The Hard Questions

My world isn't an easy one.  I'm an outspoken survivor of human trafficking.  What I do is pretty much unheard of.  I tell the dirty, nasty, disgusting, horrible, horrifying truth about what I've been through from the perspective of someone who lived in denial for nearly 20 years of the first incident, and a full 8 years of the second.  Now that I'm coming to terms with what I've been through rather than just trying to ignore it, I'm on the way to a solid recovery for myself.  I'm recovering more than just a time in my life that I wanted to forget, but I'm recovering old photos, buried memories, forgotten dreams and lost years. 

Yesterday I talked briefly about how I took time to think hard before replying to someone's genuine question about my time in Scotland.  It was one of the hardest things I've had to do for a while now.  Until a Ms. Aguirre commented on that post about it showing how far I've come on my journey, I didn't realize that was even a factor to think about.  She told me "just the fact that you could answer the question shows the growth along with the strength."  I took a moment to think on that and analyze myself the best I could with the limited education I've received through seeking answers for myself.

I don't think I fully understood that aspect until I read what Ms. Aguirre had commented, but I do believe she was correct.  It certainly took some time and thinking to get through the process, but the fact that I could answer at all does mean I've come a long way from where I was only a year ago.  At one time, a simple question like the one I answered would have sent me crumbling; reeling in emotional agony, feeling pitiful and abandoned by humanity, misunderstood and not believed.  I would have blocked the person asking the question from ever contacting me again.  I'd have cried myself to sleep.  I would have suffered from nightmares for months, consumed with the idea that someone was claiming that my abuse in Scotland never happened merely because I was smiling in the photos I posted around that time.  Ms Aguirre was correct.  I have come a long way.

I no longer take an innocent question as an attack.

This is exactly why I do what I do.  This is why I answer the hard questions now, and think long and hard before I answer something that could easily be misconstrued as an attack against my character or against the truth that I tell.  Sure, there are a lot of people out there still willing to attack me for whatever reason they can muster, but I don't care anymore. I've had people accuse me of making it all up because "human trafficking doesn't actually exist" in their perfect little worlds, and 'nobody held a gun to my head' as I've received in messages and public posts alike.  Yet the fact remains that I did not actually have a choice until I had to con my way back home from a foreign country.  That's a story for another day.

I've come a long way, Ms. Aguirre.  You're right. That's exactly why I do what I do.  There are others who would still feel blame within a question like the one I answered. They would crumble into a heap and cry themselves to sleep.  I'm not saying that I didn't crumble and cry - but I did get back up and finally answer the hard question.  It wasn't easy, but I did it.  Someone needs to speak up for all of us. Since I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm getting asked... it might as well be me.



Candid photo from April 2011, while on a 'working vacation' to Ireland for 4 days.  

Looking Back

Last night someone asked about my time in Scotland, remembering fondly about my blog posts I wrote while living there. They asked if I had been trafficked before or after those blogs I wrote or the photos that were taken... and I put myself through agony trying to find the right way to answer.
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THIS was my answer.
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As difficult as this will be to understand, one did not exist without the other. I was being trafficked at that time. The walk to get Caster sugar was worth writing about because it was the best thing that had happened to me in weeks - the chance to get out and see something. When his daughter was around things were kind and gentle. When she wasn't there it was pure hell, what I had to do and put up with. I did go to pubs, frequently. I'm not a drinker. I don't like to drink. I never have. I didn't go because I wanted to go, but because I'd be punished if I didn't do as I was told. I did make cornbread, but not for friends. It was for his family, so they would think I was living a normal, happy life. One did not exist with the other.
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I saw your question last night and (please understand I'm not saying you are to blame and I would never do or say such a thing) it took me some time to digest it. I actually had horrible nightmares last night because I forced myself to think about it maybe a bit too much in order to give you a good, honest, decent reply.
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What you see when you flip through someone's family photo album are the good times. People don't take photos of the bad times. That's exactly the way it is with life on Social Media. I was being heavily controlled. I couldn't have any social media accounts at all unless he had the password. I had a phone, but it was checked for contact outside of him. I got into severe trouble for contacting his sister once. I couldn't write or post anything that looked unfavorably on my life there or there would be consequences. He controlled every aspect of my day, my week, my month - my existence. My life was Hell. Nobody got to see any of that, though.
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It's amazing what you can see in a photo.
More amazing than that, is what you can not.

