October, 1997
Growing up with scoliosis was rough. My mom tried to make it easier for me by putting me in a private, Christian school, but it still was far from perfect. I was "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Igor" and every other hurtful name the boys could think of, and they'd stick an arm up under their shirt to imitate the lump on my back, and walk hunched over to mock me. Many, many days I went home in tears, and said I never wanted to go back.
Eventually, one of the boys took the teasing way too far... I had gone to the nurse with a bad stomach ache, and she put me in "sick bay" which was this tiny cubicle with two matresses end-to-end and a bunch of books for sick kids to lay down until they felt better or until their parents came after them.
Well, my worst 'enemy' -- the boy who teased me the most -- came walking into sick bay and climbed up onto the other mattress. I laid down and pretended to go to sleep, and I guess that I must have. Some time later, the school nurse came in and said there was a presentation going on in the school chapel, and if we felt like it, we should attend. Well, I got down and started looking for my shoes (orthopedic shoes, because of my back and my narrow feet), and I could only find one. I asked the boy to help me find the other, and so he got down and started 'hunting'.
He wound up back in the boys' bathroom and called out that he had found my shoe. I told him to bring it out, but he said no that I had to come get it. The boys' bathroom was just a one-room thing, and so I went back there and went in to get my shoe (stupid, stupid, stupid). He was standing there, waiting, exposed.
He had my shoe, and he said he wouldn't give it to me unless I exposed myself to him, but I refused and he threatened to tell on me that I'd gone into the boy's bathroom when he was in there using it and so on. I don't remember exactly what happened... I wouldn't give in, and I eventually got my shoe back, but I never forgot that day, either, and I started to be even more wary and nervous around boys my age.
My nemesis left after sixth grade (I think that's when he pulled his little stunt), and I heard a rumor that he'd been found to have leukemia, but I don't know if this was true or not. Either way, I never heard from him again. Eventually, I outgrew the private school, which only went through Junior High. My mom and I were on our own, and she really couldn't afford the private High School, so I had to enroll in public school.
I was scared of going because I thought that since the private school was so bad, life in public school would be even worse. Fortunately, I turned out to be wrong, and I made some real friends in high school. The only teasing I had problems with was from the Junior Highers, and I'd learned to ignore them for the most part. It still hurt, but I managed to hide it.
More to come... I'm still trying to get everything (including my thoughts) organized... I'll post things as I have them ready.
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