My experiences in middle school largely taught me to expect friendships to be tenuous, and that any minute someone who once genuinely liked me could do a mental hairpin turn and abandon me, unless I learned to rein in multiple aspects of myself.

And let me just say this: if life were a Hollywood movie, after running track in 9th grade I would be consistently confident and have tons of good friends for the rest of my life, starting with high school that fall. That is, a perfect movie ending wrapped up in a neat little package. But that isn't how life works. Over the decades, I have gone through multiple cycles of confidence and self-loathing, depending on whatever obstacles and setbacks I encounter. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

When I entered high school in the fall of 1996, fresh off the track team (where I made new friends) and my second rewarding summer at Camp Negev (a progressive and open-minded environment where I felt people really appreciated me for the first time), I was pretty optimistic. Most of the kids from middle school were zoned for the other high school in the district, and the new kids I encountered seemed very nice-- and for the most part, they were. With time, I felt, I would make some new friends. That isn't what happened. I had trouble connecting with people. But why? I had easily made new friends with the 7th- and 8th-graders on the track team the previous year, so why couldn't I make new friends in my high school? Sadly, it was probably because those friends from track were two and three years younger than me. Because I had repeated first grade, I was a year older than all the kids in my grade and, at age fifteen, these new friends were mostly twelve and thirteen years old. Like me, and unlike my agemates, they were still largely into "kid" things-- just like Ivy had been when we first met in 7th grade.

Now that I was in 10th grade, I could not find common ground with my peers. The conversations I would start with other kids felt forced and awkward. By the end of the year, it was clear that I wasn't going to make any friends. And when I could see that I was starting to annoy people and weird them out for a variety of reasons, I feared that I would be bullied again. So I did the only thing I could to protect myself: I withdrew and mostly remained quiet-- something people who know me well would find difficult to imagine. My strategy worked: I wasn't bullied in high school, but I didn't make any friends either. I had a few friendly acquaintances, but we we never became close enough to get together outside of school. I was scared to let them in on aspects of me that I had been repeatedly taught to keep hidden. The way high school unfolded suggested to me that my positive end to 9th grade was, like my experiences at Camp Negev, a tiny anomaly in a world that largely rejected me. Looking back, my decision to withdraw socially in high school is the biggest regret of my life. I know now that there had to have been other neurodivergent kids I could have become friends with who, like me, were hiding, because there wasn't yet a word to describe them.

I think of my yearslong friend, Andrea, whom I met in the fall of 1999, during my freshman year of college. Andrea remembers trying to get to know me and feeling like I wanted to be left alone. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was just that I was so afraid of putting her off or coming across as demanding that I forced myself to seem quiet and reserved-- no easy task since when I am comfortable I can be quite uninhibited, for better or for worse. Fortunately, Andrea was undeterred. We were both animation majors-- most of the others who planned to go into animation were guys, and Andrea wanted to get to know me, since I was the only other girl in animation she had encountered so far. 

Even well into adulthood, the proverbial television in the bar is still on in the background. A couple years ago, at a family gathering, a bunch of us were playing with an AI generator. Because of how nonsensical and surreal the resulting images were, I joked that the computer was on drugs. One of my relatives, who had once had a drug problem, got upset and yelled at me in front of everybody. At the time, I thought he was upset because a little kid was in the room (I was unaware, as the kid was behind me). I only learned later that he was upset because the joke touched a personal vulnerability.

When I discussed the situation with my parents a couple weeks later, I lamented, "If this had happened with someone outside of the family, that would have ended the friendship." Mom replied, "Someone who ends a friendship over something like that wasn't your friend to begin with." I realized she was right, but that metaphorical television that played constant reruns of my middle school memories was still in the periphery of my life. Of course, I now also wonder why Mom and Dad didn't say the same thing after the fallout with my middle school friend, Kat, over my joke about old people smell in 8th grade, and when I was kicked out of the lunch table in 9th grade. Unfortunately, my parents don't remember their responses to either incident, or any of the others in which they seemed to blame me for friendships ending. They insist they never intended to blame me when these types of fallouts happened, which is puzzling because that is absolutely the message I absorbed. I guess I'll never know. 

And, of course, most recently, there was my fallout with Lisa over my joke that she should stalk famous actors on her trip to Los Angeles, which she thought I meant as a serious suggestion. Although that situation is different because Lisa is autistic -- the hyper-literal, black-and-white-thinking type-- I still saw and heard that metaphorical television in the background. As you saw in that blog post, my mind reflexively went back thirty years to my fallout with Kat.

It's incidents like the aforementioned that made me realize how much the bullshit I went through in middle school shaped me and how I never completely moved on. It became clear that to truly put it behind me, I would have to radically reframe the past and deconstruct-- similar to the way someone might when leaving a cult or a high-demand religion. Contacting Ivy and Torey and clearing the air with them has helped me to do that, and I wish I would have done it twenty years ago. Perhaps addressing that television in the bar sooner would have made it easier to turn off. Unfortunately, it is still on decades later, and so it is that much harder to silence. 

