Being the Weird Kid [tm] at every school I landed in (military brat), I hear you. I walked away. I buried my nose in stacks of books. I learned a lot, but that didn't stop me from being the target of physical, then psychological bullying. I walked away, but my parents wanted me to fight back. They could not understand that I was afraid that if I resorted to violence, even once, I would never stop. I learned how to redirect my anger and fear responses in Aikido class, where I learned to use my opponent's energy against them- to literally spin them to the ground.
When someone is visibly different, it frightens certain people, who respond with fear that they express in anger and violence. It's like the different one is an affront to their very existence, or an existential threat. In my observations, it is the dominant people in the dominant culture who tend to act most violently towards differences- be they racial, sexual, or cultural.
Frank Herbert wrote in "Dune" that "fear is the mind-killer". It really is. I had to learn to do a bit of mental Aikido on my own fears, and turn them into the ground, or let them just pass through me, like in the "Litany Against Fear". I gravitate towards fellow outliers- be they neurodiverse, differently gendered, or some combination. For me, it isn't the container, it's the contents.
I wrote this piece and had to walk away from it after publishing, but your thoughts here have brought me back. It feels like the experience of being targeted is pretty ubiquitous for those of us who are "outliers." Maybe that's why we gravitate toward one another. Sometimes I wish for a simple way to find others like myself, maybe a nametag color that could identify someone as "fringe" versus "mainstream." But what would I miss by not getting to know the people who didn't get bullied or othered? Are there parts of their stories that are more like mine than we realize?
Being the Weird Kid [tm] at every school I landed in (military brat), I hear you. I walked away. I buried my nose in stacks of books. I learned a lot, but that didn't stop me from being the target of physical, then psychological bullying. I walked away, but my parents wanted me to fight back. They could not understand that I was afraid that if I resorted to violence, even once, I would never stop. I learned how to redirect my anger and fear responses in Aikido class, where I learned to use my opponent's energy against them- to literally spin them to the ground.
When someone is visibly different, it frightens certain people, who respond with fear that they express in anger and violence. It's like the different one is an affront to their very existence, or an existential threat. In my observations, it is the dominant people in the dominant culture who tend to act most violently towards differences- be they racial, sexual, or cultural.
Frank Herbert wrote in "Dune" that "fear is the mind-killer". It really is. I had to learn to do a bit of mental Aikido on my own fears, and turn them into the ground, or let them just pass through me, like in the "Litany Against Fear". I gravitate towards fellow outliers- be they neurodiverse, differently gendered, or some combination. For me, it isn't the container, it's the contents.
I wrote this piece and had to walk away from it after publishing, but your thoughts here have brought me back. It feels like the experience of being targeted is pretty ubiquitous for those of us who are "outliers." Maybe that's why we gravitate toward one another. Sometimes I wish for a simple way to find others like myself, maybe a nametag color that could identify someone as "fringe" versus "mainstream." But what would I miss by not getting to know the people who didn't get bullied or othered? Are there parts of their stories that are more like mine than we realize?