In my
own life-time I'm seeing more and more talk and concern over school bullies. And what is most surprising to a lot of people is the discovery of
just 'who' the real bullies are.
Of
course, there are those of us who have known all along. We are the victims of
bullies and it's never been a mystery or surprise to us as to who they are.
Did
you ever think that the bullies in school were the underprivileged
children?....the kids who didn't seem to have what the other kids had? Did you
think that the bullies were always the 'ne're do wells'?
Well,
I'm here to tell you that THEY are not the bullies. The kids that were
the bullies were the ones who actually seemed to 'have it all'.
They
come from good, stable homes. They have parents that care about them and love
them. They have the best clothes, the most popular hair-cuts, the most popular
friends, and have some of the best grades. They join the Pep Club, might be
Cheerleaders, and some of them even have parents who attend PTA meetings.
To
me, a 'privileged' child can be privileged in many different areas...in love,
material possessions, good parents, etc.
If
you have read my story called Reunited,
then this is not a surprise to you as to how far some of these 'privileged' kids
will go.
In
schools today, violence towards bullies is getting really bad. I can tell you
that even though I had a horrible time in school, I never entertained
thoughts of coming to school and killing anyone, not ever. And even though I
don't condone the killing of anyone, I can certainly understand where this
'anger' towards bullies is coming from. No one deserves what's going on with the
violence, not the victims or the bullies.
Kids
have access to guns from nearly anywhere. When I was really young, at around 12
years of age, my cousin shot and killed his mother. He was angry with his
mother, picked up a rifle, aimed, and shot her dead. He barely got a slap on the
wrist for it. Back then it was practically unheard of that a child would murder
someone. And now it's common-place.
It's
so much more worse today than it was when I was back in school. Pain is pain,
but today, the kids have so much more pressure. More families have both parents
having to work, if there is even both parents in the same home at all.
Divorce rates are at an all time high. There is more pressure on parents today,
which results in more pressure, and neglect, with kids.
And
children of divorced parents have their own baggage, having to split their time
up between their divorced parents. And many times, the parents are poisoning the
child's mind with things they don't need to hear. They feel torn and in the
middle, and eventually, they learn how to make that work in their favor. They
pit one parent against the other. And several people will end up indulging the
child with things because they're trying to 'make it up to them' that they are
from a broken home. Meanwhile, the child's feelings of being used or not
wanted begin to show up in several areas of their life. They either draw more
'inward' or they take it out on others.
If
a child is in an already unhappy home, possibly being neglected, or abused, as
was my own situation, if they go to school and get picked on and made fun of by
the 'privileged' kids, what does that do to a child? How much anger and
self-loathing can a person take before they explode? Who do they turn to? The
school children are merely picking up where the parents left off.
It's
so easy to tell a child in that situation to 'not let it get to them', which
leads me to my rant on Validation....and
it's easier said than done. Where do they put the hurt and the pain? How good
can they possibly feel about themselves? When you are getting it from all
sides...when everyone in your life puts you down, abuses you, hurts you, and
devalues you...where do you put your emotions and pain?
What
we experience as children are the things we carry with us for the rest of our
lives. We can't easily change our self-image when all of the negative is being
reinforced, daily, both at home and at school. It affects how we think of
ourselves, how we feel and fit into society, how far we can go in reaching
our goals. It sets us up for the rest of our lives in how we view not only
ourselves, but also the world.
Many
parents of these so-called 'privileged' children, probably think that because
their children are privileged and come from good homes, that naturally,
they're treating people well.
They couldn't be further from the
real truth. Those are
the very children who make life a living hell for those of us who fall victim to
their cruelty.
As
if it isn't already bad enough, these 'privileged' children let their 'victims'
know, each and every day, how much they 'don't fit in', how little they are
valued as human beings, how unwanted they are. And if the child is already
going through this at home, they have no choice but to believe these things
about themselves. You can't help but to think that if this many people are
saying the same things, and treating you the same way, that maybe they are all 'right' about you.
I
can think back and remember that the worst, for me, was the feelings of not
belonging. It wasn't the name calling or the hitting or even reading things that
were written on the desks about me.....it was the way the kids made me feel
about 'myself'....leaving me out of everything and making me feel so unwanted
and devalued. Not being accepted and approved of in any manner really hurt
me.
But
that 'self-loathing' can turn into something much deeper and much darker, with
some children. And you never know which child will be affected in the worst
possible way, which could lead them into horrible acts of violence, either
towards others, or themselves.
From
my own experience, I believe that a lot of these parents of 'privileged'
children neglect to teach them better. I believe they 'assume' that the children
already know how to treat others. It's easy to 'reason' that children from good
homes and loving parents are so well balanced and grateful for their lives that
they don't need to be taught such things. But these people are wrong.
Since
my adult years, I learned how to look at the 'big picture'. However, that
doesn't excuse or take away the pain I endured all those years in that one
school. Nothing anyone can say, nor anything I can think, can erase the
emotional scars.....the residual pain that is carried through a person's
lifetime.
I
see now that those 'privileged' children apparently needed that 'group' or
'clique' in order to feel validated. If they were surrounded by peers who
encouraged their behavior, they became worse.
Perhaps some of the
'privileged' children who tormented me felt bad within themselves, and by
tormenting me, they felt better about themselves. In some cases, I believe that
some of those cruel children were merely entertaining their own friends.