I want to end by saying that I am honestly glad to have reconnected with Ivy and Torey beyond getting closure. Ivy no longer lives in or near our hometown in Pennsylvania; she has long moved out of state, so I have no idea if I'll see her at any point. However, she has said that she is glad we reconnected. Torey, who for years had been living in the Midwest, recently moved back near our hometown, and we are going to try to get together when I visit my family for Thanksgiving.

Reconnecting with Ivy and Torey also gave me closure in that our discussions helped me realize that none of the kids in our ragtag group of eight were ever truly "bad." As I've discussed, we were all kids in a broken system in a more ignorant time. Ivy said it best: we were perpetually in fight-or-flight mode, constantly reacting and not yet mature enough to take a step back and see the big picture. For years, I thought if any of the girls in the group ever contacted me, I would only be receptive to hearing from Ivy, and possibly Torey, provided that they apologized for turning on me. I always knew that Ivy was a good person at her core and, as I've said, I do recall Torey acting genuinely sorry towards the end of the year after the parents and principal staged an intervention. However, after having talked to both women, I realized I would be open to hearing from the other five kids in the group. I could contact them, but I was honestly never really close to them (one girl, Rosie, I didn't even mention in any of the posts!), so I don't see the point. But, in the off-chance that any of them are reading this, I absolutely would be receptive to hearing from them. 

Onward.

Running Saved Me Part 2: How Running Saved My Brain

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

8. Closure Pt 3: What Could Have Been Done

9. Running Saved Me Pt 1: A New Support System

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy.

With a sport I loved and a supportive track coach, and new friends in the final weeks of 9th grade, there was only one thing left to do:

Stand up to my bullies.

Thus ended my previous post. For those who have only started reading my protracted blog series about my experiences in middle school (grades 7-9 in my district), let me fill you in:

I was bullied almost constantly throughout those years in ways that ran the gamut from bitingly personal insults to physical assault. As my mother put it in a recent conversation, all I had to do was show up at school and it was "a critical mass of shit" directed at me. By 9th grade, I had become afraid to go to school, as it was unsafe both emotionally and physically. As I discussed in a post from a few months ago, in my 9th-grade ceramics class, kids relentlessly hurled large balls of clay at me. I repeatedly reported this to the teacher, Miss Mitch, who dismissively told me to "just ignore them." During each class, I did just that-- working with one hand and deflecting balls of clay that I spotted in my peripheral vision with my other. Needless to say, the bullying did not stop. One Friday morning in November 1995, after two months of "ignoring" this abuse, I reached my limit, storming out of the room in tears, as almost the entire class cheered. I went to the principal's office and called my grandmother to pick me up and extricate me from the endless emotional pain and suffering.

When my parents later called the school to complain, Miss Mitch offered a solution: if I wanted, I could work in the classroom across the hall, which was empty during this time slot. I did just that for the remaining seven months of the school year, often while listening to 1960s rock or soundtracks from my favorite movies on a tape player that was in the room. By the time I joined the track team in April 1996, my self-esteem had been completely destroyed. And the "solution," ostensibly to protect me but which only further isolated me and suggested to my classmates that Miss Mitch didn't want me in the room (which I suspect had some element of truth to it anyway), did not help. Kids from the class regularly snuck in to taunt me, steal my supplies, and throw clay at me. Each time, I continued to "just ignore them," which, of course, did not work. 

However, one day I made a decision: I was going to stand up to the bullies. That's where running track came in. How was it connected? Let me explain.

After I had been running track for about a month, my mother began to notice that when she picked me up from practice I seemed more alert, confident, and happy. I started to notice it too, and my mood was improving for extended periods of time-- not just after track practice, but also during the school day. What I didn't know was that in the immediate aftermath of track practice, I was experiencing a well-documented phenomenon known as "runner's high," a euphoric feeling believed to be caused by endocannabinoids released in the brain during vigorous exercise. That my mood eventually became elevated for longer periods of time suggests that running was also giving me long-term mental health benefits, also widely documented. To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that my unhappiness and compromised self-esteem that year were the results of a chemical imbalance. However, it seems running provided a chemical boost in my brain that gave me the mental resources to better address the exceptionally stressful situations that I was enduring every day. 

I still remember the date that I made the decision to stand up for myself: Friday, May 3, 1996. I'm not sure exactly what in me finally flipped the switch in my head. Maybe it was the wonderful feeling of the newly tightened, firm muscles in my legs and core that made me feel stronger in both body and mind. In any case, that morning, as I was walking through the school hallways, I had an epiphany: the treatment that I had been experiencing was bullying. It was abuse, and it was wrong. Despite what I had been taught to believe, no, I did not bring this treatment on myself, and no, I did not deserve it. I suddenly promised myself that I was going to do something that I had never done before: defend myself, and no longer be a bystander in my own suffering.

