Allison Howard – Walking heart

The car battery series, Part 3, (Finding Pippies)

I hate looking at myself in the mirror, and I am sure I am not alone with this one. I’m not sure what unnerves me about this particular mode of personal observation, but I do tend to use the mirror in a strictly need to use basis, and even though I spend quite a large part of my morning and evening in front of that cold reflective glass I could not honestly tell you that I actually really look at myself. When faced with a mirror, my vision is usually narrowed onto something that is in need of attention i.e. teeth brushing, blemish detection and age inspection. But it is a rare moment that I would just sit there and look at myself. I don’t know why, I guess I just get uncomfortable knowing that the person staring back at me is actually me, and in away the mirror feels like it is broken. 

Look, I am not void of ego or vanity, I do use the mirror to gauge how I present to the world and whether the outfit I have on screams crazy lady, hippy boss or stable person. I have even stood there with beautiful empowering body positive and age affirming thoughts chanting through my head. But the person looking back at me knows I am lying and quite frankly it’s embarrassing. 

With all of this in mind, the bathroom glass is not the most disturbing mirror I face on a daily basis. The most confronting reflective surface is a little more agile than the ones that are usually fixed to the wall. The mirror I must deal with constantly comes in human form and whom I have been nurturing from a single cell for many years. The mirror I am talking about is my own daughter. 

Now, several articles ago I wrote a piece titled “The weirdest people I know”; with this piece I was acknowledging that the parental journey can be one fraught with unseen emotional land mines which can be triggered when least expected, and the damage that these explosions create can be immense. In the writing I focused on a fellow mother from my child’s school and her issues dealing with her child’s situation highlighting her own trauma experience from childhood. I am mentioning this here because I feel with this Car Battery series I too am acknowledging a trauma from my own childhood schooling experience. 

Not only was I battered about by the social hierarchy ladder, of which I was constantly dwelling at the bottom of. I was also treated with contempt and ridiculed by many teachers and adults alike for no clear reason except that I was just being myself. Now, this is not me being paranoid or looking back negatively, I know most people have a hard time at school at one time or another, however mine seemed to be particularly difficult. I can safely say this because being a twin, my counterpart who was in the same year as me and moved within the same small social group, had quite a visibly opposite experience to mine, which was interesting and today has left me pondering why this was, and questioning what was it about me that was so different?  

Here are some examples; in grade 4, as a 10 year old, I remember being brought up to the front of the class, humiliated and berated by the teacher as she called out all my spelling errors on my work sheet, (of which there were many). This “educator” proceeded to chastise me because I could not spell even the “simplest” words properly and that “I had wasted a whole sheet of paper” with all my mistakes that she had crossed out in heavy animated red lines. As I stood up there next to the blackboard accepting my scolding all the kids sniggered and laughed collecting more ammunition for the playground. This was gold for the bullies at the school and for weeks after that at recess and lunch time I would have to race outside before everyone else and seek refuge in a hollowed-out gum tree, to hide from all the verbal abuse, shoving tripping and hitting that I would otherwise receive. 

Look, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. To be honest it is a strange peaceful memory of mine, as this old, abandoned tree was quiet and smelled wonderfully of warm soil and ancient eucalyptus, the thick wood dulled the stressful noise of yells and cries of the playground and was a delightful cocoon to hide from all the teasing. Looking back, as pathetic as it reads, I feel my time spent hiding in that log actually nurtured my imagination, with nothing but my books, and pencils to keep me company, I would be whisked away in my own mind diving deep into giant ladybug apartment life, earth worm buses and woodland fairy convenient stores, this is a lovely memory for me.

It was not only in the playground that I found myself being harassed and bullied; around about the same time I was invited to a child’s birthday party which was exciting for me because I never got invited to anything. However, this excitement quickly turned into devastation, because at the beginning of the party as I handed over the birthday present, I was nicely informed by the child of honour, that the only reason why I was asked to come was that I was to be the main subject to tease and bully around for the entire event. The parents holding this party knew what was happening and ignored my pleas to call mum to pick me up, so I had to stand there in the middle of winter, dressed in my special new party clothes being pushed into the swimming pool while everyone laughed. I also had cake shoved into my face, and I as I wiped the icing off my forehead, and the tears from my cheeks, I distinctly remember the mother of this child telling me I was a strange and selfish little girl, that had ruined her daughters party. 

Now, don’t worry it gets worse. In secondary school, you guessed it, I was not well liked, as being in a small country town primary school tends to follow you to high school, and with this the current of nastiness moved faster and washed over me on a daily basis. It happened so much that it all became a blur. What really sticks out in my mind as horrible was in my 2^nd year of high school (year 8) all the kids drew and printed out stickers that clearly stated “Allison Free Zone” in big bold and colourful letters. Nearly every child at school had them plastered all over their lockers, pencil cases and folders and would proudly display them as I walked down the hall or into class, sniggering as I pretended not to notice. The teachers would have known this was happening but did not take anything down or do anything about it, I just endured until the bullies got bored and moved onto something else. These are only just a few situations, and it wasn’t isolated to just one group of people, this treatment spanned my whole scholastic career, I could write an entire novel about it all, but in truth, I am finding this too difficult to write about now, so I will stop here, as I am sure you have got the picture.  

