Presented with this information it is easy to get overwhelmed. Seeing it certainly does not make anything easier. Most bullying takes place in front of peers, some in front of adults and even teachers, but few ever intervene. One child standing up can make a difference. Several can make a huge difference. They may get the bully to back off, or the bully may attack them; but either way, the targeted child will know they are not alone. This is a priceless gift, yet few ever give it. Many see, but seldom do they help. “The worst sin to our fellow creature is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that is the essence of inhumanity.” (George Bernard Shaw, quotationsbook.com) Believing there is nothing they can do or not caring, kids turn their backs on their fellow students. Some even join in, leaving behind the role of innocent—or not so innocent—bystander and becoming an active part of the problem.
Not all teens that look away are malicious or apathetic in nature. Many are scared of repercussions or unsure what to do. Though it is doubtful Alfred Milner had bullying in mind when he gave his speech, his words ring true, “If we believe a thing to be bad, and we have the right to prevent it, it is our duty to try and prevent it and to damn the consequences.” (Quotations, 122) Not our choice, not our option—our duty. In stepping up or speaking up, one can give voice to a voiceless bullied child; and the bullied child is not the only one benefited. By bringing attention to the violent and anti-social behavior of a bully, which can lead to them getting help as well. In the book Letters to a Bullied Girl, one former bully said these haunting words, “How I wish someone had told on me.” (41)
In a dark and grueling topic there is a glimmer of hope. Bullies can be reformed. Many of the qualities that made them such a frightful foe can make them strong leaders. The bullied can be saved and can channel their pain outward to help others. The bystander can learn to intervene and make amends for the times they did not. Families, adults and older teens can help. The young emulate those who are around them, and by removing discriminative language from our vocabularies and doing right in our own lives we can give them something to strive for. We can build up the bullies self-confidence so they do not feel they have to pull others down.
We can listen to the bullied, helping them through it without trivializing their pain. Mothers and fathers everywhere are speaking out for their kids through websites, books and even the news. “I am going to speak for him, because he can no longer speak for himself,” says Sirdeaner L Walker, the mother of a victim of bullycide. (ABC News, March 2008) One does not need to be family in order to speak out against injustice, one only needs to have a voice and a heart.
Sisters, Emily and Sarah Buder, were repulsed by the horrible stories of abuse Olivia Gardner suffered at the hands of bullies. Together they put together a program called Olivia’s Letters. What followed was an in pouring of letters from across the country. Letters of encouragement and support for Olivia. These letters may have saved Olivia’s life, and now put together in the form of a book they may save many more, all because of two teenagers.
In a response to my request for tales, one woman wrote the advice passed to her by her teachers, advice that saved her from becoming one more statistic of Bullycide. “It’s four years of your life,” she recalls them saying, “Never let the idiots win by letting yourself be defined by who you are now. It’s who you will become that will determine how you will be remembered. Become better than they could ever hope for. Not money or fame—just someone who will be missed when [you] are gone.” She had a teacher in her life that truly cared, and that saved her life. Having someone in your life may not stop the bullying, but it provides a place to run and someone to cry to. In a five page letter to his parents found after his suicide, Hameed Nastih expressed his desire that people would stop hurting each other. If more remained vigilant and watched out for bullying, and if more people took up the role of actively caring perhaps we could grant this one Bullycide victims final wish.
Work Cited_____________________
Coloroso, Barbara. The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander. HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2003
Lord Chesterfield. Quotations. HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2005.
Congreve, William. The Way of the World. Nick Hern Books, London, England, 1995.
Wiseman, Rosalind. Queen Bees and Wannabes. Crown Publishing, New York, NY, 2009.
Simmons, Rachael. Odd Girl Out. Hardcourt Books, Orlando Florda, 2002.
Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia. Ballantine Books, New York, NY, 1994.
The Readings “Wanda’s Song” 2004.
Shaw, George Bernard. Quotationsbook. November 18, 2009.
< http://quotationsbook.com/quote/20724/ http://quotationsbook.com/quote/20724/ >
Gardner, Olivia with Buder, Emily and Sarah. Letters to a Bullied Girl. HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2008.
Walker, Sirdeaner L. Bullies Drove Her Son to Death. ABC News, April 10, 2009.
