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Anti-Bullying Month: “Gorilla Girl” Speaks by J. Ellison
“Gorilla Girl” ALL grown-up
{Editor’s Note: October is Anti-Bullying Month and I’ve asked my writers to do an article about their bullying experiences. I’ve asked them to do this because of 2 reasons;
1. Everyone gets bullied, no matter who you are.
2. It is survivable.
I want our readers to know that if they are being bullied or have been bullied in the past, you are not alone and there is a way to stop it.}
Bullies.
As a kid I guess I thought that bullies would just “go away” as I transitioned into Adulthood and that the pain they caused would be forgotten like the bag lunch at the bottom of a locker. Boy was I wrong. Today, at 25 years old, with a child of my own, I STILL feel uncomfortable walking into a room full of people. I am suddenly 12 years old again, wondering if my hair is too frizzy, my clothes too raggedy, and hoping there is not a “Kick Me” sign on my back.
The frustrating thing as a kid, and even now as an adult, is that you never know when or where or for what reason the attack will come. The eight hours between school bells was a battle testing Wit, Will, Sheer Strength, and Bravery.
In my experiences I was pushed, hit, had my backpack taken/passed around/dumped out on school-bus, had my locker filled with green Jell-o (Seriously, I’m still trying to figure out the Science behind that little stunt) and was generally picked on and teased.
The first year of school it was my laugh that brought on the torture. They would call me “Gorilla Girl” and would hoot and holler, making monkey sounds trying to parody me. I was six years old and I never wanted to laugh again.
I spent the Summer after first grade learning ho to “laugh like a normal person“. I practiced night & day, trying different pitches, tones, and speeds. In the end I had perfected the “Cool” laugh. I went into second grade full of Confidence.
Little did I know, Summer had made my bullies forget my “stupid” laugh, and they found something else to pick on: I didn’t have a Trapper Keeper or an LL Bean backpack with my initials stitched in the front. Anything they could use, they did. Finally towards the ed of second grade they settled on what would be my longest-running torture: my last name. It was something I had no choice in and no control over.
Morong.
It didn’t take kids long to realize what it spelled if you took the “G” off the end and for the next ten years I could carry the name “Jessica Moron”, like a cross for all to see. Even now, I flinch at the memory.
As I got older I stopped asking “Why me?” and just got angry instead. Angry at myself for being born a loser. Angry at my parents for not knowing how to “fix” me. Angry at the world and everyone in it for being inherently unfair all the time. All of a sudden I found myself screaming at my parents for things I wanted to scream at the kids at school, all the while feverishly INSISTING they “didn’t understand” anything I was going through. –and I believed that. I began to treat people and objects the way I perceived I was being treated. I lashed out at my best and only friend, telling her that she was fat and ugly and telling her SHE was the reason kids at school hated me. I threw things. I hit things. I broke things. All because I was broken inside and I desperately wanted my surroundings to reflect that.
I was 14 the first time I cut myself. One of the girls in my Algebra class was a “cutter” and she explained how it made the picking and teasing “real” pain therefore making it easier to deal with. Fifteen minutes later I was in the bathroom with a pair of scissors. I was desperate to make the confusion, madness and hurt stop. I felt helpless and very alone.
Jess w/ her son
Now I am 25. I spent agonizing hours/days/weeks trying to name my son something he wouldn’t get picked on for, already trying to shield him from the years to come. I still struggle with self-esteem, I still struggle with self-abuse when life seems unbearable, and I still wonder why bullying pushes on relentlessly, tirelessly, mercilessly.
I believe I got out lucky because I got out alive. Not all kids are lucky. We need to save our future, not kill t or drive it to kill itself and I truly believe that every effort made to end bullying heals that hurting child inside of us a little more and maybe THAT is where it truly starts.
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One Response to Anti-Bullying Month: “Gorilla Girl” Speaks by J. Ellison
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Pat Carbonell
October 15, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Amazing article, Jess. Keep healing, one step at a time.