"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.

The Butterfly Effect

This is a post not necessarily related to Asperger's. It's more for fun than anything else.

What is the Butterfly Effect? It is a metaphor that is often used to describe how seemingly inconsequential actions-- such as a butterfly flapping its wings-- can potentially trigger a chain reaction whose end result is quite significant-- such as a tornado brewing thousands of miles away from the butterfly. This is hyperbolic-- of course a butterfly flapping its wings will not contribute to a tornado, let alone one thousands of miles away. But you get the idea. 

We all experience a Butterfly Effect of sorts in our own lives. For example, perhaps you missed your train and had to wait an hour for the next one. In that time, you sat down next to someone. With time to kill, you struck up a conversation. You hit it off immediately. You talked even more on the train together. You exchanged contact information and… forty years later you are still happily married with two kids, one of which is now in her late thirties and who has just won the Nobel Prize for finding the cure for cancer. In short, if you hadn't missed your train forty years ago, there would be no cure for cancer today. 

That is, of course, an extreme example. But you get the idea. Here's an interesting one from my own life:

If my family had not moved to a new town in 1987, exercise would not be an important part of my life. Wow, that's reaching, right? Or is it? Let me explain:

For the first almost-seven years of my life, my family lived in a suburb immediately outside of Philadelphia. It was getting too congested and the public schools didn't have the best reputation. My parents wanted to move to a suburb that was less congested and in which there were reputable public schools. They found a house in a suburb twenty miles away. 

Okay, but what do wanting to go to public schools have to do with being an exercise fanatic? Do the schools have a renowned physical education program? 

Not quite.

My family is Jewish, and my mother wanted to bring my brother and I up as Reformed Jews (Scenes of her trying to get Dad, my brother and me to go to synagogue on the High Holidays are a lot like scenes of Marge trying to get the family to go to church on The Simpsons, but that's another story altogether). We joined a nearby synagogue. 

A few years later, Mom wanted to send my brother to overnight camp, and she wanted to send him to a Jewish camp. The first one she looked into was too expensive. In the days of no Internet, Mom had to search for another, less expensive camp. Mom asked the Rabbi, who recommended Camp Negev. My brother went there and loved it. I started going there a few years later-- in 1995-- after I was too old to go to the arts day camp I'd been going to since 1989. 

Oh, so Camp Negev has a renowned sports program?

No! Stop being so literal, and let me finish! No, not at all. There was one one-hour sports period during the day, and that was it. The rest of the day included work projects, discussion groups, swimming, electives, free time, and more. 

Having had undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome, being fourteen years old and having just completed 8th grade-- another year of bullying, the worst so far-- I was so used to grudgingly accepting myself as someone who would have this horrible effect on people. I was convinced that the bullying was my fault, and I didn't even call it bullying. I thought it was a "normal" consequence of me being me. I was so used to this treatment that it was all I knew. Coming to camp, I imagined the usual middle school drama: I imagined girls putting on globs of makeup in the morning. I imagined girls whispering and giggling, and then when I would ask what was so funny, they would laugh and say, "Nothing!" I imagined people hating me, ostracizing me, and excluding me in every way,  no matter how hard I tried. And why wouldn't I think that would happen? It was all I knew.

The first two weeks didn't go so well. I was constantly on the defense, and I assumed the worst about people's intentions towards me. I had Asperger's-style crying meltdowns practically every other day. One of my counselors, Jonas, saw that I was struggling and reached out to me. He listened when I needed to talk. He didn't pass judgment on me, telling me I was immature or that I needed to "get over it", like my (misguided) parents and teachers did. In the throes of adolescence, he was someone I could talk to. He was the friend and mentor I needed. I developed a crush on him-- he was my first crush-- and he knew, but he was generally okay with it (unlike the later crushes, but that's another story, and another blog post). 

When I became more comfortable and at ease it was easier for me to make friends in my group. I discovered that Negev was a very progressive, left-leaning and accepting summer camp. Most of the girls didn't put on makeup. They thought that it was cruel to ostracize others for being different. In fact, many of these kids came from same-sex parent households and some of them were even openly gay or bisexual (unusual for kids in the '90s). They didn't get me at first, but when you're with people around the clock, it is easier for them to get to know and understand you. And they did understand and appreciate me. And I made friends with some of the boys, too. 

