Growing up is a rocky road for us all. Puberty, peer pressure, uncovering our strengths, navigating sexuality, you know what it's like. And I suspect most of us have one phase of it which proves especially troubling; I know I sure as hell did. I remember it more vividly than any other time in my life. I'm a pathological dweller, and so it plays over in my mind like a broken record. I've never discussed this in full detail since, but for some reason just this week I realised I have to try to release it and that with this blog I have a platform for doing so, and therefore here it is. It won't be easy reading, but hopefully it will be cathartic for both the reader and me.
Between ages 14 and 15 (2002 to 2003 for me), adolescence and the reality of my Asperger's syndrome diagnosis really sunk in for me. On top of that, I was developing generalised anxiety disorder which took root in the form of panic attacks most nights while I tried to sleep, and at home I was fighting constantly with my dad, who has quite a short fuse (like me, I guess). Since primary school I'd been bullied because of my ASD and now in high school, all of these conflicts united - and this is an explanation but no excuse - to make me into a bully myself. Year Nine therefore became, emotionally, the hardest year of my schooling by far. I cried at school during lunch many times for what now seem laughably trivial reasons to the point where one of my friends, Toby, told me quite wearily to grow up. You know you're immature when a fellow 14-year-old tells you to grow up. I even bullied some of my other friends when they'd have never even thought of bullying me, but what what I undoubtedly regret the most was how much I harassed a girl I didn't hang out with but who was in my English class; I'll call her Susan. In hindsight I don't know why I targeted her, but that's not the point. Every lunchtime when I saw her around I would yell at her to shut up when she'd said nothing at all, and during class we frequently fought. One day in class, during a particularly hostile altercation, I said the worst seven words I have ever uttered (and - pardon the pun - that's speaking volumes): "I hope you get pregnant at 16." The whole class gasped and turned to me contemptuously, and Susan then went to call her boyfriend about me. After that class finished, my friend Jeff, an easygoing and affable guy if ever one existed, to his great credit angrily blew me off as I tried to walk with him. To this day, that's the only time I've seen or heard him criticise anybody.
Eventually, Susan changed schools because of me, something I never quite needed to do despite all the bullying I'd experienced. That fact has never been lost on me, and I just cannot forgive myself for causing that. Today, having seen both sides of bullying I suppose I'm something of an authority on it and can therefore give a reasoned caution to kids about why it must be stopped. You don't want to have to bear the crosses I still have to from when I was at school.
But thankfully, this lamentable tale does have a happy ending. Around 2010, Susan and I were both separately out on the town one Saturday night, when she spotted me outside a Subway restaurant. She called me out and invited me to sit down with her, and we struck a conversation up. I wholeheartedly apologised to her for everything I did to her at school, and to my amazement she immediately forgave me. That's absolutely my favourite memory of my pub-hopping days in my early 20s. We then saw each other around town a few more times before she gradually accepted a Facebook friend request from me, and we're by no means soulmates now but we've stayed on good terms ever since. She taught me that maybe it was time I forgave my own bullies, and it was. For that I will always thank my lucky stars.
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