Voices of the Victims: Adult Redheads Remember Abuse.

No victim of bullying will ever be the last, but no victim is alone.

Adults finally speak out against their childhood abuse.

I've received literally thousands of comments from various people about the first article I wrote, though only four on the website itself. The majority were friends and strangers all over Facebook in the various redhead groups I'm a member of.  Many people say that the bullying and abuse is what made them strong, and while I believe that, I've also learned a valuable lesson in this wide spread form of communication with people willing to talk about their childhood abuse from family, friend and foe.  The biggest lesson of course is that we are not alone in our suffering.

After hearing so many stories of those who had battled their bullies, and both won or lost those fights, I knew I needed to share a few select stories with those who previously had felt so alone in their wanderings.  No bully will ever be the only one, and no victim will ever be the last.  I asked a few different people if they wouldn't mind my interviewing them, and almost all of them jumped at the chance to just be heard.

George started out by telling me that he was honored to be asked for his opinion and experience, but also expressed his disbelief that anyone would benefit from his personal experience.  He started to be bullied at such a young age that he can't actively recall how old he was.  George didn't get bullied by the neighborhood children that he could remember, but once school started and he was enrolled in kindergarten, things started going downhill.  He'd always been an introvert, even in childhood, enjoying quiet time to draw.  The kids began to pick on the quiet boy with red hair, but when he moved between first and second grades, things got significantly worse.

His mother always told him to never fight, and to always walk away, but not to run.  I immediately identified with George, as that was how I dealt with the bullying myself.  I was told that I was never to start a fight, but if someone else started it I was to end it.  However, I was significantly smaller than every other child in school.  I knew better than to swing back.  I did what George did, and we both paid dearly for it.  On the final day of sixth grade, a massive group of children took turns punching, kicking and tripping George as he walked away.  The assault continued for no less than a half mile before a friend's mother spotted what was happening and stopped her car to give him a ride.

Things got better over that summer for George.

George worked that summer on his Grandfather's farm where he worked baling hay and cleaning stalls as a general laborer.  It was great exercise and he grew six inches in one summer. By the time school started back, not only was he one of the bigger kids in the seventh grade, but he was much stronger too.  It still didn't stop the others from bullying though.  The first one happened on only the second day of school.

 "At the beginning of class he sat down with a freshly sharpened pencil, poked me in the shoulder with it and asked me if it was sharp enough," George told me in an interview.  He told the kid that it was certainly sharp enough, of course.  "He then poked me again and asked how sharp it was and, knowing the game, I decided to just ignore him.  After poking me several times and getting no response, he plunged the pencil into my shoulder and broke the tip off! I still carry that pencil lead and you can still see the black mark on my shoulder over 40 years later."  At that, George lost his temper, spun around in his desk, slamming the desk across the room, and grabbed the kid by his shirt collar and belt. He started spinning the kid the way he'd learned to do with the hay bales on the farm over the summer and, as George put it, "I threw him just like a hay bale.  He cleared three rows of students before crashing into the wall and sliding down."  The kids desk hit the chalkboard at the front of the class.  Still the kid came back for more, and George pinned him to the ground. By the time anyone was able to break them up, George was pummeling the kid without mercy. They were both escorted to the principal's office, and the assistant principal called George's mother.  When she was told about the fight, she asked how badly George had been injured.  The silence was deafening.  Finally the assistant principal responded that George wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.  There were 27 more fights in school for which he was sent to the principal's office that year alone, and counting the ones outside of school was impossible, but George never lost a single one and was never beat up again.

But they just kept coming.

How did the bullying in your childhood help to form you?

"I do not know how it formed or changed me," George admitted to me.  He didn't know any other way of life so he had no idea if the bullying had transformed his personality away from being who he would have otherwise been.  He was still an introvert who was selective about who he interacted with, and he still enjoyed his quiet time.  But George did have something positive to say about his excessive bullying.  "Compared to my friends who were not bullied, I am probably less influenced by peer pressure and more independent."

