Growing Up and the Things that Once Defined Us

When I was in sixth grade, there was a boy who bullied me every single day – for being Asian. 

I’ll give you some background information, but what I really want to focus on was the bullying itself, how I responded to it, and how it affected me for the rest of my life.

I had always wondered what would happen if I ever saw my bully; if I would talk to him, if I would tell him how he has been a huge part of my life. I wondered if he would care, or if he would just ask me why I was telling him all of this.

I would later learn that a small change in perspective would make all the difference. 

If you have any experience with harboring anger and resentment towards someone because of how they treated you, I want you to keep reading. If you have ever been hurt and survived, and worn the resulting battle scars like a badge of honor, you’re going to want to keep reading. 

Before School..

This story has its complexities because there is the fact that I didn’t grow up with my Asian side of the family. My caucasian mother, who was known to make racist comments every now and then, and yes, even against Asian people, led me to believe that my family wasn’t available to me. In fact, my mom always got weird whenever I mentioned being Asian; it was like she never wanted to admit that I’m half-Asian. She would always refer to me as White, and if I tried to claim my Vietnamese, she would guilt me and somehow bring the story back to herself. Confusing, because me being half-Asian was her choice. Either way, I never learned any cultural pride, and I was also the only Asian kid in my whole school at the time. 

Circa 2002..

I hated waking up in the morning. My alarm would go off and I would open my eyes to a cold room, covered in blackness and an annoying sound that didn’t help. I knew what was ahead of me every day; I had to go to school, be surrounded by all of those kids, and feel so alone. My bully, we’ll call him Mike, was in my class in sixth grade. 

At first he was super nice to me, he even asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes, and although we didn’t talk outside of class, I guess that made me his girlfriend. I remember right after agreeing to his proposal, thinking to myself, ‘if he’s my boyfriend, shouldn’t he be sitting with me?’. He didn’t treat me any differently and then shortly after that, he started being mean to me. He had set me up to fall as hard as he could make me.  It’s funny, I don’t remember details of exactly how it started, I just remember being in class and Mike making comments out loud about Susan and being Chinese. 

I’m not Chinese by the way, I’m English, Irish and Vietnamese. That’s important.

It’s true when they say you don’t always remember what someone said, but you remember how they made you feel. I wanted to compile a list of examples for this post, but the truth is, when I look back, all I can see is his face and blurred faces of kids around him laughing. I see him sitting at his desk with a smirk on his face because he just made a stupid, racist comment about me being Chinese. I remember my skin as my body responded to being stared at like an animal through the glass. I remember his body language as he approached other kids in class and the feeling of realizing more people had become okay with treating me this way. 

I remember seeing a graham cracker, meant for my head, crash into the chalkboard right next to my face, as I was drawing during free time. I remember seeing duck sauce packets land on my desk and the loud roar of the classroom on that day; I had to be ejected, because my teacher couldn’t get the students to calm down.

I couldn’t stop him from acting the way that he did. Anything I said to him was just twisted against me and only made it worse.

There was a girl in my class that wanted to cash in on this opportunity for attention as well, let’s call her Amy. She and Mike would team up at times, making sure I was aware of how I didn’t belong, how they didn’t like me and that no one else did either. 

I remember walking across the gymnasium floor, literally just trying to get from one side to the other and minding my own business, when a group of girls got my attention. Amy was sitting next to the girl who did the talking but what was shouted to me was: 

“Susan!”

And I looked, 

“Nobody likes you.”

And it was silent. I, as an eleven year old girl, unfortunately just stood there and said “okay..”

That was her cue to keep the conversation going, she said 

“We were all just talking about how we prefer Amy over you.”

And they all stared at me.

And I walked away.

And I never forgot that moment.

By the end of the school year I had finally gone to the principal and on the last day of school – which was a miss on the administration’s part – the principal finally talked to me. 

She made me write a list of everything he had said and done to bully me. I gave it to her, and nothing else was ever said or done. My teachers saw what was happening, and not one person ever stood up for me. 

Back then, I felt so alone. I hated myself, generally speaking, and I certainly hated that I was Asian. Those interactions made me feel like I was an alien and that there was something inherently wrong with me because of my ethnicity. 

Thankfully, Mike stopped, and the bullying was isolated to sixth grade with the occasional racist remark here and there throughout high school.

It was as if the lights came on and everyone went back to business as usual, but I was still standing there dumbfounded – no one told me they were done with me. For survival, I just had to go with the flow and pretend that nothing ever happened.

That experience shaped me. It defined me in a lot of ways. 

I let it hold me back and I let it scare me into thinking it might happen again.

I let it get between me and any feelings of love or esteem I might feel for myself. I assumed all the other people I met in my life were judging me for being Asian. Before anything, I assumed that other people noticed my “Asian-ness” and I hoped they wouldn’t let it bother them. 

I let it be my baseline for how I interacted with others, always vigilant for a racist remark or a sign that I had met another bully. Always shamefully aware of my dark skin and hair, and feeling so removed from those around me.

