Don't Fight! Run Away

The first time I almost got abused from bullies(besides the whippings I got from the belt from my mother at home) was in fifth grade when two girls in my class followed me home. They started pushing me and making fun of me and I kept walking and trying to ignore them. I just wanted to get home to my grandmother and be loved and safe. There was two of them against one. I had never even been in a fight and I wasn't about to take on two Spanish girls for my first fight. The next day I told the teachers, and after that they left me alone.

The next time was in seventh grade. A girl, an Iranian girl named Golnaz, and I were in band class together. She played the clarinet like I did, but she was terrible at it. It was time for our final exam, and she left her clarinet at home so she begged me to borrow mine so that she wouldn't get an F (fail the exam) for not bringing her clarinet. We didn't even like each other. She'd been rude and mean to me on previous occasions. I didn't want to let her use my clarinet because I thought she should fail for failing to bring her clarinet. But I put myself in her shoes, and thought if I asked I would want someone to say yes. So I told her "Ok, on one condition. You must clean the clarinet out when your done." (There is a cloth with a string that runs through the instrument to remove spit that is used for cleaning.) She agreed, took her exam with my clarinet, and then returned it to me. I asked her "Did you clean out the clarinet." "No," she told me smugly as if to say to me that she didn't respect me enough to abide by the condition of my grant. I was furious and I began to run my mouth on the bus about how I was going to beat her up. She was two years older than me, and about three inches taller than me. I wasn't thinking about that when I was running my mouth. All I was thinking about was that someone needed to humble her because she was going to turn into a worse bully and even more disrespectful than she already was. When I got off the bus, she came at me after hearing from others how I'd talked about getting in a fight with her. I saw how much taller she was, and I still had no fighting skills, and I tried to weasel my way out of it. I declined the fight and thought that humiliation ought to suffice: You know, eating my words and being called a chicken or a coward. But that wasn't enough for her. She threw my books unto the street and began swinging at me. I dodged the first two punches, but she clocked me in the jaw with the third punch. I knelt down, and in that instant I considered taking my clarinet box and bashing her skull with it. Just as my hand began to reach for the box, a man came running out of the house we were "fighting" in front of, and he stopped the fight. Told us to go home or he'd call the cops. So we went home, and then I cried to my mother. My mother went to talk to her mother and it was over, except for having to hear for the next two weeks at school how Golnaz was so much braver, so much stronger, and how she beat me up. I suppose this first fight taught me how to laugh at gossip, and how humans have no compassion.

Then I studied Tae Kwon Do. After that, I didn't get into any fights with kids at school. My instructors taught me to only use it for self-defense and perhaps my confidence was enough to show an energy or aura that people shouldn't mess with me or bully me.

The next fight I had was with my mother. I was over 18 years old, and she and I got into a big argument. She was berating and belittling me and I was giving it back to her which she couldn't handle. She was at a loss of words so she began to hit me. I didn't want to hit her back because in my family, you don't hit your mother. That's a big No No. But I was an adult and she should not have hit me anymore. So I slunk down against the wall and let her hit me and I began laughing like a lunatic. The more I laughed the more she struck which only made me laugh harder and harder. I looked at her with a wicked smile and said, "You think that hurts? You can't hurt me anymore." She eventually hit me enough and got tired of my laughter and just told me to get out of her face. I did and that was the end of that fight. I think she realized at that point that I had "toughened up".

The next fight I had was with my first roommate Tammy. She was angry at me because I didn't want to be roommates anymore. She started ragging on me in a mocking voice "You're going back to your Mommy, little baby, going back to your Mommy." I tried to ignore her and get my things to put in the car. My uncle and stepfather were helping me move my stuff and Tammy just kept running her mouth at me. I finally said something like "Shut Up" and then she pinned me against the wall. Hitting the wall again, something snapped inside me. I blacked out and went spaztic on her like the Tazmanian Devil. I don't remember how many times I hit her, only that I didn't wake up until I felt myself in a choke hold from Chris, my stepfather, who was shouting into my ears "Stop, Wake up, Stop," and then I could see his face and feel his grip on my neck. I took a deep breath and that fight was over. Needless to say, she and I did not remain friends.

The next time I got attacked was when I was living in the same neighborhood as my mother and she and I got into another argument. She knew that we weren't getting along very well and she came to visit me at my house, but she brought her very large Rottweiler dog with her. When we started to argue and yell at each other, the dog bit me hard on the left leg. I had a bloody wound for several days. I still have a scar on my leg to remind me never to get into a fight with someone when they have their dog with them. The part that makes me laugh about it, she planned it. When the dog bit me, she laughed. Now I laugh about it because what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

After that, I didn't have a fight for another long time until I was in Lakeland jail when some black girl slapped me twice because I told her "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" because she was calling another girl a "whore". I took her slaps without retaliating to prove a point - mainly that I can take their wimpy slaps and refrain from "getting in trouble". They are not worth me going to jail over or staying in jail for. I don't have Chris around to grab my neck and wake me up if I Taz out on them. I also got beat up in the mental hospital in Elizabeth, NJ. Another black girl freaked out and started punching the life out of me. I was bruised up pretty good but I never hit back. I knew that I couldn't for two reasons: 1. If I start I can't stop, and 2. It would have only added time to my stay in the mental hospital, just like jail. It was better to get hit and bruised up, then to hit back and pay in another way just to prove that I can fight. I don't have to prove that I'm brave or strong. I know that I am.

Finally. the last fight that I was in happened in 2020 at the age of 49 with a woman who I believe was either my age or older. She didn't like that I was sitting outside with the men flirting. She didn't like that I had a lot to say. She was jealous I believe. She told me to "Shut up" and I laughed and angrily said "It's a free country." When she came towards me to get into it, I started to walk away because I can read auras and sense when someone is looking for a fight. I walked quickly but she turned and chased me. I saw that she was relentless so I stopped and faced her. I wanted to get this over with as quick as possible. I wasn't going to fight her. The poor old girl was using a walker. I could have leveled her instantly. So I said, "Go ahead run me over" and I lied my body on the sidewalk. I guess she was so pathetic inside and so jealous and so angry that she felt that jamming her walker over my legs was the best thing she could do. It hurt a little but I was too upset to really feel it. What hurt more than her fighting skills was the fact that she wanted to fight me. I had done nothing to her and I was tired of fighting people just because they didn't like what came out of my mouth.

I still have some martial arts skills that I can employ for self-defense, and I think that knowing that is why I don't even use it for self-defense. Again, if I start, how will I know when to stop? The real problem is the Taz Spaz that is the breaking point that is beyond my control. If someone pushed me to that point, which could happen in the middle of fighting, there is nothing I can do to help them or myself.

So what have I learned from all this fighting? The best thing you can do when you feel a fight could happen is to run. Run fast and run hard and get away from the perpetrator, especially if you know that you are bigger or stronger. Because it won't end well. If you win, you'll lose. And if you don't win, you lose. RUN RUN RUN. THEY ARE NOT WORTH IT.