Part 6: Circles on Their Hands, Wounds on My Heart: Every Tear Recorded
“Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll—are they not in your record?”
—Psalm 56:8 (NIV)
After missing most of first grade, I went straight into second grade. I had been deeply traumatized by another major surgery. I wish I remembered more, especially since I ended up repeating the year. I had the same second grade teacher both times, but I recall very little of the day-to-day routine. I only remember being placed in special reading groups and that this was when the teasing began.
We did not call it bullying back then. We called it teasing. The children had figured out I was different, and mostly the boys made it their daily mission to mock me. Many of my classmates drew small circles on the backs of their hands. “Teri cootie buttons,” they called them. They held them up whenever I came near, as if they needed protection from me. The circles were not harmless. They became symbols of exclusion, silent messages that I was someone to be shunned.
Looking back, I do not fully remember what I felt at the time. As a parent now, I can only imagine how cruel it was. How isolating. How it must have made me feel less than. I know I wanted to hide, run away, or disappear altogether.
Every morning, I walked to school giving myself a pep talk and bracing for what I knew was coming. I reminded myself that words could not hurt me because that was often the message I received from my mother—that I was strong and could simply choose to ignore them.
A few of the boys made it their daily mission to harass me. They called me names like diaper face, diaper head, stinky, diaper girl—whatever came to mind. They surrounded me at recess. They chased me all the way into the girls’ bathroom and waited for moments when yard-duty staff were not watching to bully me to the point of tears. Every day, I wished for rain or any excuse to stay inside. Growing up in sunny California, that rarely happened.
When I think back now, I can see something I could not see then. Their circles of teasing were not the only ones around me. Long before I understood the words of Psalm 56:8, I was living under its quiet truth: “Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll—are they not in your record?”
While children lifted their “Teri cootie buttons” to keep me away, God was quietly keeping record of every tear. Nothing was exaggerated. Nothing was dismissed. What felt small to others was not small to Him. I did not know Him then the way I would later, but He was already there, seeing a little girl who felt unseen.
I eventually learned I could avoid recess by going to the office and complaining of stomachaches or headaches. Whether I truly felt sick or made myself sick, I simply wanted to escape the playground. The classroom was the only place I felt remotely safe. Even then, much of those two years is a blur. Whether from emotional exhaustion or dissociation, I do not know. I remember daydreaming and staring out the classroom window, wishing I could be anywhere but at school.
I do recall a girl in my class who had surgery for a dislocated hip. When she returned on crutches, the other children rallied around her, carrying her things, offering help, and treating her tenderly. By that point, I had undergone multiple surgeries, yet no one had ever treated me with that kind of compassion. I did not understand why her suffering was met with support while mine brought ridicule. Looking back, I know it was the stigma of the diaper. Still, I felt confused and quietly resentful—not toward her, but toward the children who saw her as deserving and me as less than.
Years later, I asked my mom why I had not been homeschooled. I assumed it was not an option, but she told me it was, and that she believed I wanted to go to school. I do not know how she thought that. I remember often coming home upset and trying to tell her what had happened, holding back tears as I walked through the door. She cared, but she did not know how to respond. She would fall back on the familiar phrase, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can never hurt you.”
I do not share this to blame her. She wanted me to choose inner strength instead of seeing myself the way those boys did. She believed that refusing to let their words define me would protect me. It simply happened too often for that advice to be effective. I honestly do not think she understood how relentless it was. She may have assumed that if things were truly that bad, someone at the school would have told her.
As a child, I sometimes carried more empathy for my mother than I did for myself. When you are eight years old and told you should think about something differently, you assume the problem must be you. If I was hurt, then I must be handling it wrong. I learned quickly to question my own reactions, even when they were natural.
As I grew older, I realized I had internalized resentment toward the situation—not just the teasing, but the silence around it. Thankfully, that resentment has softened over time. Parenting in those days was different from today’s standards. While I believe it is important to have your feelings validated and to be understood as much as possible, I also know that no one can fully understand an experience unless they are the one living it.
At the same time, I have seen how some people become defined by what has happened to them. I am not immune to that. I have struggled too. But I also recognize that my upbringing gave me a certain inner strength. I learned that I could change my mind about things, even when I see them clearly for what they are.
As I have grown older, and especially as a parent myself, I can see how easy it is to look back and think, I could have done that better. But in the moment, we act out of what we truly believe is right. I believe that was the case for my mother.
Eventually, I stopped complaining and simply did what was expected of me. Maybe I even pretended to like school because that was more acceptable than explaining the truth.
One day at the grocery store, a boy from school saw me and immediately began calling me names. My mom overheard and became furious. She marched over, grabbed his arm, and demanded that he take her to his mother. She scolded him while I stood there, mortified. When she returned, I looked at her and said, “And you tell me to ignore them.”
Maybe that was my way of showing her how impossible her advice had been. I do not know if she realized that what she witnessed that day was simply my reality—five days a week, from the moment I arrived at school until the moment I got home.
And even then, when others misunderstood or minimized what was happening, my tears were not forgotten.
What happens when mockery becomes routine?
What happens when a child learns to endure what no one else seems to see?
Psalm 56:8 assures us that every tear is recorded. Not one playground humiliation was overlooked. Not one moment of isolation went unnoticed.
The devotional for this post explores what it means to trust that even the tears others dismiss are seen and remembered by God—offering Scripture, prayer, and reflection for those who learned early how to endure cruelty in silence.