Matilda

I used to come home from school and watch Matilda. I was eight years old, and enthralled by her intelligence and social charm. The magic powers were a cherry on top.

At twelve, Matilda became a bedtime companion, hidden away under my pillow waiting for me to thumb through it each night. Reading Matilda's experiences, I'd travel back through my day, imagining how different it could be if I were her. This was my survival strategy, and a lifeline to earlier in my childhood. It was when I was "too old" for Matilda that I needed her powers the most.

Agatha Trunchbull was a formidable villain. She was, for me, more than just a caricature; she was genuinely terrifying. Agatha Trunchbull was alive, darkening the doorways of my education in the form of my grade six teacher, Ms. B---. While Ms. B--- never threw students across the playground (to my knowledge, she never laid a hand on a student), emotionally she was willing to throw students in the trash. She was, like the Trunchbull, vindictive and terrifying. Years later, I can bring myself to say that she was abusive.

Ms. B--- and Trunchbull are easy to hate as villains. But I wonder, now, how that complex characterization formed. Could Trunchbull have become hardened by some of her own trauma? Did she act so tough, using her physical strength as a shield to protect something softer inside? And what, then, shaped Ms. B--- into the figure I so feared? As children, we laughed at her weight; her appearance and mannerisms made her seem like an archetypal villain, not a real teacher. Was she once a caring teacher? What was her own childhood like? Did she hate children after years of bullying? Was she a bully from the start? Was she as afraid of us as we were of her? The only thing she admitted a fear of was, peculiarly, butterflies.

One scene in Matilda shows the children discussing whether they told their parents about Ms. Trunchbull's latest escapades. "They wouldn't believe me," says Hortensia. "I mean, would your parents believe it?" They cemented my decision, for some things, not to tell. And there are things I never told. At a sleepover the following year, my former classmates laughed about Ms. B---. War stories from her classroom are told as a neighbourhood comedy. I cannot quite laugh. So many years later, it still hurts.

My adult thoughts and attempts at analysis feel like a disservice to the twelve-year-old inside me, who hated feared school and cried each night, dreading each day as a teacher's bulls-eye. After finally breaking free of the worst of the tormenting that met me when I first moved to that school, now my teacher was worse than any of the other children had been. The furtive cuts grew wilder and deeper as I wondered why Matilda so seldom cried.

I cried, as silently as I could, at school. I could not stop. I sat in the front row, where my classmates could not see my face. I hope they know me as more than the girl who cried.

Thoughts after camp

This was not how it was meant to be. In May, the mountain was a haven, and a place of understanding, more or less universally. This camp was largely that way, but for one fellow camper who shattered my sense of safety.
Everyone else said she is a good person who merely said inappropriate things and has a crass sense of humour. And yes, of course she is a good person. Good people, however, do fucked up things sometimes. When I saw her bothering another girl about her introversion, her facial expressions, her mannerisms...it looked more to me like bullying than horsing around. But it was the rape jokes that were hardest to hear. The threats were not genuine, but they were still disturbing. Oddly, the girl who was the target of those words insisted she was not upset; perhaps she was too drunk to recognize how bad those words sounded. Perhaps because we are women, it did not seem so serious. She saw herself as a bystander who should have intervened when the noise of their conversation kept me awake, and she apologized. But I saw myself as even more implicated, feeling too vulnerable to stand up and stop the hugely problematic things that were being said.
The others in the cabin were supportive, and fabulously so, totally there for me when I panicked and felt triggered. It was jarring to feel that triggered in what is otherwise a safe space, but I was relieved that most people there were focused on helping everyone feel as safe as possible in our cabin. I told a counsellor (for those unfamiliar with A-Camp - yes, we have counsellors, even though we are adults. And this is why we have counsellors. The staff are part of what makes this camp so safe, and so cohesive). She intervened, and the jokes stopped, but my sense of safety did not fully return. I cannot trust someone who says such things, even in jest, while intoxicated. I am saddened that none of us had the strength to discuss, in that moment, why this was problematic. I am worried that we see such "jokes" as commonplace, as innocent, rather than as a manifestation of rape culture. And it hurts to see this happen in a space that is otherwise so focused on safety, and that has otherwise been nothing but affirming to me as a survivor. The laughter and joy and pride and love at camp was there, but had to coexist with the vigilance, analysis, and fears that I had hoped to leave at home.

