New storytelling piece about bullying

I've learned some things about forgiveness, but . . .

I told this story at Tellin' Tales Theatre's Young Adult Writers workshop in Chicago with the theme "Unleashed Truth" on July 21, 2024. This is a very personal piece about my past with bullying, and I played the song with it on guitar. Maybe there can be a separate video for that . . .

If there's one thing I’ve learned about forgiveness, it's that, to put it nicely, it’s a royal beeyotch-and-a-half.

In other words, it’s a sizable challenge for me. Here’s why.

I was bullied for my autism for the first 18 years of my life. I dismissed my experience for years because, going to private schools, I was acutely aware that it could’ve been much worse had I been in larger, more impersonal settings, so I internalized a lot of people telling me I was too sensitive, too weird, too much of a problem for everyone else.

But I wasn’t. 

In middle school, I was rarely physically hurt, but I was treated like garbage with words–and make no mistake, regardless of sensitivity, words fucking matter. Words can wound.

There was one kid who was meaner than the rest, though. When I came to my middle school, he stood out as a bully. I was different, perhaps more feminine, certainly more unusual, and he and everyone else sensed it. I can't count the number of times he called me words like “faggot,” “punk,” “pussy,” and “prick.” He and another kid once pulled my pants down in the hallway, and I cried. Apparently they did that to lots of other boys, but I was the only one who cried.

By the end of eighth grade, this teen seemed like he was turning his life around. I remember a teacher commenting in class how this student’s participation grade was “going through the roof.” He even got an award at the end of the year for improvement during his time in middle school.

Shortly after we started high school together, he left. But a few years later, another teacher told me that this young man was in prison.

I never found out why he went, but that forever changed how I thought of him. He was probably traumatized and later incarcerated, likely raped and further abused in prison.

I felt sympathy, even empathy, for someone who seemed like he would never stop calling me “faggot” a few years before. Kids I viewed as all-powerful were fucked up people who, like me, were actively in pain and treated horribly.

That doesn’t change the despair I felt as a kid, but a couple years later, I wondered if I could have done something–and remembered that that could have been me sent to prison at a young age. After all, when I was little, I was violent towards others, and maybe I would still be if my family had not intervened.

Before I came to the school with that kid, there were a couple years when I was a bully, treating a couple other kids like crap because I wanted to fit in and distance myself from them. I mercilessly teased one kid about his Attention Deficit Disorder–which I have, too, as I know now–and walked away strutting while he was crying, and I teased another kid about his weight, which is another struggle I have. It can still be hard to forgive myself for that—and to forgive others who treated me similarly.

But I’ll never forget that feeling in my college dorm room in the fall of 2007 when I had an urge to write a song. That night, I remember these words pouring out of me when I played five basic guitar chords, and I remember crying:

“To a Prisoner”

You never beat me up with fists, only with words

And I suppose you had a reason why

I never thought I’d find the day when I’d write something like this song

But for all the times that I wanted to die

At least I had a home to come to

At least I had a family whenever I had tears to cry

And I’m sorry to hear how you ended up, in jail

But if it ever means you think you wanna die

I hope you never give up

And I hope you find some happiness to call your own

And I hope you pick up the pieces of your life

If only it meant you would find a home

Find a home

I remember coming home every day after school, all alone

After soccer, I suppose, you did the same

Far from the cushioned household that I became so proud of

Neither parent could ever accept any blame

I hope you never give up

And I hope you find some happiness to call your own

And I hope you pick up the pieces of your life

If only it meant you would find a home

Find a home

Find a home.

***

Today I still try to sing that song at open mics once in a while. It matters to me that I got to that place of empathy, love, and perhaps even humility to write anything like it, partly because growing up I had trouble expressing empathy. Something must have opened the floodgates because writing that song made me feel something I needed to feel.

And these days, I’m working on moving forward. But forgiveness is still a royal beeyotch-and-a-half. I let go of most of my hurt from middle school a long time ago, but there’s still some residual pain from high school, trauma that doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t have to. I can accept that I was treated like shit without focusing so much on past pain. This is very much a work in progress, but what that song reminds me is that hurt people hurt people–people in pain inflict it on others–and that everyone deserves empathy.

As for the bully I wrote that song for, I have no idea if he’s still in prison or even if he’s alive. I can accept that. But I hope that he–and each of us–never gives up.