My first opportunity to keep that promise came later that morning during ceramics when two large, physically-imposing guys came into the room that I was working in. They were likely closing in on six feet and 180 pounds each, in stark contrast to my 5'1" and 98 pounds. I knew then as I saw them that there was no turning back. Don't get me wrong-- I was nervous, already in the throes of the fight-or-flight response, my heart racing and body shaking. Recalling a time in 8th grade when I broke my hand punching a boy on the bus who was hitting me, I thought, "If I have to fight, I'll fight. If I break both hands defending myself, so be it."

The boys started with the usual bullshit, calling me names, stealing my tools, and throwing clay. That day, I was also listening to the soundtrack from the 1982 film Annie, which of course they could not resist harassing me about.

"What the fuck are you listening to?" one of the boys taunted aggressively as he towered over me.

Normally, I would have said, "Nothing!" to try to deflect attention away from something I knew they'd use as a weapon to embarrass me. But this time I wasn't going to roll over and play dead. Instead, I  looked him square in the eye and said, "The soundtrack from Annie. You got a problem with that?"

Of course the boys laughed at my choice of music, a soundtrack from a movie that they probably deemed for kindergartners. And they weren't done yet.

"You fucking circus freak," one of them said. "We know why you're in here. It's because the teacher doesn't want you in the class."

It was a low blow, and I knew it. I winced at the emotional slight, but despite my racing heart and trembling body, I maintained eye contact and said, "Okay, so what? Why is that any of your business?"

After a few more rounds of insults and name-calling, I said, "Okay, guys. I've had enough fun for today. Why don't you leave?"

"Nah, we don't want to," said one guy.

My eyes still locked on theirs, I retorted loudly and firmly, "I am supposed to be in here, and you're not. And I am asking you to get out of here-- now!" 

The boys left-- but not before grabbing my tools and turning the volume on the tape player up all the way. I recall thinking, "Great. Now all the nearby classrooms are going to hear the music, and soon the entire 9th grade will know what I was listening to, and I'll never hear the end of it." But then, remembering my promise to myself, my mind followed up with, "So what?"

I ran to the ceramics room, retrieved my tools, returned to the empty classroom, and quickly turned the volume on the tape player back to normal. The boys did not return for the rest of class. I have little doubt that they thought that they scored yet another victory against me, but to focus on that negates an important detail: I had at last mustered the strength to defend my dignity. I demonstrated that I was not going to put up with this kind of treatment any longer, and for that I felt that I had scored a victory. For once, I had won! 

I think these boys came back to harass me maybe once or twice after that day. But before, it had been almost daily. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe Miss Mitch suddenly gained control over her class, but I highly doubt it. I think the most likely explanation is that I did exactly what the bullies were not used to seeing me do: I stood up for myself and made it clear that I was not going to bow in submission and accept my role as the perpetual target. In fact, in the final six weeks of school, very few people bothered me. Maybe just the fact that I was carrying myself more confidently, my head held high, made a difference.

On that fateful day in 1996, I learned something very important: the best weapon you can give a bullied child is self-esteem. I realize that standing up for oneself is hard, and it only works if self-esteem is conveyed in the response, but it is the only thing that ever worked for me. And doesn't that make the most sense out of all the advice adults implored me to take? I've already demonstrated in several posts in this series that ignoring bullies is ineffective, counterproductive, and only makes them try that much harder to get a rise out of the target. Pressuring kids to "learn to fit in" doesn't work either. My well-meaning but tragically-misguided parents in what I've come to think of as The Ignorant Nineties seemed inordinately convinced that if I stopped dressing like a tomboy and donned the feminine clothes that they were desperate to see on me but that I was profoundly uncomfortable wearing, the bullying would stop. But as my classmate-turned-friend-in-adulthood, Annette, once said, "It wouldn't have made a difference. You were pegged." Besides, that approach really smacks of victim blaming, even though that wasn't my parents' intention.

As you've seen in this post and its predecessor, I found community on the track team, joy in running, and a newfound sense of self-esteem that led to 9th grade ending on a positive note. So why, then, did I feel the need to revisit the social trauma from earlier that year and 8th grade in multiple blog posts? Why did I need closure after events from between twenty-nine and thirty-one years ago, and why did I feel the need to contact Ivy and Torey-- two of the former friends who turned on me-- to do so?

I'll address that elephant in the room in the next and final post in this series about my middle school years.

