nyxelestia

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The biggest bully in my life was probably me.

( Considering I'm not even f-locking this I suppose this won't really be a secret anymore, but let me tell it to you anyway: I was a bully. And I was bullied. And I am still not sure which was worse. (Long memoir on bullying experiences is long.) )




( Meta on bullying is not nearly as long but still rather long. Meta being that it is hard to get out of your head and realize just what is and is not bullying, just what is and is not crossing the line, and that as much as we despise bullying, the answer is not to despise the bullies. )




TL;DR

I was a bully, and I was bullied. I was the tough girl of the playground and of the block who managed to bully people without every laying a finger or a word on them. I was also shunned by my peers while barely clinging on to my friends, and eventually even assaulted for something that is such a small part of me and yet such a big part of what people see in me.

To this day, I struggle with trying not to bully others, trying not to be domineering. I try not to turn into a "bad boss", hurting and ignoring others to my ego-stroking benefit and at their expense.

There are a lot of types of bullies and a lot of reasons people bully, and there will be no one, easy solution to depend on to get rid of it, or even make a dent in it. But one type of bully I can say we can help is the ones who don't know that they are bullies.

And yes, they exist. They think their roughhousing is just playing, and don't realize that it's not playing when your friend/opponent is not nearly of your size or skill level. They think their back-and-forth insults are just joking around, without realizing that some of the people around them take these words to heart in a negative way. They believe what they are doing is truly okay, because they are seeing it on TV and in books and in video games that it's okay, and everyone expects someone else to do it so no one is just talking with them about it.

I can't speak for every bully or bullying victim, or even most, but I can speak for the ones who were like me in saying that we need to stop relying on bullshit campaigns and false platitudes, and that we need to start figuring out what bullying is and what it means for kids today, where they are getting the message from. The existing plans and campaigns against bullying are great, and they get a lot done, but they ultimately only reach out to a few kids because they only target a few specific types of bullies - they get a lot done but not enough, because we are placing too high and unrealistic expectations on them. We need to quit the futile efforts against stopping these ideas and instead equip kids with the ability to filter these ideas, learn what is and isn't okay, because if we don't, then no one else will - after all, no one else has so far.

No one did for me until it was too late.






What the hell did I just type 3300 words in an hour?! I spend 3 years ignoring that 'Writer's Block' widget on the LJ homepage and this is what gets me?!