Purplewashing the Pain

Let me begin by saying this is not intended to be a criticism of anyone else’s choices. I’m simply explaining mine.

I will not be wearing purple tomorrow. I will not be pasting whatever-it-is meme into my status line, or retweeting any affirmative statements, or changing my icon colors, or anything similar. The fact is, I’m very ambivalent about this whole “Spirit Day” campaign.

I’m genderqueer and pansexual. I believe that I was born the wrong gender. My inner conflicts and the confusing messages they relayed to other people have created huge problems for my entire life.

I was bullied from my first day of school, every single day. I was bullied verbally, physically, relentlessly, cruelly, and mercilessly. Teachers disliked me and my peers loathed me. My family and teachers told me that it was my fault, that I was doing something wrong, that I was “doing something to make people treat me that way.” One guidance counselor that I went to when things got especially brutal in junior high school told me that I couldn’t deal with “teasing” because I was “immature.” (He said that repeatedly. Maybe I was immature, after all, I was 13.) My home life was…let’s just say, “angry.” I didn’t fit in with my family and they thought I was being difficult on purpose. So I got the same treatment pretty much twenty-four hours a day, at home and away from it.

The bullying slacked off in high school (partly because my family moved across country when I was 15 and broke the continuity). There, it simply turned into total social ostracism. I had no real friends. I never dated anyone. I was absolutely and completely alone in the world. That’s how I felt.

Unlike some people whose posts I’ve read, I have no triumphant stories to tell of prevailing over my persecutors. I don’t want to talk about the details of my experiences at all–I don’t even want to think about them. Suffice it to say that there is not one moment of my childhood, adolescence or early adulthood that I would willingly live over again, for any reason whatsoever–I don’t even want to remember it. I never turned the tables, or showed everyone up, or got back at my tormenters. I simply survived. That’s as much as I can say. I kept my head down, my attention on my own goals and concerns, and endured, like a marathoner who keeps on going through blinding rain.

What did all this teach me? It taught me to have no expectations of other people. It taught me to have no feelings, or at least, to keep them to myself. It taught me to be completely self reliant–spiritually, emotionally, and in everyday life. It’s very hard for me to ask for help, and I can never quite get past the conviction that no matter what happens to me, there isn’t a single person on earth who gives a damn.

That is what years of continuous abuse does to you. And it doesn’t go away–ever. Scars don’t. You’re burned into a new shape by the fire of your pain, and you’ll keep that shape until the day you die.

I’m not asking for anyone’s sympathy, and I don’t expect anyone to understand. I know that nobody can. I’m just telling you how it is.

This is why I just can’t get on board with a campaign which promises, “It gets better.” I wish I could say that. I can’t. It’s not always true. And the last thing I would do to someone in pain or desperation is make a facile promise that ends up being a lie–no matter how well it’s intended. Bullied kids already hear more lies than they can handle. They’re lied to every day.

It might get better. It might not. Depending on who you are and where you live, it might get worse.

But here’s the thing, and this is what bullied kids really need to hear.

You can get better. You can become stronger, and wiser, and more resiliant, and smarter, and more creative. Because some other things that I learned from what I went through is that I didn’t have to care what other people thought, and I didn’t have to kiss ass, or worry about whether anyone liked me, or be the kind of person someone else wanted me to be, or get anyone else’s approval. What I learned was freedom. Without that, I couldn’t have found the courage to discover my true inner self, and completely reconcile with it, and make peace with who I was. Without that, I couldn’t have done all the cool things I’ve done with my life. Freedom can be lonely, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

So, yeah. I can’t say to any bullied teen, or persecuted person of any age, that it “will get better” or they’re supported or they’re not alone. None of those things was true for me, and they’re not going to be true for many of those struggling with abuse, and I will not tell lies.

But I will say: “Things happen for a reason. You’re being tested. You can survive. Don’t let them define you. Don’t let them win. Don’t give your life to the forces of evil.”

Will that help?

I honestly don’t know.

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