"I do have some physical problems from so much fighting; aches and pains from long forgotten injuries mostly. " George admitted to me that he never had a girlfriend growing up. The girls just didn't want anything to do with him.  "Not only was I different with my bright red hair and pale skin, but I'm shorter than most guys." The growth spurt between sixth and seventh grades was his last one, landing him at 5'6" in total height.  "It was never safe [for the girls] to be around me in school because I was always subject to being attacked at random, all the way through high school and even into my early twenties."  George also admits that he spent a lot of time on his own in detention for fighting, which kept him from being a part of many activities.  "I went out for sports and excelled at them, making the Junior High varsity football team in seventh grade and setting multiple records for distance running in track.  Because I was so determined to prove myself, I worked harder than anyone else.  In track, the coach offered everyone t-shirts for each 50 miles they ran in practice during the season. I was the only person on the team to earn a 200 mile shirt.  On the football team, whenever the coach asked for someone to go against the biggest, most aggressive players in the school, I was the only one who volunteered even though they were almost twice my weight and significantly taller."  George, unbeknownst to him, might not have grown in height, but he certainly grew in bravery.   Sadly, that bravery didn't last.

"I always liked learning," he further admits.  "In spite of the bullying, I was in advanced programs for reading, math, science, and was one of the first kids picked to learn how to program computers.  The bullying and fighting made taking materials home to do homework all but impossible because they were regularly being kicked out of my hands, vandalized and/or stolen."  His school work started to suffer and George failed algebra after multiple missed homework assignments.  His test scores were still always among the highest in class.

By the 10th grade, George's body was feeling the effects of continually trying to prove himself in sports and in fights. Agonizing pain shot through his knees with every step and the orthopedic surgeon said he couldn't walk to school anymore, much less play sports.  Between having to repeat algebra and quit sports was more than he could deal with.  He started drinking alcohol heavily before school with a friend who would give him a ride.  George went from being one of the brightest students in school to absolutely hating the necessity of being there.  He barely graduated with a 1.6 gpa.

George, if you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would you say?

"Get used to it, life is not fair for anyone, though the fist-fighting will eventually end, you will have to struggle for anything you want that is good.  If you are different, you will always be singled out and treated differently.  I am not only a short, pale-skinned redhead, I also suffered some significant injuries [early on] that left me partially disabled and on top of it.  As such I have never been accepted as more than a friend by females, have never had a girlfriend.  I have also been passed over for jobs repeatedly for unexplained reasons, undoubtedly at least partly because of my being different."

Jonathan had a story nobody was prepared for.

His voice was a bit shaky as he carefully selected each word, pausing to make sure that he pronounced things clearly.  I knew right away that he was highly intelligent, but his speech patterns indicated he'd been affected by something I couldn't see through the phone lines.  What he told me next left me speechless.

"Are you familiar with Autism?" My mouth hung open.  No wonder Jonathan had a hard time in his youth, I thought.  I knew a little bit of his story already, but I knew the rest of the world needed to know.  "It became a lot easier to diagnose people with it now.  I think if I wasn't autistic I would have been bullied anyway because I was a redhead.  Someone probably did do something bad when I was younger because they had plenty of things to pick on.  I was also Jewish.  All of those things together just made it easier for them.  It started in Jr. High when I would get tackled every day. People would make me drop my text books.  We weren't allowed to carry backpacks and the principal wouldn't let me even though I got tackled and lost my books every day.  I would miss the bus home and my parents started having to pick me up at school." Jonathan  paused a moment, remembering what all he had been through, wanting very much to have me understand his plight. 

There had been a group at my school who were called "The Walkers" who would walk the halls at lunch time.  They were mostly football players. They taught me some 'textbook control tactics' and helped me to keep a better hold on my books. It was about a month and a half before I figured out how to hold onto my books like they taught me."  Jonathan laughed at this memory, but that laugh was filled with sadness.  They were the only people, in all the years of bullying that he endured, who ever stopped to help him in any way.

