Episode #106
Bullying In The LGBTQ Community & CBT
ft. Charlie Becker
Members of the LGBTQ community are often subjected to bullying. This isn’t always just an issue for kids - LGBTQ adults can also be bullied.
How can you deal with a bully?
How can you identify bulling behavior?
How can you use CBT tools to cope with bullying?
Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I chat with celebrated LGBTQ author, Charlie Becker, about how to deal with a bully.
Click to listen now!
Reference Guides:
Full Episode Transcript
Dr Julie
Hi, welcome to my CBT podcast! My name is Dr. Julie, and I'm a doctor of psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognate Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life. So welcome and thanks for being with me.
As always, I wanted to start off by sharing an email I got through Instagram from a listener who… I always appreciate you guys reaching out and giving me ideas and feedback on how the podcast is helping.
This says,
“Hi, Julie,
I wanted to thank you for your podcast. I discovered it a few weeks ago and I've been listening through and I've been enjoying it. I recently started my own podcast for my industry.”
She's a dog groomer, and each week she talks either to dog groomers or mental health professionals. So mental health people talk about a topic that affects her industry. I'm actually hopefully going to be being interviewed by her. But she wanted to share that she listened to my shame episode. And when I spoke about perfectionism, she thought absolutely to contact me, Is this something your industry really struggles with? She shares that for herself, she's been in and out counseling for three years, but have never attended a CBT class, and she's just so interested after listening to me speak. I appreciate just taking the time to reach out, and I'm glad the podcast has been helpful.
And again, I encourage all of you to reach out and share with me your history, what you're going through, ways I can help you, and any suggestions for podcasts coming up in the future. So you never know which podcast is going to resonate with you, so taking time to listen, I think, can really be helpful. All right. So today I'm super excited. I have one of my favorite people here I'm interviewing. And before I have him speak, I'm going to share with you how I know my guest today. So I'm interviewing Charlie Becker. So I first originally known Charlie because he is my brother in law's partner, and they've been together 15 years. And he's been a blessing to our family and has become a very close friend of mine. And he's also a published poet with multiple books. And he's so open and honest in all of his books. And we'll share all of those with you. And there'll be a link at the end of the podcast for you to buy his books if you would like to, which I'd really recommend. And just really is authentic and really shares from the heart about his experiences in his life, how therapy has been helpful to him. He's one of my greatest fans. After every podcast, he sends me an email giving me wonderful feedback. I always appreciate. So welcome, Charlie.
Charlie
Hi.
Dr Julie
Julie. Thanks for being here and sharing your story and your works with us. We're super excited about this. I know it's going to be really helpful. And we're going to focus on bullying and the LGBTQ community. So that's why I wanted to have him here with me today because his latest book is on bullying. Is that right? Right. Okay. So can you share first why you decided to write this particular book and put these poems together for bullying?
Charlie
Well, I think that I would have to say this book has been something I've been writing my entire life. And so when I retired from teaching a good 10 years ago, I really started writing more. And so I've learned about how important it is to have books that are really thematic and have an audience. So recently I read about how poets can write an entire memoir using poems as the memoir, poetry memoir. And so I thought, what a great idea that would be for me to put poems together into a chat book that were about my life as a gay person, and specifically with the theme of growing up being bullied and learning to really grow beyond that and find help and help others. Wonderful. My idea with the book is not only to help myself, but to definitely reach out and help other people.
Dr Julie
Yes. And that's what I just like being of service in that way, right? Right. And being able to use your life experiences to help other people, which is what makes everything personal. I think when people really get more attached and are more open to hear, instead of you just telling someone what to do, it's like, Oh, you've really experienced it yourself. Exactly. And that's interesting to me because I've never heard of a poetry memoir. This is my first time, and that's super cool.
Charlie
Yeah, it's great, really, because I've taken other classes about writing autobiographical poetry, but then I thought, what a great idea to put those poems into a book that chronicles a whole life and becomes a memoir.