Running Saved Me Part I: A New Support System

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

8. Closure Pt 3: What Could Have Been Done

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy

Here we are again, another entry in the series that chronicles the utter hell that was middle school. For those of you who haven't seen previous blog posts, I related stories of chronic, relentless, minute-by-minute bullying that I endured from 7th - 9th grade (again, 9th grade was middle school in my district). As if that wasn't enough, all the girls in my friend group turned on me by the end of 9th grade, including Ivy, who had once been one of my best friends. With only two months left in the school year, a bullying incident instigated at lunch by my former friend group led to a meeting with some of these girls, their parents, Principal Hayden, my parents, and me. However, it only served as an airing of grievances, and nothing was really solved. By then, my self-esteem was pulverized, and everything seemed hopeless. In reading these stories, it is only natural to wonder, "Did 9th grade at least end on a positive note?" 

As a matter of fact, yes, but not in the ways you would hope. My friends were gone, no question, but something unexpected and positive happened in the final weeks of the school year.

But let me back up a bit.

The previous summer, during the final week of overnight camp, I tripped, fell, and broke my left ankle during a game of Capture the Flag. Between the splint and the eventual cast, my ankle had to remain immobilized for seven weeks to allow the bone to heal. As is typical in these situations, the surrounding muscle atrophied. To rebuild the muscle after the cast was removed, I took walks every day after school. For the first week or so, it was just down the street and back because the muscle was weak and my ankle was stiff. With time, however, walking became more comfortable and I gradually increased the distance, ultimately to a full two miles. I eventually incorporated jogging into my routine and, to my surprise, I found that I enjoyed it. My mom eventually suggested that I join the track team in the spring. 

I thought she was out of her mind. 

As is common among autistic people, I had poor full body coordination and was terrible at sports. Unrelated to being autistic, but still relevant to my poor athletic abilities, I got winded easily (years later I would learn that I naturally have lower than average lung capacity). Needless to say, I hated gym class, where kids always humiliated me, especially during team sports: the kids on my team always blamed and shamed me if our side lost, and the kids on the opposing team enthusiastically thanked me if my poor coordination resulted in them scoring a point. During the mile run in the Presidential Physical Fitness test, I always ran for the first thirty seconds and walked the rest of the way. How on earth could running track be fun for me? Nevertheless, I threw caution to the wind and joined the team. 

Track practice was incredibly difficult. As I expected, I was unable to keep up with the other girls on the team during our daily two- or three-mile runs. In some ways, it served as an apt metaphor for my social life: I always felt left behind and left out, and no matter how hard I tried to keep up, I always came in last by a wide and conspicuous margin. However, my track coach, Mr. Sampson, was terrific. He literally and metaphorically did what most of my teachers-- particularly Mr. Frank-- failed to do in class: he gave me extra support instead of chastising or belittling me for not being able to do what everybody else was doing. He ran with me and encouraged me to keep going when I was tempted to walk. "You can do it! That's the way!" he would say. Very, very slowly, I was able to run for increasing stretches of time.

Finally, our first track meet arrived. Mr. Sampson put me in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, I now suspect because these were races he knew I could finish, not because he thought I was sprinting material. It was a way to get me comfortable with participating in a track meet. As always, I came in dead last.

One day, after I had a few track meets under my belt, Mr. Sampson told me, "You're going to do the 800-meter run tomorrow." While most people might think 800 meters (a half mile, two laps around the track) is a short distance to run, to me the very idea sounded intimidating and horrifying. Sure, I was training my body to run for longer stretches and I was improving, but I couldn't fathom being able to run 800 meters. I said in disbelief, "The 800? I can't do that!" Mr. Sampson said confidently, "Yes, you can."

At the meet the next day, I started out running but very quickly began to struggle after finishing the first 200 meters of the 800-meter race. With each forced and labored step that barely passed as running, my lungs burned, my abdomen cramped, and my calf and thigh muscles ached. Passing Mr. Sampson at the end of the first lap, I asked, "What do I do?" Laced in that question was a desperate plea for him to tell me that it was okay, that I didn't have to finish and that I could try again next time. Instead, Mr. Sampson nonchalantly said, "Do it again." Reluctantly, I brute forced myself through another lap. My coach encouraged me the entire way, shouting things like, "You're doing great! Keep going!" and "Think of how you'll feel when it's over!" 

I finished the 800-meter run at an unimpressive 4 minutes and 11 seconds. To this day, I still don't know how I did it. Completely exhausted but relieved, I collapsed on the grass. But Mr. Sampson wasn't done with me yet: he gently told me to get up, walk it off, and stretch so that I wouldn't be sore the next day. I was winded and aching, but also happy that for the first time in my life, I managed to run a half mile. "You see? I told you that you could do it!" said Mr. Sampson, tapping his head with an index finger. Track is all up here!" With the help and support of a caring and empathetic track couch, I proved that I could do it. And if I did it once, I could do it again.