[I could easily write a gushing post about everything that was absolutely right about camp, and that I loved. I did overall have a wonderful time! But this here is my safe space to talk about things that aren't ok; people who know me in the real world have undoubtedly heard me pontificate about the good stuff almost endlessly, but I have not been as vocal about this part of the weekend]

Sexism/The Internet

I've been thinking about this post from Hook and Eye - it rings for me. But I feel like it's not the whole picture - if there is a photograph of sexism, the picture frame is the internet. Or perhaps the camera is the internet. I'm not entirely sure where this metaphor is going, but there's something insidious about how the internet perpetuates sexism that makes all of this more problematic. Sexism, catalyzed by the internet? The internet is still a problem here.

Anyhow, here's the link:

http://www.hookandeye.ca/2012/10/amanda-todd-problem-is-sexism-not.html

Thoughts? (if I get my first comment - ever - on this blog post, I'll find some way to make you a cookie!)

With the media abuzz about Amanda Todd's recent suicide after years of bullying, in person and online, I've been reflecting a fair bit about how things have changed since I was her age - and how the changes have made bullying that much more insidious.

I was bullied persistently through grades 4 through 8, at two different schools and overnight camp. But unlike what today's youth deal with, the bullying could never follow me home.

The worst bullying I experienced happened from 1997 to 2002 - the internet was in its beginnings, and cellphones were an oddity rather than a social expectation. My peers were reluctant to bully me in our regular evening MSN conversations, because they knew that I'd then have a written record of what they said - and besides, many of us at the time shared computers with our parents, and bullying online would be more likely to be caught. In one case, when I told a school guidance counsellor about how the other girls were teasing me, one of the bullies printed off our MSN chat from the evening before in which she'd been perfectly decent to me while talking about a school project, and used it as supposed proof that she and her friends accepted me into their in-crowd.

There was no Facebook, or equivalent social networking site. When I finished middle school, I deleted the girls who tormented me from my MSN contacts list, and had no reason to ever communicate with them again. These days, a teen in the same situation would have these peers on Facebook, and often keeps peers who bully her, as having a large list of "friends" is a marker of social status. I could sever contact, and more or less create a new life for myself. That's not an option anymore.

Of course, that's not to say that bullying never extended to the internet - but for the most part, kids were more civil online than they would ever be in person. There was one situation that stands out to me. When I was in grade 9, and was having a rough time, a former friend whom I'd fallen out with suggested - perhaps jokingly, but I'll never know - that I just go ahead and kill myself. That was the closest I'd ever come to suicide, and if other friends hadn't been there (also online) to support me, I can't say with confidence that I'd be alive today.

If the internet back then had been what it is today, I don't know if I'd have survived those years. When I left school, I was free. I could go home and read, and be in my own world where nobody could hurt me. Now, that world would be interrupted by a mean text message or inappropriate photo posting. It surprises me not that Amanda Todd ended her life, but that so many youth are so alone, a sea of bullies surrounding them even in their own homes, and have somehow managed to cling on to hope and survive.

If anybody who is reading this is in a rough situation with bullies - it can get better, with time. It's hard to keep hoping when you hurt so much, but one day, you'll realize that your perseverance is worth it.

What did homophobia have to do with being raped?

This is more pre-work to our TEACH storytelling workshop, which I wrote 5 days prior to the workshop itself. For the record, I still haven't managed to tell aloud any reworkings of my story for the group - more about that later.

Offside - this is my 50th public post!

Bear with me here - this is personal stuff, tough stuff. I don't usually think about connections between my own experiences or try to detangle things, so I would love comments/constructive criticism if anybody does read this.