"I guess the main thing was when I was in college. The episode of South Park came out in my Jr year of college. There were other groups making fun of redheads around the same time and I think the 5th or 6th Harry Potter book came out around then, too.  All of a sudden people would start clubbing me with the Harry Potter books. I guess bullying just happens as a kid, but in college it got worse."

Jonathan tried to find help, but help never came.

Most people didn't believe me.  I was usually bullied when I was by myself.  I took night classes in astronomy at college.  People would come up from behind and start slamming me into trees, slamming my head.  I got concussions. They would kick my ribs and all kinds of other 'weird' stuff. I usually didn't ever see them. They always attacked from behind when it was dark.  I have no idea how many there were or anything like that but there were a lot of them.  Two or three years later people probably would have taken video of it, but at the time that just wasn't a thing.  Nobody ever came to help me.  I'm not sure.... I think every person who was around when it happened were all a part of it.  Some people even said I deserved it and they'd laugh at it.  There was a time where a campus police officer may have been a witness.  I told him what happened and he just started laughing.   Nobody helped me."



"I told my family a little about what happened but people just can't seem to believe that kind of stuff would happen. They've been helpful with a lot of the more recent stuff, like my mom lets me work at her store whenever I'm healthy enough to work, and my parents let me live with them. Which is good because I have brain damage that I thought I was over.  [The symptoms] seemed to leave and there were a number of years where I was sick all the time and never seemed to get over all of it.  I eventually did get better, but I do still get sick.  All of 2009 through 2017 I was in bed except a short period of time when I worked for the census.  In 2012 I finally went back to college part time to get a degree in actuarial maps. My first degree was for physics.  I thought maybe the new degree was something I could use.  I seemed to be healthier for a number of years and last year I was about to get a really good job but my health got in the way.  Not only did I not get the job, but some doctors think I may die of a degenerative neurological disorder, possibly from all the clubbing."  I was starting to tear up. This genuinely nice man had suffered so much at the hands of so many only to be faced with a death sentence so early in life.  I wanted to reach through the phone and hug him.  I wanted to hold his hand and tell him that he'd be okay.  I desperately wanted him to know that he was loved.

 

 

Jonathan's life was changed forever from the bullying

When I asked if he thought he'd be a different person if he hadn't been bullied, he paused for a long moment.  "Well, ... um... I think that if I had been able to process and talk more to people when I was younger I might be able to get along better with people and it may have helped with social skills.  It's very hard to trust people, especially people who aren't also a redhead." I smiled.  Jonathan didn't talk about all of this with just anyone, and though I was a virtual stranger, he trusted me because of my red hair.  "I'm trying to think of what to say.  If I could go back and give myself advice, I think that the reason .... I think the reason I didn't take time away from college in the middle of my Jr. or Sr. year when things were the worst was because I thought if I didn't do it in four years I'd never get it done.  I'd tell myself to get healthy again.  I kept praying and I was avoiding going to the doctor.  I should have trusted people more than I did."

We survived because we were strong.

Strength isn't something that can be taught in a book.  It's not a lesson we can pick up from hearing someone else's stories.  Strength, in many ways, is a decision we have to make to continue on; to survive against all odds.  We each got through our bullying because we were strong to begin with. Perhaps we just hadn't tapped into that strength yet. The things we went through didn't make us strong. They just made us wise.

The things we went through may have shaped us, but we alone made us strong.
And that, dear friends, is the mark of a true, strong  REDHEAD.

Think, Mom. THINK.

Exposing the evil of others often means exposing the demons we hold within.  I'll never be able to open the eyes of my own family and make them realize the abuse I suffered at the hands of EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF MY ENTIRE FAMILY when I was a child.  My mother would never believe that her perfect angel of a little boy would drag his sister behind the evergreen bushes with the little blue 'berries' on the thick branches, on the corner of the building across the way from our back door - to do unspeakable things to me when I was four years old, even though she herself knows the truth if she were to look deep inside her own heart.  She caught us there once and looked angry and suspicious.  We both lied to her and told her that nothing was happening, but that we were playing hide and seek.  I was four and he'd begged me not to tell anyone because he didn't want to get in trouble, and he didn't want his best friend to get into trouble either.  His 'friend' was there behind the bushes.  His 'friend' was part of the passing off of the innocent little four year old child.  I don't remember his name.  I don't want to.  But he had sandy blonde hair and a navy blue puffy coat over dirty jeans and dirty red shoes. 

