Smart people, pretty people, have terrible things happen to them. Maybe it was because I wasn't always pretty - plastic surgery has been a best friend - but honestly you never get over the things people say during those formative years. They really fuck you up, no matter how smart or sensitive or perceptive you are. In fact, those qualities probably make the whole thing worse. You just think about how you could have pulled a punch or thrown a book or kicked someone in the balls. And wish you did, no matter how mature you've become or how successful you are. The anger is always present.
The victim of bullying does not become strong. In fact, she becomes demented, obsessed with receiving approval. How does a woman get approval? It's never from her brains at that age. When you grow older, though, and meet thoroughly equally if not more demented people, it's because of your pain. They smell it like rotten meat. And you smell theirs. You do the dance of the rotten meat. What starts with a punch to the wall ends with you laying flat on your back with choke marks, semen and tears all over your face. What starts with long looks and disturbingly promising conversation ends with you taking your thumbs and pressing them hard into someone's eyeballs, hoping to gouge them out or press them in so far there's no going back.
How can you be normal after those things?