Dr Julie
Yes. Excellent. Okay, so throughout the podcast, Charlie is definitely going to share some of his poetry with us, of course. So what's this one called?
Charlie
So the name of the book is Dodging Bullies. And one of the very first poems in the book is called This Child.
Dr Julie
Okay. Let's start off with you sharing that one with us, if you would.
Charlie
If he grows up that way, I wonder if he'll ever be liked. His quiet voice makes him stand out, but be invisible, too. He promises he'll be good, though, vigilant and perfectly good.
Dr Julie
That's a beautiful opening, just sharing, looking at your life ahead. Exactly. And how you can be yourself, I guess. Is that what.
Charlie
You're sharing there? Yeah. I think when you're a child, you're not aware of all the things that are happening inside of you and happening around you. And you make a lot of decisions when you're a child about who you have to be, who you have to be to be safe and to potentially be liked and have friends. I think that really when you're a child, you know all of this, not consciously, but you know a lot of it pretty young.
Dr Julie
And you don't know really what to do about it. Or I think with bullying, people, Oh, just stay away from them. Just ignore it, is what like adults might say to you. But that doesn't give you any direction or insight on how to handle it. I ignore it, okay, but I still heard the message. So now do I feel bad about myself? Are they right? Am I wrong? Why would somebody bully me who I don't even know them. A lot of times bullies pick on you. You don't even have a relationship with those people.
Charlie
I'm so happy that I'm 73 years old now, and I'm so happy every year of my life that the word bully has become something that we talk about. And I feel as though I feel so hopeful that people who are bullied are much more better equipped to ask for help and to speak about it. Because when I was a child and I was being bullied, I didn't tell anyone. And I think that makes me the saddest of all to know that I was trying to deal with everything on my own because I had a secret. And people were saying things about me that I didn't understand, but I never told anyone. I never told my parents. I never told a soul. So it's incredible that I somehow dealt with it myself in my own way. But I'm so happy today when I hear other people and they explain to me that when they are bullied or when they were bullied, that they immediately told the teacher, or they told the principal, or they told their parents, which is a great thing because then you're already diffusing the shame. You're putting it out there and getting help.
Dr Julie
Right away. Looking back now, what made you believe that I shouldn't say anything when you were such a little boy. Do you know why you didn't.
Charlie
Speak up? I just have to assume that I felt so much shame. I felt so ashamed and I couldn't even say what it was about, but that it was just almost unspeakable. Couldn't say it, couldn't write it down.
Dr Julie
So feeling shame meant you believed what these bullies said to you, right? Right. Yeah. Because remember, to my last episode, you guys, if you listen to the shame, I say shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. And that's what happened to you, right? So shame is there something wrong with me. So when these bullies would say things to you, that was the lie they told you about yourself, right? And you believed it and thought, I can't even share this with anybody.
Charlie
And of course, when you're a child and when you're young and you're hearing words that you don't even know what they mean. Like, if someone calls you a fag or that was primarily the word, you don't even know what that means. But because it's happening and because it's not a positive situation, you think, Oh, my God. Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong, terribly wrong with me. I can't let anybody know. I have to figure this out. I have to figure out how to...
Dr Julie
And you didn't have friends? If you were, say, being bullied, did you ever have friends around you that would speak up or they were being bullied.
Charlie
Too, do you think? I think that it was always when I was alone, it seemed to happen when I wasn't.
Dr Julie
Of course, that's when they could.
Charlie
Attack you. Yeah. And especially when adolescence is such a difficult time. So to be bullied when you're around 13 and you're alone, it's.
Dr Julie
Very painful. Yes. Were you ever physically touched? Did they ever push you down or anything?
Charlie
No.
Dr Julie
It was words.
Charlie
Sometimes, sadly, it's just words mostly, mostly words.
