Why I Believe “The Avoidance” Is Bullying: An Open Letter
This opinion piece was submitted anonymously by a former member of Church of God in Christ Mennonite.
Grandma,
You messaged me yesterday to say that you hoped I would come for Christmas.
I would love to come for Christmas, but I am torn emotionally over the avoidance and how I feel when you seat me at a separate table.
Maybe a story from my childhood can help you understand why I am torn on the issue.
As a child, I suffered from severe social anxiety which caused me to behave a little strangely. I was unable to make eye contact when talking to other children and was so self-conscious that ordinary conversations and making friends were very difficult for me.
I did not look right, think right, talk right, or act right. The children around me decided that this meant I did not deserve to have friends, that I did not deserve to be treated with kindness, that I did not deserve to be included. They spent countless recesses making a game out of avoiding me. I imagine excluding me must have made them feel important like they were a part of some exclusive club.
Day after day I went to school hoping to make a friend, and day after day I went home crushed after a long day of rejection. In an effort to avoid playing with me, the other children in my class would run through the snow to the furthest corner of the school’s property, with me trying to catch up. Then, they would turn around and run in a different direction.
Lunchtime at school was a similar, albeit more passive, type of torture. After recess, children would take their lunch boxes and set them on the folding table assigned to their class. Every day, I took my lunch box and set it with the other children’s boxes. Each day, they moved it to the far end of the table, a not-so-subtle reminder that I did not deserve to sit with the other children, a reminder that I deserved to sit alone.
This bullying by exclusion, bullying by avoidance, went on for several years. I don’t really know when it stopped, because at some point I stopped trying to make friends, and accepted that I did not deserve to be loved, that I did not deserve to be accepted, that I did not deserve to be treated with basic human decency. Undoing the emotional harm has taken many years, and in many ways, my experiences during that formative portion of my life still present challenges for me.
Sometimes I wonder where were the adults. Could they not see what was going on? Why did nobody intervene? Many years have gone by, and my goal here is not to point fingers or establish blame. My teachers were only eighteen years old, barely more than children themselves, and had no training for how to spot what was happening or how to intervene. I have made peace with the fact that what happened may not have been anyone’s fault. It may have simply been unfortunate.
With that said, though, a small part of me wonders, was this just children being children, or were these children raised in a community where people who don’t look right, think right, believe right, say right, or act right deserve to be excluded, avoided, and seated separately at mealtimes?
So what does that story have to do with coming to Christmas? When I visit your home, I find myself excluded again. This time, I find myself excluded because I do not share your religious beliefs. Rather than cruel children, the people who choose to engage in isolating behavior are family, people who I love very much. When I am seated separately at mealtimes, it feels, as Bible Doctrine and Practice says it should, like a punishment. It feels like shame, isolation, and exclusion. Frankly, it feels like bullying. Although some would say the Avoidance is an act of love, it feels like conditional love, which doesn’t feel to me like love at all.
I am sure it is not and was never your goal for me to feel that way. However, because I do, and because I don’t want you to violate your own conscience with regard to practicing the Avoidance, I think the best thing would be for me to not come to Christmas. I think that way, Christmas can be a time of happiness for me in a way that it could not be otherwise. I hope you understand.
