Hello Everyone, I am sure that many of us have disturbing memories from our earliest days of school. Fortunately, some things seem to become clearer with time, distance and quiet contemplation.
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I was six when I started Kindergarten in elementary school and I was picked on by classmates nearly every day for what felt like weeks!  *  It was always the same kids who did this, and I did not understand why?   Why did they think it was so much fun to make me cry?  This would sometimes start on the bus ride to school… so even before we got there I would already have been crying.   🙁  Some of the kids came up with a hurtful term for me that rhymed with my name.  They used it as a regular taunt, daily.
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At that age, if I cried my nose got all stuffed up, I was a mess, which made me feel even more self-conscious.  It does not help that I have some really bad allergies. **
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Those same kids would find me during recess and tease me, for them it was fun!  It was so easy for them to get me to cry.   🙁   I distinctly remember the Principal of the School, Mr. Cooper, checking on me during the longest recess that was right after lunch.  He checked on me every day of the week for a while.  Eventually the teasing stopped, I can only guess that the school figured out who were bulling me? But it still happened on the bus ride home…. How could the bus driver not see what was going on?   Mom would see my face as I came down the steps, and I would see her face droop too 🙁
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I was one of the oldest kids in Kindergarten because my parents already knew that I could sometimes be overly sensitive and emotional.  So I spent an ”extra” year in preschool.  Mom & Dad had hoped that being a little older might help me be more stable.  ~~~~~~   It did not  ~~~~~  I was quite literally a crying baby.    🙁 …
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Now that I am older, I understand that people often act the way they do in response to how they, themselves have been treated by others.   I do not like to imagine those other kids home lives…  And, I hope as adults they learn to treat other people with more kindness… am I just being naive?
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I know I still seem to get overly emotional.  All I have to do is remember my most disturbing experiences and my eyes start to well up with tears… again!   🙁
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Please try to be courageous and stop bullying when you see it happening!  Try to remember to be kind and sympathetic instead of apathetic! 1    I make a point to have this conversation with all of the students I work with, regardless of their age…  Telling them how proud I will be, when I see them standing up to bullies instead of just standing around and letting it happen!!!!
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It certainly did not help me when I was older, and was bullied for simply trying to be me!
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You ever have the conversation with your friends where you each get to pick out what super power you would have if you got to choose it?  My choice now is almost always the same, the power to Inspire Empathy!! Just imagine how different the world could be if we all stood up for each other!!
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Sending all of you a hopeful smile, some joy, peace, prayers and LOVE – Iris

1  Apathy; Feeling or showing a lack of interest or concern; indifferent. Showing little or no emotion; unresponsive. …void of feeling & passionless.

* Looking back on these times when I was older (as a teenager) I think it may have only been a few days, it certainly felt a lot longer.  But time feels so different at a young age.    🙁

**  I learned about this later, when I was finally tested for allergies…   🙁  … Do you know the test when they scrape little spots on your arm in a grid pattern, number them and then apply a drop or two of specific allergens to these spots, to see how you react?  ,,, Well, when the doctor came back to check on my reactions, this one spot looked like a bug bite.  I remember them saying something like, ”Wow, I guess you really are allergic to dust mites!”  It was so hard to sit still and not scratch, because they specifically told me that I was not allowed to.  I had to sit on my other hand to resist the urge.  Arrrrgh!  It felt like torture…. or  it seemed that way at the time.
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It certainly did not help me when I was older, and was bullied for simply trying to be me!  For those of you who do not know yet, I am a trans woman.
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…. and my eyes are leaking again!!! Thanks to the goddess for waterproof mascara!! 🙂