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I Was Bullied … And I’m Better For It
You may have seen images floating around the internet lately from a photographer name Rich Johnson that try to demonstrate the harm that words can cause by visualizing them as physical wounds on the bodies of people. These have quickly become the go-to pictures on articles about bullying, such as this piece on CNN calling for it to be prohibited by law. These visuals hit close to home for me on two fronts. First, I went to high school with Rich and shared an apartment with him in college. Second, I have more firsthand knowledge on the topic of bullying than any human being would care to admit.
People generally fall into one of two camps when the conversation turns to bullying. The first group insists that there is an epidemic, and usually suggest that it requires a legal remedy, while the second doesn’t see verbal abuse as a form of bullying at all.
Though anti-bullying laws strike me as the ultimate example of a blunt instrument being used where a scalpel is needed, there is a tendency on the right to dismiss concerns about verbal bullying out of hand. While the anti-bullying crusade gets a whole lot wrong, the greater point Rich’s project makes about the scars words can leave is spot on.
At our earliest opportunity, we should retire the nursery rhyme of “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” It is a saying as at odds with reality as any in the English language. Arming children with it before sending them off to school is about as useful as sending the army into battle with swim noodles. Any child who finds themselves on the receiving end of systemic harassment will tell you this cliche is manifestly false. Its sole purpose is identifying for a bullied child which adults are not taking their troubles seriously.
I don’t think back fondly on my childhood for numerous reasons, the primary one being a dark cloud that hung over me nearly every day of my life from the ages of 7 to 14. Each day as I boarded the school bus, I hoped and prayed that it would be the day when everyone forgot I was there. In retrospect, it is difficult to tell what it was about me that made me such an easy target. Perhaps the other kids simply smelled fear on me like animals in the jungle. Perhaps I was just socially awkward. Whatever the reason, I was quickly identified as being low in the pecking order, even after I transferred from one school to another.
My average day consisted of being insulted on the bus, insulted in class, and insulted on the playground. This was my life day in and day out for years. There was seldom any common theme to the abuse. I looked wrong, dressed wrong, said something wrong, or did something wrong, and those around me would make me the butt of their jokes. Any specific example I could try to convey would seem petty and insignificant to you, just as it did to my teachers and my mother.
In truth, the specific words are completely irrelevant to how hurtful verbal abuse is, as evidenced by the common use of insults among friends as terms of endearment. Ultimately, verbal bullying tells a child the same thing no matter which words are employed: You are separate; you are lesser; you are not welcome here. Isolation and a sense of devaluation as a human being are the results. This message was hammered home to me by my classmates every day.
At first, I reacted to such harassment with violence. Someone would push me too far and a brawl would ensue. The Catholic school uniform provided handy weapons in such fights, as I quickly discovered that grabbing the other kid’s tie or jacket enabled you to pull them to the pavement quite effectively (The playground at the Catholic school I attended in first and second grade was literally a parking lot). The satisfaction of having stood up for myself was always short-lived however, as school administrators had very little tolerance for such shenanigans.
A call to my mother always followed, which in turn led to talks in her office after she had returned home from work. Explaining that you were being made fun of buys you little sympathy from your mother when the real world difficulties of keeping a roof over your head and putting food on the table occupy almost all of her time and energy. Getting kicked out of school while she was breaking her back to support the family alone was not an option and I was disciplined accordingly. A combination of punishment and guilt for what I was putting her through caused me stop fighting. As you can imagine, this didn’t lead to a reduction in my being bullied.
Her primary piece of advice was to tell a teacher when it was happening, so that they could put a stop to it — a suggestion that caused far more grief than it solved. It turns out that people don’t like it when you tell on them and make you pay for it tenfold rather than backing off. Most of the time, however, teachers and administrators proved themselves unwilling to take any steps to help in the first place. I don’t care to recount the number of times I sat being harassed in an otherwise silent classroom, while the teachers sat at their desks doing nothing about it.
