Tim Pylypiuk calls all victims of female abuse to share their experiences, hoping that those who’ve been singled out and bullied can now come together in common story.
“No more turning away
From the week and the weary.
No more turning away
From the coldness inside.
Just a world that we all must share.
It’s not enough just to stand and stare.
Is it only a dream that they’ll be,
No more turning away.”
—“On The Turning Away,” Pink Floyd
♦◊♦
Since the fruits of my labor were borne from “Bullied By Girls And Women: One Man’s Tale” and “My Guilt,” there have been traces of immense inspiration churning these creative juices. Both my contributions garnered praiseworthy platitudes, the likes of which I had never experienced in mainstream society. The flock has begun to congregate.
This got me thinking carefully about the next step to take. I had planned for just the right epilogue to my trilogy. But the comments these articles attracted gives a pause for consideration of something different.
Rather, for an idea that involves you readers. For when narratives shift to areas unexplored, it takes more than the moon alone to cause it. The tides, when influenced enough, are as vital in the waves they make.
Here’s your chance to jumpstart the light that’ll scatter the shadows that were used to loitering sans consequence. Give it full power from the energy of your experiences.
There are more survivors like me out there, recovering from and dealing with their trauma under the merciless haranguing wrought by female perpetrators or bullies. For those of you who fit that description, this will be your moment.
I’m going to end this article shortly with a cliff-hanger only you can complete that will involve one formula alone:
Your stories.
Everyone, emerge from your hiding places. Spin your tale, weave the fabric. “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to be free,” as the poem goes.
Anyone out there pining to exorcise the demons shackling their legs, do it below in the commentary section. Leave no hurt and pain inside. Let it all out.
Regardless of your gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, color, creed, or mental capacity, whatever part of the world you inhabit, all are welcome to provide their tales of abuse, neglect, and hurt from any girl or woman who dealt harm upon your person either in the past or present.
Let’s show everyone that abuse from women and girls are NOT isolated incidences, that we are neither anomalies nor less of a priority. The sooner society hears us as one voice, the stronger a shift can occur.
That’s enough pomp and circumstance from me. I will finish with the following comments that have fulfilled their part in the inception of this haven:
From Jill:
I was a shy, socially awkward girl and I was bullied relentlessly by a group of “mean girls” through grade school and jr. high. One of my few friends was a boy who was picked on by the same crowd. To this day, I have a visceral dislike of women who remind me of the “popular” crowd in school (cheerleaders, sorority girl types, etc.) as I had so many bad experiences with those types of girls.
From Lori Day:
I was also bullied quite a lot by both boys and girls. The bullying by girls was the meanest in my own experience. One thing I can say is that mean girl bullying–while crueler than ever due to the use of social media–is getting a lot more attention today. When Tim was a boy, there were way fewer resources for dealing with it and the culture of bullying was largely ignored by adults. When Tim was young, boys and girls were rampantly bullied by boys and girls in every combination, and there was little help available. Back then, female bullying was less recognized and chastised than the male bullying.
Today things are changing. Bullying in general is now recognized by adults as a huge problem, sometimes leading to suicide, and bullying perpetrated by both genders is seen for what it is, well described, and now legally reportable. Schools have strict accountability. It doesn’t take care of it all, but at least people are not willfully “not seeing it” as much as used to be the case.
I have never believed that childhood bullying was perpetrated only or mostly by boys. As a longtime school administrator, I saw it perpetrated about equally by both genders, but in different ways. The title and description of this article make it sound as if the author were only abused by girls, but in the text he makes clear that he was bullied by both genders. This is important. We must all recognize that bullying crosses all gender lines in terms of perpetrators, victims and bystanders. Neither gender bullies more than the other, and neither gender gets bullied more than the other. Unfortunately, there is plenty to go around for everyone.
And special thanks to Juliana Bjornsdottir of Iceland Review Online, www.icelandreview.com. “Bullied By Girls And Women” was partially based on a letter written to her from me in the letters section of said publication and whom I’ve had the honour of receiving a positive and inspirational response of support for my story.
She’s also a feminist, which proves that those who do care are from all walks of life.
Thank you, Juliana.