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOBukCnr2oQ>
Monday, November 30, 2009
A Study in Scarlet, Black and Blue Part 2
Teachers, parents and other people of authority often miss the bullying all together especially when it comes to girls. One woman I spoke with put it this way, “Girls hardly ever (in my experience) get in trouble for bullying because it’s not as apparent that it’s being done. A guy pushes another guy against the wall, beats him up, or stuff him in a locker? A teacher/parent can see that and put a stop to it. But you can’t really stop a girl from talking to/about another girl unless you overhear them.” Subtly, girls cut down each other’s spirits under the noses of adults. A smile and a compliment to the target when parents are looking is usually enough to dissuade concern. At an age where girls mature faster than their male counterparts and in a world that often sees females as the meeker sex, girl bullies can easily wield their perceived innocence as a weapon. “The sugar-and-spice image is powerful and girls know it,” Rachael Simmons says, (Odd Girl Odd, 23). This is a problem added to by the fact that many bullied children refuse to ask for help. As adolescents leave childhood behind they fight for independence, an occurrence as natural as a young bird leaving the nest. However, it often becomes hard for teenagers to separate the things they can handle alone and that which requires the help of an adult. Moreover, the threat—real or perceived—of retribution can dissuade a teen from asking help. Some teens simply believe no one will help even if they do ask. “At once I am reminded of scary movies in which only children can see the ghosts. The adults pass through the same rooms and live through the same moments yet they are unable to see the whole world of action around them. So too, in classrooms of covertly aggressive girls.” (Odd Girl Out, 25)
With the pressure from our ever judging culture on young and developing minds, fostering insecurity in emotionally growing teenage girls and any additional turbulence from family life, it is not hard to see where bullying may began. Out of control themselves, some teens become bullies lashing out to try to control others. Some are jealous. All are insecure, lack empathy and project their own inadequacies on their intended target. “Girls punish each other for failing to achieve the same impossible goals they set themselves.” (Reviving Ophelia, 52)
Home life for the majority of bullies is usually a pendulum swing to one extreme or the other, either unforgiving rigid or entirely unstructured. Bullying is a learned behavior, and the first lessons always come from family. Violence begets violence, so to abuse begets children who hurt other children. From adults in their lives, the ones trusted to guide them, they see and feel the powerful (parents) hurting the weak (the child). On the other side of the spectrum is the neglected child or pampered child. With a lack of any guidance or a lack of any discipline, the child is left to create their own moral guidelines. Often this leads to creating no morals at all. “It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be obvious that someone who is allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person,” says Alice Miller. (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 45) This thought was echoed by the girl I spoke to, injured by her friend with the broken bike. “That’s what bullying is, really. It’s some demented way to defend oneself, before anyone else can harm them…What it comes down to is insecurity.” She saw bullying as an underhanded, unethical form of self-defense, fighting off threats that peers pose to inflated egos. Injured animals will often back themselves into a corner and fight anyone who comes near, so to the injured psyche of the bully.
Bullying violates the targeted child, stealing their security and leaving them feeling helpless. Focus is lost and consequently grades drop because of fear. The result can be physical even if the bully never touches them. Anxiety prolonged can cause headaches, insomnia, ulcers and a number of other medical problems. With each attack the adolescents self-worth is depleted.
Girls who struggle to be accepted by their peers wear down. As Mary Pipher points out in her poignant book “Reviving Ophelia”, we become like Shakespeare’s tragic character, Ophelia—driven mad trying to please and drowned by the fancy clothes worn to impress. One young woman I had known for years told me her story of feeling rejected. I was shocked as this beautiful, intelligent and friendly girl explained how she had eaten lunch alone every day at high school, and nothing improved with college. “I feel invisible,” she wrote, “I came home and cried almost every day. I was told they were the best four years of my life, but if they were the best, then I knew that I didn’t want to ever see the worst.” Another girl seconded these sentiments, “To some people, school was the best days of their lives. I feel sorry for them.”
Pushed to the edge some kids fight back—becoming bullies themselves—others jump. A simple web search will bring up dozens of pages made in memoriam of the teens who could not take the pain anymore—adolescents, literally, bullied to death. This, in fact, has become so prevalent a new phrase was coined for it, Bullycide. In 2004, Corinne Wilson was slapped across the face by a classmate and told to kill herself. Corinne listened. Corrine was a victim of relational bullying that escalated over time and became too much for her. This is one of many stories written by mothers of girls and boys like Corrine in their book Bullycide in America. Perhaps the most powerful example comes from a song by The Readings, “We didn’t realize the damage sticks and stones would do, ‘cause it was deep inside Wanda was bleeding. The paper said her death was self-inflicted but was it suicide? ‘Cause the note she wrote said ‘Why do you hurt me and treat me like you do? What have I done to deserve this from you?’” (Wanda’s Song, 2004) As the song so piercingly points out, is it really suicide when someone is pushed to it?
