IT’S THE QUIET ONES YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR BY STUART D. MONROE

9/6/2022

I just can’t shake how many kids there are out there like me, suffering through the combination of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness and bullying that are just waiting to explode. I feel that. Some days I still feel the ghost of it, and my brain is screaming at me that we’re doomed to keep repeating this lesson until we collectively pick up what I’m throwing down.

It’s the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch Out For by Stuart D. Monroe

I started out intending to go in one very pointed direction- my tale of getting to my diagnosis (bipolar disorder, for what it’s worth) and how I got there. I was going to use the rawness of my tale to illustrate the importance of destigmatizing mental health issues and utilizing some self-analysis to understand when it’s time to get help. I suppose, in some ways, I might even still get there. Unfortunately, the senseless tragedy of Uvalde happened right here in my home state of Texas, and it set me off down a dark mental path that redefined the nature of this article.

What I’m going to say next will initially shock. Hang in there with me, though…you’ll be picking up what I’m throwing down before too long. I promise.

As a mentally ill person, I empathize with the shooters who arm themselves and commit these horrible atrocities in an attempt to douse the flames of rage they have in their souls.

See? I told you it was a rough statement to digest. And I can already hear people trying to say that I sympathize with school shooters, which is miles away from what I said. Empathizing doesn’t involve feelings of acceptance; you’re not condoning a damn thing! When I say empathize, I mean it in the Merriam-Webster’s sense of the word:

Empathy: (noun) The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

In short, I get it. I just do. Prior to my 2nd grade year, my parents moved us from our idyllic, nuclear family scenario in Clemson, South Carolina to an apartment in Hanahan, South Carolina (a suburb of historic Charleston). They had their reasons, and I’m not here to judge them. The result, though, was a strange new place away from our large extended family. And the next eight years of school were a hell of bullying, fear, and finally rage.

During that time, my Dad and Mom split. Mom fell apart. There were some damn rough patches, to say the least. Through it all, the bullying continued. I wasn’t the literally the lone poor kid in a virtually all-white, well-to-do school full of snobs, but it damn sure felt like I was. My only “live action” friend was my brother, Chris. My best friend was Stephen King, and my sanctuary was the school library. My cathedral was the movie theater; my fellowship occurred with the cases on the video store shelves and the copy of Fangoria or WWF Magazine in my back pocket.

I was a lonely kid, and I became an extremely angry kid who stayed shunned and on the outside. I never made real friends during those formative years. Even the small group of pseudo friends I had in class only kept my company for my class clown antics and stellar grades (manic, anyone?). I was okay to be used, but I was never invited to any birthday parties.

You starting to pick up what I’m throwing down yet?

The end of 6th grade approaches, and I’m being bullied by a big bastard whose name I can’t even recall anymore. He sucker punched me with one of those ubiquitous brass ducks you used to see on people’s glass end tables in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. It didn’t knock me out, but it damn sure put me down on all fours in the dirt with blood dripping out of my notrils. A funny thing happened then- the fear went away. The world got quiet and extremely calm for a few seconds, and then a burning hot poison came boiling up from behind some door in my head that had been previously shut. The curtain came down, and I don’t recall the fight. I was told by a seriously freaked-out teacher that I was snarling and digging my hands in the dirt before I jumped up into his face and went to work.

That happened a few more times. That started to happen every single time someone looked at me cross, and my discipline record grew exponentially. I earned every bit of my reputation as the school psycho. By the time I adopted a devil worshipper persona in the mid-90’s, it was getting really bad. The thought of guns, fortunately, never crossed my mind because…if I’m being brutally honest…I enjoy the up close and wet work. One kid called my future wife (24 years strong!) a slut, and he got hurt very badly. I got expelled and sent away after being pulled out of the classroom by a handful of my fellow football players with blood covering me from fists to elbows and a tooth embedded in my knuckles.

Now I know you’re picking up what I’m throwing down.

It was my freshman English class when it happened. My all-time favorite teacher, Mrs. Morris, gave us an open assignment to say whatever you wanted to say to your classmates. It just clicked. This was the moment that I was going to obliterate everyone and tell them what they’d done to me…and what I wanted to do to them. I didn’t hold back on what they deserved. Mrs. Morris, to her credit, let me have my say. Fun fact: it was the first time I ever dared to speak in front of a class in school ever.

I ended that class period with thirty letters of spontaneous apology. They came up to my desk, one by one, and you could see on their faces that many of them were seeing me for the first damn time! Despite all my violence in school, I was still invisible to the majority of them. Talk about a revelation! That told me more about those quiet kids, those bullied kids, those forgotten kids than any news report ever could.

The lesson stuck. I didn’t kill the sorry motherfuckers with a gun…even though I wanted to. I never lashed out physically again; the energy had gone more or less out of me when it came to that particular crowd of people. I got my shot in, and it was a damn good one that I’m sure many of them still remember. I sure as shit hope they do.

I just can’t shake how many kids there are out there like me, suffering through the combination of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness and bullying that are just waiting to explode. I feel that. Some days I still feel the ghost of it, and my brain is screaming at me that we’re doomed to keep repeating this lesson until we collectively pick up what I’m throwing down.

Stuart D. Monroe

Stuart D. Monroe is a reviewer, journalist, & author of short fiction (some of which has actually made it into the wild). He’s the Editor-In-Chief of http://GetOnMyDamnLevel.com, a Staff Reviewer at http://HorrorDNA.com, & a Staff Writer at both http://HorrorObsessive.com & http://SportsObsessive.com. He can be found on Twitter
@BigDaddyStu
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