I had only been signed up for first session, but I suddenly wanted to stay second session. I almost wasn't able to do it because my parents didn't think they could afford it, but back home, my brother-- who lamented never having been able to stay second session-- convinced my parents to find a way to do it. So I stayed second session.

This has what to do with exercise?

Patience, patience! 

Camp Negev had a special day each session called Revolution, in which the CITs would kick out the counselors and run the camp for a day. Revolution was centered around a theme, such as history, a movie, animals, and more. The theme of Revolution second session was the time-travel movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. During one activity, we pretended that we went back in time to the era of prohibition. In a game similar to Capture the Flag, people were divided into teams and had to steal the other team's "beer" bottles, while also guarding their own. 

My team was deciding who got to guard and who got to try to steal the other bottles. I was always terrible at sports and terrible at running. Sometimes I wished I were good at sports and could kick total ass in soccer, baseball, etc, and the tomboy in me wished I had the strength to wrestle. But because I was bad at sports, I hated them. During this game, for once I wanted to be on the offensive and try to steal the bottles. I ran across the field to try to get a bottle. A girl on the opposite team spotted me and tagged me. I tried to stop too quickly. My right leg crossed over my left, and down I went . I felt a familiar surge of pain in my left ankle-- I had broken my left finger and my right hand over the past two years-- and I knew instantly it was broken (I could swear that I heard a CRACK when I went down, but I realize that was probably a false memory). I had to go home from camp five days early. And that's tough when every day at camp is like a week. 

After the cast came off, the muscle on my lower left leg had atrophied. It was difficult for me to walk at first. Dad explained to me that this happened because with my leg immobilized for seven weeks, the unused muscle broke down. So every day after school, I went for walks to try to rebuild the muscle. At first, because of the stiffness in the tendons around my ankle, I could only walk down the street and back. As the muscle regrew and the tendons loosened up, I increased this walking route until ultimately I mapped out a two-mile loop. After a couple months, I began jogging. I wasn't very good at it, of course. But I did it.

After a few months of this, Mom suggested I join the track team in the spring. I thought she was out of her mind. But I did it anyway. I always came in last at track meets, but I still enjoyed doing it. I got stronger, not just physically but mentally: the endorphins helped my self-esteem and gave me the strength to stand up to the bullies. I continued running track throughout high school.

The End. 

Or not.

I was very skinny growing up, and I thought it would be impossible for me to become overweight. But it happened. I got into some horrible eating habits in college, and I wasn't running regularly. I struggled with being overweight for several years. Finally, in the summer of 2012, on one particular hot day, I went to the pool (instead of swimming in the ocean, as usual). What was I supposed to do? Just stand there to cool off? Boring. I started swimming laps to give myself something to do, and I realized that I enjoyed it. Over the course of several months, I made swimming a regular part of my life. I adjusted my diet, and the weight fell right off, at a rate of about two pounds per week (although I've gained some back, I'm still within normal limits and am working on taking it off again). 

To this day, three years later, exercise is still an important part of my life. I alternate between running and swimming (though lately it's been swimming because last year I injured my knees while running, which I'm still not over yet) and cardio/weight machines at the YMCA. But I can tell you had I not had that history of running track it would not have occurred to me to take up swimming. I just would have gone to the pool that hot day in 2012, splashed around a bit, and gone home. I had been meaning to put exercise back into my life, but it was so difficult without someone to coach me. Finally, I just made myself do it, and that would not have happened if I had not had a history of exercise to look back on.

So let's go over this Butterfly Effect:

In 1987, my family moved, and we joined the local Reformed Synagogue. My mother wanted my brother to go to a Jewish camp. The one they were looking at was too expensive, so the Rabbi recommended Camp Negev. My brother went to Negev and loved it, so I decided to go there after I "outgrew" my arts day camp. It was tough for me at first because I expected to be bullied, but Jonas reached out to me and made me want to stay second session (and, of course, come back in years to come). During second session, I broke my ankle. After the cast came off, I began daily walks to rebuild the atrophied muscle. After the muscle was restored, I began jogging. Mom told me to join the track team, which I did. I loved exercising, but being human I got into bad habits in college, ultimately putting on weight. At my worst, I was very close to clinical obesity. Years later, on a hot day, I went to the pool to cool off, but ended up swimming laps. It occurred to me that this would be the answer to getting me back into an exercise routine. I did just that, and I'm still in this routine today. 