Dr Julie
Yeah. Which hurt the most, right? I mean, bruises or scrapes go away, but words people hold on to. They're very penetrating. Right. So let's just say, what is a bully? A bully really is a very insecure person, right? Because if you're a secure person, you have no need to bully anybody or put them down or make them feel less than. It's people that feel less than that bully others. And that's important to know. And of course, as children, we don't know that because it's just scary and you feel so vulnerable. And if nobody's around or a teacher doesn't see, I think things have changed today. They're not perfect by any means. But I think especially because the life is so... I mean, schools are so much more violent, right? School shootings. Now people will listen, I think, more than maybe when we were kids. If you say this person is bullying me, I think and I hope that people will pay more attention because people really act out in a violent way now, even more so than just teasing, bullying. You agree with that?
Charlie
I do, yes. I feel as though it's so disturbing what is happening. And I'm not really sure why kids are fighting back in such a violent way. But if they have been bullied and they think that's the only option that they have, it's really, really...
Dr Julie
Because it's the ultimate, right? I can't beat you up, maybe. And if I speak up, you're going to maybe beat me up. So now I'm going to just totally take control. Right. yeah. And being bullied and not having friends, which happens to many people. It's very isolating, right? And how many parents say, We didn't know my kid was going through... The parents of the kids that have killed people, shot the school up, whatever, like, we didn't even know that they were that depressed or that sad, or all of the stories that we've heard because you're thinking, How did this happen? How did they know? But like you said, people keep it a secret because they feel so ashamed and powerless, I think. Right. And alienated. And alienated, yeah. And one thing I want to say this multiple times, probably through the podcast, but if you're listening and you're being bullied at any age, because it can happen as an adult in workplaces anywhere. It's not just a childhood thing. That you go tell someone, and if they don't listen, you go keep going. You keep going until someone pays attention and takes it serious and helps you.
Charlie
And I think that now there are all kinds of programs in the schools and teachers are trained to look for things like this. And if they ever see bullying happening on the playground or in the classroom, they speak up and they intervene. School psychologist probably intervenes and helps. This is a great improvement over.
Dr Julie
The years. Was there a point that you ever did tell your parents?
Charlie
Very late in life. I have to say that I guess for me, my greatest coping mechanism was that I thought I had to be perfect. I became super student, super good, super whatever I did. I used to play musical instruments in school. I was super good at all these things. M aybe that helped me. I guess I have to say it helped me in a way, but I became so perfectionistic about all these things of achievement so that I would get praised from other people and overlook what was wrong with me, praised from my parents. I don't I did not, I still did not tell anyone until I was easily into my 20s.
Dr Julie
You were bullied. Wow. So that's interesting. Just going back for me, when you said you're not a perfectionist in all these areas to compensate for what was wrong with me, what did you think was wrong with you?
Charlie
You know, it's strange because all the time that you're growing up, you're developing a sexuality and you're developing sexual feelings. I was repressing all of that. I kept on just assuming, well, there's something wrong with me. I don't talk loud enough, or I'm not athletic enough, or I'm not macho enough. And if I could just be more like those guys that bullied me, then I'd be included. So I couldn't even figure out what it was that I had to do. And I just kept on looking. And sadly, I think that the first time I went to see a therapist, I was maybe in college. That's why I was probably 16. No, sorry. In college, I was 18. It started a whole progression of therapists that were not very savvy and would tell me, Well, you just need to have a girlfriend. You just need to find the right girlfriend.
Dr Julie
Oh my.
Charlie
Even later when I tried being married to a woman, the first two therapists that I went to, early 20s, said, Oh, you're just having trouble with your marriage. We'll work on your marriage. So it complicated the situation so, so much. And you can just imagine the relief that I had when I finally, finally realized that I had to come out, that there was something that I could do. And then all the pieces came together and I found a wonderful therapist who was also gay and opened my life.
