The Bullied Project. Please help!
1. Hi Livejournal Friends, long time no talky! I come to you for help on a project that might turn into a play.
2. This is inspired by an incident on Facebook last night. Now, I’ve had a lot of good experience finding people I loved and missed from my past on FB, but the flip side of this came to a head last night. My entire freakin’ high school class found and friended me as soon as I joined, and I was too chicken to say no to even my high school tormenters. I had some doozies, as I was overweight, over-precocious, and a gigantic nerd. (I still don't know what to do about the former bully who is now GRIEF STALKING me. She was creatively cruel to me in high school, we haven't spoken since- but this fall, as soon as she realized my father was dying, she started to send me all these personal messages about how it was okay for me to feel the way I’m feeling and trying to shepherd me through my grief. She won't leave me alone- she's sent me a book on grief, cards, and constant facebook messages... I responded once to tell her that I appreciated the sentiments, and that I was surrounded by a wonderful support system, thank you. After that, I didn’t reply, and I think all I can do is ignore it.) Anyway, this sort of leads to:
3. Another clique from my high school (including one girl I’d never, ever even met or remembered, as she’s 4 years older) started posting this as their status last night: JUST FOR
AMERICA: Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless
without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going
without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a
benefit for the people of Haiti on 12+ TV stations. 99% of people won't
have the guts to copy and repost this.(Where is everybody when we have a national disaster?)
4. I’ve put up with mean spirited, illogical memes like this from these people for a while now. Every once in a while, I’m moved to such great outrage that I have to say something, like the time Michelle ranted about the meme encouraging awareness and empathy for those who grieve stillbirths and miscarriages, as it can be a taboo subject. “WTF?” said this empathetic mother of three. “I think this takes away from the fight against cancer.” (Meaning all the other copy and paste “cancer awareness” status chain letters. Because that’s what’s going to cure cancer, your FB status. Yes, that’s what passes for logic among the Yo Mudder’s Place bar crowd.)
5. I didn’t put up with this one. The first person to post it was a person I do not know that I’ve ever met in person the entire course of my life, but I know that: a) she’s waiting for her social security disability payments to kick in with bated breath, as she has a workplace injury that’s kept her from earning any income in the last 5 years, but I gather from the profoundly misspelled and reposted memes that she’s against government handouts for the undeserving. People should take care of themselves, says the woman living off the government and spousal support from her ex. Also, yay Jesus, boo cancer, boo immigrants, yay abortion doctors getting shot.
6. I commented on it saying I thought that it was never shameful to feel empathy for people in profound suffering, and I couldn’t make this statement make any logical or moral sense, and then I removed her from my friend’s list.
7. I’ve never met her. She’s never been my friend. I don’t want to be friends with anyone who would post something so mean and stupid.
8. Apparently, I’m not allowed to decide that.
9. Another one of this clique of people, Brandi- who I did go to high school with, and was actively mean to me throughout, re-posted it. So I removed her from my friend’s list.
10. This is when FB turned BACK INTO HIGH SCHOOL.
11. They started posting on other people’s status updates (so I could see them, as they can no longer post on my wall and vice versa) about me, and how I thought I was better than everyone, and I was INFRINGING ON THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. BWAAA! HA!
12. I leave for a while. I come back and Michelle has posted it, and they’ve all jumped on her status with more abuse towards me and my citified ways and liberal leanings and ZOMGOPPRESSION, and total outrage that I would remove them from my friends. Seriously. Like I had some sort of obligation toward them; graduating High School together is apparently a binding social contract. Michelle agrees that it’s terribly inappropriate for me to have an opinion, since mine are always wrong, but she never says anything. She’s a bigger person.
13. I thought about posting a note saying that we were clearly just antagonizing each other everyday without even knowing it, and now that I knew that my posts annoyed her as much as hers did me, it seemed only logical to remove myself. But it wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t care enough. So I just quietly removed her from my friend's list and left for the night. Again, I have not spoken to this person in FIFTEEN YEARS. Maybe longer; we didn't speak in school, either.
14. According to another friend, who is still FB friends with all of them, they went absolutely ballistic, abusing me on status updates, and commenting with other mean things which they cannot possibly know about me, as they don't actually know me.
15. And at that moment, for about 10 minutes last night, I was back in high school. There was a certain feeling in the pit of my stomach that I haven’t had since then. They’ll all hate me, I thought. They’re talking behind my back. By the morning, the rest of my class will have de-friended me.
16. LIKE IT MATTERS.
17. And I realize now that I could feel that old mean girl/bullied girl dynamic in place again. It flavored their outrage- who is SHE to defriend US? We’re the ones doing her a favor. She’s all stuck up now because she lives in the City, but remember how she was a weird fat nerd in high school? Isn’t she uppity now? COME BACK HERE SO WE CAN TELL YOU WE DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANYWAY! INFINITY!!11!
18. This shit never really goes away. Mean Girls is only the tip of the iceberg. I feel uniquely qualified to face this now with some perspective, and I’m not entirely innocent myself. I paid the mean girl forward myself a couple times. (And I am sorry, Crystal, grade 10) I have a friend already horrified by what’s going on in Kindergarten with her little girls, and she’s caught her kind six year old saying things a couple times, obviously parroting it. And their cousin is a certified, dyed in the wool, class A for Alpha Mean Girl, aged 8.
19. and then you grow up, and it’s bullying disguised as grief support.
20. and still talking behind someone’s back in way that forces them to see it and hear it
21. and in your retirement, writing letters to younger women about how their kids aren’t raised well enough to write a thank you note.
22. and. Please fill in the blank. This post isn't locked, please feel free to link to it. I'd love to hear other people's comments and experiences- whatever they are. The more insight, the better! What was your first experience with a mean girl? Are you dealing with one currently? What's your grown up version look like?