Can anyone explain?

[pennyplant]

This morning I had to wait on a customer who grew up in the same neighborhood I grew up in.  I saw him as next in line and I tried to waste a few moments so someone else could take care of him.  He on the other hand was smiling broadly at me having recognized me instantly.  Apparently feeling quite nostalgic for the old days.

Couldn't get out of it, though.  He was my customer for better or worse.  He greeted me in a very friendly way and mentioned how many years it had been.  I kept myself under control as best as I was able in spite of my rising blood pressure.  Then he asked me what my last name was--he couldn't quite remember.  I was floored and said, I would think you would remember it.  I said that because he was the one who came up with a mocking nickname based on my last name and got everyone in the neighborhood and even kids from other parts of town to use that name.  That name followed me everywhere I went for years.  I hated that name and the more I hated it, the more it was used against me.  To the delight of so many boys in the neighborhood and beyond.  It didn't stop until High School when it became more fun to engage in serious juvenile delinquency and drinking.

I was so tempted to say my last name and then go on to remind him of what he usually called me.  But I didn't.  And no lights went on when I said my name.  He just continued on with the charming act.  And said something about seeing me again in another 30 years.  I wanted to say, no, you'll be dead and in your grave by then.  But I didn't.

Please explain to me the mechanism by which someone can spend years torturing a little girl and have no memory of it and even think that she should be glad to see you all those years later.  He was the ringleader by my recollection.  He even spit in my face on day on the school lawn.  Because of him and his influence on other boys and some girls, I was afraid to go into our local mall for years.  I always felt like a spectacle was made of me.  I fed it by my reactions too, so I became my own torturer through my own unhappiness and immaturity.  I had no idea how to halt such bad treatment.  No one protected me or taught me how to do better.  I just suffered.  I could cry just now thinking of the injustice of it all.

And he didn't even remember my last name.

I remember children who I treated badly on occasion.  Often I was caught and punished.  (That was rarely the case when I was the target.)  I don't want to act like nothing happened with them.  I am ashamed of my actions back then even if I can somehow explain it to myself in order to live with it.  I don't have the courage to go up tI don't know because I won't want to bring it up if I meet up with them.  But I vividly remember spending years of my childhood feeling unwelcome and even hated.  Everywhere I went.  Not just to the park, or school, or walking down the street, or shopping in a store.

And I didn't imagine it.  At my 25-year-reunion, one former classmate apologized for "whatever role he played in the way" I was treated back then.  The apology just meant to me that I didn't dream it all up.  In my opinion anything he did to me fit on the normal part of the teasing bell curve.  And I have always considered him somewhat of an equal.  Sometimes he was picked on, too.  I would tease him right back.  So, I do not feel the same way when I meet up with him that I felt today when I met up with this other person.  Who doesn't even remember my last name.  Back then I would have gladly changed my last name and dyed my hair and become someone else in order to escape the humiliation he heaped upon me.

Does forgetting things help people to live with themselves easier?  Or was it just so unimportant that it wasn't even worthy of memory?  Or is that merely normal behavior among children and I'm just too sensitive and picky?

Did I just grow up with a lot of Ns in the making?  He took such pleasure in hurting me back then.  Yet, seems to remember none of it now.  He looked happy to see me.  While I could care less if he died tomorrow.

I just don't understand this.  I don't have one single positive memory of this person.  Many, many negative memories.  All he remembers is that we grew up in the same neighborhood.

I suppose this is something that I will let go of in time.  If I didn't have to keep running up against these things, they would just sit in my heart and continue to pull my strings.  This is the major reason I decided to return to my hometown 13 years ago when we had the choice of going anywhere in the country we wanted.  I needed to find out why I had always been so unhappy here with these people.

Am I just supposed to let go of it?  That is hard to do without some kind of explanation.  Why was it me all the time?  I can make a million guesses.  But if the person who did it doesn't even remember it, how will I ever know for sure what the cause was?  Maybe my own explanations should be enough?  I don't even need an apology.  I just wish he would have said why he did it.  But he never will because he doesn't even remember.  He seemed to think I would be just as happy to see him and he was to see me.  I was barely able to fake it.  Mainly I tried to keep my hands from shaking with anger.

