Adrienne Elizabeth Jones

This wonderful blog chronicles the ups and downs of a mother raising a child with hypomania (a type of psychosis involving hyperactivity and hallucinations, among other things), but is not limited to that--you get a sense of her family life as a whole and her thoughts about this human life, and she comes across as very lovely and I wish her family so well. Actually, though, I came to the site via a Jezebel repost, a long essay she wrote about bullying, but I've decided to add the whole blog as opposed to the single essay/entry (I'm still figuring out how I want to organize this stuff). It was so genuine and affecting, and echoes a lot of the things I've been reflecting on lately re childhood: how do grownups let bullying happen? How do they say it's just kids' stuff and they'll grow out of it? It's unbelievable! Imagine if every day at work the guy in the next cubicle came over, pulled your underwear over your head and tormented you, all "Youre a fag, right? Right?" in that horrible nasal voice (a nasalized, strident, pharyngealized voice, to be precise, if the phonetics knowledge I've acquired between now and then doesn't let me down) they all had, at least in my day. Imagine you lived in fear and the police didn't care and everyone told you to stand up for yourself and punch the guy in the next cubicle. But you know he's going to be waiting in front of your house. Grownups fail kids so hard and we should be ashamed, and do better. From the essay:


"What my bullies taught me:I don't matter. My suffering is not important.I am socially unacceptable, worthy only of rejection.I'm weak, a loser, destined to be a social bottom-feeder, or worse, absolutely alone.The best I can hope for, in my relationships with others, is to be left alone.I am a fundamentally unlikeable person.


What the adults taught me:I'm unworthy of help.To identify or talk about a problem is to whine or feel sorry for myself.When I ask for help, I will not get it.The way other people behave toward me, no matter how bad, is my fault. I am a fundamentally unlikeable person."


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