Self-Reliance Grew From Experience

First person

I am 69 years old now, but I still remember the suffering I experienced in high school from fellow students who harassed and ridiculed me.

I was extravagantly loved as a small, chubby child. But when puberty kicked in, my weight soared up over 200 pounds.

In some ways I was proud because I felt like I was more intelligent than some of the other students. But as I had no social life, my self-esteem suffered as a result of the harassment. If I had been a different kind of person, I would have gone along with their jokes just to have friends. I got so much love and attention at home, however, that I had a strong sense of dignity.

Later in high school, I retreated inward and responded to bullying by ignoring those who teased and harassed me. I went through three years of high school without speaking to other students. I looked past those students when they confronted me. I never looked at them.

This only made them try harder to get me to acknowledge their existence. And try they did, especially the boys, who could be very cruel.

Once, when some of them found out that I cared about animals, they put a dead bird in my desk at school. To escape all the harassment, I retreated within myself to an inner world.

I also found a life in books. My pets were the only friends I had. Each day after school I took my dog Nippy and ran to the woods for a walk in the trees. There, I found peace and the strength to live.

That is how I became a nature mystic. I developed a passionate love for the beauty of this earth and its creatures.

And good came from these experiences. I became very independent and self-reliant. I needed this in my life because I was orphaned at 18 and alone in the world after that. I don’t think I could have survived the time after my parents died if I hadn’t learned to depend on myself like that.

The bullying seemed terrible at 16 but became an asset years later because ultimately it made me stronger. It’s all in what you do with what you have.

I learned you should never accept somebody else’s negative definition of who you are. You make your own reality.