Note: This haven is intended to be safe, supportive, and validating for the survivors who comment. Any responses centering on patriarchy, male privilege, who has it worse, and excuses for the female perpetrators/bullies are not welcome. Take it elsewhere, please.
About Tim Pylypiuk
Vocalyze
I’m female, Hi
I wrote a reply and it got eaten up or I managed to somehow cancel it :/
I was 17 when I was raped by a woman. I was at a hospital receiving treatment for a rape-related complication and a nurse violated me as I lay in the stirrups. I’ve told this story maybe 3 times because I still feel so ashamed. So much so I am writing under a pseudonym for the first time on this site.
It was out of the blue and so surprising. I remember thinking that maybe I was mistaken and so I waited for confirmation that there was a reason to be scared. That confirmation never came and it took me months to truly label it correctly as rape.
If a male nurse or doctor had started running his hand up and down my leg, it would have set off alarm bells but, somehow, a woman doing that didn’t. I blamed myself for not saying anything, for not resisting. I guess the reason I feel shame is that I still do, deep down. She kept telling me I was making her do it and I believed her.
I keep it a secret for a number of reasons. I think people wont believe it could happen. I think they will blame me for not doing anything about it. I think they may think I invited it because “women don’t do that sort of thing”.
Ibethy.
You don’t have to fear disbelife here. Your story counts.
If you read all the other comments and stories, you’ll also find a lot feared disbelife as well.
I assure you, you didn’t invite anything. You were abused and violated, pure and simple. Whatever support you’re lacking, you’ll find it here.
Thanks for visiting.
I am male.
I also have autism. It was diagnosed when I was in elementary school, but my parents, the school system, and the psychiatrists who evaluated me all abdicated the responsibility of explaining my condition to me in the belief that someone else had done or would do it. I always heard the name, but no one ever gave me the tools to learn more. I only came to understand my condition a year ago (I am now 22), having it explained to me by other people on the spectrum when I attend a convention.
Because of my inability to integrate into social environments, I was bullied a lot all through elementary and middle school. I was bullied by both boys and girls, but the girls were a lot worse. The boys weren’t consistent about it: The same guy who beat me up with his gang one day might sit down and play a friendly game of chess the next. There was no real malice to their actions, and while they often went to far, most of them had an understanding of what was really dangerous and never came close to doing me serious injury. The girls didn’t have that understanding. Gangs of them, sometimes including a boy or two as well, would go after me physically as well as socially. It was not uncommon for a group of them to throw me to the ground and stomp and kick me until I bled and my clothes tore. If I brought a toy to school, they would steal it. They would spread rumors, make false accusations and ostracize me from group activities.
The worst bullies of all were the teachers. They were all female. Once I was diagnosed, I was given an ed plan to help me cope with my condition in the classroom environment. They were legally obligated to honor everything written on that plan. It said, among other things, that if I felt unable to remain in class, I could leave and sit by myself elsewhere while I calmed down. They wouldn’t let me do that. They would keep me in situations I couldn’t handle until I exploded and acted out in fear and confusion. When that happened, they would beat me, drag me away, hold me on the ground in a four point restraint. Sometimes for hours. Once, I calmly walked out of a lesson and sat on a bench in the hall taking deep breaths. Five of them leapt on me and held me down in an extremely painful position, then they called the police. The police laughed it off. They justified their abuse by saying that they were afraid of me because they were women and I was not. After all, don’t women have a right to be afraid of a violent man? I submit than when the man in question is eight years old and they are four or five trained women in their thirties and forties, they do not. The administration (also all women) bought it though, so every time it happened I would have to write them all letters of apology, saying sorry that I had scared them, before I could return to school. They constantly pushed to put me on more and more medication. I was on a different pill every six months for about four years. All of them made me miserable. They made me go to psychiatrists, but they treated me for the anger issues I didn’t have, not the autism I do. Everyone told me to control my anger, to keep it locked inside and bow to authority with a smile on my face. To suck it up. No one cared if there was a reason for me to be angry, no one listened when I looked for help. In all quarters, my pain only earned me bored disbelief. No one believes a “problem child”, after all.