A little while later..

When I got to my freshman year of college, I had made so many friends. I was excited and enthusiastic for a chance to start anew.

One day as I was sitting at our student table, one of my friends came over and sat down across from me. My friend was pleasant and happy to see me, and he looked me in the eyes and smiled. I could feel – friendship, acceptance and love, emanating from his face. This person was my friend. 

It was at that moment that I realized I needed to talk to someone; I was making friends, I was being loved, and I wanted to be able to be there and receive that love from others.

In my first session, I told the therapist about what happened when I was eleven years old, and how, in the seven years since then, I would bully myself. I told her about how I would be around other people and in my head, make racist remarks to myself, and remind myself of how inadequate I was. I wanted to get to the pain before someone else had the chance to; I was absolutely terrified of being blindsided. I also told her about what prompted me to start therapy, and that I was struggling to accept that someone would accept me. 

The therapist explained that the eleven year old girl that I was at that time, was following me around. She told me to not let the girl around me, that girl had no business with me anymore. 

It really helped, I banished my eleven year old self and my self-deprecation and self-loathing diminished significantly. Making friends, and having that acceptance also really helped, I joined a sorority, was sweetheart of a fraternity and was even on homecoming court. Receiving love from others helped me heal quite a bit, albeit, not entirely. 

As the years went on, I would try to let go, little by little of the pain that I carried with me, the messages I had received of not being enough, and the fear of feeling that way again. I struggled with my sense of identity and how I felt about my own ethnicity. I would try to accept myself as much as I could, and eventually started acknowledging my ethnicity.  In the beginning I would make self-deprecating jokes, in an effort to move forward. I hoped that if I could laugh about it, that might be the first step. 

Fifteen years had passed, and I was now living in California. I’ve always felt like I belonged in California and one of the things I appreciate so much about living here is the diversity. I absolutely love walking somewhere and not being the only brown person for miles. I love seeing all the different cultures from all over the world, together, and no one gives it a second look. I love seeing other Asian people, Latin people, Middle-Eastern people, and noticing our beautiful differences – and similarities. 

It was around this time that I came to terms with my ethnicity; no one was actively reminding me of how different I was. My now husband has always been super accepting and supportive of me, and our relationship has helped me to ease into accepting myself. I finally felt calm and safe enough to get used to being okay with myself.  

And Now We Move Up to the Present Day..

After I hit my thirties, my fear of being on the receiving end of racism had leveled out. I was always aware of my ethnicity, although finally at the point where if someone made a comment, it wouldn’t completely ruin my day. 

I would look back on how I survived that period of my life, and feel proud. I would feel accomplished. I had made it this far away from the time I had most hated, from my lowest point. 

By now, it was more of something that I brought up in conversation, if applicable. “Yeah, I was bullied so badly in middle school, they had to pull me out of the classroom because they couldn’t get all the kids to calm down and leave me alone”. 

I wore that experience like a badge of honor. I had survived. 

It wasn’t until very recently that I went back home to Ohio to visit my family for my sister’s birthday and for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t been home in a few years, and it was the first time I had gone back since I had restarted therapy, and began making big changes in my life. 

At 34 years old, I am a different person. I have a new understanding of life, and people, and myself. I’ve learned about myself, my mind and my personality. I’ve come to accept myself, flaws, quirks, talents, and yes – my ethnicity. 

When you go home after so long, you get to see things differently. I was so happy to see all the changes in my hometown, and meet all of my sister’s friends and her new co-workers. I also got a little nostalgic one evening, sitting at my sister’s kitchen table – and I wondered about the kids I graduated with. I was just interested in whatever it was I could find on the internet, and I was curious to see how different everyone would look. 

I got on Instagram and typed in any random name that came to mind. I saw lots of wedding pictures, and some bad plastic surgery. I saw these people I used to know, now much older and in different parts of the world. I looked at photos of girls who I didn’t like in high school and who were mean to me, and noticed that I didn’t feel any way at all towards them anymore. I didn’t feel that uncomfortable, scared feeling in my chest at the thought of these people. I was just curious and excited to see them.

In addition to seeing the differences in kids I knew from highschool – seeing my mom as an elderly person was also an experience that gave me a new perspective. I think realizing that we’re all getting older helped in my understanding of people from my hometown. 

Then I thought of Mike. 

I looked him up and he still looks the same, although with a few more pounds.

And all of a sudden, it didn’t matter anymore. 

None of it mattered, the things that happened that once defined who I was as a person, and how I saw myself in the mirror. I felt it leave me like water rushing out of a dam.

I realized that I was harboring so much pain, and anger and resentment for an eleven year old boy who no longer existed. Mike is now a grown man, in his mid-30’s. He’s no longer the little boy that shouted things at me from his desk, and I’m no longer the little girl that didn’t know what to say. 

I carried that experience around with me for 20 years, now I’m finally free from it. 

‘Mike’, if you ever read this, this post is for you. 

And I forgive you.