Wear It Like Armor

“Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.” – Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones.

There I was, watching an innocent Oasis juice carton fly across the kitchen in slow motion, only to explode on impact as it hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. Growing up, you could say that my parents had a bit of a dysfunctional relationship – the atmosphere at home was a pretty stressful one. Arguments were common – throwing things, not so much, but it would be inaccurate to leave those details out. With experience, I would eventually come to have a good understanding of why my parents would clash. They were very different people who, when combined, just about guaranteed a certain type of chaos – though there were also good moments, of course. Overall, their natural tendency to fight contributed to the creation of an environment that had a very real impact on my psychology as I grew up. It varied across time, but it was pervasive enough that I could never truly relax – there was always a part of me that was on edge.

With time, it got to the point where I could predict when conflicts would occur. For example, I remember the monumental stress involved in my parents getting ready for a particular New Year’s party they had paid to attend. This culminated in us loading into the car to begin our journey – to what was supposed to be a celebration – but the arguing continued. I remember thinking, while staying out of it, that I just wanted them to get to the part where they cancelled their plans, turned the car around, drove back home angry – because then, I’d finally get to retire to my computer to drink a beer, alone, in relative peace. It actually happened – after an uncomfortable drive back home, I was able to have my moment of peace alone in the basement, at my computer, drinking a beer. By that point, though, I was seasoned – it’s best if I go back a bit.

When I was growing up, we moved around a lot – usually, it was around Quebec – the only exception was when we moved to Florida, of all places – palm trees, beaches, and warm weather – I loved it. Wisely, my parents thought to enroll me in an American school for the summer session, despite that I only knew basic English from my father. Thanks to my time there, I managed to get comfortable enough with the language that I was able to go straight into grade 3 with the other kids once the semester started. I sang the Star-Spangled Banner every day, and remember learning to write cursive there. I ended up completing my 3rd grade and part of my 4th in the United States of America. Thanks to that experience, my English really took off from the baseline my father taught me.

Then we moved back to Quebec. I first tried to resume my studies in French (my mother tongue) in the middle of the 4th grade semester. It didn’t go too well – I remember kids laughing at me because I mispronounced certain words – I would slip into English pronunciation. It was understandable – I hadn’t spoken French in a while. Keep in mind that given Canada’s history, there has always been a degree of hostility between the English and French – I was revealing myself as being part of the other team, even though, the joke’s on them – French was my mother tongue. These kids were either reflecting the dumb views of their parents, or they were just kids being kids.

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t long until I felt isolated. On top of the language differences, it didn’t help that I looked different, being half-Iranian, half-French – and, unfortunately for me, I had a really intense unibrow – thanks, genes! (It was only a few years beyond college that I started systematically plucking these hairs.) So I stood out in a few different ways, and that contributed to how I was treated – though I should say, a key part of this was that the school was in a small, rural Quebecois town; therefore, there was almost no racial diversity, and thus, lots of xenophobia.

I eventually asked my parents to switch to an English school while I was still in 4th grade, and they helped me do that. I was way more comfortable there linguistically, but the same thing would occur – I was isolated – and even worse, I started being bullied. I joined mid-semester, looked different, was shy, and oh, the glasses, let’s not forget the glasses! I had glasses that only Steve Urkel would have been proud of – I still remember when my father selected them for me. His primary concern was that they would have no nose pads independent from the frame. He had glasses previously where these pads broke, and didn’t want to have that issue with mine. Looking back now, as a software engineer (sort of), I can appreciate the whole “fewer parts that can potentially break” thing, but back then, I would have preferred blending in rather than have such distinctive glasses. This only contributed to the isolation.

What didn’t help my cause was that I wasn’t one to believe in violence – I didn’t really defend myself, I just took it, repeatedly. My father once told me, actually pretty wisely, that when that happened to him, to stop it, he just lost his mind on a kid and then no one messed with him moving forward, thinking him to be crazy. Perhaps that would have helped me – but I didn’t have that in me. To my mother’s credit, she tried to intervene multiple times with the school’s administration, and also tried to select clothes that were more “in”, but at the end of the day, I continued to be bullied.

