Nicknames

 Words have meaning.  Names have power.  And in between, there are those phrases, those groupings, that we identify as "nicknames."

I've been saddled with quite a few nicknames in my life.  Sometimes, nothing can hurt more.

"A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man." - -author unknown, quoted by William Hazlitt 

"Nigger Lips" was the first nickname I ever owned.  As a young child, perhaps all the way back to when I was only five years of age, it was thrown at me.  Spewed like poison.  By my mother.

I am a white American Jewish woman of half Italian heritage, half Austrian and Hungarian.  Was it the absurdity that made it so powerfully damaging?  Now decades older, this senior woman doesn't understand what would make a mother nickname a daughter as such...Nigger Lips.  That would lead me into a discussion about my abusive, unstable mother but better left for another time.  The damage she was able to do, the power she held by her mean name-calling, was to scar me for life.

Always directed at me in rage and disgust, as I grew older the nickname became meaner.  I began to understand that it was meant to hurt and admonish.  As a child, not knowing what the term "nigger" referred to, I did realize that the words were meant to cause pain and sorrow.  Deeply negative in reference.  My mother wanted to hurt me.  While other children had nicknames of endearment, mine was of scrutiny and embarrassment.  It made me feel disfigured, ugly, dirty, bad and confused.  I don't remember understanding it, just the pain that went along with feeling it and the look in my mother's eyes when she said it.

Talk about childhood memories...are you still considered a child when you are in 9th grade?  I believe so.  I remember things.  I was a senior at Albert Leonard Junior High School, sitting in my English teacher's class.  Mr. Sherer's class.  We were to begin a book discussion, when he began playing a song..."The Shadow Of Your Smile."  My reaction to the song began slowly.  All these years later I can still remember how the song shamed me.  I had a habit of sucking my lips in when people looked at me.  When this song started, I reacted with a vengeance - biting my lips as I thought everyone was thinking about me when they heard the song...and my "Nigger Lips."  Blood started trickling down my mouth.  Mr. Sherer stopped the music. He then stopped the class and directed his stare in my direction.  He pointed at me and then pointed at the door.  I got up and was escorted by him into the hallway.

I let it all out then.  Cries of shame, embarrassment, and confusion bounced off the walls of my school.  Mr. Sherer literally held me up by my shoulder as he walked me to the office of my guidance counselor.  It was the first time I had told anyone my nickname - and who gave it to me.  They must have contacted my mother on that afternoon, for I don't remember her screaming it at me again.  At least not out loud.

Nigger Lips was not the only nickname she had for me.  Just the first I remember.  She constantly told me of my physical shortcomings and criticisms, "Cousin It" was yet another label my mother placed on me.  She referred to me as "Cousin It" from the Adams family - a creature behind a mop of hair.  Soon I really began hiding behind my hair, almost covering my eyes so I could not see, and no one could see me.  Or see how ugly she told me that I was.  

There was never any affection lost between my mother and me.  As a young adult, she often told me that she never wanted me.  She often told me how she had a miscarriage before me - and that the miscarriage should have been me.  I never had the mother who read story books, attended back-to-school nights, was a class mother, brought me to after school activities, who nurtured and cared for me.  None of that.  In fact, for my high school graduation, she handed me a $5 bill, told me to get a cab, and did not attend.  My father traveled 9 months out of the year for his work and was hardly ever around until the summer times.  I had no one.

(I pledged my soul to be the opposite of my mother. I made my sons my world and dedicated every breath I had to them. I gave them everything I never had - the unconditional love of a mother who adored them.)

So, surprise, surprise - I married an abuser after college graduation.  Raped and smacked around by him prior to marriage (he had even hit me in front of my college friends), I never had a parent to run to.  I only had me.  My mother smacked me around so much I was used to it.  I ended marrying the monster Robert thinking no one else would want me.  I couldn't live with my mother so I thought I picked a way out that would be the lesser of 2 evils.  It was a throw of the dice.  And I lost.

I had new nicknames.  I soon answered to "Piece of Shit."  With all Robert did to me, that was the least of my troubles.  In fact, when my son Jason was only three years old, he was on the phone talking to his cousin, Britt.  I heard him yell at her, "Britt, answer me you Piece of Shit!"  Eventually, my two sons would be taught to verbally abuse me as well.

I just wanted to be called "Julie" and "Mom."

During my divorce, Jared, the younger of my sons, as a teen started calling me "Cunt."  And it only got worse with post divorce abuse. 

I look around me now, my mother deceased, and wonder what she would think of so many women getting lip fillers these days to enlarge their lips.  I look at people I know in their Instagram feeds making duck faces into their selfies.....and I remember.

My lips were always a bit on the larger side.  It's part of who I am.  I am without shame nor embarrassment.  I guess I kind of grew into them....I don't suck them in anymore; I'm not ashamed of them.  I even have red lipstick now.

Nicknames should only be words of love, of kindness.  Because the damage they can do might just last someone's lifetime.  Nicknames can damage self-esteem, foster insecurity, and act as a tool for bullying.  The psychological impact hurts beyond any measure.

Use your words carefully, please.

XO,

Just Julie

(I apologize for the use of terrible slangs.  They are, were, and always will be unacceptable and offensive.  I am just reflecting on my history - the story of me.)