Think, Mom.

I know you remember that day.  Think hard.  You came out of the back door looking for us.  We didn't say anything out loud to let you know where we were.  But you must have seen the moving in the bushes because you started to head our way.  You were moving fast. Sherman, in whispers, BEGGED me to not say anything because even though we were 'playing a game' he could get in trouble.  He said to tell you we were playing a game and that's all, not to EVER tell you that he had my pants with the elastic waist down to my knees in that cold air.  THINK! When you gave me a bath that night you asked me about the scratches on my legs.  I told you that I didn't know what happened. THINK. You knew what happened and you refused to admit it to yourself.  THINK ... I know you remember. Close your eyes and think.  You'll remember, I know you can. You have to trust yourself. I know you can do it.  It's okay, you can do this. Find a moment of peace and quiet, think back to Maryland and the building that the back door faced.  Across the way, to the right, all the way on the end of the building were evergreen bushes...  

 THINK!!

It's OK, Mom. I'd lied to you then.  I didn't want you to know.  I was scared to tell you.  I was scared of getting into trouble.  Of course I thought it was my fault when I was four years old. How could it not be my fault?  I thank God that I grew up and I learned the difference.  I can certainly take the blame for skipping school and lying to you all the time when I was a teen.  But I'm nearly forty years old now and I've learned how to take the blame for the things I've done, and to accept when I'm not to blame for the things others have done to me.  I forgive you for not wanting to admit to the evil things that happened to your little girl.  You weren't able to protect me, but it's OK.  Not every parent can protect their children 24/7 you know.  You aren't responsible.  I even forgive you for lashing out at me last week.  You don't know any better.  You weren't there.  It's OK, I don't blame you.  But I'm almost forty years old, and it's time you stop blaming you, too.  You should also know that I don't blame dad.  I don't even blame Sherman - he was just a little boy still.  I don't care about placing blame anymore.  It happened a long time ago and it really messed me up for a long, long time, but I've moved on.  If I can move on, so can you.

Now take the time to think, to remember, and to forgive yourself.  It's not your fault, Mom. But you need to remember in order to move on from it.  And if I can do that, I know you have the strength in you to do it, too.  I think I get a lot of my strength from you.  But please, you must realize that it's not your fault.  

Jealousy

It really is remarkable, what a simple emotion like jealousy can cause someone to do. I have a difficult time understanding how people can believe there is justification in their actions when they do something completely immoral and disgusting, claiming that they know everything and trying to destroy what could easily help save thousands of lives. What kind of selfish idiot would do something like that?

You never know who somebody is. It could be somebody you’ve known for the last 20 years of your life or it could be somebody you haven’t seen since you were eight years old. People, often claiming to have the best intentions, can stir up a lot of drama simply because they truly only have their own intentions at heart. I may never understand what motivates people to be so completely compulsive and manipulative, but I have to say that I don’t really much care anymore. There was a time it might have offended me or it might have made me angry. That’s not me anymore. I’ve learned that there are going to be idiots and jerks and all-around truly despicable, disgusting, bad people in the world. My getting angry is never going to change that. My getting upset is never going to alter their opinions or their lies. There’s nothing I can do to change them, but I can certainly do something to change myself. It’s rather liberating, not letting the jerks and the bullies of the world have any power. 

I just don’t care. It’s pretty simple, really. They can claim every negative lie that they want to, but they could never back it up with fact. 

Speaking of lies, Greene had an “E” on the end. 

Growing Up Red, Part 2

Growing Up Red, Part 2

Part One can be found HERE

I learned pretty early that my biggest bully was my own mother.  For whatever reason, she just never really liked me at all.  It all started there.  I figured out after many, MANY years that the whole reason I allowed others to bully me was because it was something I was quite accustomed to.  If I'd ever talked back to my mother through her bullying and narcissistic sociopath behavior, I'd have gotten spanked - or worse.  My father was more the 'hands on' kind of parent.  My mother conditioned me and taught me young to just take it, "or else."

