A Ladder In The Dark: My Journey From Bullying To Self-acceptance

Copyright © 2015 by Bullying Recovery, LLC

Published by Bullying Recovery, LLC

Edited by: Jena O’Connor, www.practicalproofing.com

Book Design by: Nic DiPalma Creative, www.nicdipalma.com

Photography by: Shane A. Hinkle, www.ShaneAHinkle.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

The author has tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from his memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity, in some instances the author has changed the names of individuals and places. The author may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence. Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual. In some cases, the author has compressed events; in others, the author has made two people into one. The author is not licensed as a social worker, psychologist, or psychiatrist. This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians or professional mental health experts.

Except as specifically stated in this book, neither the author or publisher, nor any authors, contributors, or other representatives will be liable for damages arising out of or in connection with the use of this book. This is a comprehensive limitation of liability that applies to all damages of any kind, including (without limitation) compensatory; direct, indirect or consequential damages; loss of data, income or profit; loss of or damage to property and claims of third parties.

Bullying Recovery, LLC can bring the author of this book to your live event and/or schedule the author for interviews. For more information or to book an event, contact Bullying Recovery, LLC at email: pr@bullyingrecovery.org or visit our website at www.bullyingrecovery.org.

First edition June 2015

ISBN-13: 978-0-9963313-3-3 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909352

table of contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Prologue: The Hole

Part One: The End of Innocence

Chapter 1: Beginning of the End

Chapter 2: Under the Surface of a Life

Chapter 3: Losing the Life I Dreamed Of

Chapter 4: Life after Lexington

Chapter 5: Young Lost and Confused

Chapter 6: In a State of Imaginary Peace

Chapter 7: New School New Life

Chapter 8: Gaining a Life Lesson

Chapter 9: Reaching for the Stars While Gasping for Air

Chapter 10: Every Experience Offers a Lesson

Chapter 11: Carrying the Weight of the World

Part Two: Darkness Grows Where Nobody Knows

Chapter 12: Only Just Learning the Lesson of Life

Chapter 13: Very Bad Vibes

Chapter 14: Enemies All Around Me

Chapter 15: Rolling Downhill with No Way to Stop

Chapter 16: You Can Only Kick a Dog So Much

Chapter 17: I Believe I Lost Myself Somewhere

Chapter 18: The End of Days Approaches

Chapter 19: Growing Reality of Fear for My Life

Chapter 20: Enter the Bully and its Name is Me

Chapter 21: The Moment I Saw My Life End

Chapter 22: So Much Pain So Much Lost

Chapter 23: Body Blow Knock Him Out

Part Three: Digging in the Dirt to Find Where I Got Hurt

Chapter 24: Events That I Could Not Control

Chapter 25: The Great Depression

Chapter 26: The Slow Return from the Abyss

Chapter 27: Eventually a Solution Starts to Appear

Chapter 28: Recovery and Repair

Chapter 29: The Final Struggle Out of the Dark

Chapter 30: A Space to Breathe Again

Epilogue: The Hole

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Works Cited

About the Author

For my wife Janet and sons Andy and Zach.

You stood by me patiently in my darkest hours

and never asked for anything in return.

I love you all and know I owe you big time

Preface

I believe it is important to know a bit about the author prior to reading their words. In this case, as this is an autobiography and also as I am working to make a change to how bullying and the long-term effects of bullying are thought of, I want to be clear with you, the reader, of how I feel about the issue of bullying.

As much as I wish that bullying would end with more education and further learning about the damage it causes, I don’t think we will ever see humans stop bullying, whether at school, in the workplace, in relationships, or through politics and global interactions. To me, it seems to be a human condition and no amount of education or training will put a complete stop to it. Can it be reduced? Certainly I believe that. But both the bullies and the bullying survivors have to deal with the ramifications of the effects of bullying on them.

That said, I have focused my attention on helping those that suffer with the damage caused by bullying (both the bullied and the bully) to recover through better programs of support and help. There are many groups that work on bullying prevention and I applaud them and their efforts. I think each group offers support and help in their own way.

I have chosen to focus on bullying recovery and believe we can do a lot of good as a community and society to work with and help those that are bullies and/or have been bullied to learn to recover from the psychological damage due to the suffering they endured from bullying. I certainly believe that, as a community and as a society, we can make a difference and help those suffering to find a solution and hope that the books and the focus of my work brings that needed support and relief.

As you read my story, I hope you see that there is a ladder in the dark for everyone who seeks it. It is there, but you must be patient and seek out that which you don’t see at first.

PROLOGUE

The Hole

Forget Lexington!

Many years ago, as a young boy, I dug a hole deep in the recesses of my mind. I’d worked very hard to dig this hole in which to bury all of my bad memories. Time went by and I grew up. But the hole was still there, waiting for me. It had been such a long time since I’d last visited the hole, and I’d hoped that I would never have to see the place or its contents again.

