At A Glance
Author	Blandrea
Contact	[email protected]
IAM	blandrea
When	Ten years ago or more

A Plea To Allow Body Modification In Schools

Looking back over my life I can't help but think that there have been so many times I have been so close to checking out. Everyone has hard times, some more than others, some persevere some do not. For a long time it was hard for me to deal with a lot of things that had happened and were happening to me. About nine years ago I discovered body modification. It was something that had always been there, I had seen it in magazines and been in awe, but suddenly it was something for me, and it almost just fell into my lap. I know that body modification saved my life.

When I was 10 years old I moved from a large school district in New Jersey to a very small and seemingly posh town in upstate New York. Up to this point in time everything was great for me. This could probably be attributed to the fact that I was a young child and had never been moved from the enviornment that was in. In N.J. I was an excellent student, involved in countless activities through school and otherwise. I was kind and outgoing, something my mother had tried very hard to instill in me because she was so introverted when she was young. Everything changed so quickly when I got to N.Y. I really had no idea how cruel children could be, and never based anything in my life on how much money people had. It was so clear that the town we were in had an elite social group and my family did not meet the financial requirements to be in it. Any type of physical bullying meant nothing in comparison to the mental anguish I endured. Within a year the girl I had used to be ha d all but vanished. Around this time I took a month off of school to have heart surgery , I remember my class never even sent me a card, when all the other kids got them for things such as broken bones. Where as before I though that maybe the teachers didn't notice what was going on, I then realized they didn't care. After getting out of the hospital I was put on prednazone, a steroid that causes water retention and weight gain in adolescents, as to keep my lungs from collapsing. Along with the stigma of suddenly gaining a ton of weight, I constantly had horrible muscle aches, spasms, and migraines. We later found out that the steroid was known to have caused brain tumors in adolescents as well.

For the first time in my life I wasn't worry free. I hated myself , I felt ugly all the time. If I ever started to gain some confidence for 5 seconds the children around me would make sure to rid me of that quickly. My body was out of control and my emotions followed suit. I became unbearable to my family, my grades quickly went from exemplary to atrocious. I cried everyday when I got home and tried everything in the world to get out of going to school in the morning. Within a year of being started on the prednazone I stared throwing up after I ate. I officially had no control of anything in my life, or at least that's what I was feeling at the time. I struggled desperately to gain control of anything I could. I think that is probably why I developed Bulimia.

All at once a ray of light came to me. I believe I was about 12 at the time. I was sitting in my room staring at myself in the mirror critiquing every little thing as I usually did. Not even really thinking it through I jammed a safety pin through my lip. I was pretty shocked when I had seen what I had done. But I felt good, empowered like I had some control over what I looked like. It's still hard for me to explain the exact feeling. I can easily illustrate what modification means to me now but at the time I had very little comprehension of what was actually going on. Shockingly enough I still have that same piercing today. Much to my amazement it never got infected or migrated out, after all I did it in such a stupid unsafe way.

Somehow I held on to the empowerment that I felt that night. Things were not fine over night. Not even close to that, but I suddenly had a tool. The more I explored modification the more I felt an ownership over my body and myself in general. This came with a big downside to it. Where as up until that point the teachers and administrators in my school had just ignored what was happening to me at the hands of other students, they now were attacking me as well. They brought me into the guidance office for counseling, asked me if I was abused, if I cut myself, if I had thoughts of suicide, even if I was a satanist. I calmly explained that I had a loving family and never was hurt by them, hurt myself or had thoughts of it for that matter. That was pretty much a lie because I had constantly thought of killing myself, and had cut my wrists in the past, but god I was finally turning things around and didn't want to be put in a hospital. I also took it upon myself to say that I w as far from a satanist and that my mother raised me pagan. OOPS, we got death threats in the mail for about a year afterwards calling my mother a witch. Other members of the Unitarian church that we were involved in received similar letters. I was ultimately told the piercings had to go.

Well go they did not. I had several suspensions due to this, and other things such as dyed hair, inappropriate clothing (by their standards), and some legitimate things like truancy and fighting. Every time I started to get in touch with myself and start to feel in control they would try to take it from me. I thought I was completly paranoid because I was sure that they were trying to drive me out. Whether it be by my dropping out or suicide. I truly believed and know now that they just didn't care.

So it finally culminated as I knew it was bound to. My principal stopped me in the hall and explained to me in great detail what a huge problem I was my appearance was disturbing but above all distracting to others. There was nothing that they could do to me at this point as far as filing a pins (person in need of supervision) petition on me, but if I continued to be a "disturbance in this facility" they would take steps to put my brothers into foster care. I wasn't aware it was a load of shit. I felt downtrodden and immediately dropped out. They won and I'm sure they were satisfied. I moved out of my family's home then at 15. I stayed with my grandparents briefly where I was a live in nurse to my grandmother who was in the dementia stages of Alzhiemers . This made for a very depressing situation. I had all the time in the world to think. I needed something positive to turn to, and there was only one real thing I could think of that I derived any real happiness from.

I absorbed myself in body modification more than ever. And slowly but surely my outlook was beginning to change. I had moved out on my own and was struggling at 16 trying to live, but for the first time felt control in a small amount of things in my life. I started to realize what modification meant to me. This is the best way I can sum it up. I view my body as a vessel not at all who I am, why do people want nice cars . After all they are just a vessel to get them from point a to point b. Why not adorn that vessel with jewels and markings that are meaningful to you. Suddenly piercing and tattoos weren't just control over my body they were a bench mark of where I was in life. I look back at them today and know exactly where i was in life when I acquired them. Not only did they give me strength then when t seems I needed them most, they give me strength now.

I know this has been heavy on how everyone was against me, but it's so sad to me that a public institution can be so negative for children. Through BME I have talked to so many people who have had similar experiences to mine. It breaks my heart when I hear about schools banning mods. Do they really know the harm they could be causing? It's not always about kids being rebellious, sad, on drugs, or trendy. It very often is about struggling to find your identity and gaining ownership over the one thing that will ever truly be your...yourself. I truly believe mods saved me over and over. I am so proud of the person I am now. I don't blame the school although I know if I never went there I would be a totally different person. Im glad I can draw from those experiences. But what a shame it would have been if things hadn't worked out the way they did and I gave in and didn't pursue something I found strength in. I can help but wonder how many kids do and will die because of it.