The bullies in school certainly helped to reinforce those early lessons, especially as our ages progressed.  Things became more and more violent as the years went on.  Strangely, I was more accepted by the kids in my school once my mother bleached my hair blonde at 16 years old, but I was still incredibly self conscious.  I didn't have a firm grasp on who I was as a person.  I'd never really been allowed to be who I was, or to figure out who that might be.  It wasn't OK for me to just be myself, not in my household.  Systematically I was stripped of my dignity, pride and all personal possessions because I finally decided to fight back.  I'll never forget the day I sat at the dining room table, being told what the newest creative punishment would be.  I said nothing. I reacted not at all.  I just sat there.  At the end my parents asked what I was thinking.  That was truly the first time I ever stood up for myself and I spoke through a trembling, frightened voice.  But my strength and resolve grew as I spoke.  I smiled the entire time I spoke. 

"You've taken everything away from me.  Everything.  My bed, my clothes, my radio and music. Any TV privileges, my friends.  My bedroom door.  Everything.  But you haven't taken away my spirit. And you never will.  You can't take away anything else, there's nothing more to take.  You can hit me all you want. But there's nothing else you can do to me.  You'll never break me. "  I got up and walked away.  I fully expected to be pushed down the stairs or kicked while I walked away, but I'd simply "taken it" for so long that I left them dumbfounded.  They didn't say a word as I left them sitting at the table and I walked the entire length and staircase, all the way to my bedroom.








That was a turning point for me.  It wasn't until years later that I really stood up for myself and told my father that I had friends who had been there for me more than he ever had.  I told my mother she was a bully and that I wanted nothing more to do with her.  They still try from time to time (last night in fact) to have an impact on my life.  They've tried to tell different radio and news publications that I've never been kidnapped or raped or nearly sold into the human trafficking industry.  They've tried to turn my friends against me, telling them that I'm full of lies.  They even tried to end relationships of mine (and on occasion have succeeded with glowing review).  These days when I get to know someone well enough, I preface any friendship commitment with the fair warning that my mother might try to contact them, and that it will be venom they receive.  Time and again, they've only proven that to be correct.  Last night was only the most recent.

In 2013 I attended a seminar for Flight Attendant training.  In that seminar, we were challenged to "Say what you need to say."  All of us, no matter who we are, or where we've come from, ALL of us, have something we've never said to someone because we are afraid of hurting their feelings, making them mad, causing irreversible damage to whatever relationship we might possibly have.  They challenged us to finally say what we've always needed to say to someone in our lives.  It just happened to coincide with a recent run in with my mother where she had lashed out venomously at me for not telling her I was in flight attendant training.  There was a catch, though. Everything we said had to be passed through three filters.

• Is it kind
• Is it true
• Is it necessary. 

Believe me, this is much more difficult than you would think.  When it came down to it, I wrote a three page letter to my mother explaining why I wouldn't have anything to do with her, and that I needed to focus on what I was doing.  I asked her to respect my time and to not reply or attempt to distract me from my studies, and that if she could hold out for two weeks we could have an adult conversation together, in person, rather than through emails.  Of course she responded within 10 minutes with one of the most painful memories she could conjure, telling me that she was convinced that it would be a 'good' memory for me.  That was the last time I spoke to her, though she continues to try.  I miss my parents, but I can't let them into my life. They will always be my bullies.  They look friendly and sweet, but looks, as  we have heard all our lives, can be deceiving.







It's perfectly OK to not allow abusive people any room in your life, no matter who they are.  Some people don't deserve to be in your personal space.  It might be easier to do that with kids at school, or a coworker who decides they don't like you for whatever reason.  You're allowed to set boundaries.  Some people will simply never change.  The abusive will likely always be abusive. They see nothing wrong with their own actions, because clearly you deserve it or they've done everything for "your own good" as I so often heard. Cruelty shouldn't be a part of your personal space, no matter where it's coming from. In my case, it was easy to cut out the people at school who would mistreat me, but I was well into my 30's before I finally had the courage and ability to tell my own mother how much she constantly hurt me and to formally ask her to stop.  When that didn't work, I finally felt justified in cutting her out of my life.