The feeling of powerlessness that comes from being told that you can’t stick up for yourself — especially when no one else is willing to stick up for you either — is maddening. For years, my bus ride home and the first hour or so of my afternoon were occupied by thoughts of suicide. Not merely idle thoughts: I was considering methods. It wasn’t a cry for help, as I didn’t tell anyone. I was past the point of thinking there was anyone willing or able to help. I was just looking for a way out. What prevented me from going through with it is a mystery to me to this day.
The unrelenting nature of the bullying was truly astonishing to behold. You might think that children would eventually tire of it and move onto some other form of amusement. And they might if such abuse were truly driven by their desire to amuse themselves.
If you want to study how not to socialize children, then simply examine nearly any traditional American school. The separation of children by age insures that their primary influences in social behavior will be other children who are equally socially undeveloped. What emerges is a cultural hierarchy similar to that of a clan of hyenas. The most dominant among them abuse those who are lower in the social order, constantly reinforcing their position. Tearing down other children helps to elevate you in the eyes of your peers. Abuse in this culture travels uniformly down the chain. Those at the top are almost never on the receiving end of bullying, and those at the bottom rarely ever dish it out.
The dynamic changes entirely when children are not in school. I had many friends growing up who resided far higher up the chain than I — and we got along great when not in school. Once back in the jungle of the classroom, however, the best I could hope for was that they wouldn’t join others when it came time for my daily verbal beat down. The hope was often in vain.
The nightmare ended my freshmen year in high school. I would love to say that my peers grew up, but that wasn’t the case. What changed was the fracturing of the popularity hierarchy by a combination of mixing age groups across classes, as well as the addition of students who had attended different middle and elementary schools.
Cliques formed in place of the old hierarchy. You found your place among them for rational reasons, such as common interests. It was suddenly irrelevant if student A and B mocked you with their friends, as you were equally likely to mock them among your own group. Anything negative you received from one person was counterbalanced by friends who gave you something positive. For the first time, there were some people’s opinions that mattered to me and others that didn’t. The dark cloud lifted and living became fun again.
I harbored a rather deep resentment for a great many of those classmates for years. Interacting with them always felt strange. They’d be making small talk and all I could think was “You nearly drove me to kill myself and yet here you are, acting like nothing ever happened.”
This changed as I watched many of them develop into adulthood. I was surprised at first to observe that those who had dished out so much abuse in their youth seemed to have little in the way of skills to cope with criticism and insults. They crumbled under even mild disparagement, unsure how to handle it. It wasn’t long before I realized that, in the end, I had gotten the better deal.
I developed a mental toughness that isn’t present in many people I knew growing up. As a result, I am incredibly comfortable in my own skin. I feel no pressure to change any aspect of myself for the purpose of appeasing others, or fitting in with any culture. Meanwhile, I’ve seen friends who I respect put their tail between their legs at the first signs of disapproval from others because they can’t stand the thought of being disliked or insulted. They live for the approval of others. It is one of the saddest things I have ever seen.
Free speech is being challenged on college campuses across the country and you need look no further than this inability to handle criticism as the reason. If you are waiting for the money quote of this piece then here it is: Not enough people are bullied in their youth. As a result, the thick skin that is required for a robust culture of free speech has never formed, and adults in their early twenties run to college administrators demanding action be taken to protect them from harmful speech, much as I ran to teachers to protect me when I was nine years old.
They would benefit from the same lesson I had to learn as a child: Deal with it.
Obviously, there are levels of bullying that have to be addressed. As I mentioned earlier, I was on the brink of suicide for years. In the CNN piece, Mark O’Mara points us to the tragic consequences of severe instances of bullying, which he sees as a justification for government action.
I got involved in the conversation about bullying after a young Central Florida girl, Rebecca Sedwick, leapt to her death from a water tower in an abandoned industrial plant on September 9, 2013. She had been aggressively bullied by other girls. After one of the girls commented about the suicide on Facebook — essentially admitting to the bullying and showing no remorse — Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd arrested her. The charges were soon dropped, however, as bullying is not a crime.