Dr Julie
That's so wonderful. Wanted to show you on the bullying part, me and Charlotte were talking before we even started here, I'm not comparing my bullying that I went through to his, but I think it happened longer periods of time than when I went through. But I can still, as a little kid, remember the sadness you feel when people are bullying you. So for those that don't know, if you go on my website, my Cognate Behavioral Therapy, I have a video called Out of the Box, and I share a story that when I was born, one of my eye muscles didn't fully develop. And so people thought I had a lazy eye, which I didn't. Back and forth and back, my parents took me to the doctors, and they couldn't really do anything. So one of my eyes just doesn't go in one direction. I'm not cross eyed where my eyes go in the middle, but that's what kids would call me on the bus. Sometimes people think I'm looking at them when I'm not because of the way my eyes look. So my video you can listen to is decades later, I found the right doctor who says, Well, we can do a surgery. And that was mind blowing. And I couldn't believe it. And all these things, and it's a great video. I have to say, if you guys listen to it's a good story. But I remember as a little girl, I would take the bus home from school and I would run into my mom's arms just crying because the kids on the bus would call me cross side, cross side. And you don't know what to say. I was in elementary school. I was under age, my mom still was at home. So I know that's the time frame. So I must have been seven. And I would just cry. Oh, no, I'm not. That's all you got to say. What do you say? And it was a physical thing that I couldn't change and I didn't really think about. It's funny, people in my life say, I don't even notice it. But many people, I don't notice it and all those things. So that was my first time. I remember being bullied and it was just hard. And eventually as I got older, kids didn't really bug me about that as much. But it's like they're just looking for something. And then when I was in high school, I was bullied for being Jewish. These guys, stupid. They'd throw pennies at the hall at me. In science class, we have these kilns. I don't know what they used them for, but they would make comments about that because the Holocaust. I was old enough to just be like, You're a bunch of idiot, and I could ignore them and just move on. I felt comfortable being Jewish, so I was just like, whatever. But when I was a little girl and they would call me cross the way, that was really painful and that was really sad. My parents would love me and say nice things, but then you'd be on that bus the next day. It takes a lot to get to a place where you feel comfortable and confident and be able to just push it out. And eventually, I think I just stopped taking the bus and I was close enough I could walk home because it didn't really happen. I don't know about the bus, the driver's up there, but there's nobody else around. So I think kids can just get away with stuff more. So anyways, those are some experiences I've had with being bullied and just showing I understand the sadness, anyone out there listening to us, but you're not alone and there's going to be someone that listens to you, but you got to find the right person. Or even with using your example, Charlie, with therapists, whatever reason you're going therapy for, I know I've mentioned this before, but I'd say it's like shopping for a car. You're not stuck with a therapist. You're going to have a service given to you. If you don't connect, if you don't like them, for whatever reason, you know what? You move on. There's a million of us out there, you guys. There's so many therapists out there. You will find someone you connect with and honor yourself enough to listen to yourself and say, This isn't a good fit for me. Because it sounds like when you went, you just like most people, you just thought, Oh, I guess they're right.
Charlie
Is that correct? Right. I think somehow it's interesting. I realize now that it just takes one person to find something about you that they want to tease you about. And then if they, especially if you're sensitive and they zero in on it, then everybody around will start to notice it, too, and start to tease about it. So it just is so pervasive. I have a friend who I visited last week who's around my age in his 70s. I said to him, What was your experience like as a child? Because I was giving him a copy of my book. He said, You know, he's a different personality and a little bit tougher than I was. When he was growing up, he said he grew up in Catholic school and other boys would tease him. It was just an all boy school. I f that ever happened, he would tell the priest or he would tell the brothers that taught there, or he would tell the principal and he would tell his parents. So he wasn't having it. And so I was very happy for him because still he suffered and still he was, I'm sure, damaged in a way by all of it. But at least he thought back. That's a good thing and a healthy thing to tell people and to fight back and ask for help and say.
Dr Julie
And that's your way of feeling like you have some control over what's going on in your life instead of just feeling like you have to be some victim to these terrible people. Right.