I was put into middle distance for the rest of the season, running the 800 and improving my time-- even if still coming in dead last-- at each meet. When I went on to high school, I continued to run track every year. I ran the 800, of course, but also the 1600 (1-mile) and, once, the 3200 (2 miles). Although I continued to always come in last-- my best time in the 1600 was 7 minutes and 28 seconds, still slower than what most female high school track runners typically do-- my body adapted enough that I was easily able to complete these races and, like the other girls, do more than one race at the same meet. Mr. Sampson, who had since moved on to teaching and coaching at the other high school in the district, continued to cheer me on when he saw me at meets. "That's the way, Julie!" he would always say as I ran past him. With my body better adapted for running, I even found myself enjoying gym class (except for volleyball, a sport that I passionately hated).

As for 9th grade, Mr. Sampson came to me after our last track meet and said, "You should be proud of yourself, especially coming from where you were. You've really improved."

Mr. Sampson was the supportive coach who made what could've been another miserable experience a positive one for me. To be fair, social interactions are a lot more complex and nuanced than running. But in both cases, adults in my life needed to meet me where I was instead of shaming me for not always being able to do what everybody else seemed to do effortlessly. Mr. Sampson didn't expect me to clock in on the 800 at the same times as the other girls on the team, but he supported me in my own personal improvement. 

I should also note that I enjoyed the atmosphere of the track team, and that it was the one environment at school in which I felt comfortable with many of the other kids. Unlike in gym class, the girls on the team were supportive and encouraging. I was still wary about interacting with my ninth-grade teammates since many of them knew me as a perpetual target, so I got to know some of the 7th- and 8th-graders on the team and managed to make new friends, which I desperately needed. I think part of why the atmosphere was so supportive is that track is different than a typical team sport. While a track team is technically a team, the sport is more solitary, and and thus there is less emphasis on being a moving part in a machine, such as in soccer or basketball. My observation has been that kids run track because of their own personal goals: to get daily exercise, to train to run faster, to get stronger, or to lose weight. They're simply there to run. Sure, winning a meet is great, but it doesn't seem as high stakes as with typical team sports.

With a sport that I loved and a supportive track coach, and new friends in the final weeks of 9th grade, there was only one thing left to do:

Stand up to my bullies. 

Tune in next week.

Closure Part 3: What Could Have Been Done

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

*As always, names and certain details are changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

My impromptu series of posts about middle school continues. Most recently, in "Closure Part 1: Reconnection," I talked about events in my recent life that made me think of my middle school years, ultimately leading to a decision to contact Ivy and Torey, two former friends who turned on me in 9th grade (I remind you again, middle school in my district). Both were receptive to reconnecting with me, and both expressed remorse. Torey in particular said that for the past twenty-nine years she has lived with strong regret for how she treated me in 9th grade. In "Closure Part 2: How School Failed all of Us," I talked about how reconnecting with Ivy and Torey made me realize that, although I struggled the most in middle school, they also had their share of problems with bullies. I also concluded that Mr. Frank, the teacher of the history class that Ivy and I were in, likely played a role in ending our friendship, which had already been strained. The end of the post recounted an incident at lunch that prompted my mother to call the school and arrange a meeting between Principal Hayden, some of my former friends, their parents, my parents, and me.

On an evening in April 1996, Ivy, Torey, Aviva, their parents, Principal Hayden, my parents, and I sat around a long table in the principal's office. The tension was palpable, my once-friends and I exchanging awkward glances. I honestly don't remember most of the details of the meeting, but I seem to recall that Torey was very quiet throughout, and that Ivy was crying. Most importantly, I don't recall that much was accomplished that evening: it was mostly an airing of grievances, with Ivy and Aviva leveling accusations at me while I responded the best I could. I recall distinctly at the end that I felt that everything that had gone wrong was my fault. That was how I had been conditioned to feel whenever there was any social conflict, and I said something like, "I take full responsibility for what happened." At that point, Aviva softened a little, telling me not to be so hard on myself. But by then it was a moot point. My friendship with her as well as both other girls was damaged beyond repair.

In hindsight, I don't think our friendships were destined to fall apart. As I've mentioned in previous posts, we were kids in a broken system in the ignorant '90s, kids whose brains were still very much in development, and not yet mature enough to handle protracted conflict without adult assistance. With appropriate support from the teachers, principal, and guidance counselors, perhaps these friendships could have been saved, or at least they might have ended more peacefully. So what could have been done? 

For one thing, I think the meeting should have happened close to the beginning of the year: one good thing that came out it, as I only learned recently, was that it was a crystalizing moment for Torey. She recalls having to look me in the eye and admit to herself the gravity of what she had done. She also remembers looking at my parents and thinking, "They welcomed me into their home, and then I turned around and hurt their daughter." The fact that this meeting made her realize how serious and hurtful her actions were demonstrates that kids who engage in this behavior aren't beyond redemption. Furthermore, the fact that she needed this meeting to appreciate how hurtful her behavior was, once again, illustrates how immature and ill-equipped teenage brains are for managing conflict; to an adult, on the other hand, such consequences would be immediately obvious. I want to note that it does make sense that the meeting was a turning point for Torey; I recall afterwards that she made a serious effort to be nice to me, telling me, "Don't listen to them-- they're assholes," when other kids picked on me. Although I thought it was too late, I also remember thinking that she was genuinely sorry and trying to do better.