I grew my hair out finally. I'm proud of having red hair, and I'll go right on being proud of it no matter what. Nobody will ever convince me to grow it or cut it, dye it or bleach it, shave it or recreate it.  It's about time I learned how to be me.  I'm certainly flawed, and my self-esteem may falter from time to time.  But finally I've chased the bullies away - including that inner voice.  Mostly.  We should all be so lucky.

Now, go say what you need to say.

 And, by all means, learn to let go.

Thanks for reading.

Growing Up Red, Part 1

Growing Up Red

I've talked to a lot of people who experienced bullying growing up as a redhead. It happens a lot. I was not immune to that, though there were several other layers of cruelty to my bullying, from religion to having moved more than 5 miles in my lifetime.

I'm pretty sure almost anyone I were to meet on the street would be able to give me a near textbook definition of Racism. Many would even be able to define the differences between bigotry and prejudice. But how many people do you think anyone could meet on a daily basis who would know that the word "Gingerism" is a form of hate speech? Did you know some redheads have been not only brutally beaten, but some even killed, just because they have glorious red hair?

Redheads don't have the option of being an introvert. To some degree, certainly, but every time a person with the hair of the sun walks into a well lit room, every eye will be on that poor soul, whether they like it or not.

I grew up being bullied. When I was only 7 my own grandmother told me that it looked like a cow had farted into my face. She wasn't fond of my freckles. While that may seem funny on the surface, it was absolutely devastating to a 7 year old little girl who already believed herself to be unattractive, and who idolized people like Judy Garland.  I so desperately wanted to be pretty.  Sadly, at a young age, I had already accepted that it would never happen for me.







At 8 my mother said I'd entered an "awkward" stage, telling me that she hoped someday that I would grow out of my ugly. It was "just a phase" she said. My already struggling self esteem was finally non-existent. "It's a shame you look so much like your Aunt Debbie (she was a redhead also, and the only other redhead in the family) because she's just not very attractive."

I don't remember what age I was when my mother told me that I could easily have been swapped in the hospital for another child, but I was probably somewhere around 9 years old.  She was pretty sure I was hers because I had my father's funny looking ears.  I guess there were two baby girls who had lost their bracelets in the hospital and we were both taken to my mother for inspection.  They apologized and informed her that they had no idea which baby was hers and hoped she could tell them. That's probably not something a young child needs to know about.  In fact, I probably could have lived my entire life without that bit of information.

At 10 years old I often sat alone on the playground, making swirling patterns in the dirt with my pointer finger. If I tried to play on the swings or slide, I'd get pushed off, sometimes at a fair height. If I tried the money bars, some mean spirited child would poke their elbows or fists into my ribs until I fell. Often I ended up with playground sand in my mouth - either from the fall or from the other children kicking it into my face.

By the age of 13 things had progressed to having a girl several years older and an entire foot taller than I was trying to shove me into my own locker that was, I'll admit, too narrow for my skull. Upon failing, she attempted to fit me inside of a standing soda vending machine, which promptly cracked and broke. Her excuse was that she'd heard I was responsible for rumors about her cousin, which of course wasn't true. Until then I wasn't even aware of who her cousin might be. It turned out her cousin was one of my closest (and very limited number of ) friends, until then.





By 14 things escalated again and a girl by the name of Robin, whom I had for quite some time called a friend, decided I was out to "steal her man" because her boyfriend happened to like red hair. She pulled a knife on me in an empty hallway and it was all I could do to not show fear. I'd been bullied so much. I'd gotten used to it. I just wasn't used to the other kids having actual weapons. She slashed at me, I dodged, and that was that. But she did threaten to cut my hair off.

At 16 the bullying shifted back to the parents. I'd started to make friends at school, though I'll admit they probably weren't the greatest of influence on me. I started to skip classes. My parents took me out of my school and enrolled me into the local "Troubled Kids" school instead. Suddenly I was surrounded by kids twice my size, often several times older, and most of them affiliated with gangs, covered in tattoos and selling drugs in the school yard. It's actually quite a miracle I didn't end up addicted to drugs in a desperate attempt to fit in, while the girls in school mockingly called me "Miss America" because of my unusual walk. Oh, how desperately I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide. I wanted to be anyone but me.