So yes, moving in 1987 indirectly made exercise an important part of my life.

Could my parents have found out about Negev through a rabbi in our old town? Possibly, but even if they had, there still might have been a huge difference in my experience at Negev. When my family moved, they had me repeat 1st grade to give me "another year to mature". They never would have done this in the same school (kids latch onto that). So if I hadn't moved, I wouldn't have been held back. The age groups at Negev were based on what grade you were going into, not your age. And Jonas-- an important role in this Butterfly Effect, as you've seen-- wouldn't have been one of my counselors. 

As an addendum, with Jonas as an important part of this equation, he had his own Butterfly Effect of sorts that got him to Camp Negev. He and his ex-girlfriend had been working at a different summer camp. But they broke up, and (if I remember correctly) they thought it would be awkward for them to be at the same camp. So she continued working at the same camp and Jonas went to Camp Negev (or they both agreed to go to different camps; I don't remember). Had he not broken up with his girlfriend, I never would have met him, I wouldn't have stayed second session and… you get the idea. No exercise routine for me today.

Yes, that's the effect of the metaphorical butterfly flapping its wings thousands of miles away.

Exercise, The Zone, and Altered States

I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the sudden change of weather, from just barely above freezing to the mid to upper 60s. For years I've said that when the temperature begins to rise into the 60s in early spring I feel like I'm waking up from deep coma. Summer is my favorite season (I HATE winter), and the spring weather just gets me excited for the upcoming months. But something else happened. I'm not sure what. I feel like a switch suddenly flipped in my mind this past Saturday. It is a switch that hasn't been fully flipped in about two years.

What happened two years ago? I lost 30 pounds. But that was only the beginning. I was going to the gym 5-6 days a week; 4 days a week was a "bad" week for me. I was addicted to working out, and in a good way. I enjoyed the euphoria I got after my weekly special "killer workout" which consisted of a 90-minute swim or protracted treadmill running followed by completing the entire circuit of weight machines. The weight just fell off at a steady rate of 2 pounds per week, and I was getting stronger. My state of mind was changing, I was more alert, and I had more energy. Suddenly, the gym was a single-minded focus for me and was a place I looked forward to going to every day. Eventually, I began training myself to run again. Overall, I was constantly in an altered state. I didn't just feel euphoric coming from the gym-- I felt euphoric going to the gym. And this euphoria kept me motivated and energetic and led to a kind of super-euphoria after working out. It was a wonderful cycle that helped me lose weight, condition my heart, and get stronger. I even found myself drawn to healthier foods and less interested in sugar, which caused my weight gain to begin with (it's a VERY powerful addiction, trust me). Why? Again, I don't know. It's like a different part of my brain was suddenly in charge. But I was also eating less, was eating more sensible portions. I wonder if exercises such as running and swimming, which tighten the abdominal muscles, and perhaps press against my stomach, helped to curb my appetite.

But the light from this switch gradually dimmed a year later. How? I don't know. I was still going to the gym a few times a week, but my workouts didn't "feel" the same. Nor was my motivation the same. I was going to the gym as a matter of routine, but only 3-4 times a week. Then last year I gained back 10 pounds because I was starting to eat more sugary snacks again. When I tried curbing these tendencies and running off the extra weight, I found myself starting to get back into the Zone, albeit slowly. I was running almost every day. But just as as the switch was beginning to turn back on, I gave myself patellar tendonitis. After that, I had to go to physical therapy and could only do cycling for several months. How could I possibly get back in the Zone when I was only exercising my legs? How could I feel euphorically motivated to get on a stationary bike and not do much of anything? I needed a full body workout to do that, and I couldn't even swim (I am not good at freestyle, and breast stroke aggravated my knees because of the kicks involved).

As I started to get better, I began using the seated elliptical at the gym. That worked my arms and legs, but I was sitting. It just wasn't enough. It wasn't my entire body. Then last week I made a decision: For one thing, I was going to go to the gym 6 times a week (trainers recommend you take one day to recuperate) like I did before. If my knees hurt after my workout, I'd just ice them. Even if my knees got worse at first, ultimately they would get better if I took some of the extra weight off-- I'm within normal limits (mid 130s), but just barely.