I remember one day where, despite the bullying, I had a crush on a classmate – while still in 4th grade. I summoned the courage to approach her after class one day, when all the other students had left. Well… I did it, I asked that girl out… do you know what her reaction was? She screamed, ran out of the classroom, and to this day, I clearly remember her screams reverberating down the hall as she ran away. I stood there speechless, as our teacher came over and asked what had happened. I told her, and I still recall that she had the same reaction as I had had internally… something to the effect of “wow, that was an overreaction on her part.” Oddly enough, this is one of my favorite memories – it was so over the top, I can’t help but laugh.

The bullying continued – but there were a few positive changes. First, I actually made a friend – we got along quite well! That improved my experience a bit on the school front, but unfortunately, he moved to another province after grade 6, and so we mostly lost contact following that. He reached out again in 2015 and raised the idea of meeting up for a beer. I deeply regret not following up on this – I allowed the current of life to distract me. The next I heard, he had passed away – he was way too young for that. I still don’t know what happened to him, but I will always remember him as a brother – in those dark times, I had a true friend who saw me as an equal and with whom I could share laughter, sadness, whatever.

When high school came along, in grade 7, there was some hope on the educational front – my parents enrolled me in another school, one that had a good chance to reduce the bullying I had to deal with. This new school was far enough away that there was no conventional bus route – meaning I couldn’t take the school bus, which is where I was bullied the most. This meant that I got to use the city bus to get to and from school, effectively eliminating that particular vulnerability. It was also a school that had a dress code, which ruled out another possible vector for bullying – clothing. And finally, it was far more diverse racially compared to the other Quebec schools I had been to, which was super helpful. Overall, I loved this school, and I had two friends, amazingly, for the first time. Unfortunately for me, that school shut down by coincidence after my first year there and, deflated, I was forced back to the previous institution.

The bullying continued in grade 8, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Just remember, however, that at home, throughout all this, there was always a baseline of my parents having arguments – lots of household stress. It was very difficult for me to ever truly relax – I was always kind of bracing myself for the next fight. But it got even worse – because the more I aged, the more my father disliked me. That might sound weird to read, but it was completely accurate – there’s nothing I could do right, in his eyes, and he always made sure to give me a hard time. So at home, there was hardly any peace, and at school, same thing – I was being pressured on all fronts.

Back at school, I was fortunate enough to grow really tall, really fast, during the summer between grades 8 and 9. From that point on, I was hardly bullied anymore… after all, who would want to mess with a person that’s that tall and built in such a way that they could effectively use them as a projectile? I wasn’t so inclined, of course, but I think that the growth spurt did me a huge favor. That said, taking all those hits without responding all those years was psychologically costly for me – it was incredibly isolating. But I never betrayed my peaceful nature. I had a few more friends from that point on – my days were starting to improve at school, but remember, things were only getting worse at home.

When it was time, I enrolled in college. It was at this college that I discovered, for the first time in my life, that by and large, people actually seemed to like me. Thus, for the first time, I realized that my true home was my school – at least there, I felt like people valued me and my contributions. Of course, I was in a Computer Science program, so as you can imagine, my mentality was probably especially appreciated in that context. But regardless, I started to see that all the bullying at school, all the beratement from my father, it wasn’t about me – it was more likely a reflection of the perpetrators and their inherent insecurities. (Much later in life, unlike the bullies, my father apologized, in his own way, for his behavior.)

My upward climb only continued from there. With each passing year, I would see more and more evidence of my value – I was appreciated by almost everyone around me. And because of how much I was bullied in the past, I learned to put quite a bit of care into how I crafted my words when speaking to people. I absolutely never wanted anyone to feel like I did growing up – I knew all too well how bad that felt. And given how much time I had to spend in my own head trying to navigate the moods of others growing up, I grew to crave honesty and transparency – the truth was so much better, even if it wasn’t always comfortable to hear.

This is the first part in a three-part series. The next post is Polarity.