Taking Bully Shaming To A New Level

Posted on November 19, 2012 by ashersmom

Bully Shaming

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this post.

It was the end of Bully Prevention Month and seeing all the PSAs and activities all month sort of triggered me.

I realized that, although I don’t walk around thinking about the fact that some guy taunted me by calling me JAWS when I was a kid, I do still carry the scars. I still cover the lower half of my face when I laugh. I still try not to smile too big in photos. I still try to suck in my cheeks sometimes.

So I decided to purge myself of that by bully shaming.

And it felt soooo good.

In the days that followed, I got to read bully shaming stories from quite a few other people.

Ninja Mom was dragged, facedown, around a baseball field.

Brenna at Suburban Snaps found a great way to tell her bullies to kiss her ass.

Honest Mom turned the tables on her bully.

Ashley at It’s Fitting shared the story of a miserable year in Junior High school.

Stephanie of Binkies & Briefcases got the very best kind of revenge.

Dani at Cloudy With A Chance Of Wine was terrorized by a group of girls that made “Mean Girls” look like a church choir.

Lea at Becoming Supermommy was the target of so much bullying, she began to actually hurt herself.

And Kelley of Kelly’s Breakroom took a hard look in the mirror, wondering if she might have been a bully herself.

All these stories made me realize that I’m far from alone in my experience. So many people suffer from bullying — some for a relatively short period of time, some for years and years.

One thing I noticed was that every story that was shared with me was about bullying by peers.

Except one.

Kerri of the blog Elbow Deep in Someone Else’s Shit (bravo for the blog title, btw) sent me her story. The concept of bully shaming really spoke to her but she didn’t feel comfortable writing about it on her own blog for one very good reason.

Her bully was still, and always will be, a big part of her life.

Kerri wasn’t bullied by a peer. Here, in her own words, is her story.

“I spent my childhood thinking I was fat, because that was what I was told every day. I thought I had no value beyond my personal appearance and therefore felt self-conscious and undeserving of love. I was painfully shy, and lived in fear of forgetting for even a moment to suck in my stomach. I thought that if I relaxed everyone would see the rolls I was trying so hard to keep tucked back. I was told over and over again ‘you can’t wear that because you’re not skinny like the other girls’ and ‘you know you’re not a medium, take the large’ and of course ‘if you would only change your diet you wouldn’t have that extra weight.’ I let these horrible words define me for many years. You know what though? My bully echoed to me what she felt about herself. Mom, I’m sorry you feel this way, because you aren’t fat and neither am I. Your words hurt. Even now as an adult, they still come back to haunt me.”

I felt for her, and I wanted her to have the chance to share her story. Imagine the pain of being bullied by the person who should be your biggest protector.

Which leads me to this:

Every person who shared their bullying story with me is a parent now.

And for me, that’s the really, really scary part.

I don’t know what I might be capable of if one of my kids is bullied.

I’m afraid I’ll be like this dude and end up on the news after taking bully shaming to a new level.

Here’s wishing for a bully-free world. Can’t we all just get along?

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If you’re tired of being serious, you might like The Berenstain Bears: Bitch PLEASE and 8 Signs Your Husband Might Be Annoying You Around The House.

White Girl (W)Rapping

Posted on November 16, 2012 by ashersmom

It’s the Friday (w)rap-up, dawg.

This week, at Toulouse & Tonic, I wrote my most favorite post ever — a profane expose about the dysfunctional Berenstain Bears clan. Special thanks to Ninja Mom for letting me be one of her stealth assassins.

If you enjoyed The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV: Bitch PLEASE, you’ll want to head right over to Ninja Mom’s Character Assassination Carousel. You’ll find links to loads of other hilarious take-downs of your most hated kiddie lit.

I want to say a special thank you for all the “liking,” sharing, tweeting and commenting…your support of the Berenstain Bears piece helped me have my biggest visitor day ever on the blog. And if you think I cared, you’d be very, very right. Cared is not a strong enough word. Obsessed is more like it. I spent the entire night staring at my stats page like a half-wit and constantly hitting refresh to see if I was there.

Hubs got in on the T&T action too, getting mucho husband-shamed over at Mommy Shorts. That’s him in the party hat. Isn’t he cute? But what he did was very, very, very bad.

Did I mention he asked me for a 3-month break on being made fun on the internet? More like 3 days. Ha!

Keesha Beckford interviewed me for her incredible blog, Mom’s New Stage. And she made me sound cool so, ya know, she rocks. Read it and find out why it’s stupid that I was posting recipes when I started my blog. You’ll also find out that I can’t answer ANY question in one sentence. Not even when the question says, “Answer in one sentence…”

The Christmas season will be in full swing as soon as you push your chair back from the Thanksgiving table. You might want to consider preparing yourself for the inevitable family dysfunction by reading Spending the Holidays with People I Want to Punch in the Throat. You’ll laugh, your giftees will love it, and shhhh…it’s a very inexpensive gift. Buy it on Amazon.com by clicking here.

Or even better, I’ll give you a chance to win an autographed copy or a Kindle Fire. Just enter here.

Next week, we’ll back on the bully shaming train. Friends and strangers have joined in, posting their own stories and I’m gonna share some of those with you. The stories are touching and even inspiring. Like the Bully Shaming page on Facebook and follow on twitter @bullyshaming. If you have a photo to share, tweet it or upload it here.

I’m EXHAUSTED from outing bears, shaming my husband and giving away copious lovely Christmas gifts. Blogger problems.

Enjoy the weekend and come back next week!

You like me. You really, really like me. Or do you? Subscribe to receive an email every time I make a post. It’s the best way to be sure you don’t miss out when I do something shameful worth laughing at. Which is ALL the time. Just go to the upper right corner of my blog where it says, ya know, “subscribe,” and put in your email address. Then be sure to confirm your subscription when you get a follow-up email. That’s all there is to it. I’ll love you forever. And I promise to never ever ever share your info with anyone else. How’s that for friendship?