I started going to the gym more often but it still felt partially forced. But then last Saturday I suddenly felt like I was in the Zone again, for the first time since 2013. A switch had flipped in my mind. I was finding myself doing what I did in 2013: getting out of bed and going straight to the gym. Suddenly working out on the seated elliptical even felt a little different. But why? It's the same workout that was boring me. Then yesterday the temperature went up into the mid 60s, and it was a perfect day for a swim. And suddenly I really, really wanted to swim. I went to the gym thinking that maybe I'd swim for an hour, but I ended up feeling energetic from the moment I got into the pool. I ended up doing a 100-minute swim (plus a 5-minute warmup and 5-minute cool down). I was so energized that the altered state that comes from being in the Zone made me feel that just swimming wasn't enough. No. I was launching myself off from the walls, twisting, turning... I almost felt like I could flip through the air like dolphins do when they swim. In this altered state I felt like I was one giant muscle and the pool was my conquest. That was just how I felt two years ago.

When I walked out of the gym I was wonderfully weary and euphoric. I knew that I would have to take the next day off to let my muscles heal. The expression "getting ripped" isn't just a metaphor-- your muscles do tear and you need to give them a day to regenerate after a killer workout. But I didn't want to take the day off. I wanted to go swimming again today, and I found myself counting the hours until tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be swimming for one hour (as I said, killer workouts are weekly). And it will be a vigorous, energetic swim. What's more, I didn't even have to ice my knees after this workout-- the swimming seems to be helping the healing process.

So I feel like I'm back in the Zone. The switch has flipped. I'm in an altered state. I am confident that I will lose the extra 10 pounds by June with an ultimate target weight of 110 by the end of the summer (yes, 110 is within normal limits for my height. If it's too much of a loss, I'll adjust. No big deal.).  Yes, I know gut feelings don't mean anything, but something else is going on. In this altered state, where I suddenly want to practically live at the gym, where I suddenly have little to no interest in sugary snacks, where I suddenly feel like I can just kick ass, I instinctively know what I need to do. Maybe this is just the fact that it's become easy for me to avoid junk food lately. Maybe it's just the fact that I suddenly feel increased energy during my workout and instinctively know how to make these workouts more effective (ie, the twisting, turning, etc. during swimming, for example). Maybe it's both.

But the Zone isn't just my sudden motivation to "live" at the gym. It all ties in with a sudden increase in confidence I haven't had in almost two years (I got fired from two jobs, which was a severe blow to my ego). Maybe it helps that I recently have been able to get work as a freelance writer. But whatever the case, some switch flipped in my mind on Saturday, the same one that flipped two years ago when I started making exercise an almost-daily part of my life. I don't know how it works. If I could bottle it and sell it, I'd be rich. I also wish I knew how to describe this state of mind because words don't do it justice. Unless you've experienced it, you might as well be asking me to describe what the 5th dimension looks like. But I suspect that there's some chemical change going on. I wish I knew. I wish there would be studies on this sort of thing. I'd like to know what the chemical reaction is and what triggers it. Exercise physiology and how the brain works both fascinate me to no end. But whatever the case, I'm feeling much better about life than I have in a long, long time.

I was originally thinking about writing a post about a state of mind that I sometimes get into, which I call the Monster. But this week I was just feeling too damned positive.

Fight or Flight

Thanks for coming! I'm gradually moving my blog to Substack! You can check out this post here!

How to Handle Bullying: An Evolutionary Perspective

Today is my 33rd birthday! I'm on Amtrak, on my way back from visiting my cousin in Providence, RI. It was a great weekend, full of Monster Mini-Golf; visiting the Armenian Museum in Watertown, MA; helping in the vegetable garden (she's a vegan); making vegan pie and cookies; searching for edible mushrooms in the woods; finding out that her first cousin twice removed's first cousin once removed is a famous TV producer (don't ask)...

Inspired by reading Richard Dawkins's new memoir, An Appetite for Wonder in which Dawkins briefly discussed his memories of witnessing school bullying, I presented my views on childhood bullying from an evolutionary perspective. I ended the post by stating that I was glad that science could shed some light on bullying and hoped that it could likewise provide insight as to what can be done about it. I think in some ways it can, although not in the way that one might think. I mentioned in the post that the bullying I experienced ended in 9th grade (age 15). What happened? It didn't just disappear. I did something about it, and I think my solution-- which is rooted in a basic understanding of evolution-- could be promising for many victims.