When it came to dealing with my bullying by other students, I was always to blame. I learned quickly that I would face disproportionate punishment if I attempted to defend myself (my attackers might have to say “sorry”, I would get a weeks suspension, despite the fact that I never so much as bruised one of them), and if I didn’t defend myself they’d say I had “started the fight”. This was especially true when it came to the girls. Tell me, if you saw six or seven girls laughing and jumping up and down on top of a boy of the same age who was covered in cuts and bruises and lying face down in the mud trying his best to breath through the blood pouring from his nose, what would you assume had happened? If you were an adult in our society, it seems you’d say that the boy had been bullying the girls quite badly and was very lucky to be allowed to remain in school. They’d tell me how strong I was, how careful I had to be not to hurt anyone because I was a man. I was short and always came in last in gym class. I internalized their words and stopped exercising, stopped participating in physical activity, gained a lot of weight. My body image went down the toilet, but no one cared. There was a counselor to deal with body image issues, but only for girls. In middle school it was the worst, so bad that I eventually did drop out for two years. I had to fight to be allowed into public high school, against my parents as well as against the administration.
Strangely enough, in high school the other kids were a lot nicer. I went to a school where people knew every member of the drama club on sight and no one cared about the sports teams except the teams themselves. The kind of place where there were more people planning pride parades than parties. I suppose it was a more welcoming environment to a socially crippled bibliophile than the stereotype we’ve all come to expect would have been. There were still jerks, sure, but nothing organized, nothing more serious than a one time prank and even those were pretty mild, nothing that could really hurt someone. The teachers were great too, they were experts in their subjects and some of the classes were taught close to university level. The social workers, on the other hand, were still just as bad. The special education program was run by two of the nicest and most understanding women I’ve ever met (the school administration was always doing everything in its power to get rid of them), so they couldn’t do much, but they got their jabs in all the same. They would put pressure on all the kids in the program, force them to act out and then punish them for it. They got very adept at pushing people’s triggers, but they never found mine. I’d gained a lot of maturity spending two years in a special education school. I’d been the oldest kid there and that forced me to do some growing up on my own. I tried to shield my friends in the high school program as much as I could, taking time to tutor them in subjects where they were struggling and trying to help them to calm down when they were being pressured. The stress got to me sometimes, but the worst I ever did was shout at someone and even that went away over time. I think the worst thing they did came when I was 18, in my senior year. I walked into the program room during my free block, just like I was scheduled to, and found a pair of them shouting at a friend of mine with autism and ADHD. They were giving him long strings of orders over and over again, and I knew he couldn’t process them or keep up, and that if they kept doing it he would either lash out or shut down completely under the pressure. I said, calmly, standing in the doorway on the opposite side of the room, that I would like them to stop shouting, that my friend couldn’t function in that environment and that I had work I needed to do as well. They turned around and flew at me, putting their faces right up close to mind and screaming incoherently. They started to hit me, and I retreated, knowing what would happen if I hit back. They chased me all the way out of the building like that. Later, the dean told me that I needed to be more careful, that I should be mindful about how threatening I seemed to women (I had shed my fat for muscle by this point, but they both knew I was a pacifist and they were still taller than I am), that people were scared to be around me, that I was, once again, lucky to get off with just a detention (that was my first and only detention, so I don’t know why he acted like I’d had disciplinary action in that school before). No one cared that I was the one who felt hurt and afraid, that the “victims” who assaulted me were in fact being paid to help me deal with feelings like that, I just had to suck it up and get on with my life (after writing a letter of apology, of course).
More than the abuse itself, the way everyone in my life marginalized it, told me that it didn’t happen or that it was my own fault, really left scars in my mind. I still don’t have anyone I really feel comfortable bearing my soul to. My past experiences have just about destroyed my ability to trust or get close to others, and even professionals have been unable to help me find any kind of healing. Part of that is probably the case history the schools left me with, hanging like an albatross around my neck. No one wants to hear that I don’t have anger issues, that I never did, that I just need some help to work through what’s happened to me and some advice on how to connect with people again. They just want to sit there and try to trip me up with their little word traps, their disagreements on minor points with circular arguments designed to aggravate. How many years do I have to spend never rising to their bait, never screaming or throwing fit, to make them believe me?
HidingFromTheDinosaurs, thanks for your story.
I am autistic myself and am delighted with all my heart to hear the tale of an autistic abuse victim from women and girls. Just like I was as well. So let me tell you, I share in your pain two-fold.
