When I was about 10, I had a friend who was also my enemy. Our visits would start out amicably. We’d play school or make edible goop in her Easy Bake Oven, and then suddenly we’d be yelling at each other, and I’d be calling my mother to come pick me up. Once, a fight turned physical. My friend was much bigger than I was, and I wound up with bruises and broken glasses. The incident upset me terribly, and that night I told my father about it, knowing he would take my side. Maybe he would even have a talk with her mother. Instead, he said, “What did you do to deserve getting hit?”
This was not at all the response I’d hoped for. But I told the truth. “I wanted to be the teacher and she wouldn’t let me, and so I tore up one of her books.”
“Well then,” my father said, as in, “Now you know not to make people angry so they won’t hit you.”
There were a lot of different ways this interaction with my father could have – and arguably should have – gone. Instead of him asking what I did to “deserve” being hit by my friend, he could have said that hitting is never a good solution and then asked how this latest fight started. When I admitted to ripping up her book, he might’ve asked what gave me the right, to which I might’ve said, “I wanted her to listen to me” or “To make her mad,” after which he could have then delved into how I could have acted differently. All of which could have taken the conversation somewhere deeper and more meaningful and perhaps diffused future fights, and none of which – most importantly – would have implied that hitting is an appropriate response to aggravation.
I have thought about this incident many times throughout my life, with varying levels of compassion for my father, my friend and for myself. I’m sure my father was sick of hearing about our fights – they happened almost every time we got together – and he probably didn’t want to “delve.” My friend, I would discover later, had a difficult family life and was probably coping the best she could.
But one thought doesn’t change, no matter how many times I review this incident: My father shouldn’t have suggested that getting hit was my fault. Destruction of property? That was on me. But hitting – that’s on the hitter.
I am thinking about this again now because of an incident involving an online teacher. To save time and space, I’ll jump to the end of the story: What I did to deserve being told I was STUPID (in all caps) was I emailed him a question outside of office hours. I did this because I hadn’t read all the way through the syllabus to where it said what his office hours were. Well then.
His response was so shocking and so inappropriate and cruel that I’ve had no recourse but to hang onto it like the heaping mound of rotten-smelling compost on my kitchen counter that I keep not taking out. Instead of releasing it to the compost heap where it can molder along with other putrefying veggie and fruit scraps, I just keep looking at it, moving it around, thinking about how terrible it smells.
As with the incident with my friend and my father, I suspect I will turn this one with the teacher over and over in my head for more time than I’d like to admit. The sticking point seems to be this: I’m embarrassed that, in my impatience, I didn’t follow directions by reading all the way through the syllabus. Aren’t I old enough by now to do this? Aren’t I mature enough? Do I have no self-control? For this transgression, I seem to feel I deserve to be chastised. (I am reminded of a long-ago mental health client whose husband was in a wheelchair and who, when he was angry with his wife, demanded she present herself to him so he could slap her. Which she did.)
In my own defense, I know that in the time it took the teacher to write that I was STUPID TO EMAIL during non-office hours, he could have instead written that I’d FAILED TO OBSERVE his office hours. Message received, only minus the wrath. I’d still be embarrassed, but I wouldn’t have felt humiliated, and it wouldn’t have morphed into depression, and I wouldn’t still be nosing around in the stench.
But here I am. I’ve processed the incident endlessly, with my husband, my friends, my brother and my writers group. I’ve analyzed it from every possible angle and thought through loads of possible responses (confront him, request a refund, quit and lose my money, write a note explaining how he hurt me and send it, write the same note and don’t send it) – none of which I’ve carried out yet.
Most importantly, even though I still feel the sting, I know that the teacher’s response was uncalled for, unprofessional and unkind. I know that abuse – verbal, physical or emotional – is never an answer to provocation and in response to a student who didn’t read the syllabus, is like swinging at a fly with a baseball bat.
Dana Shavin is the author of “The Body Tourist,” a memoir of recovery. Email her at dana@danashavin.com, follow her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes and see more of her writing at Danashavin.com.
Dana Shavin