Ep.26 Amy

The Chicken Mind Nuggets's Podcast

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

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@mindchicken

References for this episode

(None, these are my personal experiences)

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

This is a true story.

Amy moved to my state from Oklahoma and joined my middle school class around 6th or 7th grade. We had an assignment in class to interview a classmate and I was assigned to Amy. I asked Amy where she is from, she said Oklahoma, and I immediately wanted to talk to her about tornadoes. I love tornadoes, I love weather, I want to be a storm chaser, and when it rains/thunders/lightning during monsoon season in Arizona, I am the idiot running outside becoming energetically charged from furious rain pounding away on my body. Amy said she experienced tornadoes and said they were scary, but to be honest I didn’t know what else to talk to her about because I didn’t know anything else about Oklahoma except tornadoes happen there. I could tell she was getting uncomfortable, and I couldn’t understand why at the time, so I attributed it to my continuously filling bucket of shame that everyone poured into, from my increasingly scary home life, to the bullies in school who took advantage of my fragile state by spitting in my sandwiches and making fun of my braces.

There was a talent show later that year and my friend Nicole’s mom helped my friends and I develop a dance routine to a Spice Girls song. I loved it at first, until the overwhelming feeling of dread came about from knowing this was going to be another humiliating moment where I wasn’t earning ANY cool points. I don’t remember what Amy did that year, but I remember this girl Tara putting up a sign on the window to the room we were practicing in saying “Spice Girls Suck.” AKA – you are losers. We did not win the talent show.

Amy started a trend, where when I walked up the stairs to the girl’s gym, she would shout my name from the bottom of the stairs, woo, clap and cheer. I thought it was awesome because no one was rooting for me. I was unpopular, damaged, on medication, scared to go home every day, lonely, and full of anxiety. The thought of ANYONE rooting for me was incredible. I loved it, and thanked her…. for a while…. until the crowd grew. Then 10 people, then 15 people, then more people started doing the same, and I realized they weren’t rooting for me, they were being horrible to me.

When I realized it, I wanted to die. Not in a middle school emo type of way, I remember wanting to end my life and being at home holding a knife to my chest saying I’m going to end all of this pain, but being too chicken shit to do it. I didn’t hold a knife to my chest just once….

Years later, Amy and I graduated in the same high school class together. She became even prettier, moved to the Midwest, and I think she’s in banking. I reflect on the humiliation she brought on me and the various ways I handled it from outbursts to making poems/songs about her. I didn’t have the tools to deal with or cope with that was going on, and I didn’t understand that the abuse at home was the foundation for a life of uncertainty, confusion, and messed up boundaries. Maybe Amy didn’t understand what she was doing either, but she was a devastating tornado that brought chaos and hell to my ridiculous life.

If she is listening, I hope that she is doing well. I wish her no harm, and I hope that she is happy. She was a bully, and a significant part of my middle school experience, but I have developed tougher skin now and I filed that experience into the life that I put to death.

I think we all have an Amy, or have been an Amy, but you don’t have to continue to be any Amy. We can take our Amy experiences and learn how not to treat people. We can be the hero to someone who is being bullied by an Amy because you don’t know how strong or weak the victim really is. We can listen to our internal Amy and care for ourselves more when we are being our own worst critic.

Let go of the Amy’s in your life…they don’t deserve you.

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