Mitzi Flyte

I know I’ve been bullied all my life.

“Fatty, fatty, two by four
Couldn’t get in the bathroom door.
So she did it on the floor.
Licked it up and did some more.”

That was the chant I heard throughout elementary school.
Middle School was a bit better, it was more subtle. I was part of the “smart” class, the advanced academic class, so they were also advanced in hiding their bullying. I just didn’t get many invitations and no dates.
High School was hell, as it is for many of us.
Family life was no better. My father teased and taunted me about my weight. My teenage boy cousin followed suit.
In nursing school the bullies had grown up and got their medical degree. Doctors in the 1960s were well-known bullies. And a chubby student nurse was always fair game.
I didn’t fare much better in married life. Psychological abuse is a quiet way of bullying.
I developed a thick skin and self-deprecation, just to make it seem as if it didn’t bother me. Actually it did bother me and still does.
I advanced in my career but my boss was a very loud bully, screaming at me often and most of the time in front of others.
I started my writing career and met a woman who acted as if she was a friend but turned out to also be a bully, trying to bully her way between me and others. I had learned by that time that I could walk away. I did.
So I was bruised but not broken.
I still fight the sense that I’m not good enough.
I still second-guess decisions. Sometimes I even base them on what others might think, might say about me. The feeling of being judged and judged lacking is usually hovering over me.
I am getting better but it’s been a long journey.
A journey I would wish on no one.