Charlie
Because just like you, Julie, there were times when I didn't want to go to school and I didn't want to be. And there was a time when I took the bus, too. I didn't want to ride on the bus. It just took a lot of facing it every day and going forward anyway and saying, Well, today is going to be a better day, and they're not going to tease me today. Of course, luckily, as I got older, I did become one of the best students in school and good at what I did. T hen you get a lot of praise and then I had, Oh, I'm safe now. But still, you shouldn't have to.
Dr Julie
It's interesting when we look back on how do we Coke through difficult times, it makes sense. I can't change what they're bullying me about, but I can be an excellent student and excellent musician and great at all this. So I get good attention from other people to try to balance it out. And to take just a minute to bring us back to it, the whole... My message with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is that it's in our environment. It's just a huge factor. So say the environment is your school or being on the bus, that's an environment. And then people say these mean things to you and put you down and shame you. Then your belief, now I feel shame, which is my mood. Then my belief is like, Oh yeah, I'm not good enough. There's something wrong with me. I'm different. I'm not like them. Why would they be mean to me? I didn't do anything to them. There must be something wrong with me. There's all my thoughts going on, which feeds into my shame. And there's my behavior. So in my physical reaction, I would cry. So my behavior would be, I'd be quiet, or probably not look up people in the face because then they'd see how I was with my eyes. I avoided the bus. I should be able to take the bus if I want and not be worried about getting bullied. So my behavior was to avoid. So that's the whole CBT. So the way we think creates our moods, affects our behaviors and our physical reactions, and what's the environment that we're in. Always putting this together is when somebody bullies you, which is an environment issue, is be mindful about what am I thinking? What feelings are they creating for me? Because what I'm thinking probably is not true. They're all hot thoughts that I had, but I didn't know that, that I'm different. There's something wrong with me. All of those, those are hot thoughts like you had. There's something wrong with me, the hot thought of I can't tell anybody. I don't even know if you remember, you might have thought like, Nobody's going to help me, or Nobody cares. I don't know. Those thoughts, I'm sure kids have, right?
Charlie
Right. And like you're saying, what I think I decided I had to do was to be quiet and to be invisible.
Dr Julie
So if they, quote, don't see me, then they won't bother me. So be mindful, you guys. And share this. Hopefully, you will be the person that reaches out to someone that you see as being bullied. Again, in any environment. I think about as we're talking in a Corporation State, businesses, government all that, they have these whistle blowers. What's a whistleblower? I can tell on somebody without my name being put out there. So you might see people that are getting bullied or harassed and nobody's doing anything. I'm going to go to wherever you go, maybe to HR, that there's some protection for you, but you're wanting to do something. Because if you think, if I speak up to these people, nothing's going to happen. I need to do something. So you want to be that person that takes care of someone else or helps someone the way you'd want them to take care of you, and to find that courage and to be brave and say, That's not okay. Leave them alone. Or put your arm around the person and say, Come on, we're going to go here. Let me walk to the principal's office with you. Or you want me to go... Maybe if you're a teenager, I can go home with you. We can talk to your parents. You should tell an adult what's going on. Give them some direction if you feel that confidence.
Charlie
I've been having the most wonderful experiences where I go into middle schools and high schools to share my books of poetry. And not only am I free to share the poems, but then in the second half of the class, we write poems together. And so I've had the greatest experiences where the kids are standing up and reading their poems about things like this that we're talking about. And the teachers are so vigilant that are helping us that if anybody laughs or if anybody says anything derogatory, they're right on it. No, that is bullying, and we don't have that in this class. Wow, that's powerful. This has been so, so healing and so good to know that this is available now to kids that are.
Dr Julie
Just in.
Charlie
Middle school and high school. It's so badly needed.