Though injured children often turn their pain inward and end their lives, they rarely make news until the pain is turned outward—exploding in violent ways. Ten years have past and yet Columbine is still the event that comes into people’s thoughts at the mention of school violence, a virtual 9/11 of school shootings. Bullied and pushed until they could no longer take it two boys entered their high school and shot it up. This description could easily fit many other such stories that have colored the ten years since. “The idea that being excluded, shunned, ridiculed, ostracized and physically assaulted by the bullying faction merits vengeance or violence is but one of those self-degrading ideas that we embrace creating a cure that is worse than the disease.” (Diana Reeves, The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 1) Driven by hate in reaction to bullying though they were, the fault for the shooting rests on their shoulders. It was Corrine’s choice to kill herself. However, actions spreading out causing ripples across the world. Intended or not, bullying can lead to suicide and other acts of violence. In response to my request for help a very touching email came to me. “I certainly cannot condone such acts of senseless violence,” she wrote, “but I wonder how many of the people who write these kids off as monsters were ever pushed so hard against the wall [that] they could feel the wall—and themselves—begin to crumble.”
With the pressure from our ever judging culture on young and developing minds, fostering insecurity in emotionally growing teenage girls and any additional turbulence from family life, it is not hard to see where bullying may began. Out of control themselves, some teens become bullies lashing out to try to control others. Some are jealous. All are insecure, lack empathy and project their own inadequacies on their intended target. “Girls punish each other for failing to achieve the same impossible goals they set themselves.” (Reviving Ophelia, 52)
Home life for the majority of bullies is usually a pendulum swing to one extreme or the other, either unforgiving rigid or entirely unstructured. Bullying is a learned behavior, and the first lessons always come from family. Violence begets violence, so to abuse begets children who hurt other children. From adults in their lives, the ones trusted to guide them, they see and feel the powerful (parents) hurting the weak (the child). On the other side of the spectrum is the neglected child or pampered child. With a lack of any guidance or a lack of any discipline, the child is left to create their own moral guidelines. Often this leads to creating no morals at all. “It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be obvious that someone who is allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person,” says Alice Miller. (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 45) This thought was echoed by the girl I spoke to, injured by her friend with the broken bike. “That’s what bullying is, really. It’s some demented way to defend oneself, before anyone else can harm them…What it comes down to is insecurity.” She saw bullying as an underhanded, unethical form of self-defense, fighting off threats that peers pose to inflated egos. Injured animals will often back themselves into a corner and fight anyone who comes near, so to the injured psyche of the bully.
Bullying violates the targeted child, stealing their security and leaving them feeling helpless. Focus is lost and consequently grades drop because of fear. The result can be physical even if the bully never touches them. Anxiety prolonged can cause headaches, insomnia, ulcers and a number of other medical problems. With each attack the adolescents self-worth is depleted.
Girls who struggle to be accepted by their peers wear down. As Mary Pipher points out in her poignant book “Reviving Ophelia”, we become like Shakespeare’s tragic character, Ophelia—driven mad trying to please and drowned by the fancy clothes worn to impress. One young woman I had known for years told me her story of feeling rejected. I was shocked as this beautiful, intelligent and friendly girl explained how she had eaten lunch alone every day at high school, and nothing improved with college. “I feel invisible,” she wrote, “I came home and cried almost every day. I was told they were the best four years of my life, but if they were the best, then I knew that I didn’t want to ever see the worst.” Another girl seconded these sentiments, “To some people, school was the best days of their lives. I feel sorry for them.”
Pushed to the edge some kids fight back—becoming bullies themselves—others jump. A simple web search will bring up dozens of pages made in memoriam of the teens who could not take the pain anymore—adolescents, literally, bullied to death. This, in fact, has become so prevalent a new phrase was coined for it, Bullycide. In 2004, Corinne Wilson was slapped across the face by a classmate and told to kill herself. Corinne listened. Corrine was a victim of relational bullying that escalated over time and became too much for her. This is one of many stories written by mothers of girls and boys like Corrine in their book Bullycide in America. Perhaps the most powerful example comes from a song by The Readings, “We didn’t realize the damage sticks and stones would do, ‘cause it was deep inside Wanda was bleeding. The paper said her death was self-inflicted but was it suicide? ‘Cause the note she wrote said ‘Why do you hurt me and treat me like you do? What have I done to deserve this from you?’” (Wanda’s Song, 2004) As the song so piercingly points out, is it really suicide when someone is pushed to it?