The hole was invisible to the naked eye, as it was level with the ground, with a makeshift piece of plywood covering the top, and it was surrounded by a field of tall grass and flowers. Behind the field was a tree line to hide it from view and through the tree line was a large yard near where I lived, away from the view of the hole. Every time I visited this field and the hole, a strange feeling of panic would overcome me as I broke through the tree line. I would break out in a cold sweat, with my heart racing and a feeling of wanting to run away as fast as I could. It would be a while before I understood why.

I dug this deep, dark hole with my bare hands over a great expanse of time, and the pain of my raw hands at the end of the work each day still haunted me. The hole was dug almost twenty feet deep, leaving my hands bloody from the arduous task. The work was meticulously done to avoid any chance of my finding the hole again, or so I thought. There was a large shoebox I had placed at the bottom of the hole where it was too dark to see. I wrote on the top of it many years ago when I was younger. The shoebox was filled with haunting images from my life of being bullied. If the shoebox was visible, it would read, in a child’s handwriting, Alan’s Bad Memories! DO NOT OPEN!

As I completed the long task of building the hole, I covered it with a piece of untreated plywood in the hopes of no one, especially me, accidently falling into the hole. The hole was not to be accessed again. My last task was to spray-paint a message on the top of the plywood to remind myself why the hole was here if I forgot and revisited it later. I carefully painted the word on the top, then turned and ran as fast as I could, away from this feeling of panic and from this hole in the field in my mind that I hoped never to see again. On top of the plywood in large letters, I painted a message to myself. In big childlike letters were the words, ANXIETY and DEPRESSION. Below it were a few more words on the wood, to remind me of something else that was important. In smaller, but still visible letters, I added the words "Forget Lexington!

Part One

The

End of

Innocence

CHAPTER ONE

Beginning of

The End

I wanted to believe that I’d never have to worry about the hole again. I worked hard to be sure the contents of the hole would be well hidden. It would be many years before I would remember about the hole I had built in the field in my mind. But one day, I found myself wandering in the field and stumbled upon what was left of the plywood cover sealing the hole. I almost fell into the hole, as the cover had weathered over time, disintegrating, and exposing the abyss below. The words painted on the front of the plywood were not visible any longer due to weathering over time. When I caught my footing, I worked quickly to repair and strengthen the cover in the hopes that it would permanently seal the hole. I painted an extra word on top this time, in the hope that this new cover would be stronger than the last. When I had completed meticulously painting the words, the top of the cover now read ANXIETY and DEPRESSION with those words below Forget Lexington! With this new addition, I figured there was no way the cover would wear over time. When I was certain I had resealed the hole, I ran away without looking back as I felt that familiar panicky feeling. As I ran, drops of rain started hitting me as a passing storm was coming. The new wood cover with the new paint immediately started to wear and the paint would now smear down the cover into unreadable words.

◊ ◊ ◊

The first time I had a true panic attack was during one of my last final exams while attending Virginia Tech in the spring of 1990. I was taking the test, and all of a sudden I was short of breath. I felt like my heart was going to explode right out of my chest, and I was blurry eyed and shaking. I was not at all in control of my body any longer and felt the need to flee as quickly as possible. I ran from the room during the middle of the exam because I was sure I was going to vomit. A funny thing happened though. When I got to the bathroom, the panic subsided. Unfortunately, I recognized that feeling. It was the panic and dread that I used to feel as bullies surrounded me on the playground during my younger years. I would later learn that what was happening to my mind and body was called a panic attack. But at that moment, I was not mentally prepared to understand and had no familiarity with the term. When it ended as I calmed down in the bathroom, I went back in to my class and explained to the professor what happened. I sat back down, still feeling uncomfortable and wanting to run away. I was still shaking and trying to make sense of what had happened to me. I got through my test and handed it in. As I was leaving the class, I realized my professor might have understood what I was experiencing. It was my final exam in psychology class, and he probably knew from his own learning in the field that I’d had a panic attack. If he was aware of this, he didn’t say so. However, if he had, he might have spared me from the next twenty-four years of trying to figure out what had happened.

I discovered that people rarely share with each other that somewhere between eighteen to twenty percent of our population is suffering in silence with anxiety and depression at any given time. I would spend the next several years learning this lesson myself and wondering if it was just me.

My college years prior to this moment were great, as I spent four glorious years at Virginia Tech and immensely enjoyed that time in my life. I studied media communication, a subject I was passionate about, was the General Manager of our new student run TV station, VTTV, and spent three years in the Beta Omega chapter of the Theta Xi fraternity. I was not a social wallflower and certainly felt successful in both my academic life and my personal life. I had a very active social life and was even engaged to be married during my senior year to someone I met at college.