I
don't know, perhaps some of these 'privileged' children are also under pressure
at home. Their parents may be pressuring them about their grades or who they
befriend, or about their goals, or inadvertently teaching them to be
'over-achievers'. They may feel so much tension and pressure to 'be the best' or
to 'do their best' that they feel like failures in their parent's eyes.
These
children themselves may feel inadequate. In turn, they go to school and the
hen-pecking order takes place. A good way to feel good about themselves is to
pick on and torment an underprivileged child. And all the more better if it's
done in front of their own peers, friends that they may feel inadequate around,
and this, in their eyes, balances the scales. It separates the 'haves' and the
'have nots'.
So,
in affect, it's a vicious circle in our society. But the privileged children
have leverage that the underprivileged children don't have. If you are of the
'privileged' class of children, then you have the other 'well to do' children
behind you. You already have popularity and friends.
When
I lived in Perryville, Maryland for 9 years, it was a horrible 9 years. I hated
living there. I had very few friends, and the rest were all tormenters and
people who mocked me and made fun of me. I will never forget what those people
did to me and how they made me feel about myself.
Then,
at the end of the tenth grade, I moved to North East,
Maryland, and I was
treated totally different. I wasn't teased and tormented, at least never to my
face or within ear shot. I ended up graduating at yet another high school
in Rising Sun, Maryland. And those
people were nice to me, too.
I was readily accepted and befriended by some of the
nicest people I had ever met. I held my head up high and didn't have or feel the same anxieties
that I felt in Perryville. It was a 'healing' to me. And though I did begin to
feel somewhat better about myself, it never erased the damaged caused by those
cruel kids in Perryville. That will never go away.
And
it's not that I choose to dwell on the pain. It's just that when you are older,
you realize how different experiences have touched your life, and in how many
different areas. You begin to make connections to your past and realize where
some of your pain is coming from. You hear of other people being bullied and
made fun of and you can sympathize, empathize, and you remember your own
experiences.
And
it's the same story....the 'well to do' kids are the worst tormenters. They make
an already bad situation worse. I also blame their parents, because they seem to
think that their own children can do no wrong. They're too busy over-indulging
them with their every whim and desire. Then, these same children go to school
and make other kids feel so bad.
It's
also been my own observation and experience that these 'over-indulged' ones grow
up to be 'over-indulged' adults.
Parents
do these kids no favors by indulging them so much. It makes them cruel. It made them think that
they're better than everyone else. It will ill-prepare them for real
life and real disappointments. It will ill-prepare them of true empathy with others.
And I've seen this in people I know who are just like this. But I'll stop
there....I don't want to get on a rant on those types of people on this
page.
I've
had friends through the years who seemed to have it all. And when others, or
myself, seem to have something they are lacking, they pull out the old 'high
school' mentality and 'put on airs'. They live out their lives reestablishing
the 'hen pecking order'. They continue reassuring themselves that they are,
indeed, superior than others.
But
bullies and girls like the ones I spoke of feel the need to pick on other
people. It's how they feel superior to others. I understand that they do this
to compensate for their own inadequacies. But, I'm not here to defend them or
their actions. I defend those who fall victim to those types.
And
you know what's really strange? Whenever I was one-on-one with anyone from that
group that tormented me, they were very civil and sweet. They chatted, played
records with me, smiled, and even laughed. Then when they were once again around
their friends, they ignored me, or bullied me and made fun of me.
I
honestly felt more sorry for THEM than I did for myself. I didn't have to put
someone else down in order to feel better about who I was. I didn't have a peer
group to answer to. My world didn't revolve around what five other people
thought of me.
I
know that guys are just as guilty of bullying, but I'm just speaking of my own
experience and how I can relate. I can't imagine what a young boy must go
through if he's not a so-called 'jock' or athletically inclined.
Yeah,
I still have anger and disgust for people like that. It took a lot of years of their cruelty to make me feel as I do today.
The way those people treated me affected my entire life. It does for everyone.
I
know how these bullies are, and my heart goes out to people who have to endure
them.
I
don't make it a habit to watch reality shows. But there's one I'm following
called High School
Reunion. It's on the TVLand channel on Wednesday nights at
10:00 pm. The show is about putting some high school classmates together in a
house in Hawaii, 20 years after graduation. It's not about voting anyone off,
etc.
But
you can really see where things that happened in these people's lives in high
school affected them for years to come. They are still upset, still scarred,
etc.
Right
now, March 2009, they have the classic snobby, A-Group Cheerleader. They also
have one of the people this Cheerleader picked on and insulted.
Of
course, the Cheerleader, when confronted by the girl she picked on, denied
remembering any such thing. Bullshit. She remembers. What a lame cop-out, saying
that she never remembered making fun of that girl.
My
point is, even on this TV show, you can see where 20 years have gone by and the
hurt of these 'bullies' still lingers on in the lives of their victims. It's not
something you outgrow. Those bullies change lives. Then they go on without a
thought in their heads about what they've done to someone, and pretend they are
loved by all.
I
don't wish anything bad on anyone. But I also have to admit that when word gets
back to me of how things have turned out for the bullies who were so cruel to others,
I don't lose any sleep over it. I smile.
We
couldn't all have a privileged life. Not all of us had love and attention at
home. Not all of us had 'good parents' or someone who made us feel loved and
special. But I'd still rather be me, with all my baggage, than to be like the
ones who made me feel this way. But they'll spend the rest of their lives constantly reestablishing
their superiority. They'll spend the rest of their lives in a peer group who
will feed them their opinions, feelings, and emotions.