Though injured children often turn their pain inward and end their lives, they rarely make news until the pain is turned outward—exploding in violent ways. Ten years have past and yet Columbine is still the event that comes into people’s thoughts at the mention of school violence, a virtual 9/11 of school shootings. Bullied and pushed until they could no longer take it two boys entered their high school and shot it up. This description could easily fit many other such stories that have colored the ten years since. “The idea that being excluded, shunned, ridiculed, ostracized and physically assaulted by the bullying faction merits vengeance or violence is but one of those self-degrading ideas that we embrace creating a cure that is worse than the disease.” (Diana Reeves, The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 1) Driven by hate in reaction to bullying though they were, the fault for the shooting rests on their shoulders. It was Corrine’s choice to kill herself. However, actions spreading out causing ripples across the world. Intended or not, bullying can lead to suicide and other acts of violence. In response to my request for help a very touching email came to me. “I certainly cannot condone such acts of senseless violence,” she wrote, “but I wonder how many of the people who write these kids off as monsters were ever pushed so hard against the wall [that] they could feel the wall—and themselves—begin to crumble.”
A Study in Scarlet, Black and Blue Part 1
This is a paper for my Developmental Psychology class, thank you to all who contributed to it!
----
When I set out to research the problem of girls bullying each other I assumed that it was a straight forward topic. I was idealistic, I was also wrong. Eager to learn as much as I could and discontent with information I could find in books I sent out a request. I asked girls to send me their stories if they had any. The responses I received were overwhelming.
Occasionally, a story will appear on the news were an adolescent girl, or several girls, will attack and severely hurt another. However, less than one-third of all bullying—between girls and boys—is physical. (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 2003) The rest is either verbal or relational.
Gossip shared, a rumor spread, a cruel phrase uttered: each of these is a form of verbal bullying. “An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult,” Lord Chesterfield said. (Quotations, 225)) Despite the old adage, most would rather take the sticks and stones than the cruel statements. Words are the favorite tactic of the passive-aggressive female bully. They are easily whispered and often go unnoticed by adults. Even said aloud, insults can be masked as indirect comments. “I would never eat that much cake,” sounds innocent enough, but who can see the effect of those words on the one they are heard by? Perhaps she throws out the cake and takes a moment to look in the mirror. Perhaps she cries herself to sleep that night. Perhaps she eats it quickly and then slips away to the bathroom to throw it back up.
In his play, The Way of the World, William Congreve described gossip, “They came together like the Coroner’s Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputation of the week.” (1700). Gossip is a particularly insidious form of bullying because it is hard to trace back to its source, and it is often continued by teenagers who mean no harm to the subject. An undisputed fact of life is that girls like to talk, and the bully who intends to use gossip and rumors to harm can rely on this fact.
Technological advancement has made this form of bullying more effective and faster. No longer do the words go away when the doors of school close behind a child. Most teens have easy access to cell phones and the Internet, which can become easy access to further bullying. Cyberbully, as it is now called, is far more anonymous than graffiti on a locker and “there is no digital janitor to paint over the Facebook wall.” (Queen bees and Wannabes, 23)
A teenage girl who opened up and told her story to me explained how in sixth grade she experienced cyberbullying, “These two popular girls found out my AIM screen name, and they would anonymously send these messages to me, saying that they were going to rape and kill me.” Unfortunately, her story is hardly unique. Girls across the country create websites entailing the ways they hate a classmate, send threats, or post private conversations in very public mediums. Parents often spend a lot of time and energy worrying about their children talking to strangers on the Internet, perhaps they should spend some of that time worrying about what the non-strangers are saying.
Often words are excused away as teasing or jokes. “Just kidding,” girls will say flippantly. This excuse not only takes blame off the offender but also trivializes the pain of the bullied girl. Cruel words are not teasing. Teasing is an open give and take where each party is equally amused, teasing watches for the line and is careful not to cross it, and teasing ends if feelings are injured by accident. Bullying does not care for the feelings of the targeted party. Bullying intends to harm. “The only thing I know for certain,” says writer Rosalind Wisemen, “is that each person’s dignity is not negotiable.” (Queen Bees and Wannabes, 14) Verbal bullying does not care for the dignity or rights of the bullied.