Last year I proposed a bill in Florida that would have defined bullying and made it illegal. A similar bill drafted by Florida state Sen. David Simmons was introduced, but unfortunately died in appropriations. Nonetheless, over the next year I’ll be campaigning for the bill to be reintroduced, and I’ll work to rally support for the bill so we can get a sensible law on the books to protect children who are victims of bullying.
As someone who has lived through the type of hell O’Mara is citing here, reading the story of Rebecca Sedwick reveals that almost none of the adults who looked at this case have even scratched the surface of what she was likely going through. That’s a good indicator that their solutions will fail to address the real problems.
According to Judd, the girl was upset that Rebecca had once dated her current boyfriend and began bullying and harassing her more than a year ago when they were both students at a Florida middle school.
In addition to sending harassing messages over the Internet, the girl physically attacked Rebecca at least once, Judd said. She also recruited the girl’s former best friend — the 12-year-old charged Monday — to bully her, Judd said.
This explanation describes the situation entirely too neatly to actually cover the entire story. Children are not driven to suicide by the abuse of a pair of classmates who won’t leave them alone. They are driven to that point by systemic harassment by numerous people, which is never counterbalanced by positive interactions with any of their other peers. If they want to know who was culpable for her death, there are likely dozens of classmates who contributed to the problem. Arresting those who bully overtly would likely do little more than ensure that all future bullying is done covertly.
If zero-tolerance laws for violence in schools teach us anything, it’s that a one-size-fits-all approach to discipline is doomed to failure. Not all schoolyard insults are bullying, and treating them as such will only lead to an environment where children who are behaving like children find themselves randomly expelled from school for being the one who got caught doing what everyone else does. O’Mara acknowledges this in his piece.
Those who oppose laws against bullying raise valid concerns. We don’t want to outlaw childhood. We don’t want to criminally punish kids for being kids. We don’t want to make it illegal to call people names. Who would judge these things anyway?
The same people who expel kids from school for chewing their Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. O’Mara’s faith in the common sense of school administrators seems misplaced.
To the extent that real systemic bullying exists, it has to be tackled on an individual level. Teachers have to proactively look for it and stamp it out on their own. It thrives in the dark, when the adults who are nominally supervising aren’t paying attention or don’t care. These aren’t things that can be corrected legislatively.
Rich was always talented, and the images he has created are powerful. They are being used, however, in efforts to push legislation that will do more harm than good, and leave us with the illusion that the problem is being solved. In reality, I fear it will only leave us softer and more prone to claiming the status of victim. I dissent.
Too Long, didn’t read.
I couldn’t help but think of this essay: Why Nerds Are Unpopular which covers some of the same ground and addresses some of the underlying issues.
My experience was similar, though in my case violence was, in fact, a solution. After 5 years of just putting up with it, I finally snapped and laid out my interlocutor in one blow. OK, technically I didn’t strike him, I used a scarf for leverage and threw him across the hall into a row of lockers -but still -one action. First, last, and only fight I’ve been personally involved in.
Of course, I felt terrible afterwards. I’d deliberately tried to hurt someone. Stopped wearing a scarf in the winter for a couple of years. I fully believed I deserved the suspension that I got -even though my teachers surreptitiously made sure that it was just a vacation (and, in fact, my teachers apologized for missing it -I hadn’t told them because I’d had Frank’s earlier experiences -and while the principles never did anything to my tormenters, my teachers did). The principles watched me on the theory I might be dangerous. My teachers watched me because they wanted to be ready to swoop in.
Anyway, they never bothered me again. Even became friends with a couple of them.
Principle Overfelt remains an incompetent fool.
A year later, in high school, a different person decided I was a good mark. This was considerably shorter lived. My brother -who I wasn’t on the best of terms with at the time (obvs we’re better now, what with being adults) -noticed, and told his friend, Andy Robichaud. At lunch, when the new tormenter started picking on me, Andy told him to buzz off. When he didn’t, Andy stood up, put himself between us and pushed him away.
Said tormenter then turned his attention to Andy, and in only a few seconds, Andy had enough, bull rushed him, and sent him flying across a lunch table.
Fortunately the High School Principle, Mrs. Stephens, wasn’t a fool. I was left alone, Andy was suspended -but it was pro-forma -and I was never bothered again.