Also know, being autistic isn’t a disorder or a mental issue. It’s only a processing system, brain wiring. There’s nothing good or bad about it. It just IS, that’s all. The challenge comes in finding the right supportive environment that accepts your way of thinking. Unfortunatly, you didn’t receive it at all in elementary school. High school, according to you, was a little better. For me, I hated high school with a passion.
That said, everything you went through with regards to everyone labeling the abuse your fault is something I also find myself struggling to avoid thinking at times with my own pain. Especially when looking at the torment I received from girls and women.
With little resources on this, how else was I going to think? Everyone seemed to be rushing to defend girls and women, absolve them of any agency or responsibility for their actions whatsoever and blame it on some outside force or mental health issue. Blame it all on “The Old Boys Club” or whatever and put more effort into fighting bullying done by boys alone. No articles on the topic whatsoever.
That’s why I wrote “Bullied By Girls And Women: One Man’s Account” on this site. Please read it for you will find many incidences you’ll likely identify with as an autistic man as well as a human being. It’ll also help you feel you’re not alone. And that’s more important at this stage in your life.
It’s something I had to do. No one else bothered to examine the issue, so I had to get off my rear end and do it myself.
Thanks again for visiting the haven and letting yourself be venerable. Society likes to tell us we autistic people lack the ability to be venerable which as a load of hogwash at the end of the day.
This is my second comment on this thread.
I am male.
When I was in grade school the girls would bully as much as the boys. The girls would tell me to “go away” constantly. Even if I was only in their general vicinity, just like all the rest of the kids standing around the same area of the school yard, I was the one who got told to “go away”.
Many times they would scream at me for even looking at them. If the girls started bagging at me, the boys were only moments behind in beating me up. It was a bit of a game to see who among the girls could get me beat up. And the boys would curry favour with the girls by doing it for them, even though the girls would do it themselves sometimes.
I hated recess and lunch hour. it was a game among the kids to see who could get my nose to bleed first by whacking it.
But, back to the girls – they wouldn’t even let me look at them. For years I had to keep my eyes averted in some manner – usually looking at the ground for fear they would yell out “don’t look at me” and the beating and slapping would start.
One of the problems with not looking up much is that it also presented many opportunities for the boys to do cruel things – like kneel down behind me on all fours and then have someone else push me so i would topple over instead of just stepping back. I wouldn’t see it coming when they would come for me because i would be looking away.
The teachers wouldn’t intervene (except once in gym class in grade 8). They just told me to fight back and that if i did they would go easy on me for punishment.
I am a gentle person and didn’t want to fight – and my parents had a no fighting rule that i had to adhere to…
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Yes – girls can bully
Being forced to avert my eyes and be less than human was in many ways worse than the beatings.
The humiliation was much worse than physical injuries. Being systematically ostracised was awful. And in grade school, especially grades 6,7,8 when girls are becoming extra important to boys… being that kind of target for girls was and is highly injuring to this day.
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I suppose I should note that I have Asperger’s. I was diagnosed when I was in my 40′s. I don’t show it very much – the clinicians involved in my assessment were astounded at my positive result because i do not “show” much, other than being a more nerdy than average.
I don’t want that diagnosis to colour the situation(s) i have found myself in throughout my life. The diagnosis makes it easy to pin the blame on my “lack of social skills” – which really hasn’t been the case. I am funny and relaxed in most situations – non-typical/stereotypical Asperger’s (I am not the “Sheldon” type).
Some of the stories on here are horrific. I appreciate the courage of those sharing them.
As do I, Big D.
But we need more survivors coming forth. Come on everyone, let’s show that female abuse and bullying is not to be taken lightly.
@ Eagle33
It shouldn’t be taken lightly regardless of the number of people who tell their stories on this thread or any other.
Also, this is a rough time of year for internet-related participation. Remind people again about this post after New Years.
I wish I could contribute, Eagle, it’s a good thing you’re doing. The worst I’ve suffered from women has been the usual everyday stuff–rudeness, insensitivity, selfishness, etc. Nothing that reaches the level of actual ‘abuse,’ I’m happy to say.
Yes, Typhone. I will.
The beat goes on, as always, no matter what year.