Let's backtrack a bit to the beginning of this story: at the end of the summer of '95, at age 14, I broke my left ankle during a game at overnight camp (my first summer, no less) and had to go home five days early. My ankle was confined to a splint for a week and to a cast for an additional six weeks. I knew that the ankle muscle would be atrophied due to lack of use for seven weeks, so I vowed to build it back up as quickly as possible by walking every day. That is exactly what I did. While the tendons were still stiff from immobilization, I simply walked about 1/4 mile (400 meters) down the street and back again each day. After the stiffness subsided, I gradually increased my distance to about 2 miles (3200 meters). Sure enough, the muscle was restored in about two months. I continued my daily after-school walks because I enjoyed them, and even incorporated a little jogging. It was odd for me to do this as I was always terrible at anything remotely athletic, including jogging. However, I continued these daily walk/jogs throughout the following months.

As discussed in my previous post about bullying, 9th grade was among the worst school years of my life because the bullying was worse than ever. Just like many adults in my life, I blamed myself for the bullying and continually lamented that there was something "defective" about me. I even sometimes said that I wished I were dead (which I didn't mean; I was never suicidal, not even in my darkest moments) and that I wished I hadn't been born (which I did mean). When the spring arrived, my mother suggested I joined the track team. I thought she was out of her mind. I knew she was just trying to make me get some "real" exercise, but I had always been terrible at sports, with teammates always taunting me. The last thing I needed, I felt, was to do something that I was not only bad at and disliked but also something that would put yet another bull's eye on my back. For whatever reason, I acquiesced to my mother's wish and joined the track team; my life would never be the same again.

I was right about one thing: I was terrible at it. In perhaps an apt metaphor for my social life, I could not keep up with my teammates and found myself frustrated, wondering why it was so easy for them (years later I found out that I have exceptionally low lung capacity, even when conditioned). My track coach saw that I was struggling, and instead of chastising me for what I could not do (as did many adults when I ran into social trouble), he helped me to train. Whenever I was tempted to stop and rest, he ran beside me and kept urging me on. Although I never quite kept up with my teammates, I eventually reached a point where I was not too far behind them either. At track meets, my coach initially put me in the 100 and 200 meter dashes. Although I was not built for sprinting, at least it was a short enough distance that he knew I could finish. One day, however, he nonchalantly announced that I was going to do the 800-meter (half mile) run. I was petrified.

At the dreaded track meet, I struggled through the first lap (400 meters). Ready to collapse, I desperately cried, "What do I do?" "Do it again," he said, because, well, the 800-meter-run is the 800-meter-run! I pulled myself through the second lap, timed at a terrible near-five minutes. Nevertheless, my coach congratulated me for completing it. After that first time, running the 800 became gradually easier. My body was adapting to the daily demands of the intense workout that is running. What happens, exactly? Because of the increased demand for oxygen in the muscles, the heart actually grows larger (it's colloquially known as "athlete's heart") so that it can hold more blood and deliver oxygen more efficiently (this is why marathon runners have very low resting heart rates). The lungs increase in size as well. These wonderful adaptations enable the runner to run for longer periods of time without tiring. The ability to do this is important for the point I am trying to make about handling bullying (I'm getting there, I promise!).

After about a month on the track team, I noticed that I felt euphoric following my runs, which gradually increased in duration and intensity as my body became more able to meet the demands of the workouts. As time passed, these feelings of post-running euphoria-- and increased self-confidence-- gradually increased in duration until I felt almost constantly happy... except, of course, when I was bullied. But the fact that running induced this state of mind-- relatively new for me-- seemed to have significant changes on my brain. One day, while heading to class, I had an epiphany: the bullying I experienced was just that-- bullying. It was abuse. It was harassment. Some of it was physical assault. It was not an "understandable response to a horribly annoying and weird person." It was not me "bringing this treatment on myself." As I strode through the hall I realized something important: What I had been experiencing was not my fault. I made myself a promise: from now on, I was going to stand up for myself. I was not going to let anybody treat me like a virus that needed to be destroyed. 

I was to be put to the test that very day. A few months before, my ceramics teacher had sent me to the room across the hall to work because she could not stop the kids from throwing clay at me. She did this for my safety, but it obviously sent the other students a message that I had been banished from the room. It did not stop any of the kids from sneaking into the room where I was working and harassing me. This happened, too, on the day that I promised that I would henceforth defend myself. Two knuckle-dragging guys entered the room and, as always, started taunting me in the usual manner, calling me names, stealing my tools, and trying to throw balls of clay at me. That day, I was also listening to the soundtrack from Annie. Of course, these boys decided to use that against me as well. Before they could say anything, I was already embarrassed. But I had made myself a promise, and I would see it through to the end. If I had to fight, I would fight. If I broke both hands while defending myself, so be it. 

