overcoming disadvantage

Lifelong target

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I wrote about some childhood bullying incidents on this blog back in 2018 in the following post:

How I met my bully | Sophisticated Neanderthal

I’ve been dealing with relentless harassment from a bunch of simpletons around me for the last ten years. Actually much longer but the most intense has been since I started my current job eleven years ago and even moreso since October 2019 when I had a strange experience involving missing time at an Oktoberfest event near my home.

I still have those same feelings of just wanting to be left alone. I’m just trying to live my life. Why can’t they do the same? Just live and let live. I am a lover of peace and an encourager. Why should I have to deal with constant hostility and harmful intentions and actions? I remember those childhood feelings of not wanting to deal with bullies. But deal with it I must because they never stop. I’ve come to learn that the insidious, relentless form of harassment I’ve been subjected to for the last eleven years is called gangstalking. I’ll be writing much more about that, but now I want to add a detail that I didn’t yet realize was significant the last time I wrote about it.

I remember the day on my paper route when the bully pushed me into a snowbank. He finally gave up for that day when that still didn’t elecit a fist fight with him and he sarted walking away. It happened on Market Street in Bangor between 3rd and 4th Streets. My route took me out Third St. and the site of the occurrence was near Bangor Elementary Center on Fourth St., where I attended grade shool a couple years earlier. I can still picture as I got back on my feet and was putting my brown knit hat with white stripes back on after brushing the snow off it, that I spotted the old windowless beige van driven by my 6th grade English teacher. Bangor is a small town and I knew it was her vehicle. A couple friends and I knew what many of the teachers drove. We paid attention to cars.

The thing that struck me as I recalled that scene recently was that the teacher, now deceased, bore the same last name as one of the main ringleaders of the ongoing harassment against me. I saw her sitting at a stop sign on the next street up and looking toward me and the scene that had just unfolded. She didn’t turn down the hill and come my way. I thought she might come to see if everything was alright, but she just went on up the hill. I remember feeling relieved because I was embarassed to have been seen “losing” the struggle with the bully. I felt wimpy. You would think she would’ve been concerned and checked on me, but oddly did not. Only recently I thought, for the first time, about the fact that she bore the same last name as the current ringleader of harassment against me. It wasn’t the first time I thought this stuff started at childhood, but it was the first I thought about the name connection.

Then I thought about how she was a closeted Lesbian (she had a semi secret affair with the female gym teacher and had bipolar or some kind of mental health diagnosis. I previously figured that part out when reflecting on how she was telling the class how all the women in her family were witches and their abilities were only passed down through the women. She had an extended absence right after that day. She must have been off her meds and had to take a medical leave to get inpatient treatment. I don’t know that, but it seems like a good guess. The chief bully gangstalker is also Lesbian and mentally not well. A former friend who’s also involved is also gay and bipolar. And his mom bears a resemblance to my old teacher. Things that make you go hmmm!

Back to the snowbank, I wonder what would have happened if I had taken the bait of the antagonizing bully and threw a punch with the teacher looking on? I think she would have claimed that she didn’t see him do anything but that she only saw me hitting him. Then they would’ve sent me to a juvenile delinquent center or something. Who knows what might have happened there? Were they trying to corrupt me by exposing me to other rough kids and/or abusive staff, or was someone at the juvenile center intended to molest or assault me?

Fortunately, I stayed away from that fight and any other trouble my whole life, following the good example of my parents. I’m thankful I came from a good family and had good people around me through friends of the family and my church. No bullies or troublemakers were ever able to shake me. I miss my dad but I thank God for his quiet strength and steadfast faith and love of the people around him and living a good and simple life. It’s our family legacy and no one is going to take that away.

One thing is for sure, this target is done being bullied. 54 years is enough! The gangstalker creeps will be exposed. They shrink from the light of day. I am a lover of light. They slink around like cowards. I am honest and straightforward.

What might have been, pt.2

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Continuing from yesterday:

I worked at McDonald’s my junior and senior years. My class rank (out of about 200) went from 4th in my freshmen year to not even ranked my senior year. I always resented that I had to work while others didn’t and pulled way ahead of me academically.  Of course, some of the top ten must have worked. I probably just wasn’t aware of it. It’s a self pity thing.

Then there’s the social life in junior and senior high. (We didn’t have middle school in Bangor at that time.) I had a couple of friends that I did things with some weekends before I worked. Once I started working, I didn’t have much of a life at all.

