On Saturday I went, with a great deal of trepidation, to see Bully, with my ex-wife and our twelve-year-old son. We both felt that it was a movie he needed to see. My son is neither or a bully nor has he been bullied; however, I want to make sure he understands the impacts of bullying because I was bullied.
I guess it started sometime in third grade or fourth grade. I never understood why it started. It just did. It began with name-calling. Anderass was the preferred term they used for me, or other variations of my name, each more derogatory than the other. I was always picked last in gym class. I dreaded playing dodge ball, as I was always the number one target. When the name calling stopped being effective the silent treatment began. None of the other kids would play with me or talk to me. I had no idea why. About this time the physical torment began. Hitting me for no reason, slamming me into lockers. One minute they would be my best friends, the next my tormenters. I dreaded recess and lunch…I knew at those times I would be attacked. I began to spend all of my time at recess and lunch as far away from the playground as I could. At the corner of the school property there was a culvert that ran under a sidewalk. It was low enough that I could not be seen from the playground but I could see if anyone was approaching. It was my safe place. That is where I spent recess and lunch for all of fifth grade. Even at the depths of Wisconsin winters.
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I would tell my parents what was going on and my dad would just say, “Boys will be boys” and “You need to stand up for yourself.” I would come home from school crying and my mom would say a little rhyme, “Nobody likes me, everyone hates me, I might as well go eat worms.” To this day that rhyme haunts me. My parents just did not understand what was happening to me.
When I moved onto middle school things got a little better, at least for sixth grade. It was a bigger school and the bullies had other newer targets. Sometime late in sixth grade it started up again. I was going through a growth spurt and my pants did not fit and my parents did not have the money for new pants. I got a lot of shit for wearing “Floods.” Late in sixth grade was also when the “awkward stage” began for me. Greasy hair, pimples, and poor personal hygiene --I simply did not know any better. My parents were from a different time. They grew up during the Depression. To them a bath more than once a week was considered wasteful. Between my “floods” and my hygiene I was tormented that last quarter of the school year. Personal hygiene was learned quickly; however, I was still tormented for that lapse. Kids can be so cruel.
Seventh grade was the worst time of my life. It was in seventh grade when I contemplated suicide. Had my parents had a gun in the house I am sure I would have used one, either on myself or on my tormentors. Yeah, it was that bad. There were two main tormentors and several followers and enablers. One was on the school bus every morning. He got on at the stop right after my stop. My left arm, always my left arm, was his personal punching bag. I got to the point where I just accepted the beatings and I would just stand there getting hit like it was the most natural thing in the world. He only did this on the school bus. He never bothered me in school. When the bus drivers went on strike that year it was one of the happiest days in my life. I would walk two miles to school and no one would hit me.
In school though was another matter. I don’t know when or how it started. But each passing day became worse and worse. It started with name-calling. Then it escalated to physical violence and then into the absurd. I would open my locker to find feces or snot smeared on my notebooks and folders. My locker partner let the bullies do it out of self-preservation. He knew if he didn’t let them in he would be a target. At one point I had had enough. One of the bullies was just being relentless with name calling between classes. In one of the stairwells I turned around and started pounding on him and broke his glasses in the process. We were both hauled off into the principal’s office. I threw the first punch and therefore was the instigator. My father was called to come pick me up; I was suspended for three days for fighting and I had to pay for the broken glasses. The bully was not punished.
The torture continued and I kept fighting back. Now I was sent to the school counselor’s office. Here is where I will use the only name in this post. Mr. Pellegrino – how I hated him. It was my fault that that I was being bullied. According to the bully I had called him a name at the beginning of the school year and that gave him and his friends free reign to torture me. I was told to apologize for calling my tormentor a name, a name that I did not remember ever calling him. To this day I can vividly remember the scene in that office. Mr. Pellegrino behind the desk and me and my main tormentor on the other side of the desk. I am forced to tell my side of the story in front of my tormentor. I am crying in a way I have not cried in before or since that day as I tell the tale. My tormentor interrupts and says, “But you started it when you called me such and such.” Immediately Mr. Pellegrino’s demeanor changed. He was angry with me for calling my bully a name. In my tears I am struggling to comprehend how, why this was my fault. At this point Mr. Pellegrino asked me, “Do you understand that when you name call that this is the consequence?” I was so stunned that I said yes. The only thing that came of that meeting was that my locker was moved. I blocked the vents so they could not stuff anything into my locker.
Not being able to stand up for myself and having no adult that would stand up for me I found another outlet. I became a bully. There was a kid that walked the same route I did on the way home. I was relentless…I badgered him constantly, telling him I was going to beat the shit out of him. I look back on those incidents and feel horrible. How could I have ever treated another human being so poorly?
I began to act out at home during this time. At one point I took a razor blade and cut the outer fabric of the couch in the basement to shreds. My mom asked me if I was on drugs. I was afraid to tell her what was happening. The rhyme, “Nobody likes me, everyone hates me, I might as well go eat worms,” ran through my head every time I thought about saying something.
Seventh grade came to an end and eight grade started. Just as inexplicably as the bullying had started it ended. I don’t know why. Yes, I was picked on, but, it was the more garden-variety stuff. Not the sheer torture I had been through before.
In High School there was some bullying; however, not nearly as bad as it was in middle school. As I grew older the scars of bullying became more apparent. In the Army I never felt like I could fit in and I have had difficulty in allowing anyone to come close to me emotionally. Teacherken quoted Lily Eskelsen, VP of the NEA, “A bully steals a piece of the victim’s soul.” I can attest to that. I often wonder how different my life would be had I not been bullied, had that piece of my soul not been stolen.