Bully Shaming™

Posted on November 6, 2012 by ashersmom

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On October 31st, we said goodbye to Bully Prevention Month — 31 days of activities all across the country designed to raise awareness of and put a stop to bullying.

During the same month, a trend was blossoming on the internet.

It started with dog shaming, moved on to baby shaming, mom shaming, self-shaming, husband shaming and even, yep, that’s right folks, elf-shaming.

Today, in honor of the confluence of those two events, I urge you to help me usher in something truly deserving of shame.

Bully Shaming™.

It’s time to liberate yourself from the psychological chains of your past torment by giving that bully a good old-fashioned what-for.

I’m guessing there’s no shortage of people who have a ticket to ride the bully shaming train.

How many of you were bullied as a kid? A teenager? Even as an adult?

Most of us at some point, I bet.

I know I was.

I was lucky enough to escape physical bullying. But I did get beat up about the head and neck with the psychological stuff.

Back then.

Not now.

Now I don’t let anybody intimidate me. Which is maybe why I occasionally end up in a (verbal) fight with someone in the grocery store check-out line or in a parking lot.

Don’t mess with me. I will not take your shit.

But I digress.

Back when I was a kid, I didn’t really have what it took to defend myself. I was kinda meek, insecure, vulnerable. I’m not sure I thought all that much of myself. So it was pretty easy to beat me down.

I also had a bad habit of keeping my troubles to myself, instead of sharing them with people who could help me. I know they were there. I had a good set of parents. Other family members I was close to. I had some great teachers.

But I didn’t talk about it. And ended up just feeling even lower and becoming even more vulnerable.

There was the guy who wouldn’t stop verbally abusing me because my long hair somehow touched his hamburger in the cafeteria when we were in 3rd grade. He was still being mean to me and bringing up that stupid incident our Senior year in high school.

Me in high school at a moment when “hamburger guy” wasn’t around to make me cry.

For all I know, he’s still walking around cursing about hairs in his hamburger now, all these mutter-mutter years later.

Get over it, dude. You’ve eaten 32,850 meals since 3rd grade. You’ve swallowed much worse stuff than a hair, I promise you.

Also, just as an FYI, after high school, he asked me out.

Yeah.

Hell no, ya bully.

Wow. This feels good.

I highly recommend it.

Then there was the big, broad-shouldered girl at my church… Yes, church. Who called me on the phone every afternoon for a month or so to tell me she was gonna beat my ass after Sunday School because I was flirting with her boyfriend at school.

Which I decidedly was not.

This bruiser would call me at my parents’ house, tell me I thought I was something, flirting with her boyfriend in class, thinking I was all special and shit with my big boobs, and that she’d be waiting for me when I walked out of church some Sunday soon.

Incidentally, this was the person who caused me to notice that I’d kinda grown some serious knockers almost overnight.

But instead of feeling proud, I was suddenly incredibly self-conscious. And guess who has always tried to hide her boobs with squash-em-down bras and billowy shirts?

But the incident I’m featuring in my bully shaming photo is the probably one that did the most damage.

I had this “boyfriend” in 5th grade who I dumped for a 6th grader (who then dumped me, of course).

For some reason, the little brat never forgave me for not “like-liking” him anymore.

A couple of years later, when everyone was hanging out at the skating rink on weekends, he thought it’d be great revenge to start making fun of my full face by calling me Jaws.

Bully Shaming

And he didn’t stop there.

He ran around the whole place gathering up other asshole kids to taunt me with it.

And then, because he was a determined little demon, he made sure it bled over into school too.

And you know what?

I feel kinda small right now, just thinking about it. All these mumble-mumble years later.

I still hate my cheeks.

It doesn’t matter how many people tell me they’re not even full.

I still try to suck in my cheeks when people take pictures.

I permanently altered my smile so as to keep my cheeks from chipmunking up too much when I really grin.

I developed a habit of putting my hand over my lower face when I laugh.

This one incident made me ashamed of something that was perfectly beautiful for the rest of my life.

I know there’s nothing wrong with my cheeks. But I can’t completely shake it. It’s like a wound that never fully heals.

Some of my former classmates read this blog. I never told any of them how they made me feel, and I think that was wrong.

So today, I’m standing up to all the bullies in my past.

Here I am. Full-on chipmunk-cheeking and proud of it.

Hamburger guy, not-flirting-with-you-but-you-told-your-bruiser-of-a-girlfriend-I-was-guy, “Jaws” guy, and the others who haven’t been mentioned. Your words and actions were damaging. They left scars. And it’s time for you to get out of my head and get off of my cloud.

You are heretofore shamed.

Bully shamed.

Now get the hell out.

Ahhh, yes.

I may not have been able to say that then but now I can. It’s never too late.

And guess what? It’s not too late for you either.

Do you have a bully shaming story to share?

I bet you do.

So get up right now and grab a piece of paper and a pen, scribble down your bully shame (no names please), snap a photo and send it to me. Find the upload button at the bottom of this page or email it to bullyshaming@gmail.com.

I would love to give you a forum to do what I just did.

You can also tweet it to me (#bullyshaming) or post to Facebook.

Just get it out there and see how liberating it can be.

I’m letting go of those wounds and hopefully showing some past, present or potential bullies how shameful what they do is.

Maybe a few of them will give it a second thought before they bully again.

Get on the bully shame train with me. I double-dog dare you.

@toulouseNtonic, @bullyshaming, #bullyshaming on twitter

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BULLYING is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another person physically or mentally. Learn more about bully prevention at www.stopbullying.gov.

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Remember not to use any names in your bully shaming photo.