I did meet my only girlfriend of my adolescence when people at McDonald’s set us up. It didn’t last long. We made a cute couple but had little in common. There was also the constant anxiety, and on top of that, being gay but not being fully aware of it.  And, while there was opportunity, the short-lived romance did not include any physical relations.

My anxiety was probably compounded by the deeply buried truth of my sexual orientation and the fear of facing it. So, I “opted out” of dating to avoid feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps work wasn’t just about the needed money. It also gave me an escape from the social situations I both craved and feared.

I commuted to a nearby university after high school for 3 semesters. I changed my major in that short time, but still had no clue what I was doing or where I was going. I took time off to figure things out. I sometimes wonder if going away to school would have forced me to adapt and “catch up” emotionally and socially with other people my age, and find direction. I could also have had a nervous break down. Only God knows.

In the meantime, I left McDonald’s, of which I had been sick and tired for quite a while. After an unsuccessful search, I wound up working a small amount of hours at the hardware store where my dad worked for years, then wound up delivering pizzas. I became the manager of the privately owned pizza and sub shop when the former manager was caught stealing money.

I got my associate’s degree from community college while working there, but was too burned out to go right on to more college. Months turned into years and I never did get that bachelor’s degree. Another regret.

It was when I finally got out of the pizza shop to a Mon. through Fri. job that I finally started to see a lot of these things to which I was oblivious to that point. It was a mundane repetitive job and I had a lot of time to think and listen to talk radio. I finally saw the light about my bipolar depression and anxiety. Then I saw a shrink. And it was good.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what might have been. It matters what is yet to come. Besides, who’s to say things would have been so great if I’d have had more support, or privilege or popularity. Maybe it would have just caused more stress and anxiety.

I’m a stronger and more well-balanced person and a more insightful writer. I’m more spiritual and grounded. I don’t know what may yet be, but knowing where I’ve been, and being ok with it all, clears the way for good things to happen.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Well, I’m here. Bring it on, future. I’m ready.

 

What might have been, pt.1

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I film newspapers for preservation on microfilm at my job. I’m currently working on a project from Missouri which includes various titles (newspapers) from pretty much every county in the state. Most of them small town or rural areas. The batch I’m working on is all recent dates. I have to move quickly, but one catches headlines and photos while filming.

There were a lot of high school sports, band events, concerts and such in many titles and issues, especially one I worked on yesterday. It made me start thinking about my own high school years and even earlier childhood.

I thought about how different my life could have been if I had been good at, or even interested in sports. I was popular for the first couple years in grade school, but when the other boys started joining Farm Team (baseball, if you don’t have that where you’re from) and playing kickball at recess, I stayed away. I think it was my anxiety that made me not want to give them a try. Or, maybe it was because my dad never played ball with my brother or me. I feel like I’m kind of whining now, but it’s true, I guess.

Also, no encouragement from either parent. to join in athletic endeavors or try different things. As mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t even learn to swim. That left me out of a lot of time that could have been spent with other kids in the summer. I remember feeling so lonely in the sunny days of August after a couple months of limited contact with others. I did see my best friend about every day, but somehow, it wasn’t enough.

I can remember my fifth grade teacher trying to get me to join wrestling. He must have seen that it would do me good, and as a short but scrappy kid, it probably would have been good. He pleaded with me over and over to join, but I didn’t even think about it. I just thought that was for other boys. I was no good at that sort of thing.  I can only imagine how different my life might have been if I had joined in all the “normal” activities.

So, that left me with academics and arts.

I was an excellent student and played clarinet in concert, jazz and marching band. I had perfect pitch, but lacked dexterity. I could never seem to get the fast parts down. In retrospect, I don’t know why I stayed in band the whole time, except that I made some really good friends and a lot of acquaintances that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. That was very important for a shy, anxious, depressed, fatigued misfit.

Still, I wish I had stayed in photography club my junior year instead of joining jazz band at the band director’s suggestion. I’m pretty good at photography and had gotten a nice 35mm camera over the summer with my McD’s money. Developing (pardon the pun) that skill would have been far more valuable.

I could’ve used some guidance, but I didn’t get that from home  or school. But then, I really didn’t share my thoughts or decision-making with anyone. Actually, I didn’t really think about things. I just stumbled along doing what I thought was expected of me and looking for acceptance.

 

I’m going to wrap this up tomorrow. Trust me, it’s going somewhere, somewhere good. I’m happy with how things are going now.

Til next time.