TW for non-graphic discussion of rape

What did homophobia have to do with being raped?

When it happened, I didn't see any connections. Just pain, shame, fear, and confusion. Now the links are more obvious. Homophobia was a catalyst, not a cause - in my case, rape was not a specifically homophobic crime - and it was one of the biggest hurdles that kept me silent.

In my first year of high school, fitting in was paramount. Boys were a sudden new feature of my perplexing new social landscape. I knew that admitting that I was interested in them only as friends, and that I instead harboured a crush on the girl who sat next to me in science class, would be social suicide. It would mean a return to the bullying that had followed me from school to school for five years and which I hoped desperately to escape.

So when my sister told of a guy who she and a friend had a crush on, I thought it best to play along. I flirted back, awkwardly, and kept mum through fear when he first began to touch me in the halls. Saying no would, I thought, out me right away. And telling a teacher? After years of bullying from students and teachers alike, I was reluctant to trust them. Besides, he was acting the way I believed older high school boys were meant to behave. My response was to act like a typical teen girl; that is, to giggle and play along. I hoped that would let me maintain for my classmates the illusion of being straight. To me, it was a performance. For him, it was real. I didn't know how dangerous that could be.

The situation escalated. He pursued other girls as well, but they stood up for themselves. I was too scared to, and didn't fight him off when he casually but inappropriately touched me at my locker, my heart pounding and my insides shriveling up with shame. I'd sacrifice the private parts of my body to keep my real crushes private and protect my fledgling friendships. At the same time, I felt like a traitor to myself, and to my feminist values. I started to separate my body from my mind.

In early April of that year, I made plans to come out. A good friend was scheduled to visit from out of town over the Easter long weekend, and I planned to come out to her to test the waters. The idea was that if that went well, I'd tell my whole family at our upcoming Passover Seder. None of that ever happened.

The Wednesday before that weekend, the boy I'd feared and flirted with raped me after school.

My friend never visited that weekend; fears or a flu epidemic kept her home. I couldn't come out to her as practice. Besides, I felt guilty and tainted, fearing that I'd let this happen; that I was a phoney lesbian; that other women would shun me. I came to believe that, perhaps, I had deserved it.

After that, I couldn't tell my family. Besides, my mind was reeling and my body was so detached that I would touch my own hands numbly, doubting that they were mine. As the months passed, I began to wonder if I was even real. I hurt myself, to test if I existed and to see if I could feel more pain. Mostly I felt nothing but numbness. When I did feel anything, I felt grief for what I had lost: the sanctity of my body and the queer community which, by flirting with the boy who raped me, I thought I had betrayed.

On the second anniversary of the rape, I wrote a speech about feminism which a friend of mine read for my grade eleven English class. I told of how rape had reinforced my feminist views, and outed myself as a rape survivor. Yet I emphatically denied that I was a lesbian, telling my classmates that it was something I had thought about but that it didn't really describe me. I don't know what they made of that but it was, to an extent, true. At that point, I identified as asexual, thinking any hope I had of sexuality had been destroyed by rape, and denying the attractions that I felt towards women on the grounds that I didn't deserve those feelings. Now, I feel that asexuality wasn't the word or concept that I needed, but at the time it was a way for me to acknowledge for myself that I was certainly not straight. It also justified my own decision to trample my own same-sex attractions.

Overcome by pangs of jealousy when a friend came out as a lesbian, I called a queer youth helpline. They listened to me. They assured me that my past could not dictate my identity. The young woman at the end of the line never doubted me or denied my pain. She just said, "that's rough" and let me talk all I wanted. The guilt and uncertainty that had paralyzed me for two years began to melt away. I could almost feel my body thaw. It was not easy. Over the past few years I have felt and lived through the pain that I had denied by living separately from my own body. Dissociation, I have since learned, compounds physical pain and saves it for later, like a systemic burning regurgitation of an unwanted meal. That's not to say that I don't still sometimes dissociate - but it's a coping strategy I use when it's the safest thing to do at the time, rather than by default. I no longer hurt myself.

