I know there's a lot of trending topics about bullying these days, and maybe its getting old, but I can't help but jump on the "bandwagon" because I have first-hand experiences. I was never the bully. I was, on occasion, an accomplice to bullying. Whether it was helping spread gossip, or standing nearby and laughing when someone else was being tormented. Probably out of relief that the gossip was not about me, and that the bullies were focusing on someone else instead of me. Maybe that makes me a bully too. I don't like to think of it that way, but okay, you know what... maybe I was a bully. They say bullies are made from people who were bullied themselves.
I was certainly bullied. It started when I was in grade six. I was home schooled from grades 1-5, so I never had a ton of social experiences where I learned to fit in with other kids. And while part of me regrets missing out on those experiences, the other side of me is glad that I was never forced to become a lemming or a sheep, and that I had to figure out who I was on my own. But whichever perspective I chose to focus on, I didn't fit it. I didn't know brand names, I didn't listen to the same music, I didn't watch the same TV shows or movies, and I didn't understand all the terms and jokes about sex that everyone else did.
I was just starting to get a hint about hormones and boys and all those fun changes during puberty. I wasn't interested in "dating". In fact, I remember my first week of regular school, when a boy announced to the entire class that he had a crush on me. I was terrified. A few girls in my class tried to literally push me to slow dance with him at a school dance. I said no and ran away. Why? Because I had no idea how to slow dance! And because I didn't know what him liking me meant, or what I would be expected to do or how to act if I let things head in that direction.
Okay, back to the topic at hand.
Bullying began in grade six. I wasn't like the other girls, and they made sure I knew it. I can recall being out at recess and everyone was going to play basketball. Captains were chosen, and teams were picked. Except me. No one picked me, even though I was standing right there, waiting and hoping to play. I spent a lot of recesses sitting by the door, waiting for the bell to ring, and hoping I was invisible. Sometimes I would even go and play with the kindergartners because at least they treated me like I was somebody. When I got to grade eight, I learned to make friends with the teachers. Having older siblings meant that I communicated easier with adults than I did with my peers. The teachers never wanted to encourage me to avoid the confrontation of my classmates, but sometimes they relented and allowed me to stay in to help decorate their classroom, or they would chat with me and not usher me out the door when the bell rang.
I was hoping that high school would be chance to have a fresh start to make some real friends or even reinvent myself. In the end, the opposite happened. I started trying to make myself more like everyone else.
P.S. It didn't work.
Trying to make myself more like everyone else only succeeded in making me more self-conscious and lowered my feelings of self-worth. And then, because I was so vulnerable, both inwardly and externally, I became a target. I've been told since those days that I was my own worst enemy for being bullied and that I always offered reasons for others to pick on me. I'm sorry, but I really hate that. What qualifies as a legitimate excuse to humiliate someone or to put them down?
I remember walking home from school in grade nine and having a carload of senior students stop, get out, and encircle me, "moo-ing" and telling me I was a cow. And it was almost a daily occurrence to have the bus students throw food at me as they went by.
I can also remember walking in the hallway and having people, for who knows what reason, take my picture and laugh hysterically. Thankfully, Facebook hadn't been invented yet, so I didn't have to worry about them being posted for the entire world to see.
The only real satisfaction that I felt in high school was when I started grade 12. Nothing had changed, except the realization that once June arrived, I never had to see any of those people ever again. That was a powerful moment for me, because it took the meaning and truth out of the terrible things that were said to me. I never had to see those people ever again. And since then, I haven't. I have one or two good friends from high school, but those are people whom I have chosen to continue a relationship with.
Once I got out of high school, and took a year off to rediscover myself, and then went to college. It was then that I stopped allowing myself to be bullied. Not to say that I didn't have bullies to deal with or that I didn't have people who could bring me down, but I learned to love myself and to no longer take what people said to heart.
I'm still too trusting, and people disappoint me in life, but I've learned to keep a cushion under me. I don't hit rock bottom every time my feelings get hurt, anymore. Instead, I might fall down, but I am not permanently bruised and I can get right back up and move on.
