And so. Every so often something comes along and kindly reminds me what a broken individual I am. Because after the pleasure this morning of finding some cheap shirts I bought recently now fit me, Doris knows I needed taking down a peg or two.
Today I was mooching homewards, a couple of melons and some veggie burgers in a shopping bag inside my rucksack, when my heart sank. Why? RTA? Realised I'd forgotten to buy garlic? Nope, because I saw three teenagers, two females and a male, walking ahead of me. Slowly. Swaggering. Talking loudly. Laughing.
For those who don't know that much about me, I was bullied at school. A lot. Nothing physical, thankfully, because I never want to find out what would happen if I got into a fistfight. A lot of mental. Because I was socially disabled and couldn't look these people in the eye, they were, as good as literally, faceless. And there were a lot of them. Male and female. Disparate groups. I attracted sadistic little shits. Ever tried telling a teacher "um, actually, I think it's half the goddamn school"? I learned to fear and avoid everyone in my age group, unable to make exceptions for the few freaks and geeks that I could have been friends with. The only people I could even talk to were three or more years younger than me - significant difference at that age - or adults.
My fears never grew up with me. I'm 24 and no longer scared of my contemporaries. I'm still scared of secondary-school-age children. The laughter of teenage girls still chills me.
Teenagers, apparently, still look at me and think "victim".
I found myself walking more and more slowly so as not to catch up with this trio. Then one looked round and saw me. Hoo boy. The inadequate strategy I developed at CHS refluxed. One of the girls sneered up to me and said "Hi!". I blanked her out, kept walking. She started keeping pace with me. There were giggles. Look, I can't justify how this could feel so threatening, but it does; packs like this know what they're doing. Like orcas haranguing a right whale because there's nothing else to do and, hey, it might always beach itself out of sheer terror. That would be fun. (I'm already thoroughly conditioned to fear it, so most of the work was long since done for them.)
A zebra crossing came up in a few more metres. I veered across the road. They followed. Luckily, since we were in public, I managed to make use of traffic and crossing a side street to force them to stop following. There were spoken words, laughs and an insincere "Sssh, don't be so mean". I didn't look back until I'd rounded a curve out of sight and reached a spot where I could recross the main road. Then I waited to make sure there were no creatures on my heels before continuing where I'd been going.
Why this sort of thing can still bring me to the point of panic, and even not too far off tears, I guess I don't know. I thought I had trained myself to let go of the paranoia. I no longer instantly think someone coming up to talk to me is only trying to get me to say something funny to mock. I can chat to my colleagues. I can banter with my workmates. I can answer the telephone, barely. I can turn away a stranger trying to foist leaflets upon me. I greet roving packs of scally boys in my neighbourhood with a tight smile and walk right past them. And, hey. Nine or so days ago I saw some people pushing to get onto a tram, and one man who had been loud and obnoxious throughout pulled a knife on someone. I had started towards him before my mind caught up with my glands1 and then the situation defused itself.
But I'm scared of little girls in fake-fur boots, jeans that don't pull up properly and too much hairspray.
Scratch the surface and I'm that fat little autistic kid who spent des lunch breaks hiding, not in the library, because even that was too frightening, but in the tiny alcove of the classics library. Well, haven't I come so very far?
1 Absolutely the wrong thing to do. I surprised myself. But for that split second, I would have done it.
