HOW DOES BULLYING AFFECT US?
When I was a kid growing up just outside of New York City, I was bullied a lot. I am now fifty years old and I still remember how it felt. I sometimes feel the hurt, anger and fear from those incidents that happened many years ago.
Almost forty years later, some of the effects of bullying are still with me.
The Day of the Bee Sting
A Story
I remember two bullies in particular: Dickie M. and Vinnie B. I won't mention their last names in case they're still around. (Maybe I'm still nervous that they'll get me now!) It seemed that almost every day one of these two tough boys bullied me. They would make me do things I didn't want to do.
They made fun of me, and at times beat me up -just for the fun of it.
I was a big kid who hated to fight, and Dickie knew it. He would get me on the ground, with his knees on my arms, pinning me down. I always felt frustrated and angry and wanted to cry, but I didn't want him to see any of this. I just let him beat me up without doing anything back. No adults ever stopped those beatings, although I wish they had.
One day, Dickie had pinned me down and was beating me up in the neighbor's yard. Without warning, I was stung by a 23
bee in the back. This sudden shock made me jump up fast.
Since I was bigger than Dickie, my leaping up threw him across the yard. I was stunned to see him lying there, shaken up.
He looked at me and I looked at him, and we both saw the truth in that moment: I was the stronger of the two. From that day on, he never beat me up again, although he did bully me verbally, calling me names and ridiculing me.
His older brother hurt me badly twice, once knocking out my front tooth, and once running into me with his bike on purpose -
which threw me into the air, causing me to hit my head on a curb. I had to go to the hospital on both occasions, first to have my tooth and split lip attended to, and second and more seriously, to have my head (near my left temple) sewn up.
This hit to the head almost took my life; the doctor said that if the hit had been a little more in the temple area, I would probably be dead. I still feel the effects of that injury.
I Thought
There was Something Wrong with Me
I left that tough town in the 8th grade to go on to high school in another nearby town. This new town was very wealthy. I was no longer threatened by physical attacks from Vinnie or Dickie, but I felt threatened in a different way.
In this new town, we were encouraged to aggressively pursue money and power. For the many years I lived there, I was bullied into believing there was something wrong with me for not being money oriented and power hungry- attributes that many in that town thought of as "admirable." I couldn't 24
compete with these "bullies," so I failed and I felt inadequate for years.
It took me a long time to realize that this was bullying of another kind. While Dickie's bullying was physical, the bullying I got in this new town was mental, or psychological.
It wasn't until much later that I realized that mental bullying can be far more dangerous than physical bullying. Strangely enough, it has had a deeper effect on me than getting beaten up.
Bullies in Disguise
As I grew up, I met many types of bullies of all ages, both men and women. Almost everywhere people seemed to be out for themselves: "Me first!" "Go for it!" "Get what you can!" I began to see that bullying didn't stop in high school or college.
It was just as apparent in the business world -
people
competing with each other and bullying to get their way.
Many of these bullies acted like polite gentlemen and women. Many had been educated at some of the best colleges, and they spoke and dressed nicely. How, I wondered, could I feel intimidated by such people? Little by little, I began to see through their fancy outfits, their status-seeking, and their ability to say the right thing at the right time. They're plain old bullies, I said to myself. They're pushing people around just the way Vinnie and Dickie did. But they're using their voices, their clothes, and their positions instead of their fists!
These bullies get what they want by using their minds as a
"weapon" to make others afraid of them, instead of using their fists. The best way to deal with these bullies -
or any bully -
is to know that you can also use your mind instead of your 26
fists, but in a positive way: to keep yourself from being bullied, or from bullying. If you are a bully and don't want to be one, or you have been bullied and don't want to be bullied ever again - you're reading the right book!
Kid Bullies Become Adult Bullies
I noticed, growing up with bullies all around me, that I had turned into a bully myself. I had learned to believe that I needed to be aggressive if I was going to survive in this world.
Even today I sometimes find myself unfairly bullying my wife and daughters, asserting my "power" over them with words or gestures. And at times they do the same to me. At one time or another, we all do it.
Teachers occasionally use their authority to bully. Parents will sometimes aggressively pursue their own needs over the needs of the family. Political and military bullies get power hungry and want to dominate the world. You can be sure, any war we've gotten into was started by bullying.
Kids are not born bullies. We learn how to be bullies from adults. Then we grow up to become adult bullies.