Physical bullying gets the most attention and the scars are certainly the easiest to see. One girl told me the story of a “friend” who purposely gave her a broken bike and laughed when she crashed. She told of another time girls in her class pinched her in front of a teacher that “either didn’t notice or didn’t care.” Another girl recalls a time when she was told by a friend to close her eyes and naively listened only to open them in time to see the girl bring a metal rod down on her foot. “Physical bullying is not exclusive to boys…” author Barbara Coloroso writes, “Girls just have a much more powerful tool against other girls.” (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 15) This brings me to the final form of bullying.
Relational bully takes place when relationships become the weapons wielded by the bully. Shunning, exclusion, ignoring or the threat of any of these falls under this category. In the television show Young Hercules, the villain of the story wants Hercules dead but cannot kill him directly. Instead he plots to separate him from his friends and cause turmoil amongst them. In his mind this was the only way to truly weaken Hercules. This is a prime example of relational bullying.
Relationships are crucial to the development of adolescent girls. They bear the fear of isolation far more than boys ever do. This form seeks to control or injure the targeted girl by diminishing her self-worth and removing her peer support system. “There is no gesture more devastating than a back turning away.” (Odd Girl Out, 3)
Relational bullying is insidious because it can come from “friends” as well as enemies. Pulled close and pushed away like a yo-yo these friendships can begin to look more like abusive boyfriends than innocent teenage girls interacting. Because the “frenemy” is sometimes kind it is easy to excuse the bad away or become convinced it will not occur again. It is easier to forgive and have fair weather friends than to be completely isolated. As they say, velvet chains are hardest to break.
Cliques in schools have become like the hairspray and lipstick version of the mob. There is a pecking order. There are rules, there are wars, and the random hostile take over. Make a mistake and you may find yourself knocked off—in the worst death most teen girls can imagine, social death. It is healthy for girls to find like-minded individuals and it is normal to spend more time with some people than others. Perhaps these two facts contribute to why cliques go ignored in most settings. However, a clique is different from a group of friends. People do not usually get killed, social or otherwise, in a group of friends.
----
When I set out to research the problem of girls bullying each other I assumed that it was a straight forward topic. I was idealistic, I was also wrong. Eager to learn as much as I could and discontent with information I could find in books I sent out a request. I asked girls to send me their stories if they had any. The responses I received were overwhelming.
Occasionally, a story will appear on the news were an adolescent girl, or several girls, will attack and severely hurt another. However, less than one-third of all bullying—between girls and boys—is physical. (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 2003) The rest is either verbal or relational.
Gossip shared, a rumor spread, a cruel phrase uttered: each of these is a form of verbal bullying. “An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult,” Lord Chesterfield said. (Quotations, 225)) Despite the old adage, most would rather take the sticks and stones than the cruel statements. Words are the favorite tactic of the passive-aggressive female bully. They are easily whispered and often go unnoticed by adults. Even said aloud, insults can be masked as indirect comments. “I would never eat that much cake,” sounds innocent enough, but who can see the effect of those words on the one they are heard by? Perhaps she throws out the cake and takes a moment to look in the mirror. Perhaps she cries herself to sleep that night. Perhaps she eats it quickly and then slips away to the bathroom to throw it back up.
In his play, The Way of the World, William Congreve described gossip, “They came together like the Coroner’s Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputation of the week.” (1700). Gossip is a particularly insidious form of bullying because it is hard to trace back to its source, and it is often continued by teenagers who mean no harm to the subject. An undisputed fact of life is that girls like to talk, and the bully who intends to use gossip and rumors to harm can rely on this fact.
Technological advancement has made this form of bullying more effective and faster. No longer do the words go away when the doors of school close behind a child. Most teens have easy access to cell phones and the Internet, which can become easy access to further bullying. Cyberbully, as it is now called, is far more anonymous than graffiti on a locker and “there is no digital janitor to paint over the Facebook wall.” (Queen bees and Wannabes, 23)
A teenage girl who opened up and told her story to me explained how in sixth grade she experienced cyberbullying, “These two popular girls found out my AIM screen name, and they would anonymously send these messages to me, saying that they were going to rape and kill me.” Unfortunately, her story is hardly unique. Girls across the country create websites entailing the ways they hate a classmate, send threats, or post private conversations in very public mediums. Parents often spend a lot of time and energy worrying about their children talking to strangers on the Internet, perhaps they should spend some of that time worrying about what the non-strangers are saying.