So had the meeting happened in the beginning of the year, when circumstances started to go into free fall, how might such a meeting-- or a similar one-- have looked?

First of all, Mr. Frank, my and Ivy's history teacher who belittled me in class, should have been there, and he should have already been briefed about his unacceptable behavior. As I illustrated in my last post, I believe he set the stage in the beginning of the year for making me more of a target and making Ivy feel like she needed to abandon our friendship. In terms of the conflict with the other kids, particularly Torey, Aviva, Ivy, and me, guidance counselors and the principal should have met with us-- first one-on-one, then as a group. Importantly, all of these adults would have had to listen to all perspectives without bias. Even if one side was completely wrong and the other completely right, the only way to have a chance in solving these problems would have been to approach this diplomatically. Here's a perfect example:

In my previous post, I mentioned that Ivy related a situation in which she and Aviva went into a far corner of the library to work on our group project, and I told Mrs. Hayden, who was in the room at the time, that they were hiding from me. My recollection of this is vague, but I can definitely imagine it. Ivy said that she recalls that Mrs. Hayden-- or Sergeant Hayden, as she was widely known-- did not question my side of the story and yelled at Ivy and Aviva, furthering the rift between us. Here's a better way this could have panned out:

Sergeant Hayden: Hey, girls, what's going on? Julie says you're hiding from her.

Ivy: What? No! This is the only free table we could find in the library.

Aviva: Julie's paranoid-- as usual.

Me: I'm not stupid! I know that's what you were doing!

Sergeant Hayden: Okay, I can see that there's a lot going on. Why don't we go to the office to talk about it. None of you are in trouble. I think all of us should just have a little chat.

In the office, Ivy, Aviva, and I could all restate our perspectives, and then Sergeant Hayden should validate Ivy and Aviva's frustration and then help them to understand why I thought they were hiding from me.

Sergeant Hayden: That definitely sounds frustrating. But I want you to think about this: Torey kicks her out of the lunch table, and nobody objects. You don't intervene when other kids harass her. Some days you're nice to her, and other days you make fun of her. She has nobody left to turn to and never knows what to expect. What is she supposed to think? Do you think you would assume the best if you were her?

Maybe it seems idealistic of me to think that Ivy and Aviva would automatically come around, but they were good kids at their core. And had there been intervention like this early on by teachers, Mrs. Hayden, guidance counselors, etc., the conflict might not have even reached this point. But if it had, I think the intervention I proposed could be very effective.

And let's talk about Mr. Frank. He never once made an attempt to constructively address any situation, such as in the incident that I discussed in my last post, in which he and I got into a ridiculous debate about the length of the school year, which I thought was longer because we started before Labor Day for the first time. This culminated in him yelling at me in front of the class. I thought he was joking, and then I turned to high-five Ivy. A boy shouted, "Handshake of the nerds!" and Ivy was body slammed into a locker after class. It was a turning point for her, and our friendship was never the same. Mr. Frank could have prevented all of this by actually being the adult in the room instead of stooping to the level of a teenager. He could have said, "Hey, you know what? This really isn't a big deal, and we've got to get back on task. But if it really matters to you, I can show you the calendar after class and we can talk about it." And if the "handshake of the nerds" thing still somehow managed to happen, he could have told the kid, "Hey knock it off," or drawn attention away from Ivy and me by saying, "Since when is being a nerd a bad thing? Look at me. I went to college and majored in history. I'm a huge nerd!"

Do I have much hope that Mr. Frank would have taken this approach? Not really. I think he was just a run-of-the-mill asshole. But my whole point is to point out what approaches would have been constructive and helpful. They come from the starting point that recognizes that teenagers are ill-equipped to manage certain types of conflict without adult intervention, especially ones related to social status and pecking order. Had they been implemented, otherwise good kids like Ivy wouldn't have felt forced to make a Sophie's choice-type decision between sticking by their friend and getting beaten up, or abandoning their friend and not getting beaten up.

Furthermore, teachers need to model respect, not just make vague statements like, "Your behavior is unacceptable." This was honestly the best that I got out of teachers who talked to kids who were harassing me. Actions speak louder than words, and kids pick up on it when a teacher says one thing and models behavior that contradicts it. They see right through that hypocrisy. 

Well, after all the hell that I've related in these impromptu series of blog posts about my middle school years, particularly 9th grade, did anything positive happen that year?

As a matter of fact... yes.

Stay tuned.

