Beating the Bullies

As a child, I fully expected to be bullied. I was quite intelligent for my age, I enjoyed school and thanks to my dyspraxia I was useless at so many things. I kind of felt that I deserved to be bullied, something I now know to be silly. No-one ever deserves to be bullied, no matter what the circumstances.

It only occurred to me recently that I was bullied quite a lot over my school life. It was never terrible, I could always cope with it but I suspect it probably affected me in subtle ways that I’ve not really noticed. It’s no wonder that I’m quite shy and unassertive as an adult given that when I was more confident as a child and even to some extent as a teenager I was ridiculed.

There’s not one person that bullied me, more a series of disturbed personalities that sought me out as a way of making them feel better about themselves. Some I have forgiven, because they didn’t mean it and things just got out of hand when they were amongst their friends. Others were just nasty people, who took pleasure in making my life a misery.

One of the most sustained was someone called Chris, in the latter stages of my primary school career. The reasons are never entirely clear from the victim’s point of view but I think it was a simple matter that I was probably one of the most intelligent pupils in the class and in some strange way he felt threatened by it. It was mostly verbal, although once he did scratch my neck fiercely with his inhuman claws, which led to a strong letter to the school from my father.

An incident that really sticks in my mind was from a World Book Day where you had to dress up as a character from your favourite book. Chris, and several of his minions, came in a suit as James Bond, because he couldn’t read. I had forgotten about the event and had to whip up some excuse for a costume the night before. I basically tried to correlate my limited wardrobe with my extensive book collection and just found some clothes that vaguely matched those the character was wearing on a book cover. Essentially I didn’t have a costume, I was just dressed in my home clothes, quite a clever move on my part.

Inevitably there came a time when we had to explain which character we were. I had quite thoughtfully brought the book cover along to prove I had at least made some attempt at a costume. Chris then muttered to be “I can’t believe you bought a book just for this day”. I think this memory sticks in my mind because it was the moment I realised I was better. Chris showed so little intelligence that he couldn’t even grasp the idea that someone might actually own a book. I always look back and wished I made some simple comment like “Unlike you, I can actually read”. I don’t know what Chris is doing now and don’t care to. I assume he can read now although I suspect he is not doing anything which requires more brainpower than a garbage removal man.

One of the list of bullies is a girl. It perhaps goes against expectations, but you hear of domestic abuse cases where women abuse men so there is no reason that girls can’t bully boys. I was about fourteen at the time and to a teenage boy there is nothing more daunting that a teenage girl. Laura didn’t verbally abuse me in the typical way, simply calling me things. She displayed that particular evil that only a teenage girl can manage, manipulating me until I said something she could pounce on. Thanks to a useless teacher who made us sit together I had to endure this for every maths lesson for months and it was horrific.

There came a time when I outgrew the bullies. I’ve only talked about a few here but the list is quite extensive. From the Cub Scout group leader (a teenager a few years older than myself) who shouted at me because I couldn’t do my shoelaces to the group who belittled my relationship with my girlfriend, they all made life horrible for the few moments they had power over me. It eventually got to a point where I didn’t care what people said to me. Either what they said was just plain wrong or I agreed with it, in which case they were just saying something that I already knew. It may have meant to be hurtful but I took it the same way I would have if they told me the capital of France is Paris.

In the adult world bullying is less common, although of course it still happens. I know that it is something that won’t happen to me again because it just doesn’t affect me anymore. There’s nothing anyone can do to me that I’d be truly bothered by. I’m too large and strong for anything physical and anything verbal just bounces right back. I think the key thing to remember if you are being bullied is that the bully is weak and they think they have power over you. A bully is a fundamentally flawed person that has massive problems with their self-worth, even if they don’t realise it themselves. I’ve also found, in my experience at least, that reporting the bullying to someone in authority (teachers etc) has always helped the situation, even if it might be a really daunting thing to do.

This post was inspired by a woman who stood up to a man that bullied her at school with an incredible note. (Full story here ICYMI). I have a huge amount of respect for that woman. This post was actually quite therapeutic, talking about things I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about with anyone. I suppose that in the end, the bullies have lost. Here I am, still going strong and I know I’m better than all those people. Sucks to be you, losers!