3. reclamation
I was shaped and molded in my younger years. The damage endured as a child is that which will stay with you a lifetime through. The psychological effects of schoolground bullying can inflict more scars upon a soul than that of a violent battering, and such scars are those that I have carried since primary school.
I was the new girl, I was the youngest and I was the smallest in the class. You can get away with being a bit quirky here and there and still manage your way through schooling just fine, but when there is too much attention drawn to you in any variety, you are pinpointed so to speak. I was also a bit of a clever clogs and my bright red hair stood out first and foremost, so folks knew who I was straight away.
The bullying was partly physical and partly mental. There was some name calling and ganging up. I was dreadfully bullied. As much as we mature over our years, those wee things that hurt bad at the time don't heal up as well as one would think. There was one wee girl who had a crowd around her who used to bully me a lot and sometimes a note would travel round the class that said, 'Get you at four.' You knew when you left the school you were for it.
It wasn't part of the ethos at that time to tell anyone. There was an acceptance of fate. A feeling that you got what was deserved. With little help or none at all to speak of the contrary, I began to believe in these hurtful words, these nicknames I was given, and those things aren't as easily undone as one would hope. Sure, you can write them off for the slags and cunts that they were, chalk it all up to inferiority complexes and whatever 5 pence word you want to spout off about, but at the end of my life I will still be able to recall more nights of dampened pillows than not from my former years.
The challenge in life is not to live it, it's to overcome it. At least for me it is. Going day by day as you get older, writing lyrics, making noise, being in front of blokes who would spit on you if you didn't play their song, touring your arse off, whoring yourself out professionally, all of it was prepared for by my childhood. Where I'm at now, the things I've endured and overcame, fought and fought back, was all leading me up to this point in my life. The point where, as damaged as I am, I can still sit back and say I've become something.
So I give my thanks to Molly Bridgeford for the time that she yanked my hair from its roots. Cheers to Margaretanne Paul for the spit she lauched at my face and the mud she caked on my wee dress. Here's to Danny Mcbarns who chased me home from school everyday with rocks. I couldn't have made it this far without you.
aim: shirley mannnson
I was the new girl, I was the youngest and I was the smallest in the class. You can get away with being a bit quirky here and there and still manage your way through schooling just fine, but when there is too much attention drawn to you in any variety, you are pinpointed so to speak. I was also a bit of a clever clogs and my bright red hair stood out first and foremost, so folks knew who I was straight away.
The bullying was partly physical and partly mental. There was some name calling and ganging up. I was dreadfully bullied. As much as we mature over our years, those wee things that hurt bad at the time don't heal up as well as one would think. There was one wee girl who had a crowd around her who used to bully me a lot and sometimes a note would travel round the class that said, 'Get you at four.' You knew when you left the school you were for it.
It wasn't part of the ethos at that time to tell anyone. There was an acceptance of fate. A feeling that you got what was deserved. With little help or none at all to speak of the contrary, I began to believe in these hurtful words, these nicknames I was given, and those things aren't as easily undone as one would hope. Sure, you can write them off for the slags and cunts that they were, chalk it all up to inferiority complexes and whatever 5 pence word you want to spout off about, but at the end of my life I will still be able to recall more nights of dampened pillows than not from my former years.
The challenge in life is not to live it, it's to overcome it. At least for me it is. Going day by day as you get older, writing lyrics, making noise, being in front of blokes who would spit on you if you didn't play their song, touring your arse off, whoring yourself out professionally, all of it was prepared for by my childhood. Where I'm at now, the things I've endured and overcame, fought and fought back, was all leading me up to this point in my life. The point where, as damaged as I am, I can still sit back and say I've become something.
So I give my thanks to Molly Bridgeford for the time that she yanked my hair from its roots. Cheers to Margaretanne Paul for the spit she lauched at my face and the mud she caked on my wee dress. Here's to Danny Mcbarns who chased me home from school everyday with rocks. I couldn't have made it this far without you.
aim: shirley mannnson