I'm walking on a tightwire here.
I'm trying so hard to keep my cool, and write about this from a rational, well-considered position. But my hands are sweating, I'm lurching, and at any moment the force of gravity is threatening to pull me down through the air, into the black.
That blackness, that darkness is a place I don't allow myself to go very often.
I think about the blackness sometimes, but in an abstract, aloof way. I consider it from a position of relative safety. More often than not, I forget about it altogether.
Tonight, it's close. It's heavy. It's pulling at me.
Bullying is a hot topic nowadays. It's trendy to hate bullies! Videos about bullying go viral, celebrities hold up signs with hashtags and snap Instagrams. I'm not sure, but I'm betting there's an anti-bullying wristband, or seven. This is good, this is right! A conversation about bullying is a conversation that we as a culture need to have. I'm glad this is part of the public dialogue now.
As with all "causes" that become part of the fabric of our culture, however, most of the details get glossed over. People make snap judgments for or against the victim. Some click "Like" or comment a "<3" on a story that pulls at their heartstrings, and they keep scrolling. Political and religious leanings color peoples' perceptions; agendas and preconceived notions get in the way of the truth.
For me, anti-bullying isn't a cause I take interest in to look trendy and cool. This isn't a story I scroll past and immediately forget because I found a cute kitty video to distract me.
This was my life for a couple of years.
------
I was involved in a conversation on the Internet tonight where someone said (and I paraphrase): "Oh, I was bullied once. I ended up punching the person and then the whole thing was over. I had totally forgotten about it until my Mom's friend reminded me about it recently."
With all due respect to that person, and their experience, and their perceptions of what happened to them...
That is not what bullying looked like in my world.
- Bullying for me was waking up every single morning nauseous and shaking, for months.
- Bullying for me was being afraid to raise my hand, to open my mouth, to look up from my desk, to participate in anything because if I did, I was laughed at mercilessly and the shame cut too deep.
- Bullying for me was walking out of the gym locker room and having every boy in my class bark at me because they had decided it was okay to call me a "dog."
- Bullying for me was having my journal stolen and read aloud in the library in front of everyone in the class, with particular attention paid to the section where I talked about a boy I had the audacity to believe might ever be interested in someone as weird and ugly as me.
- Bullying for me was feeling dirty, unworthy, unwelcome, broken.
- Bullying meant that once I left that terrible school, I made bad decisions as a teenager trying to get people to like me, to fill the blackness. I am a lucky woman in that I did not get into serious trouble.
- Bullying meant that even as an adult, I sometimes find myself momentarily paralyzed, unable to speak, in a group setting, even when I very much want to say something. (To keep this in context, I speak pretty much for a living. I get PAID to speak and say smart things.)
Was I bullied because I was smart, and weird, and awkward, and anxious? Sure. Did it make me more weird, awkward and anxious? It did. Was I ripe for the picking? YES! Was I naive, was I gullible, was I silly and sensitive, did I overreact? Absolutely.
In many ways, I was vulnerable. I was weak. Bullies prey on the weak.
------
I've heard people say that bullying stops once the victim stands up to the bully. Personally, I wish that I had had the emotional fortitude (at age 11 or 12?) to let all the comments roll off and to cruise through unscathed. I did stand up for myself a handful of times, and I am here to tell you, it doesn't always work. Maybe it works in cartoons or something, or on Saved by the Bell. No, sometimes, it escalates. Sometimes, the kid who did the "standing up" suddenly gets in trouble for "acting out." (I recall dropping the F-bomb in the hallway and getting some serious talking to.) Sometimes, teachers blow the whole situation off.
Sometimes, these things are too big and scary and awful for a kid to have to shoulder on their own.
As far as I know, it's our job as parents and educators and bystanders and friends to protect children from nasty people who want to hurt them. Even when those nasty people are other children. Yes, we teach them the skills to protect themselves, too... to minimize or avoid the situations when it's possible. But sometimes, it really isn't possible.
I think it's also important for us as adults to understand what bullying really looks like and to go beyond preconceptions. It isn't always a grubby, misunderstood tough kid stealing someone's lunch money. It can be more subtle, more insidious, darker. And it isn't always the fat kid, the gay kid, the disabled kid getting picked on. It can be any kid who for whatever reason presents as different.
------
Being a former victim of bullying isn't something I bring up a lot; it's embarrassing to even remember it, let alone publicly proclaim it. It's also something I have done a lot of processing on, and talked to counselors about. As an adult, I celebrate the things that make me different. The very things that made me weak then are the things that now make me awesome-sauce.
But tonight I realized, as a follower of Jesus, it is my job to speak up on behalf of the weak. And the weak are not just children halfway across the world craving food and shelter and love (although God bless you if you are helping them). It's my job as a Christ-follower to shout out loud that there are children here, right now, hurting so deeply and so desperately that they are going to carry profound scars around with them into adulthood. The pain they are going through now will affect their careers, their friendships, their love lives, their very identity for a long, long time to come.
With God's grace and help, they will grow stronger. They will laugh about it someday; they'll be able to chuckle knowingly back through the years at their skinny, silly selves. They'll be able to run into their bully at the club grocery store and resist the urge to pummel her with a bag of tangerines. They'll carry the deep humility they learned from this experience into their grown-up lives and it will keep them from ever having too much pride.
Tonight, I pray for those who ache. I ache with them. I sit in the blackness with them, and wait for the light.
No comments:
Post a Comment