There must be people here who bullied others as children.  As a way to feel some worth or power.  Is that it?  Is that why it is done?  Is it immaturity?  Just being overwhelmed by emotions when meeting an oddball like me and striking out for want of anything better to say or do?  I mean, I've met people who got under my skin right away.  Maybe I do that to people and that was why I was often treated harshly.  I don't know.  No one ever told me why.  It just seems like an important piece of my puzzle.

You know, I wasn't even supposed to be waiting on customers this morning at the time I ran into this guy.  It was a last minute thing to bail out a co-worker who is generally unreliable.  Just the way my life always seems to work.

So, I'm floundering here.  I need to understand this thing in my past that keeps coming up in my present.  I'm just too close to it to see what must be obvious to others.

Pennyplant

[moonlight52]

Hello PennyPlant
wow thats quite an experience Well for me I would think what a grand job you did of handling the situation.The motivations of bully's are clear they do not like themselves and are scared .I have seen boys be mean to my little one and I explain it's there trip do not take it seriously she does not and that's the difference you needed someone to explain and support you about this issue kids are all sensitive even some of the bully's................
The guy seemed to have just not been aware at all of the pain he inflicted some guys just are oblivious to what they do to others.Seems you did have a very good encounter with the one guy at your 25 year reunion......
Yep I am trying every day just to let it go we just got to not easy........................

love to you

moonlight

[SilverLining]

I have a a cousin who, in my memory, treated me and my siblings rather badly (mostly verbal abuse) when we were kids.  He is four years older than I am. 

I went for 25 years without seeing him.  Then I get a phone call out of the blue when he was on business in my city.  So we get together.  He tells me he has great memories of what good friends we were as children.  Like PP, I was pretty much baffled.

I don't know if it's just pure denial or loss of memory.  Maybe he was just too embarrassed to admit what happened.     

Over the years I did learn a few more things about him.  He started doing illegal drugs at age 13.  His family was totally dysfunctional (after all, his father came from the same narcissistic family as mine).  He bounced around in various weird careers before finally going to college.  He's  married, but there are signs of trouble in the relationship.  He has been battling cancer now for several years.

About all I can conclude is the guy had and still has some difficult demons to deal with. 

 

 

[Gaining Strength]

PP - someone on this board told me that such experiences come to us so that we can work out part of our past.  The sheer coincidence that you should be waiting on customers today suggests that this is why you were there - it is time for you to work
through this wound. 

Who knows why people bully and then forget.  They don't have the same kind of conscience.  They seem to be lacking so basic sensitivity.  You have more than enough for both of you  and so the pain is still reverberating.  He came before you today so that you can begin to heal.  I have more to say but am being called away. - GS

[gratitude28]

Penny,
I am not making an excuse for this person... but here's another version of what could have happened...
I was a Narcissistic brat in high school. In middle school I was picked on... lost weight and thought I was hot shit in high school. Combine that with mimicking my parent's derisive behavior and comments towards everyone... and I am sure I was nasty to all sorts of people (sometimes when I have run into a few nice people, they tell me what a was like). Here's the kicker... I DON'T REMEBER HARDLY ANY OF IT. I remember spots of school... and that's it. I remember when people commented on my rude comments. Occasionally now I remember some of the awful ways I treated people. I was also teased endlessly too... it was a two-way street. But I was mean to some very wonderful people. I am always horrified to see anyone who knew me at that time.
Penny, I can't remember, but I always now assume that I have something to be embarrassed of. Maybe this guy was never told what an ass he was? Maybe he is a different person now?
Again, I might be WAYYYYY off the mark... but it's a thought.
I am so sorry you had to go through all those feelings and scary emotions...
Lots of love,
Beth

[pennyplant]

I have seen boys be mean to my little one and I explain it's there trip do not take it seriously she does not and that's the difference you needed someone to explain and support you about this issue kids are all sensitive even some of the bully's................



Yep I am trying every day just to let it go we just got to not easy........................

That's probably the main thing, moon, no wise, secure adult around to explain things to me and comfort me.  No safe lap to cry in when the kids said go home we don't want to play with you.

