CHILDHOOD BULLING AND THE ART OF BEING HIGHLY SENSITIVE

I’ve never been a believer in fate or karma. If I was to draw life, it would look like the lines of a heartbeat on a cardiograph. We plug our hearts in each day, and the highs and lows it follows on paper are what we experience in real life. We are our own heart beats. Sometimes life is high and sometimes it is low. That’s it….to me there is no deeper meaning.

My 11 year old daughter, Abbie, is sitting on the edge of the sofa crying. She looks at the floor and says to me “Mum, I don’t want to be here anymore”.

The words of a young girl who still wants to live, but doesn’t know how to cope with the things she is facing.

I spent the whole of Year 6 (last year in primary school) to Year 9 (half way through secondary) trying to understand exactly where Abbie’s feelings of despair were coming from. I knew she was struggling with friendships in primary school, but there was more going on than that. It wasn’t just teen angst or puberty. The situation was made complicated by the fact she was taking a contraceptive pill for medical reasons; one of the known side effects being anxiety and depression. When working that bit out, I dug out my ‘Mum Scales’ and weighed up the benefits of being on it against the problems she’d have coming off it. She stayed on it! That was a very muddling time.

The day I received a phone call from Abbie’s counsellor confirming her struggles were due to bullying, I got my dog and we walked up to Corbar Cross (one of the highest points in Buxton). It’s always really windy at the top. I stood on my own, looking at the view over the town, and screamed as hard as I could. I swore at and cursed the people who had hurt her, and cried for my girl. The wind that day was a huge comfort. Without it I would have felt even more alone in that moment.

I had a reason I could work with now.

15 years ago, a counsellor told me that roughly 20% of the population are ‘highly sensitive’. These people are genetically pre-disposed to strong feelings of empathy towards others, and are exceptionally tuned in to their environment.

Highly sensitive people are often very creative and compassionate towards others. I used to be highly sensitive, and my daughter is exactly the same. When I look at her, I see how I was.

Abbie feels her emotions deeply. If we fall out, she is beside herself questioning everything I have said. If we are having fun together, she will belly laugh and get excited. She is extremely aware of her surroundings; often becoming distressed by loud noises and too many people around her. She can only spend a short time with her friends before getting tired. She feels agitated by the annoying boy that deliberately breathes on her in class.

My girl knows her own mind. Whatever she decides to do with her future, I think it will be working to help others. She will reap huge personal rewards in a job like that.

Abbie was born with double vision which distorted the things she was looking at. She couldn’t focus well, and found reading tricky. She used to fall over a lot on walks. There was a time when Abbie’s knees looked like a tomato pizza base.

She found it hard to read the board at school. If she was looking into your eyes, you would notice her right eye focussing on you, and her left eye slightly off to the left.

Every parent sends their child to school hoping they will be happy. We hope they make friends, behave themselves, do their work, eat their dinner and like their teachers. When a child starts school, we lose control of the environment we put them into. They are now in the hands of others.

Being aware of the learning challenges Abbie was facing with her eyesight, I was always checking in with school to make sure she had the right equipment and sitting close to the blackboard. All teachers knew about her vision troubles.

I’ve lost count of the amount of Optometrist appointments we went to. The examinations (done by lovely Katy) were designed to measure how well Abbie could control her squint. There were lots, but one stands out to me. Katy held a plastic small ‘ladder’ in front of Abbie’s eye, each rung with varying degrees of lens strength. In the other hand, she held an ice lolly stick (pretty sure there’s a better medical name for it) with a small image at the top. This was further back from Abbie’s face than the ladder! The aim of the game is to start at the top rung, whilst looking at the lolly stick. Rung one is easy, as the lens is small. Then, Katy moves down a rung and the lenses get bigger so the eye has to work harder to control the muscle.

I knew what was coming “Abbie, look at the bear and as I move down, let me know if you see two bears”. Sometimes Katy would hold one chart up and say, “Abbie, let me know if you see two charts”. I had to stop myself from laughing at that one (sorry Abbie). Two charts seemed really funny to me. Double vision must be awful.

Abbie was picked-on throughout her whole time in primary school. It started because she wasn’t able to control her eye movement. Children would stare out of curiosity, and ask her what was wrong. She was singled out as an easy target. Looking back, I think she coped with those years well.

