Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and my thoughts.
Warning, this is some deep shit!
You have been warned!
I have just stayed up all night binging a series on Netflix, called 13 Reasons Why. Before I go off on my tangent, watch this series. Just loved it, but it also opened my eye.
It inspired me and clicked on a switch that hasn’t thought about for a long time. This blog is about to put away my book and talk about bullying, and its effects on people; that person is me.
I don’t tell people this often, but I have a fantastic memory, well it can be subjective sometimes, but I can close my eyes and remember past events from bygone years. I remember watching the Incredible Hulk, the 1980’s television show with my brother Steven while I was two or three, the time I swallowed a marble and then rushed to the hospital and the time I was my brother’s lookout while he let off fireworks. Well, the lookout is too strong a word, being three at the time I thought I just watch for people not warning my brother about our mother busting him. Fun times.
I can recall the abuse I suffered at the hands of my step-mother. The beatings, the starvation, the humiliation, and of course suffocation. I also can remember the police putting us (my sister and me) first into a hospital and then on to a foster home, where a fellow foster child sexually assaulted me.
Now, this is depressing; I should know I suffer from depression but stay with me I have a point.
Now primary school, from age seven to ten, were the best years of my life! (that was until I wrote Lake Merrin) Was back home with my mother and now new step-father (I have a few thing to say about him later). Friends were good, the teacher was understanding, and it was a real life. So much support. That was until we moved to Kingston in Tasmania.
That was my first time I have experienced bullying since all those years ago. It was like five years, but at that point, it was half of my life. The first day, while I had a tour of the school, every kid and I mean everyone insulted me. It was the same insult, fat-ollie. Now I am fat, I know I am fat, I see myself daily naked, I know what fat is. Being told you are fat is a whole different kettle of fish. I wish they were more original, I mean fat-ollie. After that I used to challenge people to think of a better insult, it gets old fast. Sometimes you just must stand up and own your shit!
It got worse when I went to high school. And I don’t want to explain what happened but it wasn’t just the school it was home as well. At the age of 13, my step-father told me and over the next few year told me, again and again, I was useless and not his son. Fuck you, Bernie! Nearly killed myself several times over my teenage years when it just was too much. Why did I stop? Because I have an imagination, can picture the aftermath of said act. I couldn’t do that to people, and I didn’t want to be weak. So I endured and endured. Survived shutting off my emotions, took me years to turn them back on. I wish I can’t remember these things, but I do and will for the rest of my life.
Bullying and abuse, such lovely words. What do people want? Hearing this anti-bullying system, how that will stop all this. Sorry to say, no it does not. Looking down at others is what people do. I am guilty of this when I was younger, but the older I got, the more I realised that as the old saying goes ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. Poetic. This show made sad that this happened, happens and will be happening after I post this blog. What can we do? First off, stop the bullshit! Second, learn from different people, cultures, religions and view them in a different light. Thirdly be kind, be accepting, be welcoming, be human. We are not monsters; we are better than that.
