Bullying: The best thing that ever happen to me!

One out of five students report of being on the receiving end of bullying today. It is so excruciating to know that in the age when an individual is supposed to be at their best productive stage in terms of learning and adapting, some of them go through this daily torture. However, it is important to note that bullying is not restricted to a certain phase of life.

I am one of those five students who has experienced bullying.

I was fat as a kid and was often a subject to lot of jokes on my body type. Also, I am raised by a group of strong and powerful women in my life. I didn’t see too many men around me when I was growing up. For that reason, the tonality of my voice was not masculine; another aspect to make fun of! “Not a Man”, “He talks like a girl”, “Look at his boobs” were some of the things often said to me.

It was so painful going to school every day. During lunch breaks, I often did not go out of my class to avoid people laughing at me. Sometimes, even when they were not laughing at me, I would just feel so. That is the effect bullying has on you. It makes you psychologically so weak, you think as if you are constantly being ridiculed, even when you are not. Middle school is still the worst phase of my life for me.

Having shared all this, I would like to say that I received immense love from my family. I never told them about any of these things because somehow, I felt that there were far more important things for them to deal with. Since childhood, I always have the notion that I am strong and can go through anything. So, what if some people make fun of me at school, I focused on the love and care my family kept providing me. That was enough for me. I had the validation from the most important people in my life. They made me feel like a star!

My family also taught me the biggest lesson of my life; TO STAND UP FOR MYSELF. Whenever my aunt or uncle (I did not grow up with my parents) would scold me for something they found inappropriate, my grandmother (the strongest person I have ever seen) would always indulge in an argument and would tell them to allow me to explain. She always told me to be strong and explain your point when you are not wrong. When you are, humbly say sorry and work on the mistake.

That was precisely what I did. I started standing up for myself. I knew I was not physically strong or aggressive, but I had something that the bullies did not have, my creative mind. I developed the skill of sarcasm. It is true that words hit and scar you longer than any physical damage. No one made fun of me because they knew I would shut them up with the words that will hurt them too much. Also, bullies are coward and loyal to no one. They bully you in groups, which worked well for me. After I shut up two or three people, no one else made fun of me because they were scared that their own bully friends will make fun of them on what I just said in front of everyone. I never had to use sarcasm as a tool to fight them too often.

Another thing that did wonders was me winning any competition I took part in. Teachers knew me well and appreciated me for my wit and creative skills. It boosted my confidence. I focused more on those areas apart from anything else. I developed good public speaking skills, something that helped me so much during my college years. I made a best friend (someone who was bullied more often than me) that has stayed by my side since the last ten years.

Today, while most of my bullies have no career goals, I am having a good career where I am constantly making progress. My best friend is a working architect in India. While the bullies are probably trying to understand the true meaning of life, me and my friend are already so mature in terms of the outlook for life.

No one should ever have to go through this experience of bullying. However, in retrospect, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realize what my true potential is, made me realize that a true man is not identified by his masculinity, but by the way he treats everyone (specially women) and takes responsibility of his actions. Now, I don’t feel disappointed easily on small setbacks in life because I have hard-wired my mind to stand up each time I fall in the past.

If you are being bullied by anyone right now, be it at school, at workplace, or in a relationship, I hope you will stand up for yourself. Bullies don’t have the power; you give it to them and can easily take it back. And if you are a bully reading this, please understand that what might be a momentary fun for you could be a devastating life experience for someone, not everyone is strong enough to rise.

Let everyone co-exist with their own uniqueness. That is what makes us human.

References:

https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/stats.asp#:~:text=%20Bullying%20statistics%20%201%20Rates%20of%20Incidence.,or%20Are%20Perceived%20as%20LGBTQ.%20%20More%20