I think it will be easier to let go of it when I have my insides more firmed up.  I need a "me" to take the place of all those hurts.  It takes a long time to do something like that which should have been happening all those growing up years.  I'm retrofitting now.  A little more complicated.

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

I have a a cousin who, in my memory, treated me and my siblings rather badly (mostly verbal abuse) when we were kids.  He is four years older than I am. 

I went for 25 years without seeing him.  Then I get a phone call out of the blue when he was on business in my city.  So we get together.  He tells me he has great memories of what good friends we were as children.  Like PP, I was pretty much baffled.

I don't know if it's just pure denial or loss of memory.  Maybe he was just too embarrassed to admit what happened.     

Over the years I did learn a few more things about him.  He started doing illegal drugs at age 13.  His family was totally dysfunctional (after all, his father came from the same narcissistic family as mine).  He bounced around in various weird careers before finally going to college.  He's  married, but there are signs of trouble in the relationship.  He has been battling cancer now for several years.

About all I can conclude is the guy had and still has some difficult demons to deal with. 

tjr, Are you able to forgive this cousin?  Does forgiveness enter into it for you?  There are people I do forgive from the past.  No one has asked my forgiveness, except the guy at my reunion, but over time I have been able to achieve some understanding of the motivations or sufferings of some of these people.  I do think I can see my own part or my own place or whatever and feel like forgiving those who didn't seem to be trying to annihilate me.  This cousin of yours was the other side of the coin.  He came from the same N background.  So it makes a certain kind of sense.  I can guess about some of the people who tormented me.  But it galls me to see the smiles and their beautiful houses and know they never have to worry about livelihood because their fathers own major businesses in town.  Always a power imbalance with these types.  All I wanted was to be left alone by them.  Oh,that's not true.  I did want to be accepted.  I needed to belong somewhere.  I didn't belong in my family.  I didn't belong in the neighborhood.  So many layers to this.

I have a real problem with the ones who trigger actual fear and hatred in me that was planted back then by the truly unjust and humiliating and scary things certain people said and/or did.  Another problem for me seems to be that lack of memory on their part.  That is a real problem for me.  I can't get my mind around that.  The amount of time and even planning that seemed to go into the way he treated me back then.  How could he not remember that?  It lasted for years.  How could his first response to seeing me be happiness?  His gut should have twisted right up even if he didn't remember exactly why.  He should have wanted to avoid being in my line.  Instead he had that same look on his face I get from the occasional bedazzled guy who thinks the way I look is striking.  This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

People remember the things that make an impression on them for personal reasons, something strikes a chord, or they remember because they dwell on it and rehash it over and over again.   Memorize it.  Neither of these things has happened with these people if they truly don't remember.  It wasn't personal to them, it didn't strike a chord, and they didn't give it any thought beyond the moment of the activity.  If there was crap going on in their lives, then their own crap was on their mind and not the stuff they were dishing out to others.  Only so much room in there I guess.

I come from people who turn their aggression inward for the most part.  We sacrifice ourselves most of the time and do not take it out on others unless severely provoked.  It seems that there is another way to handle aggressive feelings.  Those who externalize it.  Nice for them.

I suppose these people do like those of us who are good punching bags.  They always get to have their way.  They always get to take what they want and we'll hand it right to them.  From their point of view, maybe that is being a good friend.  It feels like something else from my point of view.  More like being their slave.

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

He came before you today so that you can begin to heal.

GS, I think you must be right.  It has brought up such a variety of feelings and ideas.  Much of it feels like poison.  Or dirt.  Tonight I'm going to try to open my mind to just anything and see if my dreams give more answers.  Sometimes that works for me.  I want to wash it out of me.

I so wanted to avoid having to wait on him today.  A few weeks ago I saw another person from the past waiting in line.  She is one of the two girls who were quite vicious to me in 8th and 9th grade (the other one is dead) and she seems to still blame me for something.  She looks at me smugly and with what seems like hatred.  I remember exactly what happened and I was not to blame.  I showed friendship to her and she betrayed me and was ruthless.  So, when I saw her in line, I was able to pretend I had something else to do and I left and did just that.  When I came back, someone else was waiting on her and making nice.

