One of my favorite benefits of writing is the tribe of strong and smart women who surround me. Some I know in person, but I have also met many amazing women online through the shared experience of trauma and the familiar pain of the breakdown endured before breaking through. We are a growing number of voices whose decision to share our truest and most agonizing stories bind us with empathy, compassion, and courage. By spilling the secrets we dared not tell in one life, we shifted the mindset from being controlled to having control. The mind is at the mercy of its most dominant influence. By stepping outside of the patriarchal boundaries of fear-induced assimilation, we have fully emerged into the authentic and wholesome beauty of our true identities.
It is an honor to connect through stories. They enrich our understanding of humanity and unlock the trap of loneliness and isolation. Stories unite us in shared vulnerability, putting trust at the forefront of every relationship. This bold and necessary action is an act of love, an act of faith, and an act of honor. A mind at peace is a mind who has access to this realm. It is a place to go when the world tears you down.
But women have not always been a consistent and reliable source of safety for me. I have felt betrayed, discarded, and invisible by the bullying actions of female relatives. The pain of feeling that I didn’t belong in the family morally endowed to love me and take care of me split me apart. Who am I was a question that plagued me for years. As a girl, I felt trapped in a role I despised, and fear of the reality of the situation was greater than my young mind could handle. As with most victims of trauma, my mind told me I was to blame. It took me forty-two years before I confronted this thought process and discovered the truth I had been hiding from. Logic is the first and most important asset to be stolen by psychological violence. When I saw the reality of my childhood from the perspective of a mother, I felt as if my mind had been violated and raped. The absolute core of my lifetime of trust was a mirage. Feeling this excruciating pain was a nightmare in real life, the death of an entire family to grieve, before healing could begin.
I admit that my situation was extreme. My memoir (I hope you will read it when it is eventually finished!) will reveal that the pattern of bullying by my mother and sisters crosses the threshold to abuse, but the daily pecking broke me down. This is the objective of bullies, to break down the power of self-possession and succumb the target to their idea of her identity. It is a robbing of self-actualization, and the emotional process of individuation that happens in adolescence is postponed until the victim confronts her truth. Ironically, at forty-two years old, I got to experience the angst and anxiety of teenagers. It was not fun! Give those teens a pep talk of their worth and love them no matter what. They are vulnerable and raw and afraid. They are a gift.
It appears that I can go on and on with this subject, but let me get to the point. Please allow yourself time to read this important blog post by my new friend, Diane Gottlieb. She is a writer and author who interviewed women, including me, about their experiences of female bullying, an insidious violence that has no form, no time frame, and little credibility to the impact of its destruction. Females typically bully in packs, and the predatory nature of ostracizing is learned through patriarchal forces that permeate our society. In my mind, bullying deserves a movement. The pain of it is everywhere, and rivals the emotional destruction brought to greater attention through the #MeToo movement. It is important to remember that everyone has the power to cause enormous pain, and that pain lives in the mind far longer than it lives in the body. Women are not always the stereotypical nurturers they are eluded to be, but are inevitably our mothers, our sisters, and the influence of our own minds and sense of identity.
I’d like to thank Diane for bringing this subject to light. Sign up for her blog. Share your story in the comments below. Read her article here: Effects of Childhood Bullying
BARBIE BEATON 
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