YOU'RE MY SUPERHERO: Being You is the Best Kind of Superpower

By Lauren Kay

Bullying is an ongoing crisis across the nation, affecting one out of every four young people. Lauren Kay's gritty and thought-provoking memoir aims to bring attention to bullying and open the door for those who are or have been targeted to gain a voice. Dive into Lauren's story as she shares her painful experiences from the relentless bullying

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638376606

Lauren Kay

Lauren Kay lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Sneezy, her husband, and her daughter. She graduated from Brown with a degree in American civilization and a focus in love and relationships (seriously). We Ship It is her debut novel, and you can find Lauren at laurenkaywrites.com.

Book preview

First Things First

T

his honestly is scary yet exhilarating for me. I am about to dive back to a place in my life that took me years to work through with years of therapy, years to forgive, and years to move on from that painful identity for me- a bullied kid. Yup, that's right, that was who I identified myself as for most of my life, that was how I interacted with and filtered my world. I am not going to lie; I have the fear of judgement and have some anxiety that this book idea will be laughed at because I was always laughed at in the past. While I can manage those triggers now, the scars are still there from the condescending words, betrayal, and social isolation I encountered even a decade ago.

Now, everyone has those fears to an extent, as the fear of being judged or abandoned or not needed is embedded into the core of our being. Most people have experienced a situation or event in their life that has made these feelings stronger, more alive. A consequence of bullying is that demons become your friend not your worst nightmare, occasional anxious thoughts become deafening, and the fear of not being wanted is your truth.

Needless to say, my experience does not trump other experiences, and while I explain what used to be my living hell, it does not mean other traumatic experiences matter less. What may be important to me may not be important to the next person. While explaining my story, I am not disregarding other stories or making a competition of who has had the worst bullying experiences. That honestly is my pet peeve when people do that. Pain is not a competition and trauma should not be a trophy. I am hoping that I am speaking in the place for hundreds of others, but each story is unique, and each crisis is individualized. As you read my story, think of everyone who is reading this book possibly at the very second you are reading it and what their reality is. My story may connect with you in different ways, as your life experience(s) or trauma is completely different than mine. Mine was bullying, maybe yours was sexual assault or a form of abuse, so take each piece, each feeling, as it best fits your story. As you become mindful of my pain, my struggles, and my victories, be mindful of others.

Ever heard the saying, We are our worst critic? I definitely am, especially with truly acknowledging how far I have come after struggling with depression and social anxiety for many years. Heck, I still get surprise visits from them; most of the time the visits are at unwelcomed and inconvenient times. At that point, you just got to roll with it and do your best to cope. When you are put down by an oppressor or a bully (or bullies), the belief in yourself is completely stolen, robbed so effortlessly from your soul and from your future. The worst part is, all you can do is watch and prepare for the emotional pain- and I mean literal pain- that comes next. The only question is how long will it last this time, how much will it hurt today?

See, many people are ignorant, and it is not always on purpose, but they do not always realize the consequences bullied people feel years after someone makes the choice to destroy another person. Each simple task becomes a defining moment in your life, and if it fails, you are a failure. We have been bogged down by a coward's thumb for so long, we forget how to stand upright and that we can walk on our own.

I was always blamed for my own reactions and my own feelings; it was always my fault and never theirs. I blamed myself. If only I wasn’t being so sensitive, or I couldn’t take a joke. Maybe you get that too. Maybe you are always the problem or at least that is how they make you feel. That is how they get an advantage over you, by turning everything back to you so they don’t have to held responsible or feel guilty for what they are doing. It's like everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world becomes distorted, flipped upside down. If they gaslight you enough, it is so easy to fall into their beliefs, which only encourages them to keep doing what they are doing to you.

While many of us rise and reach amazing new heights, we still have one link from the chains of our past stuck to us like a keychain. A souvenir displaying the pain we once endured, but how we then indeed did learn to stand again. Even when we try to not hate on ourselves like we were taught to do we still, well….do. It becomes this automatic response, this switch that somehow becomes our safety. If we are hard on ourselves first, the pain of being criticized will be less. And just like that, we get swooped into a chaotic cycle that we become slaves too because we must survive.