To be truthful, I was not ready to get married, but my one big flaw was that I had little confidence in myself when it came to relationships. I had some wonderful and caring girlfriends during my high school and college years but always felt that they were too good for someone like me. I always believed they could have done much better, as inside, I felt like a loser and weakling. I also had the problem of allowing myself to be attracted to any girl who paid attention to me. Little did I know at the time, this was really an issue of my self-esteem. I would cheat on almost all of my girlfriends with anyone of the female persuasion who paid me the slightest bit of attention. I had a strong need to feel liked and to feel wanted, and I felt that need was based on what others thought of me. In addition, I had the pain of my first love cheating on me with a good friend. Deep in me, I felt violated after this and lost perspective of what love should be. After cheating, I would feel so guilty about what I had done that I would stay up at night berating myself for my actions. I hated myself and truly thought that all of my problems could be solved if I could just be more likable. But I didn’t even like myself, so why would anyone else like me?

It was the wrong way to think, but, boy, it felt good at the time to be wanted by someone…anyone. I would later find out that this problem of attaching myself to anyone who paid any attention to me was a part of the damaged psyche that came about from my low self-esteem, my need to be wanted and to be viewed as perfect to the outside world. I didn’t love myself. I’m not sure that during my whole life I ever truly loved myself. So I would look for love and approval from the outside. I could also easily blame all of my problems on what was happening around me and not on myself. That served me well for a few years, but this kind of thinking was fleeting at best.

◊ ◊ ◊

The term beginning is a funny one to me because it seems as if we have many beginnings and many endings, not one, as many believe. For example, assuming you finish this book, you will see many beginnings, as well as endings, during the course of the story. This is somewhat ironic, but also so very common. I don’t believe that life is made up of only one journey but many journeys with several beginnings, middles, and endings. I learned that everything is temporary and that this too shall pass, whether good or bad. I didn’t used to think this way, and then, when one thing would go wrong, it would be devastating because it seemed like the end of my journey. I learned to allow my life to have many journeys and then could see the end of them and move on.

This new thinking helped me to understand how I acted at different points in my life’s journey. One of the great debates in the United States is when life begins. Some people argue that life begins at conception and from that moment on, you are a living human. Others argue that life begins upon birth as that is when the bonding experience between parent and child begins. This seems to be the argument that determines the worthiness and viability of a human life. More important to me are the experiences we have during the course of our lives and the lives we touch. Regardless of whether life begins at conception or birth, our self-worth is based on the experiences that we have during our lifetime and our social interactions.

I believe it is important for everyone to be able to tell the story of where we come from and where our lives began. If you have picked up this book, I am guessing you or someone you know is in the midst of some issue relating to the long-term effects of bullying or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), anxiety, and/or depression.

This book is not meant to be a guide for one particular situation but includes various strategies and coping skills that helped me on my path to recovery. These tools are ones I learned to enable me to see the ladder that would ultimately guide me out of the darkness into the light.

I have a story to tell deep inside my soul. I have actually been telling this story through social media from my Bullying Stories: The Long-Term Effects of Bullying (bullyinglte.wordpress.com) website since 2007. I thought that by releasing these terrible times, I would put them behind me. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I needed treatment and support for my own trauma, although I thought I was over it. It is like the saying from the Bible in Luke 4:23 Physician, heal thyself, meaning you must be healed to heal others. What happened instead is that I brought these memories back from a hidden place in my subconscious, which only yielded thoughts of misery and despair. I had never let go of what happened to me as a child, and it haunted me yet again. Once I discovered that I needed help, I had to step back and reflect upon my life, realize how I got to this point, and help others through their pain. This book is my story and hopefully a resource for those suffering from the effects of long-term bullying, anxiety, and depression.

These issues are treatable, and none of us has to suffer alone. Back in 2007, when this particular journey through the long-term effects of my own bullying recovery started, it took me some time to realize that I needed to go through my own recovery. This is the story of my being bullied as a child, leading to my C-PTSD; what I know happens to many survivors of bullying; and how I learned to put the past in the past and move forward with my life. It can get better, if you only let it.

CHAPTER TWO

Under the Surface

Of a Life

The origin of why I dug the hole in my mind is complicated, as are many things in our lives. Childhood is the first time when we learn how to deal with our feelings. We learn that there are good feelings we want to remember, and there are bad feelings we want to forget. One day I was thinking, Wouldn’t it be cool if I could find a way to take my bad feelings and get rid of them forever? That way, they wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore. I didn’t think that it would matter if I never thought about those bad feelings again. After all, childhood is supposed to be a happy time, or so I thought. So I started to plan in my head the means to put my bad feelings somewhere far away. If I could do that, then I would be able to make my life happy and find a way to move forward. I began my search for the perfect container to