Closure Part 2: How School Failed all of Us

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

*As always, names and details are changed to protect people's privacy

In my last blog post, the latest in a series about my middle school nightmare of loss of friends and incessant bullying, I talked about my decision to contact Ivy and Torey, two friends from those years who turned on me in 9th grade (again, I remind you, middle school in my district). One of the reasons I reconnected with them-- despite the fact that they were the ones who had shunned me, not vice-versa-- was because of my long-held philosophy that you cannot hold adults accountable for bad things they did as kids, unless it's something as extreme as rape or murder. This philosophy is a large part of why I have completely forgiven them. Teenagers' brains are still very much in development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for executive function, risk and consequence assessment, impulse control, and moderation of social behavior. In most people, this part of the brain does not finish developing until around age twenty-five; during the teenage years, it's a hot mess. Is it really any surprise that when adults look back on parts of their life with regret, they often talk about stupid things they did when they were teenagers? 

This is not to excuse the behavior of Torey, Ivy, my other former friends, and the kids who were bullying me from day one. Rather, it is to illustrate that because of their very much in-progress brain development, teenagers are notoriously bad at conflict resolution and handling discomfort. They always form their own societies in school-- biological human evolution practically mandates it-- but they are ill-equipped to run them successfully without adult guidance. The problem is, is that there was almost no adult mentorship at our school. In the '90s, the teacher's job was only to teach, and whatever kids did when interacting with each other, so long as they didn't openly disrespect teachers or damage school property, was their business. In the best case scenario, teachers looked the other way when kids bullied each other. But in the worst case, sometimes the teachers actively perpetuated it. As for the guidance counselors, my experience was that they offered vague advice that didn't even approach the heart of the issue.

In the process of clearing the air with Ivy and Torey, I came to realize that I wasn't the only one whom the system had failed. It failed them too. Both Torey and Ivy revealed that they were also bullied-- which I somehow wasn't aware of-- because of their weight. They hated middle school and eventually threw away their yearbooks (I didn't throw mine away because I save damn near everything). Ivy, in particular, described the school as a "toxic combination of students and teachers." She also noted how amazing it was that decades later we could both clearly remember mean teachers and kids who tormented us. The most toxic teacher, no doubt, was our 9th grade history teacher, Mr. Frank, who was popular among the "cool" kids.

I said at the end of my last post that I believe Mr. Frank played a role in ending my friendship with Ivy, and I strongly believe he set the tone in the beginning of the year. One particular incident, I would eventually learn, was a huge turning point for Ivy. That year, for the first time, our school district started before Labor Day, while not moving the last day of school to an earlier date. Somehow, the topic came up in Mr. Frank's class one day. I had already assumed, possibly incorrectly, that we had a longer school year than before, so I said something about it. Mr. Frank said no, it was still the standard 180 days. I kept insisting that it was a few days longer. I don't recall exactly what was said, but at some point I began to find the interaction funny and started to make light of it. It went back and forth like this until Mr. Frank left the room to get the calendar. According to Ivy's recollection, Mr. Frank was pissed: he slammed the calendar on my desk. I remember that he said, "Here you go, Bucket Mouth!" But, story of my fucking life, I thought he was playing along and being silly, not that he was upset. I turned to offer a high-five to Ivy, who accepted. As her hand slowly connected to mine, I remember thinking, "Oh shit," because I could sense some reluctance. A boy in class called out, "Handshake of the nerds!"

When I came to school the next morning, Ivy ignored me and walked away when I tried to say hello. Perplexed, I asked what was wrong, but as typical with middle school girls, I had to get the answer secondhand, in this case from our friend Aviva. I, of course, learned that Ivy was upset about what had happened in Mr. Frank's class the day before. A few days later, Ivy started talking to me again, but our friendship, which had already been somewhat strained since the middle of eighth grade, would never be the same. It was only when I recently reconnected with her that I learned that after class the day before, she was body slammed into a locker for having the temerity to high-five the school loser in front of everybody. Needless to say, she did not report this assault. Why would she? Every bullied kid knows that reporting incidents like this only makes things worse. The kid is labeled a snitch, and the bullies torment them more aggressively. And it doesn't help that Mr. Frank played a direct role in creating the situation. He made it clear to the entire class that he did not like me, further validating my position as a perpetual target, and communicating with his students that there would be no consequences for harassing me-- or anybody who associated with me. 

Toward the end of the school year, Ivy, Aviva, and I worked together on a ten-week-long group project in Mr. Frank's class. At this point, my friendship with both girls was hanging by a thread. The three of us fought constantly-- more specifically, I fought against Ivy and Aviva, and they fought against me. Unfortunately, I don't remember many details of what we argued about, but I do recall feeling like there was a constant severe breakdown in communication among us. I also remember that Mr. Frank's idea of intervening was, at best, to tell all three of us to grow up or, at worst, to automatically blame me for whatever was wrong. Between Mr. Frank failing to de-escalate and redirect the situation during the calendar incident in the beginning of the year, berating me in front of the class throughout the year, and not constructively intervening during fights in our group project, he played a huge role in hammering the final nail in the coffin of my already-tenuous friendship with both Ivy and Aviva.