Today it simply wasn't possible.  Believe me, I tried to come up with an escape plan but couldn't.  I know I have to face this.  But it is not pleasant.  And it is so tiresome.  All these layers.  All these years.

GS, you are right.  But it is so hard.

Pennyplant

[gratitude28]

Hey penny,
I am reading your responses, and you are right... there are some people who just plain cause a "Pavlovian response." I cringe when I think of certain people from my youth... Also, I am sure your instincts are more right-on than my explanation.
Love, Beth

[pennyplant]

Penny,
I am not making an excuse for this person... but here's another version of what could have happened...
I was a Narcissistic brat in high school. In middle school I was picked on... lost weight and thought I was hot shit in high school. Combine that with mimicking my parent's derisive behavior and comments towards everyone... and I am sure I was nasty to all sorts of people (sometimes when I have run into a few nice people, they tell me what a was like). Here's the kicker... I DON'T REMEBER HARDLY ANY OF IT. I remember spots of school... and that's it. I remember when people commented on my rude comments. Occasionally now I remember some of the awful ways I treated people. I was also teased endlessly too... it was a two-way street. But I was mean to some very wonderful people. I am always horrified to see anyone who knew me at that time.
Penny, I can't remember, but I always now assume that I have something to be embarrassed of. Maybe this guy was never told what an ass he was? Maybe he is a different person now?
Again, I might be WAYYYYY off the mark... but it's a thought.
I am so sorry you had to go through all those feelings and scary emotions...
Lots of love,
Beth

Beth, I welcome your comments.  It is the closest I've come to hearing it from the "horse's mouth".  I tend to think that this guy has no clue that he was ever an ass.  He is one of those charming, good-looking partiers.  His dad is a well-known business man in town and his uncle is a very huge customer of the place where I work.  Who would ever tell him he was an ass?  Not his drinking buddies, not his dad,  not his kids or his quiet little wife.  And to be blunt, these are not real bright people.  Not particularly deep thinkers.

The thing is, it was real scary then.  I felt completely unsafe all the time.  At their mercy.  And they weren't very merciful.  For a long time, I have asked myself why I always put myself out there and exposed myself to them.  I guess it was because I didn't have much going on at home.  And I was trained so well in the art of "head on brick wall".  All my life I had to do things I really couldn't do.  Just because something hurt didn't mean I didn't have to do it.  You know what I mean?  LightofHeart called it being parked at the self-serve pump.  I just didn't have any alternatives.  And I was used to trying to make people like me when they really didn't care at all.  Just like my dear old mom and dad.  You know, my mother still laughs about the time I came home crying because the other kids had sent me home because they didn't want to play with a kid with red hair.  Wish I could have bottled it up and not let anyone see me hurt like that.  But I was constantly bottling up something or other.  It was just so close to the surface all the time.

Beth, you have a conscience.  You have grown and learned.  I don't think the same is true of all my tormenters.  I guess it doesn't have to be.  Here I am trying to learn and grow also.  And much of it feels imposed on me.  I'm not some saint or martyr by nature.  I mostly want to be left to my own devices and try to tap into my creativity.  I want to make something good.  Maybe this is the path I had to take to be able to make that "something good" someday.  But life goes by so fast and I have spent so much of mine tied up in knots from other people's ropes.  I really resent it.  I haven't been able to let go of it yet.  It's still in me.

I know there has to be an explanation for it that makes sense.  But it seems that some of it may be unknowable by me.  I sure don't want to get inside the head of that guy.  This is why I will have to find a way to let go of it.  Untie the ropes and throw them on the ground.

Okay, this part is after your second post, Beth.  I have thought a lot about what might explain such hatred from someone who seemed to have no reason to treat little old me that way.

I would guess in his case there could be some short guy syndrome going on.  Middle child syndrome.  Son of a business man being expected to take over the reins when he didn't want to sell shoes like dad the rest of his life at all.  Former jock.  Not too smart.  It's funny how the very kids who were brutal to me about being "smart" probably really had insecurities about being dumb.