Often words are excused away as teasing or jokes. “Just kidding,” girls will say flippantly. This excuse not only takes blame off the offender but also trivializes the pain of the bullied girl. Cruel words are not teasing. Teasing is an open give and take where each party is equally amused, teasing watches for the line and is careful not to cross it, and teasing ends if feelings are injured by accident. Bullying does not care for the feelings of the targeted party. Bullying intends to harm. “The only thing I know for certain,” says writer Rosalind Wisemen, “is that each person’s dignity is not negotiable.” (Queen Bees and Wannabes, 14) Verbal bullying does not care for the dignity or rights of the bullied.
Physical bullying gets the most attention and the scars are certainly the easiest to see. One girl told me the story of a “friend” who purposely gave her a broken bike and laughed when she crashed. She told of another time girls in her class pinched her in front of a teacher that “either didn’t notice or didn’t care.” Another girl recalls a time when she was told by a friend to close her eyes and naively listened only to open them in time to see the girl bring a metal rod down on her foot. “Physical bullying is not exclusive to boys…” author Barbara Coloroso writes, “Girls just have a much more powerful tool against other girls.” (The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, 15) This brings me to the final form of bullying.
Relational bully takes place when relationships become the weapons wielded by the bully. Shunning, exclusion, ignoring or the threat of any of these falls under this category. In the television show Young Hercules, the villain of the story wants Hercules dead but cannot kill him directly. Instead he plots to separate him from his friends and cause turmoil amongst them. In his mind this was the only way to truly weaken Hercules. This is a prime example of relational bullying.
Relationships are crucial to the development of adolescent girls. They bear the fear of isolation far more than boys ever do. This form seeks to control or injure the targeted girl by diminishing her self-worth and removing her peer support system. “There is no gesture more devastating than a back turning away.” (Odd Girl Out, 3)
Relational bullying is insidious because it can come from “friends” as well as enemies. Pulled close and pushed away like a yo-yo these friendships can begin to look more like abusive boyfriends than innocent teenage girls interacting. Because the “frenemy” is sometimes kind it is easy to excuse the bad away or become convinced it will not occur again. It is easier to forgive and have fair weather friends than to be completely isolated. As they say, velvet chains are hardest to break.
Cliques in schools have become like the hairspray and lipstick version of the mob. There is a pecking order. There are rules, there are wars, and the random hostile take over. Make a mistake and you may find yourself knocked off—in the worst death most teen girls can imagine, social death. It is healthy for girls to find like-minded individuals and it is normal to spend more time with some people than others. Perhaps these two facts contribute to why cliques go ignored in most settings. However, a clique is different from a group of friends. People do not usually get killed, social or otherwise, in a group of friends.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Change, She Draws Near
At thirteen I have braces, I am wearing all black, idolizing the one girl near me who could be considered “goth” and listening to Evanescence. In my head Brittany Spears and the Backstreet Boys are inauthentic and overly peppy. They could never understand me.
Then there is Evanescence, haunting lyrics and heavy music that seem to reach to the bottom of my soul and turn everything inside me outward. I stand in my room and scream the words to their songs, feeling the lyrics tear out of me. I think they could not be more poignant to where I am at if I wrote them myself.
Some of my family worry about my dark clothes and my fascination with the new girl, lets call her Autumn. Not my Mom though, somehow she always understood. Maybe one day I will remember to thank her for that.
I pulled away from some of my childhood friends, the other pulled away from me. Then there was Autumn. Beautiful, older and deep—she saw things in ways no one else ever did. I knew she was troubled, and I knew better than to follow her blindly. I also knew that no matter how damaged she was, she was authentic. When she was sent away I felt the loss deeply.
Four years, more than a hundred poems, and dozens of stylistic changes later I am wearing retainers—at least the braces are gone—I occasionally hear passing stories of Autumn and the kid she now has, I am in my last year of high school, and when preparing a costume for Halloween I actually have to go to the store to buy black pants since I do not have any. Life seems less catastrophic now. Funny how a few years will do that.
I hear Evanescence playing somewhere. I feel nostalgia’s pull and crawl under my bed, fighting off dust bunny’s, to find it. Dust bunny’s aside, I actually find it in my drawer.
Uploaded to my iPod, the music streams into my ears. I find the words come back easily. I sing along playfully, the desperation that used to cling to each track is gone. I even laugh at the end of a particularly dramatic song. For me, the once meaningful lyrics of Amy Lee now hold the same appeal as an episode of Blues Clues.
The track changes and “Everybody’s Fool” begins to play. I remember it was hardly a favorite. As I listen absently to the words and occasionally add my voice to it, something catches me. I actually hear the lyrics. All these years I assumed it was about a guy and passed over it. When I clearly hear her singing the word “she” I realize it is something entirely different than I imagined. The lyrics ring of betrayal, and they remind me of a particularly trying event in my life earlier that year.