"What the f*** are you listening to?" one of the boys taunted.

Normally, I would have said, "Nothing," and hoped that the boys wouldn't figure out that I was listening to soundtrack from a musical that many deem "babyish." Instead, I said, "Annie. You got a problem with that?" 

Did they further taunt me about my choice in music? Yes. They even went on to call me a "f***ing circus freak" and told me that the teacher sent me in here because she didn't want me in the class. I maintained eye contact and said something to the effect of, "Okay, so? Why is that any of your business?" 

After a few more minutes of this back-and-forth, I said, "Okay guys, I've had enough fun for today. Why don't you leave?" When they refused, I told them again to leave. I said something like, "I am supposed to be in here, and you're not. And I am asking you to get out. Now!" 

The boys grabbed my tools and ran to the ceramics room, but not without turning up the stereo so that the entire hallway could hear my choice of music. I recall thinking, "I'll never hear the end of this," followed by, "So what?" I ran back to the ceramics room, retrieved my tools, and returned to the room where I had been working. I returned the stereo to its normal volume. The boys did not come in for the rest of the class. 

A number of things happened that day: I have no doubt that the boys thought that they scored yet another "victory" against me. I know that I was shaking while I defended myself. But something else happened: I had at last mustered the strength to defend my dignity. I think the boys came in to harass me maybe during one or two classes after that. Given that their "visits" had been nearly daily before, this was a significant change. Did my teacher suddenly have control over her class when she did not before? I doubt it. Was the decrease in frequency of visits a coincidence? Perhaps. But I think what happened was I did exactly what the bullies were not used to: I stood up for myself. I defended my dignity. I made it clear to them that I was not going to tolerate any abuse. I had won. In fact, very few people bothered me for the rest of the school year.

Clearly, the vigorous exercise I engaged in every day improved my mood and enhanced my self-esteem. Why? I assure you that my experience is not unique. Many runners report feelings of intense euphoria following a run. It turns out that running-- or any intense physical activity, such as lap-swimming-- stimulates the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters that induce euphoria and act as natural long-term anti-depressants. What does this have to do with evolution? Well, I personally think that every bit of psychology has something to do with evolution; I think without evolution psychology doesn't even make sense. But what happens, exactly? Why the runner's high? Some scientists suggests that runner's high was an adaptation to make prolonged and extensive running-- endurance running, that is, which puts great strain on the muscles-- more tolerable to our ancestors while they pursued prey over long distances (this is called persistence hunting). The neurotransmitters stimulated by running acted as natural pain-killers.

Other benefits from regular vigorous exercise include: neurogenesis (creation of new brain cells), increased attention span, increased energy and motivation, improved memory, and increased ability to learn.

Aside from the evolutionary explanation as to why running gave me the strength to stand up to the bullies, there are some important lessons to be learned:

1. If you or someone you care about is being bullied, it is not your/his/her fault!

2. Ignoring bullies does not work. The bullying only stopped because I defended myself, not because I "just ignored" the bullying, not because I changed something about myself, but because I DEFENDED MYSELF!

3. The best weapon against bullying is self-esteem. Period. Maintain eye-contact when possible and firmly tell the bullies to stop. The first time it may backfire, but eventually the bullies will figure out that what they are doing is something you will not accept.

I should also point out, however, that nobody's life follows a real story arc, complete with climax and resolution. I admit that I got into some terrible habits  while at university including overeating and not exercising and went from being skinny to being overweight; at one point I was close to obesity. At university, I also went through a bit of depression for many complex reasons; this was, I'm sure, only exacerbated by the chemical changes in my brain. Fortunately, in the past year I finally conquered my weight problem: since last October, I lost thirty pounds (for a total of forty since I was at my heaviest a few years back) and am at a healthy weight. I have since embraced running again and plan to run a 5K soon. Exercising, whether running, swimming, or lifting weights, is something that has become a regular part of my life and a near-daily ritual. Losing the excess baggage and getting back into shape, I feel like I have woken up from deep coma. In some ways, I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

Exercise is important for more than just the obvious reasons. Remember that.