Sorry, but the misadventures of a confused 14 year old are going to have to go on hold for a day or so. There’s a story that needs to be told because the residual anger it’s causing is getting in the way of just about everything.
This isn’t a memory that’s suddenly sprung up in the course of my mental archaeology; this is something that’s been gnawing away at me for a very long time. This is not a funny story and some of you are going to, at the very least, wince as you read it.
On Wednesday I had an outpatient appointment to discuss the treatment of a varicocele that I’ve had since I was 16. This is not an uncommon condition in adolescents and often clears up of its own accord however in my case it wasn’t a natural occurrence.
I’ve indicated in the past that bullying as well as sexual abuse had a tremendous psychological impact on my childhood and teens but there is a physical cost as well. I’m not talking about the three or four small scars, one quite prominent one on the bridge of my nose. This varicocele was the legacy of an appalling act of cruelty.
During a confrontation at school, the details of which aren’t relevant, my antagonist knocked me to the ground and with, a speed that makes me suspect he’d planned it, grabbed me by the balls and lifted me clear off the ground. Now I’m not a heavy person, I’ve been clinically underweight all my life, but the pain of being held dangling like that was indescribable.
Only when he was satisfied that my screams of agony were as anguished as they were going to get did my assailant simply let go and drop me, completely careless of the fact that I barely saved myself from hitting my head on a concrete floor.
That particular torture was inflicted on three more occasions and the last attack was so vicious that I almost passed out but to my utter horror I also got what I hoped was a completely random erection. This so disgusted my attacker that he dropped me and I was unable to avoid banging my head when I landed. I spent most of the rest of that day feeling ashamed, dazed, nauseous and in awful pain.
A few days later I noticed the abnormality but said nothing. For better or for worse nothing went wrong with me during the next two years that needed a doctor to investigate there, otherwise my parents would have been alerted.
During an email conversation today a friend of mine expressed astonishment that something like this could have happened with nobody being any the wiser but, as is so often the case, events conspire to benefit miscreants.
One of the things that sexual abuse taught me, at the age of ten, was how to keep secrets and this secrecy became second nature to me in almost all aspects of my life. Nobody in my family had the least idea what I was going through at school, all that ever got home was the good stuff about how well I was doing and how happy I was until I started losing control at about fifteen, but that was put down to me being a “bad” boy.
Similarly no member of staff ever witnessed the many acts of cruelty and violence committed against me and I, being who I was, didn’t say anything. I just counted off the many days until I could finish my last A level paper and get the fuck out of that god-awful place.
One of the things I’ve realised about bullies is that they are an entirely different species from mere thugs. Like abusers, bullies are cunning and opportunistic, always prepared to wait for a brief moment when the intended victim is completely isolated. Of course all of that opportunism would come to nothing if the victim couldn’t be relied upon to keep silent, enter the sexually abused and secretive child.
In 1976 I spoke to a GU Consultant about the injury and, after he’d got over his shock, he advised me that treatment was still somewhat uncertain and that the only real disadvantage to leaving things as they were was a severely depleted sperm count. I’d long since abolished confusion as to my sexuality so that didn’t seem like a particularly serious issue. I decided to leave well alone.
Treatment now is a great deal better and considerably less invasive than in 1976 so, as I’ve been getting a bit of pain recently, I’ve decided that it’s time to eradicate this visible legacy of a desperately unhappy school life.
Love
Mac,
I am sorry that happened to you. I hope the fix is as painless as possible.
Much love to you,
SB
SB
Thanks, the fix should be pretty painless and I might even be able to watch it. I’m a former nurse so that isn’t as weird as it sounds
Love
Mac
You never seemed to get a break from it. I do understand the not saying anything, but just suffering it. I am so impressed at how you can talk so freely about it all.
I made a three pot supper with snowflake Rolls for Ron, I posted the pictures on my blog.
May you heal quickly and well, both in body, mind and spirit.
Hugs,
Scottie
Scottie
Sadly that’s true, it was a pretty unrelenting process from my first day at grammar school and didn’t really stop until I left at 18. The only slight relief I got was being banned from playing rugby on medical grounds when I was 15, at least that deprived them of one opportunity.
I saw the photo on your blog, it looked delicious.
Love
Mac
It pains me to hear of your abuse and bullying experiences. I never had the sexual abuse like you, but understand completely about the bully experiences. You are correct that bullies are cunning, and very opportunistic. They can terrorize someone just by a look and when they strike they are quick like lightning.
Not once in all the years I was being bullied did anyone in authority take notice. Like you I could never speak to my parents about the problem, and just put on a happy face for them. They were of the type that would have just said to suck it up. No one ever saw the sad and frightened boy that was lurking under the happy facade.
I can only imagine how terrible the bully’s life must be in order to get pleasure out of hurting other people. I feel sadness for them too.
I hope you have found peace. Love and hugs, JR
JR
I get so angry when I hear other stories like this, I knew beyond all doubt that my father would have just told me to toughen up and deal with the problem myself. If I’d reported it at school then one or two of the bullies might have been punished, no doubt seeking revenge on me later, but what can you do if it’s thirty-odd boys who’ve taken it into their heads that you’re a freak who’s too clever for his own good and needs taking down a peg or two?
When I started to show real signs of depression and dysfunction all the staff and my parents decided that I was the bad kid and was just acting up.
Love
Mac
Hey Mac,
Yes, reporting the bullying would have only hurt us more in the long term. When you go to a private school you are stuck with mostly the same people for all the years you are there. To have more of them mad at you would have been too much for me to handle . Like you said there were also a very limited amount of boys that you could make friends with, so you didn’t want to cause any trouble for fear of polluting the whole crowd against you.
I wasn’t a trouble maker I was the opposite always trying to be good, and flying below everyone’s radar. Now maybe at home I was in trouble more often, but I was just trying to get some attention from a home lacking in affection. I was spanked the most out of any of my siblings. Most of the times as I got older the spankings didn’t even hurt anymore. My Mom has even told me that she wouldn’t have spanked me as much during a session if I would have cried. Any attention was better than none.
Hugs, JR
JR
Our stories are distressingly similar in many ways. Like you I expended a lot of effort in my early days at school trying to avoid getting noticed but without much success. My Stepfather wanted me ‘toughened up’ so I had to train with the under 13s rugby squad which, because I was so bad at the game, just upset most of the boys in my year. I basically had 2 friends that I’d do anything rather than involve them in my mess so even they didn’t know half the things that happened to me.
At home though as soon as it became clear that spanking wasn’t having the same effect, my Stepfather, who took control when I was 12, raised the bar each of the many times he though I merited punishment by using his belt, a cane and on one memorable occasion my belt which I had to take off and hand over to him. His real power trip was to make each punishment a public affair, in front of my sisters, and always with my trousers and pants down to add humiliation to pain. All I wanted was for him to be proud of me for the things I was really good at like Music, English Lit and French but he wanted me to succeed at ‘boy’ subjects.
Love
Mac