Some adults are worthy of the positions of authority they hold -I don’t how many, but I met more worthy than unworthy. Worse than the bullies are the adults who handle it wrong. Someone, though, has to be the Iron Fist of God. If it is not those in authority, it will be someone else.
This will be a common theme. Observant teachers vs oblivious teachers will determine just how bad the situation was for you growing up.
Amen, Frank! I got picked on in varying degrees from about fifth grade until partway through high school. In my case, I know I was a nerdy kid, with a bowl haircut and lacking in social skills.
In elementary school, I especially remember how some erstwhile friends of mine joined in the ostracizing and disparaging comments, and it left me feeling really isolated. It was really bad in late elementary school, but though it continued for a few more years, it was a lot easier to deal with in junior high and high school, where we’d developed cliques, as you note. By then, I had a wider circle of friends with common interests and complementary personalities I could hang out with and count on.
Getting physically beat-up, which happened rarely, wasn’t too bad, because it was never somebody I wanted to like me, and I had those friends. The things that hurt the most were when friends joined in making fun of me. That always seemed to depend on who else was present.
[cont’d]
Will is the wrong word. Should would be more appropriate. Often there is no one.
Luck too. The class before me was infamous. My class was mostly pretty good. My older brother’s class had been inhabited by scoundrels and the victims they preyed on. Luck of the draw.
Luckily, my parents taught me to fight back, and they said they would stand up for me to the school if I got in trouble for it. I only really fought back once that I remember, and we both got called in to the assistant principal’s office. I was panicked, but the assistant principle reassured me, saying, “Don’t worry, Tim. You’re not in trouble.”
By halfway through high school, I’d started trying harder to fit in. Got a better haircut, acted more mature, learned better social skills. Everybody else was growing up more, anyway, and it all improved. And then life completely changed in college, where I simply didn’t have a history to worry about. It was a fresh start.
Anyway, Frank’s right: you can’t legislate away the worst kind of bullying. It’s impossible to define and outlaw in any way that would be consistent with our rights. But it can be awful for kids, and teachers need to be aware of what’s going on. Teachers can hold students to standards of behavior that you can’t legislate.
Being unpopular is much different than what Frank is describing. The merely unpopular usually have an outlet or two where they can feel like a normal and welcome person; sometimes the merely unpopular are justly unpopular. Unrelenting and systematic bullying is a whole other ballgame though.
This seems like the money quote to me:
I keep thinking that these school shooters who were supposedly bullied might never have considered mass murder if the adults would just have allowed them to hit back. Because you’re right – “go tell an adult” is worse than useless, and suffering through it leads to all sorts of bad things. I’m glad you got to a better environment in time.
Multiple money quotes are no extra charge.
The amount of wisdom in that link is simply astounding. Thank you! I’m going to forward it to my teen and tween children.
This is the result of a society in which there is no repercussion for saying anything you want to anyone you want. When there is a very real threat that verbally abusing someone will get you punched in the mouth, you think twice before doing it. Too many educators (teachers and administration) are more worried about getting sued by parents who don’t think their angel could possibly be harassing anyone, and they choose to turn a blind eye to it. I’m baffled by administrators that allow students to torment another student, even more so by ones that tolerate physical abuse. Adults should act like adults and do the right thing and not what is most convenient to them.
Frank and others who were bullied, I know you weren’t asking for sympathy, but it breaks my heart to think of children enduring this. I admire that you survived and prospered, but I still wish you had been spared the pain. I think people can learn to be strong and self-reliant without that level of misery and the attendant risk of suicide. I did occasionally intervene in such situations with my own kids, but perhaps not often enough. I tolerate none of it in my Sunday School class of 12-14 year olds.
Surely I could have done with less (I acknowledge such in the piece), but having none leaves you ill prepared for adulthood.
Despite my own experience, I’ve really disliked the anti-bullying movement that has grown up in the past few years. There’s something about them that makes me cringe. Maybe it’s the eye-rollingly ridiculous, touchy-feely approach, which does things like promote student poster contests with a theme of “Bullying isn’t cool!” This is probably less effective than a public service ad, and I think public service ads are really ineffective.
