Sticks and stones
AN: This is a one chapter thing, i'm came up with it when i was thinking about that saying and how it was so not true. This is from Chandler's point of view.
Disclaimer: i don't own Friends
I guess you have heard the saying sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Well something similar to that as everyone says it differently, every teacher I know adjusts it slightly, I don't know why but they just do.
Anyway I'm here saying it's a lie, words have always hurt me more than anything else.
How do I know that? Well I have been bullied from a very young age right up to college.
Mostly cos of my parents. Having a romantic novelist, I would not call those books that but I prefer to use that word, for a mother and a, well to begin with he wasn't only until I was a bit older, cross dressing father. That's right those are my parent, I'm not lying, I swear that's what my parents do.
They are the reason behind most of the bullying, the other bit is because I'm really weak. They could do whatever they want and I wouldn't be able to stop them.
So let me start at the beginning before my dad was a cross dresser and openly gay, I was mostly bullied cos of rumours about my father being gay. At the time people would say that something was going on with him and the pool boy, stupidly I didn't believe them.
The other part, well this isn't a reason, is that I was the kid that would be bullied by everyone even the other people that were bullied would bully me. I guess it built their self-confidence up a bit but what about mine, I was left with zero self-confidence but not much has changed as I still got almost no confidence but it has improved a lot.
I was beaten up more often then, that's when the teachers first started telling me phrase. Like it would help, it would have been better if they had stopped the bulling not just say a stupid phrase.
I would come home covered in bruises and my parents wouldn't even notice. It continued this way until I was 9 years old, that's when it all got worse.
My mum and dad got divorced and my dad confirmed everyone's rumour that he was gay. I didn't think it could get any worse but wait I'm Chandler of course it's going to get worse. Someone found out that my dad became a cross dresser, it spread around the school like a wild fire, in one day everyone knew about it.
I lost my only friend the next day, her name was Zoey, her friends told her that she could either be friends with me and have everyone hate her too or stay friends with them and insult me daily. She choice option two so I guess she wasn't really a friend in the first place.
So now I'm alone, my dad left for Las Vegas, my only friend ditched me and my mum was away on a book tour. Can you believe it, I was only 9 and I was already alone, that forced me to completely take care of myself. I built my defence mechanism, I hid my emotions behind my jokes, I was always good with jokes before but now I needed them, I couldn't let the bullies know what I was feeling. I was upset and was starting to go slowly into a depression, if they would have found that out they would have made my live worse. By now though I was already expecting it to get worse so I was always preparing myself for when it would happen but now it had to be something big, walking in on my mum having sex with a young boy didn't count.
Now the verbal bullying started, they already made fun of my name, they normally said "Chandler what a stupid name" and walked away laughing. Then people would come up to me and say "Hi stupid" or "Hi idiot".
Soon they came up with gay jokes when I was 10, that still hasn't changed even my friends now still use them but I know they don't want to hurt me like these people did. The girls were the worst with this joke, the guys would beat me up saying I'm a gay idiot but the girls were still worse. They would said "Who would want you, you gay idiot", both of them said idiot a lot thinking about it now. Oddly during the gay jokes this was the only time Zoey said something nice to me after ditching me, well I think it's nice you might still think its mean. She said "Why don't you tell everyone you're gay yet" this caused the girls to laugh so loud they didn't hear the next bit "They are the idiots Chandler, I'm sorry I can't be a friend to you, I just want you to know that someone will want you who wouldn't, you're one of the most handsome guys here and you have the best eyes in the world. I have to go back to insulting you now but just hold on Chandler, don't give up soon someone will be able to openly be your friend and you will find someone who loves you"
As they got older they used swear words when saying hi to me but the worse think they said was "You're useless who would ever want you". That hurt more than a 1000 gay jokes or telling me I had a stupid name. Sadly someone was still able to hurt me more but it wasn't a bully, it was my own mother.
My mum had a terrible hangover and she asked me to get her some water, I tripped over my school bag which was on the floor when holding the glass. I dropped the glass which shattered on the ground, for my mum it sounded like an explosion. Then was when she said the worst thing anyone has everyone said to me "You are useless Chandler, absolutely useless, sometimes I wish you weren't born as you just get in the way of everything". They you go, my mother wished that I was never born, everything the bullies said paled in comparison, no matter how many swear words they used, the max was 6 in one sentence if you wanted to know, my mother said the worst thing ever.
That's when I started to fail want I promised Zoey, I was starting to give up. I was smoking, I started when I was 9 but now I had them all day long, and I started taking drinks from my mum drinking cabinet, not that she even cared, she was either having sex with someone or off on a book tour. I still hung on, the drinking and smoking was keeping me from falling, but on the first day of college I was going to let go.
I met my roommate, he was called Ross, he was a real geek. He went out to get more of his boxes when I prepared my plan. I grabbed a load of pills, knowing that I couldn't last anymore. I started swallowing them, they were quite weak so I would need to take loads before I would be free from this life. I had swallowed my fifth when Ross walked, looking around me, seeing all the pills. I could tell he knew what I was doing, I was about to put the next few in my mouth when Ross rushed across the room and grabbed my hand.
"Don't do that" he said
I dropped the pills and looked everywhere apart from his eyes which were burning into my head. I saw a box lying on the floor, everything in it was smashed, I only just realised he dropped his stuff, probably breaking all of it, to stop me. Someone does care about me then, Zoey was right then, someone does care about me even if I have only spoken to him for only a minute.
"You dropped you stuff" I say
"Yeah, it doesn't matter though, I would drop everything I have to stop you from trying to killing yourself" Ross said
"Thanks" I say, looking down
"Will you tell me why you tried to kill yourself?" he asked, sitting down on my bed next to me.
"No one cares about me, everyone wants to be mean to me and bully me" I say
"I care about you and I have only known you a minute surely someone else cares about you like your mum and dad"
I laugh at the thought of my mum and dad caring, "No they don't care my mum said she wished I was never born and my dad left when I was 9".
I wasn't going to tell him everything about them yet, it would be nice to have a friend for a while.
"Oh" was all he said and that was the beginning of our friendship.
After Ross, I became friends with his sister Monica, the toe incident didn't really matter to me. Then Phoebe, then Joey who is the best friend in the world, he wouldn't have been like the teachers or Zoey he would have stood up for me, well actually they all would. Finally Rachel completed the group, I can't believe it, my whole life I had no one then suddenly I get the best friends in the whole world.
Looking back on those times I so happy that both Zoey and Ross keep me going otherwise I wouldn't be stood here, holding Erica while Monica, my beautiful wife, was holding Jack. We were getting ready to move and I couldn't help but go over everything that has happened. I was snapped from my thoughts then as Rachel asked
"Do you guys have to go to the new house right away or do you have some time?"
"We got some time" Monica said
"Ok should we get some coffee" Rachel asked
"Sure," I say, "Where?"
Live can't get better than this I think going down the stairs.
Sticks and stones almost broke my bones but you're words nearly killed me.