So, anyway, I don't dismiss your comments at all.  He could very well have a past I would cringe at.  But he hurt me so badly.  Stole so much from me.  I don't know how to forgive someone who cost me so much.  That's how I look at it anyway.  I had so little going for me.  Some of the people on the board had it really bad at home so they escaped into school activities, and other social things and salvaged themselves that way.  Society, my school and neighborhood, were not that refuge for me.  There were times when school felt so bad I couldn't wait to get home.  Then I'd be home and think, I can't wait to go to school.  There was no safe refuge for me, no welcoming circle.  All that comes to the surface when I see this guy and a couple others like him.

Perhaps I have made it very large in my mind.  But I have told a few people some of the stories about the way I was treated at times and they can scarcely believe it.  They know me and love me and can't comprehend anyone who couldn't see that in me as a child.  But hardly anybody did.

I guess everybody suffered but some were aggressive about it and some were passive about it.  Unfortunately for me, I was passive about it much of the time.

I do have one other customer I see every so often.  The mother of a girl I was friends with for a time in junior high.  I wasn't a very good friend to her and she was very hurt by that.  I know she didn't understand why I changed the way I did.  She invited me to her house several times and we did have some fun together.  She was an easy to hurt kind of girl.  This happened between my own hazings.  Sixth and seventh grade were very good for me.  I was on my way to having a circle, being somewhat popular after all the cruelty of grade school.  Of course, that all changed in short order by the end of 8th grade.  But during that time I was a poor friend to this girl.  I see her mother and I think, I should apologize.  But I don't.  It has occurred to me that her mother doesn't know that her daughter wasn't well-liked, even by me a former friend.  It occurs to me to leave it alone because of that.  But I feel guilty every time I see her mother who is very nice and polite to me.  So, I don't even mention I went to school with her daughter.  It's nothing for me to brag about.  You know?

I did learn to be mean.  And thoughtless.  Then I was taught a lesson.  A very hard lesson.  I was put in my place very decidedly when "friends" turned on me so brutally.  Now I have to think about how to treat people.  So, maybe that was a good thing in some respects.  I know I don't have any rights that supercede the rights of others.

Wow, this is a lot.  It is good to have a place to put it.  I've carried it around so long.

Pennyplant

[gratitude28]

We are so alike, Penny, that I am always startled by your posts.
You know... one other thought I have about our pasts... as a whole... I think there are tons of people who JUST DON'T Go THERE. To them, that was that, and this is this. But we have been scarred for some reason... I always wonder why I am one of the ones who went to AA. I never got into real trouble (i.e. aressted, fired, whatever) but I couldn't live with myself like that. But others do... Why is it that we regret our bad behaviors and others just think "Oh well" IF they think about it at all???????? Why was our skin so thin in school? Well, that one, I think, is because we never learned how to deal. We were told we were abnormal at home, so we never fit in anywhere else in our minds.
Lots of love, Penny.
Love, Beth

[pennyplant]

Thanks, Beth, I'm glad to think we are alike in so many ways.  I take it as a high compliment.

You are very right.  Most people do not dwell on things at all.  They can't do it.  So, they go their merry way, trampling on others and not caring a bit.  Probably no malice intended.

It would be easier to be that way.  But it seems to be a matter of nature.  Or having more energy to direct toward self-distraction.  Whatever it is, I don't have it!  That I know for a fact.

Someone I know once said to me about something she did that might have repercussions, "So, I decided to just not think about it."  And she didn't think about it after that moment.  Sometimes I will try it myself with something minor, or with something that I can assume others would think is minor.  I'm learning a lot about that kind of thing from watching my co-workers.  Anyway, occasionally I am able to "just not think about it."  Hopefully, I won't go too far in that direction and lose touch with my conscience.  I don't ever want to be CLUELESS!  I don't ever want to trample other people.  I just want to learn to detach from the things that are harming only me because I'm obsessing unhealthily.

You know what saved me from being a drinker?  My sensitive stomach.  I can't stand how sick I can get from drinking.  While I wish I could party and let loose like other people, I know my stomach will cause me too much grief.  It's just not worth it to me.  Sounds like you had some costs that weren't worth it to you.  It's hard to be so smart, isn't it?   

Good night and thanks for all the feedback on this.  It really has helped.

