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Sticks and Stones

© Patricia C. Behnke

Sticks and Stones by Patricia C. Behnke

The biggest lie from childhood: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Hit me with a stick or throw a stone at me anytime rather than tell me that my face is ugly or my clothes are old or my mother wears army boots. Tell me those things, and I crumble.

Yet the insults and ridicule begin at a very young age whenever someone does something outside the norm of behavior. Where do we learn to insult one another for our differences? Does it come from somewhere deep inside our psyche, and is it so ingrained in our personalities that it begins with the acquisition of language?

Many times we throw the slings and arrows of words to protect ourselves. They serve as a red herring for the soul, deflecting those slings and arrows from coming directly back at us. And so we are taught the old adage about stick and stones in order to make ourselves tough and to let go of those insults. But how often do they really just roll off our backs? Those words pierce their way into our hearts and souls, leaving wounds. Some of us can heal those wounds over time; others never can.

The wounds which never heal become festering blisters of pain. And words serve, not as the sticks and stones of our childhood, but as the timber and boulders which threaten to come crashing down to smother us.

Last year one of my students, a young man of seventeen tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of Tylenol PM. He hung onto his life by a thread. One morning he just woke up and no longer wanted to face the timber and boulders of his daily life at school because he was different. It doesn't matter how he was different, but he was. And he was ostracized and ridiculed for it. He would hide it, deflect it, and strike back because of it. But finally the struggle to do all of those things while still living the life of a teenager became too much, and he couldn't face another day.

So he woke up one morning and decided he had had enough of his life. He swallowed 400 pills in an effort to end the pain and struggle. And for over two weeks he lingered in and out of this world.

The repercussions sent out ripples, and the emotions came in waves of guilt. Other teenagers wondered if they could have done something for him while the adults wondered why they didn't do something more. As teachers we didn't do enough. Even though I referred him to a guidance counselor and talked to his parents, it still wasn't enough. The damage had already been done.