When I was a kid, I was bullied.

[reynardo]

And I can hear so many of my friends right now nodding and saying "Yeah, me too." I think that's why a lot of us have become friends - because we're the different ones, the other ones, those ones - which meant that we're not outsiders, we're our own group.

But it took me years to find you.

This is a video called Bullies called him Pork Chop. I wish I could sit my mum down to watch it. I wish I could get her to understand how much that stuff hurt, because she was (and is) of the school that "you should just reply with sticks and stones may break my bones...".

Sometimes I have trouble finding the words to explain things to people. Then I'm lucky enough that someone else has made the words for me.

Have tissues ready. And a kitten to cuddle. You may need it.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Despite popular opinion to the contrary, there's no easy solution to bullying, especially if the bully hangs out in a small gang to prevent any sort of retaliation.

I think "Let Me In" was the best film treatment of bullying I've seen: the vampire is really scary, but the bullying in the film and its consequences is even more terrifying.

[carolinelamb.livejournal.com]

One older, bigger boy called me "yellow danger" and take my stuff, like my school bag and dangling it out of the window (he peed on my sports bag) .

One day I lost it—the beginning of my sessions with the head master because of my "anger issues" and screamed and ran at him, then bit his arm, and just kept it between my teeth, like a bulldog.

My parents had to go to the headmaster's office and the whole incident earned me a week of beatings ... but wow, it was worth it :D

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I think the only time my school ever really acted on bullying was when I forced their hand, by retaliating in "unacceptable" ways. (Or in one case, when my brother showed up with a cricket bat and evened the odds, bless him.)

[carolinelamb.livejournal.com]

I think the only time my school ever really acted on bullying was when I forced their hand, by retaliating in "unacceptable" ways.

Yes. That.

I remember grown ups telling me: "Just show them that you're the better person, by ignoring them and it'll go away."

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

"HA HA NO SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR CHILDHOOD?"

(To give my parents credit, they pushed the school to deal with the bullying, but they didn't get much satisfaction.)

[fenrischained.livejournal.com]

Welp. Now I'm crying.

Hugs?

(I was bullied all through school. As far as I can tell, the only reason I stopped being bullied was that when I got ill a few years ago, I stopped being in school enough to be a reasonable target, to the point where some of my closer friends were surprised to find that I still went there. For me it was my accent, or at least that was the main thing that got picked on. I grew up in the North-East of England, which has a very strong accent which I somehow managed to completely avoid picking up, and it was actually one of my teachers who pointed out that I said "bath" with a long A instead of a short A. So it was that, and the fact that I had a lot of male friends, and that I liked to read and hang out in the library, and that, being a twin as well as borderline-autistic, I never really worked out how to make friends until secondary school, because I had a ready-made friend in my sister. I spent the first three years of secondary school in therapy, and I reckon I've probably been depressed since I was about thirteen, although it's only been diagnosed a couple of years. I still have huge doubts about my ability to make and keep friends, despite evidence to the contrary, because most of my IRL friends are inherited from one or other of my sisters. And I never talked to my parents about any of it, because my mum would pity me and sympathise and not actually help, and my dad really isn't the sympathetic type and would have blamed me for letting it get to me)

(Wow. That was an unnecessary block of text. Basically what I'm saying is that a. that video was amazing and b. it hit very very close to home for me. Thanks for sharing!)

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched it yet, but yes.. bullying hurt me badly. I still see parts of me that were formed by it, and my eternal feeling of being outsider. Definitely will watch this when I have time.