2935
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by Leonard Sobczak
May 19, 2011
Last week my doorbell rang unexpectedly at 6 a.m. while I was sitting in my apartment reading the newspaper. I warily walked down the hallway to see who could be calling at such an early hour. Outside the glass door stood a disheveled young man who demanded to be let inside. After ascertaining that he didn’t live in the building, I turned him away.
Suddenly in a raised voice he said, “You’ve got a fucking Jew living here,” and read the name of one of the tenants listed on the building directory. This ugly outburst caught me so off guard that it felt like a hot poker jammed into my brain. A verbal scuffle ensued as I tried to get the man to leave the premises.
“You’re a damn faggot, lonely old man,” he said. With that, I felt my power drain through my legs and into the floor.
It took me a few moments to regain my composure. When I did, I phoned the police on my cell phone and then used it to snap the young man’s picture. He finally turned to leave.
I don’t know why, but I followed him out the door in my pajamas, taking his photograph repeatedly. Hearing the police coming, he flipped me the bird and escaped between a couple of houses.
Later I wondered: How did a drunken, aimless 20-something gain so much power over me, a successful, middle-aged businessman, simply by hurling a homophobic slur? That question set off a cascade of memories winding back to childhood.
I was the chosen sissy in my class. I was made fun of and chased home. Terror was a regular, silent companion. It never occurred to me that someone should be defending me. Instead, I developed all kinds of devices for protection, such as shyness and escaping into a make-believe world.
It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I started probing the deeply held wounds of bullying that had become part of my cellular structure. The painstaking unwinding that followed was like dismantling a double helix of genetic encoding that defined who I was. I ultimately realized that I was none of those old messages – that I was much more and capable of much more.
I took back my power over this incident by having the police come to my office and file an incident report. With the pictures I took, they are now looking for the perpetrator. They will arrest him for disorderly contact and possibly charge him with a hate crime. A judge will decide his fate.
Recovery from the wounds of early abuse is possible.