One day my mother pulled me aside and told me that she'd never liked my hair color, and called it a "mouse gray" color. You see, I wasn't quite the vibrant red color that the rare few have. Mine only looked red in the sunshine, and artificial light almost always washes out the lovely red color of most things. It's why you can't put a candy apple red car into a garage and have it look half as pretty as it does on the street. Sunlight is the secret. But that day, my mother decided she would bleach my hair blonde. Her first attempt turned my hair a bright neon carrot orange color and she went racing to the store for more bleach and dye while I stood staring into the mirror at the monster she'd created. My mother had 'always wanted a pretty daughter' she said. I stood there looking at my moody gray blue eyes, blonde eye lashes, crooked teeth, prominent freckles and, now, neon orange "Leeloo" hair. I wanted to cry, but instead I realized that I would likely always be that ugly girl and that I needed to focus more on who I was inside. I needed to care less about my outward appearance, or I'd never be happy in life. By the time my mother returned, I was resolved to be whatever it was she wanted me to be. And, for that day, she wanted me to be her blonde daughter.

My hair came out the color and consistency of straw, but my mother absolutely loved it. She said that it made my freckles pop out more (which I saw as anything but a good thing) and that I looked so much prettier with blonde hair. Maybe, she interjected, I'd actually have friends now.

She took me to the military base not long after that and saw a sign about a back to school fashion show that would be taking place inside the local on-base store. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me through the store that day until she found the person in charge of the fashion show, and she offered me, her little blonde daughter, as a model. I saw the other kids - the short, round, adorable rascals who had worse self-esteem than I did if that was possible. I knew I'd fit right in with them, and of course I did. But it lit a fire under me that day. I thought that if I could simply bleach my hair blonde to be accepted by my own mother, surely if I changed other things about myself, I could be accepted by more people in my life. It was one of the most BRUTAL and unrealistic life lessons I've ever had to UNlearn.

I tried my hand at being 'me' over and over, but I was so lost in the world of bullying, not knowing who I was, not understanding why people didn't like me and not realizing that I shouldn't care. I became the shape-shifter. I would alter myself to fit whatever anyone else thought I should or could be. Time and again, I would be told by some boy I'd been dating that I was 'the perfect woman' because we had all the same taste in everything. Time and again, I would have my internal monologue, reminding myself that I needed to continue listening to their kind of music and enjoying their hobbies if I wanted them to continue liking me. It was exactly what my mother had taught me to do. My hair was blonde for years until I finally just got tired of it and let it grow without my doing anything to it.





I went on a little known show called Extreme Makeover in December 2003, where they cut my long hair, dyed it a dark chocolate brown color, set me in high heels and a ball gown, and called it a day. I was a Mini-Makeover. My episode aired on March 17th of 2004. That's right, when my episode was on TV, the majority of the nation was out celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Nobody even saw the show. I felt pretty, but that feeling was quite fleeting. I still wasn't me. I was an Audrey Hepburn Wannabe, which worked for the time being since she was my role model throughout my teens and early 20's. She was always just as self conscious as I was.







A few short months later, my grandmother died, followed quickly by my grandfather. At the funerals, I had an all out verbal battle with my father over his not being there for me, and I told my mother that she was too negative toward me and she needed to stop bullying me (I hadn't seen her in years and the first thing she said was that my hair was too dark). I'd finally stood up for myself as an adult. That small, seemingly insignificant act of defiance and pride set something lose inside me.

When I got back from the funerals, it was less than 2 weeks later and I moved, cut all my mid-back length brown hair off, bleached it out and dyed it bright neon red, and married a man I hardly knew. It took me 24 years to finally turn into that rebellious teen. Of course the marriage didn't last, but the short red hair did. I kept it short and neon red for nearly a decade. It landed me unusual opportunities like a featured spot on the TV show Alias, another on Will and Grace, and eventually a modeling gig for Harley Davidson.  But, to be honest, I still wasn't quite me.  I still didn't know who I was, I'd just built a different personality was all.  I needed to dig more into what made me who I was and truly discover who I wanted to be.

 GO TO PART TWO

PART TWO