Eric Renderking Fisk - March 23th, 2011
My
sister posted something on Facebook that started an honest discussion about
bullying and what causes it.
The girl you just called fat? She's been starving herself
& has lost 1 lbs. The boy you just called stupid? He has a learning disability
& studies 4hrs a night. The girl you just called ugly? She spends hours
putting makeup on hoping people will like her. The boy you just tripped?
He is already abused enough at home. There's more to people than you think.
Post this as your status if you're against bullying!
The sentence “The boy you just
tripped? He is already abused enough at home. There's more to people than
you think” really spoke to me and I wanted to use this opportunity to
discuss a much deeper issue. This isn’t just bullying; it’s a symptom of
a much bigger problem - Child Abuse and Child Neglect. I’m going to share
with you guys something I’ve only written about on my own site in the hopes
of better understanding for someone else who went through what I went through,
or those who are now.
Being abandoned by one parent via alcoholism and divorce at an early
age has a deeply profound and negative effect on a child. There’s a lot
of wondering about what really happened and no matter what anyone says that
child is going to blame themselves. Couple that with a stressed out mom
who used to yell “You’re just like your father!” “You’re not my son!” “You
rotten little bastard,” “You’re a little shit,” and other such nonsense
when angry and frustrated, what effect do you think that has on a child
and how is he going to feel? What do you think his self-image is like?
On top of that, what do you think a small boy is going to feel and think
of himself when he has the perception that neither his uncles nor grandfather
have any interest in him and don’t care about his development or growth?
Couple that when a new “male role model” moves into his house and treats
that boy like the alien intruder? What happens when this male role model
verbally, physically, emotionally and sexually abuses him?
Nobody cares if this boy succeeds or fails, or so he believes. Nobody
cares if he’s good in sports, knows how to or goes through the usual rites
of passage all the other boys go through. Then this boy gets picked on because
he can’t do the same things the other boys can thus becoming the constant
target for ridicule and pranks. This boy will then do all the wrong things
to feel included which could lead to teen-age addictions or alcoholism.
This is a formula for disaster, a crisis in the making. There’s a vacuum
here that could be filled by anything good or something evil and it’s a
luck of the draw what this boy obsesses over. It's kids like these that
become a fanatical follower of “anything.” Society created this new “Frankenstein”
and it ignores this child as he or she grows into adulthood at its own peril.
In my case I found an external role model and tried by best to emulate
that person the best I could. My “Father-Figure” was constantly there for
me starting in 1977, then from 1980 to 1986 he was there for me at least
once a year and then showed me in 1989 that he (or at least one of his characters)
was “just like me.” Because of this “father-figure” I was pretty strange
and did some really odd and often times near-suicidal things.
I started doing some pretty horrible things to myself, hanging out with
edgy people and picked fights with bigger boys whom I hoped would beat me
to death because I hated myself and I hated my life regardless of any outward
appearance and false bravado. I was hurting deeply and I wanted to end it
all. Being told by some that “I wish you were dead” didn’t help matters
either. Being ridiculed and told to “fucking grow up” by those who were
supposed to be my role models or family made the problem worse.
That explains in part why I ran away from home when I did in the late
80’s and why I traveled the country and was homeless off and on between
1988 and 1996. I experienced a life out on the fringe fueled by the need
to feel something, that I was special or doing something on the extreme.
I wanted to live the life personified by one of my on-screen role models.
I didn’t want to be him, I wanted to be like him, his fedora-wearing contemporary.
My personal history also explains a lot of my extreme behavior on a lot
of these forums and why I’m such a staunch defender of those like me. Much
of what I wrote here is in the third person; not because I’m trying to disassociate
myself from my past but because there have been so many times when I’ve
had my own story repeated back to me with different names and details. It
seems to me that in every town there’s a kid who was going through the same
thing I went through and wanted to emulate the same heroes on screen. These
kids and younger adults gravitated towards me and I became a leader for no
other reason than I’m louder and further ahead on the curve than they
are.
Many times I’ve received phone calls from a lot of you because you had
no one else to turn to. I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night because
some kid had a fight with his abusive or neglectful father who wanted to
take away his fedora or punish him for wearing one. I’ve written a lot
of private messages and IM’s to kids who needed help, and messages to their
parents. I’m not welcome in some circles because of my earnestness during
my heavy drinking phase. I’ve never made threats of violence against those
who have tried to hurt you, I’ve made promises. The rage of what happened
to me comes out when I hear that it’s happening to someone else.
There have been a couple of events in my
recent past that made me realize
that I’m actually not alone and in danger of alienating my own sons.
After my grandfather’s ashes were buried I was driving my sister and
brother back to my house and we were talking about what just happened. My
sister was crying out of anger and frustration; we’re morning the loss of
a stranger. Nobody cared about us or what was happening, nobody stopped
what was being done to us. We weren’t included in anything that was happening
on that side of the family. Why are we crying about the death of our grandfather
when he didn’t take an interest in us? Nobody did.
I think this lead to my brother finally leaving his abusive wife. Around
this time he was arrested for driving my car down Main Street in Nashua,
New Hampshire at 75 miles per hour. He had his license suspended and I drove
him around everywhere I could. He and I talked a lot during this time and
I heard his version of what happened during those years. I wasn’t alone
because he also had his own private hell. I was alone only in my own perception.
We were all taking bites of this crap sandwich made for us in the dark.
There are moments when I stop and listen to what I’m saying to my sons and I have to ask, am I ending the cycle of violence, abuse and neglect? What am I doing to make sure that it ends with me in my past and that they will grow up with all the potential to be the person I could never be? How can I take what happened to me and turn that around and be the parent to them that I didn’t have, and my father didn’t have either since he also grew up in a broken home?
In the past couple of years I’ve reconciled with a lot of the people
mentioned in this rant. I’ve asked for forgiveness from some of them, and
forgiven a lot of others. If I don’t do this then I’m just an angry fedora-wearing
idiot who likes to show off his collection of grudges that also happens
to be poisoning my days to come. I have to come to grips with the fact that
those who abused or neglected me had the same experience and that’s all
they knew.
This has to stop; because of the abuse and neglect we’re creating
more monsters.
Our society is in a perpetual cycle of creating little Frankensteins; my
personality is the product of my messed-up childhood, so my children are
going to have a hard time growing up because that’s all I knew, so my grandchildren
will too? Who among us has the strength and courage to say “this is what
happened to me, I can’t allow it to happen again.” I refuse to pass on this
toxic legacy to my children and the rest of my family. I’m going to continue
to turn over the rocks in my past and pull the skeletons out of my closets
and deal with them. I can’t be alone and the only one doing this,
though. I
can’t be the strongest person among all of us to try to stop the violence.
The cost of not trying to end the cycle of abuse, neglect and bullying is
of course escalating violence and a decaying, depraved society.
What more besides this one rant can I do for our community? Threatening
or promising violence didn’t seem to help the situation. What more can I
do besides lending my voice to this cause? What can I do to help those of
you in need? I’m at a loss and I need your help figuring this out. We have
a thread on The Electric Speakeasy where you can post your responses and
thoughts. There you can also post about how you handled bullying and what
you think we can do to stop it now and in the future.
We need your help, and I hope you’ll start by participating in that discussion
if you haven’t already.