Something about the new found meaning caused me to listen more closely. My favorite of their songs begins to play, and I find myself shocked. Radically so. Nearly three years of studying psychology and a special focus this semester on the development of adolescent female psyche is reflected in the words.
“Don’t say I’m out of touch, with this rampant chaos your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge, a nightmare I built my own world to escape.” (Evanescence, “Paper Flowers”, 2003). Amy Lee goes on to describe her dream world with imagery so whimsical it can be nothing but childish. It has taken me years to realize but the song I related to so long ago is about a fight to cling to childhood instead of letting go an embracing the scary adult world.
The psychologist Dr. Brad Sachs, in his book “When No One Understands”, talks about writing letters to a teenage girl who tried to kill herself. He revealed to her how she is going through the death of her childhood. This is a term I see over and over again in psychology. The era of the teenager is a process of letting the child die and becoming the adult. I find this concept echoed in the words from another of their songs. “If I smile and don’t believe soon I know I’ll wake from this dream. Don’t try and fix me, I’m not broken. Hello I am the lie living for you so you can hide. Suddenly I know I’m not sleeping. Hello I’m still here, all that’s left of yesterday.” (Evanescence, “Hello”, 2003) Each phrase is a familiar one. How many times do teenagers like myself hide behind smiles? How many parents have heard their adolescent girls scream “stop trying to fix me”? Vegas money’s on “a lot”.
At thirteen I believed “Hello” was about someone actually dying, now I hear it for the metaphorical death it is. As the young move from childhood into the borderline age before they cross over into adulthood, they feel as if they are dying. In a way a part of them is. Their dependent, immature, concrete thought process gives way to questions that will form the woman they will become. Like a snake shedding its skin, only more painful. From this branches the morbidity of teenagers, the fixation of death and sometimes even the attempts at suicide. This phenomena is portrayed in What about Bob? where the young boy Sigmund—named after Frued—is accused of having a death fixation by his father. He shouts, “Maybe I am mourning the death of my childhood.” (Buena Vista, 1991) This scene is a moment of funny because it is true.
Brad Sachs believed in helping his young patient navigate the loss of her innocent childish side, without actually taking her life. “Our blackest nights,” says he, “need not be fearfully avoided or frantically lit up, but instead can be allowed to gently overtake us so that we can learn to see n the dark and decipher the beauty and promise that calmly, faithfully, resides there.” (When No One Understands, 2007)
The words have meaning to me at thirteen for just that reason. I cut off friendships, as I proverbial cut off parts of myself to become who I was growing into. At the time I felt the music, now I am growing to understand it as it again takes on meaning. In dream analysis, tarot cards and literature alike death represents change. In little over three months I will become an adult, so it is little wonder the lyrics speak to me once again.
Then there is Evanescence, haunting lyrics and heavy music that seem to reach to the bottom of my soul and turn everything inside me outward. I stand in my room and scream the words to their songs, feeling the lyrics tear out of me. I think they could not be more poignant to where I am at if I wrote them myself.
Some of my family worry about my dark clothes and my fascination with the new girl, lets call her Autumn. Not my Mom though, somehow she always understood. Maybe one day I will remember to thank her for that.
I pulled away from some of my childhood friends, the other pulled away from me. Then there was Autumn. Beautiful, older and deep—she saw things in ways no one else ever did. I knew she was troubled, and I knew better than to follow her blindly. I also knew that no matter how damaged she was, she was authentic. When she was sent away I felt the loss deeply.
Four years, more than a hundred poems, and dozens of stylistic changes later I am wearing retainers—at least the braces are gone—I occasionally hear passing stories of Autumn and the kid she now has, I am in my last year of high school, and when preparing a costume for Halloween I actually have to go to the store to buy black pants since I do not have any. Life seems less catastrophic now. Funny how a few years will do that.
I hear Evanescence playing somewhere. I feel nostalgia’s pull and crawl under my bed, fighting off dust bunny’s, to find it. Dust bunny’s aside, I actually find it in my drawer.
Uploaded to my iPod, the music streams into my ears. I find the words come back easily. I sing along playfully, the desperation that used to cling to each track is gone. I even laugh at the end of a particularly dramatic song. For me, the once meaningful lyrics of Amy Lee now hold the same appeal as an episode of Blues Clues.