I wasn't the only student that Mr. Frank was a jerk to. I have no recollection of this, but Ivy told me that Mr. Frank started calling her "Poison Ivy" in class, thinking it was funny. The other kids started calling her that, and despite her obvious discomfort, Mr. Frank never told them to stop. The nickname apparently stuck with her even when she moved on to high school. As Ivy and I talked about this and the other aforementioned incidents, she said, "Mr. Frank was a bully. He never should have been teaching."

And then there was the principal, Mrs. Hayden-- also known as Sergeant Hayden, because of the no-nonsense, authoritative way that she carried herself, and the fact that she put the fear of God in the student body. She had no trouble calling out students for bullying which, on the surface, would seem to be a refreshing change from what I was used to. But a critical detail is that she never seemed to hold teachers accountable for looking the other way and/or encouraging the behavior, as was the case with Mr. Frank. Therefore, problems with bullying were never addressed constructively, let alone truly solved. A teacher sets the tone for the class by how they respond-- or don't respond-- to bullying. They can either enable it or disable it. I can't recall any teachers taking steps to disable it. Did Mrs. Hayden ever implore them to do so? I doubt it.

The ongoing conflict with my former friends reached a crescendo one day at lunch when Aviva and Khalia intermittently walked past me, pulling out loose strands of my hair. Because I knew teachers would tell me to "just ignore it," I did just that for several rounds-- and of course it didn't work. As I was sipping a can of Coke, Aviva pulled yet another strand of hair-- and I reached my limit. As if on autopilot, I whipped around and hurled the can of soda at her, but I missed. During class after lunch, Aviva told everybody who would listen that I could have killed her had I not missed, making me sound like I was unhinged and dangerous, when the reality was that I was desperate for the constant bullying to end.

It was because of this incident that my mother called Mrs. Hayden and demanded a meeting with Ivy and Aviva (because of the project conflict), Torey (because of her role in exiling me from the group), me, all of the parents and, of course, Mrs. Hayden. The next day, Ivy came up to me in tears and said, "You got me suspended. Thank you very, very much!" I remember very clearly being at a loss for words. I didn't know what to say. I wanted all these problems to stop, but I didn't want to get anybody in more trouble than necessary, and I was desperate to salvage the friendships, even though I knew deep down that there was no hope. I even recall going to Mrs. Hayden and telling her not to suspend Ivy.

After reconnecting with Ivy, I learned that for some reason Mrs. Hayden had assumed that Ivy and Torey had done the hair pulling at lunch. She approached them during an ice cream social after school to tell them that a meeting was coming soon, and threatened them both with suspension (ultimately, they weren't suspended). In any case, it frightened both of them so much that to this day they still remember the incident very clearly. Mrs. Hayden's approach of addressing the issue during an after-school activity was completely inappropriate and counterproductive, making things worse for everyone involved and not solving anything. As for when I told her not to suspend Ivy, as she wasn't one of the girls pulling my hair, her response was a dismissive, "I am so sick of this crap."

Ivy recalls another time, during our group project, she and Aviva went to a far corner of the library to work. I apparently thought they were hiding from me, and I told Mrs. Hayden, who was in the room at the time. She yelled at them without trying to get their side of the story. When Ivy told me about this, it didn't ring a bell, but upon further reflection it sounds vaguely familiar. Again, as with the incident of threatening Ivy and Torey with suspension, it only made both girls angrier with me and furthered the rift between us. Rather than get clarification from the girls about their intentions while helping them see why I might have thought they had been hiding from me, she acted accusatory and aggressive. In hindsight, it seems as if Sergeant Hayden's main concern in these situations was that her side of the story-- whether it worked in my favor or someone else's-- was seen as the correct one. This approach is completely ineffective when working with teenagers, whose brains are not yet mature enough to handle such protracted conflict unassisted.

And finally, as you have seen from previous posts, I dealt with a lot of victim blaming when I was bullied. But Ivy also got her share of it. At the very end of the year, one of the boys in our grade got ahold of Ivy's yearbook and wrote some vicious messages in permanent marker all over the inside. When Ivy's mother went to the school to complain, Mrs. Hayden told Ivy that it was her fault for not keeping an eye on the yearbook. Only when her mother screamed at Sergeant Hayden did the principal relent and give Ivy a replacement.

As you can see, the situation at school was dire-- not just for me, but also for Ivy, Torey, and Aviva. So what ultimately happened at that meeting that I alluded to? Did it solve anything? What could have been done instead?

Stay tuned.