I mean these are ridiculous in a literal way. Mostly they’re trying to go after explicit taunting by kids. But the kids doing the taunting are not the kids who would be swayed by a poster saying “that’s not cool.” It is cool. That’s why they’re doing it. By making fun of somebody, they rise up on the social ladder. And if the teachers are putting out earnest PSA-type posters telling them it’s not cool? Well, it’s even cooler to make fun of that!
I think these efforts backfire. The best remedy is for teachers to be aware of what’s going on and active in discipline, hopefully without the victim having to “tell.”
Jr high does seem to be peak for this stuff. I skipped a grade, so in 7th grade, I was a year younger (11), and then there was this kid in our gym class, who was like fifteen because he was so dumb. He had a beard, fercryinoutloud, and his big fantasy in life was to blow his brains out in the back of his dad’s limousine. Oh, he used to just whale on us all, and no, the idea of telling a teacher about this was absurd.
This is what gets left out of a lot of these discussions. Status accrues to the cruelest.
The Facebook page originally linked has now linked back to this article. Everyone here ought to go see the reactions as they come in.
Yeah I notified Rich that I wrote it.
Don’t think that is a conclusion that can be drawn. Very few would claim that they weren’t bullied along the way. The totem pole is an apt metaphor, those who are bullies are very likely to be being bullied from someone higher, and so it goes.
There are those at the top who undergo little, and those at the bottom who undergo too much. My observation is that those who took the least, are the most apt as adults to have the spines of jellyfish when interacting with people. They live for other’s approval, as it is something they have always been accustomed to having. Not an ideal formula for mature adults.
With you all the way, Frank…My younger non-disabled siblings gave me no quarter when it came to major-league teasing/harrassment; thus, when schoolmates did it, I thought they were joking…I’d been inoculated.
It is liberating to be largely immune to insults. These days my favorite thing is hate mail. I find it endlessly entertaining. My goal is to get famous enough that I receive regular batches of it.
Read the article, it touches on bullying quite a bit. It deals with the larger issue of school culture, not just bullying, and has many points of overlap. I never said they were equivalent or meant to imply it.
To both expound on my point, and continue my ongoing efforts to get a job at Vox Media, here is a worthless chart that pretends to answer this question definitively.
Bullying Explained in One Chart
Is it weird that when reading this I wanted to go back in time and give your 10-year old self a big hug? Followed by knocking the block off of whoever was doing those things to you? (Sometimes the mama bear gene is hard to control!)
I have a grown daughter who suffered through years of being, if not exactly bullied, the subject of passive aggressive picking on. She was and continues to be just a bit of an odd bird; has always marched to music no one else hears. She wasn’t and isn’t a weirdo, but for all that we hear about individualism the world (and particularly during the school years) values conformity. It is mostly useless to go to the teacher because each individual aggression is usually small. (“Teacher – he poked me in the butt with his pencil.” “Get back to work – if you ignore him he’ll stop.”) The damage is cumulative.
I’m glad your experiences have made you stronger. I fear that for many people the experience teaches them that they are failures.
Frank, a great article by the way.
One of the things I want to repsond to is being bullyed and being a bully. I was both. Sometimes at the same time, sometimes not. I think it deserves an article on its own.
Now as a teacher, it is very difficult to know what is really going on with my students. You try, and sometimes they slip and you catch them, but it is very difficult. The other issue, is what to do, beyond a zero tolerance of it in my class room or in the hallway out of it. Beyond that, school is like Lord of the Flies when there is no adult around, or sometimes even when there is, sadly.
I think the bully’s high status, if it accrues instead of general fear, is incidental to the bullying. Primarily it’s gratifying to the bully. Often, aside from the bullying, bullies can be confident, charming, funny, and exciting which are the qualities that gain them status. I’ve found that few people actually reward cruelty with status; it’s more like they don’t withhold status just because of cruelty. Sometimes anyway. Individual situations differ, of course.