Bullying

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."

Albert Einstein

There has been a lot in the media lately about bullying. As someone who has been bullied, I decided to do my blog on this subject.

I have been bullied most of my life. Even in my own home as a young child. A place where one is meant to feel safe and secure, was never such a place for me. I'm small. I've always been small. I guess that means I'm easy prey. Primary school wasn't too bad, until around 5th class. Then it started off again. I was bullied because "I was small, and because I was brainy, and because my family were poor." Secondary school was my worst nightmare. Day after day of incessant and relentless crap. I feigned every kind of sickness in order to not have to go in to school. I was brainy and did very well in my exams. Until 5th year. I cannot tell you the hell that was my life in school at that point. I became so withdrawn and quiet. Completely introverted, non communicative, not wanting to take part. Physical violence is one thing, but mental and emotional abuse is the worst of the worst. These people start telling you stuff over and over again and you believe every word they say. You begin to believe that you're ugly, or fat, or thin, or stupid. Worst of all are the bullies who pretend to be your friend, gain your confidence and use that against you. Every ounce of self worth gets eaten away, and any inclination to fight back gets smothered by crises of confidence.

I tried to tell my mam. She had her own issues going on, but fair play to her she tried. I came home from school one day and half my hair was missing. There'd been an incident on the way home from school and I had been held on the ground while my hair was reefed out of my head. I hadn't said anything. She asked me who did it and I told her. She marched around to the girl's house. I didn't want her to. She knocked on the door, and the girl's mother answered. Words were exchanged and the girl was made to apologise. She appeared at the door sporting a lovely black eye and bleeding from a huge bite on her hand. I'm not saying where she got them from. It was at this point I decided to make a stand. I'd had enough. Next day I went into school and tried to talk to a teacher about it. She told me it was my own fault. No help there then. I was on my own. It was then I discovered that kicking girls in certain places hurt a lot! I stood up for myself, in more ways than one, but I swear the day I left school was one of the happiest days of my life.

I've grown since then, and have been through a lot. I'm a stronger person now, and I really don't care what people think of me. I look the way I look and act the way I act for one person. Me. If you like it, good. If you don't, so what. I'm stronger not because I was bullied, but in spite of being bullied. Yes I get a hard time about my look, but I really don't care.

The whole point of this is: This was long before the likes of Facebook, or twitter, or ask.fm. There were no social sites. Just evil people. I've had an ask.fm account but closed it because of disgusting perverts asking inappropriate questions. I've been on the receiving end of threats and trolls. I got bored of putting them in their place so I closed it. Will that stop these people? No. I agree that something needs to be done about these sites, and taking away anons would be a start. I just feel that the emphasis is being taken away from the real problem. The bullies. It's heart breaking that young people are killing themselves because of being bullied, but in my opinion social sites are a way of enabling the bullies and only part of the problem. Stop the sites, another will open up and so on. Can we please do more to try and understand what makes a person bully? What makes putting another human being down a reason to feel good about yourself? How can we empower people to stand up for themselves and not let bullies have power over them? Yes some people are strong enough to ignore or move on but we're human at the end of the day and all have feelings.

So we're going to get a report abuse button on twitter and that's going to solve everything. Wrong. These bullies will always find a way. Earlier I was saying "I was bullied because....". The real reason? I was bullied because some people feel so insecure and threatened by others that the only way they can deal with that is to make those people feel like shit. I didn't ask for nor deserve it, no matter how small or brainy etc I was. And I am not a 'victim' either. I'm just someone who eventually found the strength to fight back.

SharonAnn