Pennyplant

[Gaining Strength]

Pennyplant -

This is a very important experience for you.  I say that based on the "energy" attached to this experience today.  But I think that it is a wonderful opportunity for you.  The powerful energy surrounding today's experience tells me that you can tap into it and fiind some REAL healing here.  This did not happen solely for you to reexperience you painful wounding but to heal that wounding.  You are reexperiencing the sharpness of the pain in order to heal.

To do this you must turn your attention away from wondering what kind of person could not remember what he did to ask, "what am I to learn from this?  How am I to heal now?"  You were not wounded by seeing this guy today, you were deeply wounded by him YEARS ago and that wound has never healed.  He came in your place of business today to start the healing process.  But you don't know how to do that.  First change your focus from him to you.  You will never know how he could be so cruel and either pretend or actually not remember.  But even if you had answers to those questions those answers would not change your life.  But knowing how to heal these significant wounds that have continued to plague you your whole life will.

Before you go to sleep tonight and every night until you get the answer, focus on the question, "What am I to learn from seeing him today?  How am I to heal from that excrruciating pain from my youth?"  Keep asking this question before sleep of if you have some quiet time.  Don't try to "think" the answer just wait, it will come.  

This man came into your life today because you are ready for this healing.  It is not easy.  It is painful. But the healing is worth the pain because it will set you free.  Remember: change your focus from him and what kind of person could be so cruel to you and how you can finally heal.  

You have to go through that pain to get to the freedom.  That is why it is here.  Don't waste feeling this pain again.  Make it work for you.  Go for the healing.  It is so close.

My thoughts and prayers are with you Pennyplant.  It will hurt but not the way it has for all these years and soon, very soon you will be on the other side and you will feel peace and you will be stronger and you will be glad for this day.  I promise.

your dear friend - gaining Strength

[gratitude28]

GS,
You are so right. You know, a few years ago I would never have believed in 'signs' and such... but I wholeheartedly believe that the things I am sent are issues I need to deal with now.
Thanks for the great reminder.
What do you think, Penny??????????

[Hopalong]

PP:
I am crushed by this, and I know you were:

You know, my mother still laughs about the time I came home crying because the other kids had sent me home because they didn't want to play with a kid with red hair.

I relate completely to everything you described, except maybe the bullying myself. I just didn't know how, didn't have the wit or fierceness.

I never defended myself. I just absorbed...so much cruelty at school. I was in small schools and literally at the very bottom of the pecking order in every class. In late adolescence I finaly escaped to a high school where I found the "literary magazine" kids, and though I never became close to anyone, they tolerated me. I remember my only goal in those last 2 years before college was to endure it. It was years of hell.

I had to repeat a year of school. I flunked everything but English in pure despair. I didn't know what depression was but I felt such anguish every day. Going to school to be tormented by the pack, coming home to be tormented by my bully brother.

I think one way I was luckier was that though he didn't talk about it, I did know my father loved me. He would not have mocked my tears.

I saw my chief tormenter years later in an elevator. She recognized me and was pleasant and I felt something coming from her. I don't know if it was regret, but I know one thing I felt I saw in her was pain.

After years of such loneliness, the only way I found to release it was compassion for the tormentors. Surely there was something in great pain, often unrecognized and unspoken and uncomforted pain, in them too, that came out in their hurting me.

When I went to college ironically I chose an all-girls school, even though my very worst years when young were at one. I had a strong gut feeling that it simply had to be different, and it was. For the first time, I felt loved by some peers. It dawned on me that as they grew older, they had sufferings that I had undergone very very young. Many who were popular and powerful in their home communities were ordinary at college...they had their hard transitions too.

At the same time I was discovering my own mind and all that pain came pouring out, has poured out ever since, in poetry writing, in dealing with children with love, in throwing myself heels over handbasket into crazy and heartbreaking relationships.

Yet I can say this true thing now, I am happier at 56, on my own now for two years, than I've been in decades.

All I know to say to you, sweet PP, is this, and I don't know what it means, I just know it feels true:

Your pain was not wasted.
And not one hair on your head is not beautiful.

Much love to you from a friend across the playground who would have been so grateful to be your friend...
And what we have is now, and all the doors into ourselves and into the future that can lead us into spaces where we have so much light that old bullies and cruel children soften and we see them walking through too, and we bless them.

love,
Hops