Let me back up a little bit to when I wrote, ‘Hate on ourselves like we were taught to do.’ Maybe you are thinking, "How can someone teach you to hate the human being you were created to be?. Especially in a society and the time in history today where we believe in having control and flexibility to control our fate. Or maybe you are thinking, Wow, how can you just let someone control your mind like that? You must be some push over." Trust me, it is not a choice. Frankly, it is torture knowing you should be strong enough to stop someone else's opinion of you from altering your thoughts and behaviors, yet you are watching yourself crumble with every word. Essentially, you watch your soul wither away and eventually kiss goodbye who you used to be because you never fully get you back. I do not care how strong or successful of a person you are, putting someone down for your own personal gain is just as destructive as any weapon.

Now, take everything I just said and picture a six-year-old girl, blonde hair, blue eyes, glasses. From kindergarten to about the junior year of high school, she was taught to hate herself. She had many cowardly thumbs crushing her with every step forward she finally could take. She watched her little soul be poisoned with lies that would soon be her truth. I soon became my worst critic in everything: how I spoke, how many questions I asked in school, what I wore, how often I was too funny or not funny enough. Did my shoes make me look like an idiot or did I not look like an idiot enough?

Imagine what those young years are normally filled with and what do you think of? You probably are picturing a girl who ran around on the playground playing some sort of princess game, or a girl who couldn’t wait for tomorrows art project because she gets to see her friends and has no care in the world right? Or a girl playing with her Barbies on the weekend because at that age, you have zero responsibilities, or very few. Quite the opposite for me. Although I played with my toys and had a lot of fun, I dreaded going to school and playing on the playground, and I made sure my parents knew that. The playground was not a space for me to play games, I became the game for them.

My mom had told me a few years after all the chaos, something that had changed her life; her six-year-old daughter wanted to kill herself. She had told me how I had mentioned to her that I wanted to use the kitchen knives to hurt myself. At that time, YouTube and videos regarding how to kill yourself were not out there yet. Suicide was not really talked about, as the late 1990's and early 2000's was a time when we acknowledged mental health, but certainly did not always talk about its severity as much as we have in recent years. This brings me to my question, how does a six-year-old know how to hurt themselves to the point of death? How can a carefree stage of life bring a little kid to the point of breaking?

One word.

Bullying.

To lay down some basic concepts, there are three kinds of bullying: physical, verbal, and emotional. Physical being that the target is being violently attacked, shoved, hit, etc. (PACER,2021). Verbal bullying is when the bullies criticize or excessively tease the target (PACER,2021). Third, emotional bullying includes social isolation, negative body language toward the target, to mock intentionally, etc. (PACER,2021).

All of these are done purposely and with a motive to destroy or put down their target. This is for the bullies to gain power and control of another human being. I want to point out, teasing and bullying are two separate concepts. Teasing is not consistent, and while hurtful and a behavior that can cause stress for the other(s) involved, it is not necessarily traumatic. Bullying is persistent and relentless, almost as if the people become addicted to behaving this way.

Me? Well, I had encountered cyberbullying (later in my life) and emotional bullying throughout my school years. I was ignored by my classmates and teachers, I was teased constantly, taken advantage of to do stupid things just for social acceptance, bargaining for a seat at the lunch table. If you really think about it, that is a lot for a six-year-old to handle, yet alone any human being. I was just beginning my life and I had already begun contemplating if my life was worth something. I grew up in a Christian home, so at a young age I was learning that God loved me and how He had a plan for me, but even still, I felt invaluable.

Starting from kindergarten, certain teachers seemed to just plain dislike me. I was a hyper kid and talked a lot, I will give them that. I also bounced around a lot (nothing has changed to how I am now by the way, sorry fam), but I wasn’t a bad kid. I remember at the first elementary school I attended before switching schools, whenever I walked up to teachers or raised my hand because I was super confused on what we were doing, it didn’t end well for me. I can vividly tell you how it ended: they either scoffed and turned their backs, ignored me, or made some critical remark about if only I were like the other kids. I was devastated especially after it had happened countless times throughout that school year. I eventually stopped asking for help in class and my grades soon dropped.

Teachers at my old elementary school blamed me during conferences. I remember my parents did the right thing that parents should do, go to the teacher and ask for a solution on my bad math grade. I was sitting off to the side, and I overheard how I was the one who had to change to succeed in school or else I’d fail. At the same conference, my mom brought up how I was being teased. Once again, if I would just change who I was, I would fit in. I was the one who asked for it. I was the one making a big deal because ‘they never saw the incidents occur’ or ‘kids were just joking around’. This was not only told to my parents, but this was also told to me whenever I would