Days after calling the helpline, I came out to my immediate family, and in the weeks that followed, to some close friends. I was lucky to be surrounded by accepting and loving people. My fears of rejection and further abuse were unfounded. I only wish that I'd squarely faced homophobia and my fears of its potential impact before it blinded me to the positive forces that were with me, and within me, all along.

Thoughts before storytelling workshop

A few days ago we had a storytelling workshop at TEACH. Here's a piece I wrote a couple of weeks beforehand.

***

We have a storytelling workshop booked for later this month. I've been telling the same story, with just a handful of adjustments, for six years now. It's become engrained. I talk about positives: a loving family; finding community as a young adult; the freedom of finally finishing high school.

I hardly mention bullying, much less homophobic bullying. The kids excluded me, and I excluded myself, to varying degrees, for as long as I can remember. It's part of being an imaginative, intellectual kid. And the more excluded you are, the more awkward you become. And the circle continues.

I remember a kid calling my t-shirt "gay" when I was nine, at day camp. I told him that people could be gay, but shirts couldn't - was he stupid? - but that just made the other (bigger, cooler, sportier, more confident, prettier, smarter?) kids laugh. It hurt most when girls laughed at me, when I just wanted to impress them and join them.

So when the kids at my new school that fall called my outdated children's clothing "gay," I didn't speak up. I changed my clothes to something tighter and less childish, hated myself for giving in, and compromised that I'd wear only purple for the rest of the school year, just to keep some control.

The kids still teased me.

It was almost two years before someone next called me "gay." I was eleven years old, at camp - an all-girls overnight camp, this time - and one of my richer, prettier, more confident, and better-dressed cabin-mates called me a lesbian. I forget how it came up, other than that it was somehow part of the card game we were playing and "lesbian" basically was intended to be synonymous with "loser." I said that lesbians were cool and that I didn't want to play anymore. And that was it for any hope of friendship, or even peaceful cohabitation, with my cabin-mates. They didn't know what "lesbian" was other than an insult, when to me it was a word that I knew described some of my childhood role models. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to fight back.

That was really just the tip of the bullying iceberg...

An old monologue

I wrote this at camp a couple years ago. Didn't post it online because it seemed...threatening, or something. It's totally fiction, don't worry. It was part of our stage combat scene. I was a character called Melissa, who was being bullied by her friends. Even though real-life-me sometimes wished I could be this bold...don't worry. I'm too sensible for that :)

******

I can’t stand them anymore. Get a boyfriend. Do my homework. Your clothes are ugly. Get a life. Yeah right. I like my clothes, I don’t want a boyfriend, why in God’s name would I do their homework? And I have a life. It’s just not like their lives. I’m myself. Sometimes I dream of just charging them with a big, huge stick. That would do it, right?

But the thing is, I’m not like that. When have I ever stood up for myself before? I never stand up for myself. I’ve lived here all my life in this house, and I don’t remember even begging to repaint my room. Yeah, I’m that boring. My room’s white and smooth – like a bathroom. I’m more green. They say I should be more pink, or baby blue. They say, they say, they say. I don’t care what they say anymore. People always said that I’d never learn to read and write, just because when I was little I was more interested in drawing pictures. But I learned. And now I do homework for my classmates. Go figure.

Yeah, I did it. I’m not going to say that I didn’t. I killed them, and honestly, I don’t fucking care. But you can call the police, they’ll come and arrest me, and I won’t tell them a thing.

Oh, you’re afraid of seeing your daughter’s face all smashed when you go upstairs? Well, at least you care. If you were a grown-up clone of her, you wouldn’t care about her face, you’d care about her fingernails. They were pink before. Silvery pink. For prom. Now they’re red with the blood that came from her eyes when I strangled her.

I hope you don’t care about your daughter. No, screw that, I hope you DO care. Then you can feel bad about raising such a psychotic monster. Fuck, now she’s not even a girl anymore. Just a mass of skin and hair and blood, with the devil’s eyes bugging out from between bits of blue skin. Go look. I dare you.