Dr Julie
I'm hoping you can tell already from hearing Charlotte, how loving and giving, how you're giving back. You went through so much in your life, and now you're going back to that environment of school and saying, You know what? You don't have to put up with it. This is what you can do. And here's a way to express yourself through poetry, right?
Charlie
Right, exactly. The reason that I wrote this book, particularly, is I just would hope that it could be of great service to the LGBT community and to kids that are struggling with coming out.
Dr Julie
Yes. I guess if I may, you can retain it to any thing that if you are getting bullied, that I think it can relate to in a lot of ways. I was sharing with Charlie last night, me and my husband said, we're reading the book. I want to be more prepared for my interview today. And it's heavy. As you shared with me, you see the healing throughout the book, which is wonderful. But it's very poignant. And he's such a great poet that, and Because we love Charlie too, so we're personal with this, but it was like, Wow, I could feel it in your poems, what you went through. So I'm saying that I think anyone reading this book, even if you're not in the LGBTQ community, you could also benefit from it. And if you're not to understand that community also. Because there's specific things for anyone that's bullied in any environment, anything specific, whether it's your sexuality or your ethnicity maybe or your religion. I think I could relate to his stories just because to understand bullying, how it affects a person.
Charlie
And I think really the more that I talk to people about it, we've all been bullied in some way for something. W e were talking earlier about how kids are bullied for so many things, for being overweight or for having red hair, or for having freckles, or for having speech impediments, all of these things, or physical disabilities. And I think that we're better than we used to be, but still, bullying occurs when kids see something about you that is different.
Dr Julie
Yes, for sure. Thanks for being with us. I'm going to have Charlie share with us one more of his poems before we finish for today. Then next week, we're going to have a part two where we're going to talk more about Charlie's experience in the LGBTQ community and other aspects of bullying that he's experienced in his lifetime. So here's Charlie with his next poem.
Charlie
This poem is called My Hero. I wanted biceps big like yours with that hula girl tattoo who danced when I flexed and mighty forearms of steel, real threats to the bullies who chased and haunted me. Oh, I wanted your strength, your rich green spinach. I'd watch you squeeze open the can with your bare macho hand, swallow it all in one gulp, and then take Brutus down without sweating a drop or losing your gritty grin, scratchy manly chuckle. I wanted your punch, Popeye. I needed you to teach me self defense. I longed to be your forever buddy. And Puff, too, he lived by the sea and did magic tricks for little boys the way dragons can. We fearless, frolicked in the autumn mist, best friends, and sailed free on billowed boats, far from taunt or cuts of mean kids who didn't care for fantasy fun or innocence. I needed, you puff, your spike tail, your commanding roar for myself each time I left home thinking I was all alone. Sure, I lived the life of Superman long before I knew Clark Kent, me growing into a secret, not a bird, not a plane, stealing my face, hiding what no superpower could fix or overcome. I needed you, Superman, your rock square chin, your smiling sureness when my world where cowboys fell in love with other cowboys, seemed in danger of being crushed. But in the end, I found you, mortal imperfect Fred Rogers. Me, hopelessly fearful like Daniel Strike Tiger, wondering where my next breath would ever come from. Mr. Rogers, you welcomed me into your neighborhood, looked me in the eye and said, I made your day a special one just by being me. I put on your cardigan, wore your Navy kids and took from you a voice, your voice, softly sincere for my own whenever I might need it.
Dr Julie
Beautiful. My hero! I love that. I love that. So thank you again for being with me today. It's been an honor. I know this has been helpful for all of you. Start thinking about your experiences. If other people are experiencing this, we'll get to can you do to share your story, maybe with others, give them hope, give them some guidance. So important that we're all here for each other. It's really important.
Again, thanks for being here today. If you have a burning therapy question you want answered, you can email me at mycbtpodcast@gmail.com.
You know where to find me on Facebook. I'm @ Dr. Julie Osborn.
On Instagram, I'm @mycbtpodcast.
Keep the emails coming, the questions coming, the suggestions, and always remember to make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.