The lessons learned from bullies and bullying

I remember a “Peanuts” cartoon strip where in the first frame, Charlie Brown is standing in the middle of a bunch of children. He has his head lowered and they are all laughing and pointing at him, probably for something he has just said and they are making fun of him. He walks back home, his head down and a cloud hanging over his head. He sits at the TV, turns it on, and the announcer said “there is nothing more delightful than the laughter of little children.” The dark cloud over his head gets bigger and darker. He sighs. He has been a victim of bullying.

 I was bullied a lot as a kid, especially in junior high. I was very fat and thus had body self-esteem issues and coupled with my natural shyness left me open for the bullies, not physical abuse because I would never take the bait and push somebody back, but through making fun of me for my weight and some other physical issues I had at that age.

That all began to change when President Kennedy was murdered on Nov. 22, 1963, early in my freshman year of high school. In my American History Class, we were all asked to write essays about how it affected it, and my writing/communication skills had reached a level where my piece touched my teacher very much. My article was published in the school paper and suddenly, people knew who I was and knew me for having read what I had written.
I had always been a big reader, of newspapers and magazines in addition to books, and this reading background helped build a foundation for my writing skills.

Soon I was writing for our local community newspaper, while at the same time had developed my verbal communication skills and had become an upper level student, participant and leader in a number of student organizations, and with all this came a level of confidence in both myself and my abilities to communicate.
Those same people who a couple of years before had a lot of fun making fun of me were now not in my league in verbal or written skills, and while I had never even considered using my fists to combat those who tormented me with their words, I could tear them apart with a few well-chosen skills, often in front of a group of people. Where they had gotten their laughs, and made others laugh with them and at me in earlier times, I now could dominate them, put them down, and on levels far deeper than just commenting on how they looked.

I did discover another difference between those who had tormented me earlier and myself as I was in a league where they could not compete with verbally, I would go home and feel terrible for those I had put down or embarrassed. I felt terrible for taking advantage of my abilities to make certain others feel badly, so when my maturation skills began to match my verbal ones, I changed. By the time I was near the end of my high school years, I had become a pretty nice guy, or at least I tried to be.

I have always remained cynical, but I have aspired not to be a cynic as much as possible.

I didn’t much like the physical side of me when I was a child and a young teen, then at time I didn’t like the verbal cynic I became in my early and middle high school years, but I came to become a person I could like, and still do. I learned from being on the receiving end of bullies and I learned from when I later treated some of those same bullies with the same medicine.

I don’t miss those days, so much. I enjoy where I am in my life now. I have no choice as to where I am in my life now, but I do have a choice as to whether or not enjoy it, which I do. I do stick my neck out there, by sharing my words and my thoughts through my writing in various publications and internet sites, and I have to take it when some people, some of them bullies, stick it to me. I appreciate thoughtful comments, even disagreements with my thoughts and opinions and I often learn from other people’s comments on what I have written. The bullies, or attempted bullies, I now mostly feel sad about, because for so many of them, their only road to self esteem is through trying to bring down someone else’s self esteem. I am sad for them, because they are simply sad.

I believe at one time or another, all of us have been bullied and all of us have been bullies. I treasure the lessons I have learned from being on both sides. I hope I never stop learning.