I used to go to your “typical” high school, but I didn’t really fit in. I didn’t play sports. I was a nerd. I had friends, but my friends and I were outcasts. I used to be a violent person and be a bully to bullies. I would justify that by saying that I was defending people, but in reality, I became what I hated.
I always fought for the underdog because I was the underdog myself, and I can’t stand people who abuse other people. When I was younger, I was bullied because I didn’t have the nicest clothes, or the nicest anything; I was shy, and I stuttered. I had countless fights during recess. I thought it was typical young kid stuff, and the only way I knew how to deal with being bullied was to fight back. At school I kept a tough exterior. I held my chin up high and kept moving forward because I was raised that way.
If I saw someone being bullied, I would get in the middle and fight, no matter how bad it was, and attempt to stop it by punching someone, but that didn’t work because then I became the victim of fights, and the people that I was “saving” weren’t really grateful, anyway. A lot of them would get mad at me and say things like, “Why did you do that?” or “I could have handled that myself.”
One time I got in the middle of a fight. There were three 13-year-olds punching this younger kid, who was about 10. I was 11 at the time. I had no idea why these guys were punching this younger kid, but my moral clock went off and said, “That’s not right,” so I got in the middle of the fight, broke it up, and the 10-year-old ran. The three guys started punching me then, and I lost, with a bloody nose and a black eye.
When I started to attend TST BOCES Community School, everything changed. I realized that violence is not the answer. Violence worked for me in order to deal with bullies, but I don’t condone it at all. Bullies are cowards because they know they’re picking on the weak link. They like to insult people about their clothes, their hairstyle, where they live if it’s not such a nice place. Bullies always push another person to his or her limits, both physically and mentally.
Violence is not the answer. It escalates the situation, and there are bullies in this world wherever you go. Even when I thought I was going to help someone, I knew that punching another person wouldn’t mean they would just walk away — they’d just get back up. Today when I see someone bullying another person, I don’t use physical violence; I step in and try to calm both parties down.
I heard about Phoebe Prince, that girl who ended up committing suicide because she was bullied. I think that’s a sad end to her story. If you’re being bullied, never bottle up your feelings; talk to parents, teachers, counselors, anyone who will listen. I didn’t do that. I wish I had because my situations would have been different.
The person being bullied needs to stay strong; don’t let the bully see that his or her actions are affecting you. Eventually the bully will get bored and move on to someone else.
This article was in the Ithaca Journal and is the result of an interview of a 19 year old boy. I so appreciate the conclusions that he came to that I wanted to share them with you.
