The Feeling You Can Only Understand If Your Childhood Bully Has Died
She tormented me for so many years, I wasn't expecting to feel so much.
Curated Lifestyle | Unsplash I found out through a text that a high school bully of mine was dead: “Did you hear? She died. She went to our high school. It’s really sad.”
I didn’t say anything at first. I wanted to be empathetic, so I hesitated before answering. I didn’t want to sound like a total insensitive jerk.
My friend knew this old bully of mine, but I wasn’t sure how friendly they had been. Plus, some of my thoughts didn’t align with who I am inside — I want to be a good person with a big heart.
But even good people with big hearts can decide they’ve had enough of toxic people’s garbage, especially when it comes to the past and bullying in schools. They don’t want to forgive someone all that easily when they’ve been done completely wrong.
“She was pretty awful to me. That’s sad, though,” I replied.
As I processed the news that the woman who had bullied me as a teenager and continued to do so as an adult was dead, I had a lot of thoughts streaming through my brain like a rapid social media news feed reel.
Seeing my childhood bully again, 14 years later
Most high school bullies grow up, too — or at least some of them do, according to an article in Psychological Science. Some become amazing humans and learn from their trials and bad choices.
It did not appear my bully had. In fact, she seemed to only get worse. Thirteen years after graduating high school, I ran into my former bully outside of my local gym.
At the time I had accomplished much: I had been on television for a few years, was almost an official Ivy League graduate, was dating someone, and had retired my combat boots for a pair of pink Converse.
I barely recognized her as I exited and walked toward the ATM at the liquor store right next to the gym. As I plugged in my PIN, I heard a nasty voice and saw some shaggy hair, then the face.
The face was older, but I remembered who she was in an instant.
“Laura Lifshitz. You think you’re so hot, don’t you? MTV, woo-hoo! Loser!”
That was just one of the things she said. The rest? I’d care to not say and some of which I don’t remember. Worse was, her voice grew in volume with each nasty statement that came from her venomous mouth.
My high school bully had not grown up.
My high school bully had not grown up
Xavier Lorenzo via Shutterstock
She had not become a functioning adult. She was darker and sicker than before.
I looked at her and said, "Uh, who are you?" while creepily walking away, unsure if she was drunk or under the influence. I would never let her know I knew who she was. She didn’t deserve that dignity.
She started screaming at me and following me outside of the store. I looked around to call for other people as I wanted to run from the liquor store.
There wasn’t help to be found, so I decided to not look back or say a word. I wasn’t in high school anymore and it was very clear to me that she — not I — was the loser.
She didn’t follow me to my car but as I drove away, I could still see her standing and yelling outside the store. I went home, told my boyfriend at the time, and then blocked her on Facebook.
I had periodically seen her name on other people’s posts and feeds but it wasn’t enough to make the effort to block. Now that she had screamed at me, I felt I had a strong reason to block her.
23 years after high school, my childhood bully died
Ten years after that encounter, I found out that the woman I blocked was dead. Dead and gone, never to bother me again. Regardless, it was sad. I knew even when I was a teen that she wasn’t well. She was incredibly rough on the edges and inside.
I had my troubles and heartaches but on the inside, I still had hope and love in me, always, even amongst my teenage angst. She seemed too hard to have a soft center, even at 15 years old.
I knew, even more, when we "reunited" years later outside the store, as she hung on the edge of the sidewalk of that liquor store letting out a string of god-knows-what that she was not OK. She likely had never been OK.
When my friend told me she was dead, I didn’t flinch and I wasn’t surprised. It was as if I knew it had been coming.
Nothing left but sadness
When I Googled her name, I saw my bully’s memorial page. Photos of her as a fresh-faced young girl graced the page.
As a mom of a young girl, I tried to imagine myself as her family, as the people who had hope and faith in her. I want to say it was easy for me, but it wasn’t. But the photos of her as a young girl made me feel sad.
Someone was once her mother as I was my daughter’s mother. Someone had once loved her like I love my child. If not, that is an even bigger tragedy.
She once had potential. She was once better than she became, no matter how she passed. She was once not a bully or consumed with demons. She once had dreams and ideas and lots of possibilities.
To know that a young woman could lose out on that and turn down a bad path hurts me as a mother, as a woman, and as a human. I don’t know what ended her life. But I don't need to know.
I was a target of her sickness but not the cause. I am not the unconfident teen I once had been. Her words didn’t hurt me anymore, and more than anything, I knew she hurt way more than I ever had.
To all my friends with children: Bullies "bully" because they have problems within themselves. They have hurts, sicknesses, issues, and injuries that bleed out and “infect” other people.
When your children learn how to deal with bullies, remind them of that. Remind them that the individual is most likely suffering more than your child can imagine. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier but it does breed a place of compassion, empathy, and strength to know that they aren't the only ones with the problem.
Before she had passed, I was at peace. It took a few weeks after that nasty event at the liquor store for me to forget her nastiness.
I would go to the gym and rush in, avoiding ever using that ATM again. But other than that, I was happy and moving on with my life. I was grateful for the ability to block people on Facebook.
I was happy. I had made the best of my life and wouldn’t let someone affect me like she once did.
I only can hope that her family, loved ones, and friends can find peace knowing that maybe, just maybe, she's happier now than she was here. Maybe those demons are laid to rest.
Laura Lifshitz writes about divorce, relationships, parenting, and marriage for YourTango, The New York Times, Women’s Health, Working Mother, and Pop Sugar.