Over the last few months, Abbie has spoken of significant memories of being bullied. After having corrective surgery for her squint, she was so upset to discover rumours going around school saying she was making her eye problems up, and there was nothing wrong with her. Covert bullying at it’s most hurtful.

Years 5 & 6 were the worst school years. She’d had the same friendship group of girls since Year 1, but, to people on the outside looking in, things were not as friendly as they seemed. I knew my girl was struggling with friendships because she was always questioning them to me.

It’s hard to spot and stop covert bullying. It takes a child about 3 seconds to change from whispering a nasty comment into another child’s ear to a beaming smile for the approaching teacher. Despite my going into school to talk to teachers, nothing changed.

If Abbie hadn’t been in Year 6 I would have moved her to a new school. I had already decided she would be going to a different secondary school to these girls, otherwise it would have been a frying pan to fire scenario. That was the best decision I ever made.

On one occasion, when discussing the problems we were facing, I was told by Abbie’s class teacher “Year 6 are the best group I’ve ever had”. The problem wasn’t “Year 6”; it was three girls, to Abbie.

When a child is bullied by people they see as friends, it unbalances everything they thought they were. The layers of confidence built by parents are slowly stripped away, exposing self-doubt, fear and sadness. She was ganged up on, belittled, ignored, ridiculed, singled out, undermined and criticized.

To a highly sensitive child, these are dangerous and damaging actions that I fear are everlasting.

I’m not sure who invented Anti-bullying week in school. What I do know is we all have more chance of spotting Mozart chugging along in a tractor, than we do of ever stopping covert bullying in schools.

There was nothing I could have done to stop this happening to Abbie. I don’t have feelings of guilt for that. I do still have feelings of anger, though. I have been a single Mum to my two children for 10 years now, juggling a good business and family. I’m not really sure how I haven’t lost the plot myself these last few years, because there is nobody else in my life that fully shares the difficulties we have faced. How could there be?

Two years after moving onto a new school, Abbie received apologies from all three girls through an Instagram message. The only affect that had on the both of us, was to re-inforce the fact that it happened.

My boyfriend, a rufty-tufty farmer with old school values, wanted so many times to teach Abbie to box! It worked for him in school. I tried to warm to this alternative solution, but told him there was no chance Abbie would be planting her fists on anybody, anytime soon. Man who would like to remain anonymous, you have taught me a lot about life, and toughened me up. I love you.

Whether you are highly sensitive or not, a physical punch hurts, but so do words. It is possible to feel physical pain when somebody hurts you emotionally. I have felt it.

Present day

Abbie is told she is suffering from trauma. It is the type of trauma that has given her years of insomnia, vivid nightmares and audible hallucinations. We are not sure yet if this is a type of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know Abbie has wanted a ‘diagnosis’ for a long time.

Audible hallucinations, or ‘hearing voices’ can occur as a result of trauma. Abbie’s hallucinations come and go, and are worse when she is feeling anxious. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but I see little kids brains as being like a soft, open sponge. Whatever they encounter gets soaked in and shapes the way they grow up. Abbie and her counsellor are working together to dig into her mind and try to repair the damage caused by years of abuse.

This girl is a fighter. She is a peer mentor and prefect in Secondary school – something I am super proud of. Since turning 15 she has many opinions on lots of things. I am told off for laughing at inappropriate situations, and reminded that I don’t watch enough news. She will be okay.

Abbie has a superb group of friends now. They seem to get on most of the time! She finds it hard to trust people which rocks the boat now and again, but things seem to right themselves. Her friends love her and accept her for what she is. As she does with them.

As a final thought, I want to emphasise the importance of teaching children that every person is different. What one child finds upsetting, the next may not notice. What some find funny, others will see as disrespectful.
Is it possible to teach children how to be kind, or are situations like ours inevitable? Let’s face it, bullying in all forms has been going on since the beginning of time.

Do we need to pop psychology into the Year 1 curriculum in it’s most basic form, and carry it through to Year 11?

These are questions I don’t have the answers to, and after writing this haven’t got the strength to think about.

Thank you for all who have taken time to read our story.

Sending my deepest love to every struggling child. You are worth every beat of your heart.

Jane