The track changes and “Everybody’s Fool” begins to play. I remember it was hardly a favorite. As I listen absently to the words and occasionally add my voice to it, something catches me. I actually hear the lyrics. All these years I assumed it was about a guy and passed over it. When I clearly hear her singing the word “she” I realize it is something entirely different than I imagined. The lyrics ring of betrayal, and they remind me of a particularly trying event in my life earlier that year.
Something about the new found meaning caused me to listen more closely. My favorite of their songs begins to play, and I find myself shocked. Radically so. Nearly three years of studying psychology and a special focus this semester on the development of adolescent female psyche is reflected in the words.
“Don’t say I’m out of touch, with this rampant chaos your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge, a nightmare I built my own world to escape.” (Evanescence, “Paper Flowers”, 2003). Amy Lee goes on to describe her dream world with imagery so whimsical it can be nothing but childish. It has taken me years to realize but the song I related to so long ago is about a fight to cling to childhood instead of letting go an embracing the scary adult world.
The psychologist Dr. Brad Sachs, in his book “When No One Understands”, talks about writing letters to a teenage girl who tried to kill herself. He revealed to her how she is going through the death of her childhood. This is a term I see over and over again in psychology. The era of the teenager is a process of letting the child die and becoming the adult. I find this concept echoed in the words from another of their songs. “If I smile and don’t believe soon I know I’ll wake from this dream. Don’t try and fix me, I’m not broken. Hello I am the lie living for you so you can hide. Suddenly I know I’m not sleeping. Hello I’m still here, all that’s left of yesterday.” (Evanescence, “Hello”, 2003) Each phrase is a familiar one. How many times do teenagers like myself hide behind smiles? How many parents have heard their adolescent girls scream “stop trying to fix me”? Vegas money’s on “a lot”.
At thirteen I believed “Hello” was about someone actually dying, now I hear it for the metaphorical death it is. As the young move from childhood into the borderline age before they cross over into adulthood, they feel as if they are dying. In a way a part of them is. Their dependent, immature, concrete thought process gives way to questions that will form the woman they will become. Like a snake shedding its skin, only more painful. From this branches the morbidity of teenagers, the fixation of death and sometimes even the attempts at suicide. This phenomena is portrayed in What about Bob? where the young boy Sigmund—named after Frued—is accused of having a death fixation by his father. He shouts, “Maybe I am mourning the death of my childhood.” (Buena Vista, 1991) This scene is a moment of funny because it is true.
Brad Sachs believed in helping his young patient navigate the loss of her innocent childish side, without actually taking her life. “Our blackest nights,” says he, “need not be fearfully avoided or frantically lit up, but instead can be allowed to gently overtake us so that we can learn to see n the dark and decipher the beauty and promise that calmly, faithfully, resides there.” (When No One Understands, 2007)
The words have meaning to me at thirteen for just that reason. I cut off friendships, as I proverbial cut off parts of myself to become who I was growing into. At the time I felt the music, now I am growing to understand it as it again takes on meaning. In dream analysis, tarot cards and literature alike death represents change. In little over three months I will become an adult, so it is little wonder the lyrics speak to me once again.
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Duel Edged Sword of Feminism
As a woman I am very glad to live in the modern age for several reasons. Because of the great woman of the past we are allowed to vote. We can hold strong jobs and have a number of other fair options.
However, there is a problem I clearly see. The fight seems to have gone to far. Unfortunately, with fighting for equality we have killed chivalry. With betters jobs for women many children have both parents out of the home instead of just one. With less consideration to gender roles media feels free to portray girls as sexual objects. We have gained position yes, but we have lost respect.
Now days men rarely open doors for women for fear of a "feminazi" (as they are sometimes called) jumping down their throat about archaic traditions. Since when has decency become labeled passe? For those of us living on the coat tails of the "modern women" we wonder why guys show us no respect. Perhaps they now treat us like men? Or worse, like they are afraid to go against what is "PC".
Some food for thought.
However, there is a problem I clearly see. The fight seems to have gone to far. Unfortunately, with fighting for equality we have killed chivalry. With betters jobs for women many children have both parents out of the home instead of just one. With less consideration to gender roles media feels free to portray girls as sexual objects. We have gained position yes, but we have lost respect.
Now days men rarely open doors for women for fear of a "feminazi" (as they are sometimes called) jumping down their throat about archaic traditions. Since when has decency become labeled passe? For those of us living on the coat tails of the "modern women" we wonder why guys show us no respect. Perhaps they now treat us like men? Or worse, like they are afraid to go against what is "PC".
Some food for thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