With everything happening at school, I feel it was yet another factor that encouraged my parents to send me away to boarding school, to physically remove me from the situation I was in. Now, it’s not all horrible, I wasn’t completely friendless, I had my brothers, and I did eventually find other children to be social with, and as I got older, discovered true friendships that have lasted through to today, so please don’t feel bad for me it wasn’t all horrible. 

What is also interesting, is that I do have a redemption story. You see, several years after I moved away to school, I was home from college, out drinking, and waiting on my brother to reappear from the dance floor. As I was by the bar I noticed that I was sitting next to one of the boys that was behind the creation of the “Allison Free Zone” stickers. He was leaning on the bar very intoxicated and slouched into his beer. As I saw the trouble this man was in, I reached out to his shoulder and asked if he was OK and if he needed me to help him call a taxi. As I finished my enquiries, he looked at me and his face changed as it dawned on him who I was, and as the last brain cell not swimming in beer switched on, he screwed up his face in anguish and pain and spontaneously burst into tears, hysterically crying, and moaning about how awful they all treated me back then and how horrible it must have been for me. He cried tears and apologies so loudly, it was kind of embarrassing and I ended up patting him on the shoulder comforting him saying “That’s OK, don’t worry it was so long ago, it’s all over now.” 

That sorry man was so miserable, I will never forget seeing this nasty boy who was responsible for torturing me, battling his own demons. You see maybe his nasty behaviour was just a mask holding his own true self in, as I found out later, that the poor lost boy, drunk at the bar was a man facing his own battle of insecurity and identity, as a newly outed gay man in a small rural town, which was still a tenuous thing to be in the early 90’s. And I guess with this situation and me standing in-front of him, he finally felt and understood the torture and isolation that he had inflicted on another person that was “different”. I don’t know whatever happened to that guy, I do know he moved out of town and hopefully to the safety of like minded people, I am not sure I really care, I just hope it didn’t take too long to recover from his hangover of both the alcohol and his guilt, and I am sure it didn’t. 

You see kids are just nasty, I see it when my own child goes to school, but it’s not any fault of theirs; you see, I can hold the memory and grief of what they did to me, but I try not to hold any anger, as it is not the child’s fault that they behaved in ways that are vicious, it is the adults that witnessed and allowed it to perpetuate, this is where the true horribleness lies. The teachers and the parents that were present during my torment knew what was happening and didn’t do anything about it, they are the ones who failed me, they are the truly awful ones.  

So, what has this got to do with my own little mirror? I might hear you ask. Well, it is horrible to say but my little baby has been treated in a similar way, not so much by the kids (although there have been moments), I am happy to say that my little girl has actually got more friends than I ever did at school which is wonderful. What has got me seeing myself in her experience is the severe apathy that the teachers (the adults) have towards her and her learning. The extreme “it’s too late” attitude is almost textual for me. 

You see, over the last 2 years I have witnessed these adults attempt to place my child in the too hard basket, and as I question their actions and advocated for my child with learning difficulties, I was made to feel like the difficult one. Even as her Neuro Diversity (ND) was confirmed and the opportunity to help presented itself, I actually witnessed these “professionals” hand ball her on to high school, stating “we will do the best we can, but it’s too late now” and “she won’t be the worst off in high school, I promise.” The vice principal of our school actually said this to my face. This attitude has devastated me, for many reasons as I am sure you would understand, but it has also made me realise that the experiences I faced in school were not of my creation, it was everyone else. I was just different, which was not my fault, but seemed to be a challenge for many people and unfortunately this “Difference” still is a challenge today. 

So, as I watch my little mirror go through similar obstacles that I faced and identifying all her beautiful ND gifts and traits that mirror and excel beyond my own. I have come to realise, like my beautiful ornate mirror whom argues about eating her greens, I am actually fine, I did not cause the misery that rained down on me, it was not my fault. With this it is helping me to understand how to move on in my own life, dealing with both the past and the present, and with my daughter by my side, unashamedly claiming her true self not hiding away in a hollowed-out log, I am so excited for the future and all the amazing things that await my beautiful ladybug. And today, as I confidently stand in middle age, with all that trauma behind me, and my true self finally a head. I occasionally I do feel this quiet, almost invisible sorrow imbedded deep with in me that I feel is a product of this bullying I faced as a child, which is something I have only just learnt to acknowledge and sit with. 

These thoughts have inspired my latest illustration titled “Repairing the Mirror”. You see I have not been officially diagnosed with any type of ND and I feel do not need to be, as unlike my daughter I do not require assistance from any bureaucratic educational systems in order to “help” (and honestly, we can only afford one diagnosis). But I do not doubt, my daughter has gained all her wonderful traits from me, and with this knowledge, I find myself watching her grow and bloom into this amazing magical and creative person; and by seeing her discover who she is and be comfortable with all her complexities and layers, this, in turn, is helping me repair my own mirror that was broken so many years ago. 

This is the last of the Car battery series, but not the last of the pippies, I’m afraid there are a few more to go, the good the bad and the ugly. However, I will rest for a little bit now, as this is a lot harder to write about than I first realised. But never fear I will be ready to dig again soon. So until my next post, I hope everyone finds themselves in comfort and peace.