On Being Bullied – Take the Pledge!

Take a stand against bullying and sign the pledge!

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I am not a parent. However, I am in graduate school to become a teacher, hopefully at the high school level. In this day and age, it is impossible to think about school children and not think of bullying. It’s an openly discussed topic, and it’s even a “hot” topic recently. The tragedy of this is twofold. One, bullying has been going on probably forever, and two, it has taken a number of suicides of young people to begin a more honest, serious discussion of what bullying is, and how people should handle it.

I was bullied as a kid. I’m socially awkward, and always was. I came from a dysfunctional family and lived in a small town… you know, the type where everyone knows everyone’s business. It was no secret that my mother was a drug addict, and it never occurred to me to lie about these things when asked, either. On top of all that, I was the tallest, and therefore the heaviest, girl in my class. In fact, until 8th grade, I was even taller than all but one boy. The kids didn’t really know what to do with me… my weight made an easy target. The reality is, I was different, so I was teased, and even tormented.

I remember boys calling out “hey, Wide Load” as I walked down the hall in middle school. That wasn’t even original, having come from a scene in the movie Stand By Me, which was relatively new and popular at that time. I remember one girl who decided she should beat me up. I sat there and told her point blank I wouldn’t fight her. She began hitting me with wet towels after gym class. I knew fighting back would make it worse, and more to the point, she had a gang around her. The gym teacher was in her office, with her door open. There is no way she didn’t know what was going on, but she did nothing. Fortunately, as I suspected would happen, the girls deemed me a boring target and quickly moved on. I was famous for being blunt with my tormentors. I’d stare them right in the face, and call them out on what they’d say. But it still wasn’t fun.

My very best friend in the world, who happened to be quite a bit older than I was (we were both oddball misfits) was the only person who knew my weight in 8th grade. I was 210 pounds and horrified. She promised to keep it a secret, and she told people. Boys, to be specific… including one she knew I had a crush on. At an amusement park that summer, I heard one of them joke I was too fat to fit on rides (I wasn’t at that point, either). In high school, at the White House, this nasty boy from my class made a joke about me falling through the floor. We had just been told how old it was, and it was creaky. I was certainly in no danger of falling through, but his comment mortified me, and sadly is the only thing I really remember about being at the White House. The next year he ran against me for senior class secretary. I beat him, despite the fact that he was popular and I was relatively quiet. He was stunned. One girl said, rather loudly, I wanted to vote for the person who’d do a good job, not for the person who was most popular. I took great pleasure in kicking his… well, you know… in that election.

Kids can be so cruel. But here’s the sad part… so can adults. And the internet has only made it worse. Hiding behind a computer screen and being mean or catty is so, so easy. And once one person says something even slightly negative about another person, social media gives it the chance to turn into a virtual lynch mob.

Differences are something we should celebrate. Instead, we let them make us uncomfortable. We tell children that kids are mean, but it changes when you grow up, and that’s just not true. Not completely. There are always bullies. It might become more subtle as you get older, but it still exists. Therefore, it’s not enough to say “kids grow out of it,” or “just hold on until you’re out of school.” We need to teach them how to stop it. We need to teach them how to stand up for themselves and their friends. We need to do this for multiple reasons, but one of the biggest and most important is that the bullied often become bullies, leading to an endless, self-perpetuating cycle of cruelty, and too often, violence.

I was lucky. I honestly never much cared what other people thought of me. Maybe it’s connected to my socially awkward nature, and the fact that I always felt different, but didn’t care. Or maybe it was because my own family was infamous for making nasty and hurtful comments about my weight… I grew up used to it. Oh, I fought my body for years, so it had an impact. I tried diet after diet. I wanted to fit in, at least in that sense. I didn’t care if I was popular, but I admit readily I wanted to be thin. I wasted years of my life trying to be what I am not, and it’s a direct result of the bullying I endured, not only from my peers, but from within my own family.

Well, no more. No one has the right to talk about my body. No one. And no one has the right to talk about yours, either. Or your children’s. I don’t care whether the comments are perceived as flattering, either. It’s so easy for that to lead to negative… “oh, you have such pretty hair, but have you thought of cutting it?” or “oh, you have such a pretty face, if only you’d lose some weight.” People actually delude themselves into thinking they are complimenting you, and they aren’t. They are passing judgments. It’s a small thing that can rapidly (and often unintentionally) turn into a big thing.

I’ve taken multiple pledges to stop bullying. I am an outspoken voice in the so-called body acceptance movement, which basically means we stop talking about other people’s bodies in ways that can be harmful. To me, that means we stop talking about it period. I was in an eating disorder hospital for seven weeks when I was 15. You’d be shocked to learn how many of the girls there who were anorexic or bulimic began that dark journey when a simple comment like “oh, you’ve lost some weight” set things in motion. It seems harmless, and in many cases it might very well be, but it isn’t always. Why risk it? You don’t know why someone may have lost weight. It might be they’ve been trying to, it might be they have an illness like cancer. It might seem like something positive to you, but for the person who hasn’t been able to eat for weeks due to chemotherapy treatments, do you think that weight loss feels like a victory? I had a friend who lost over 100 pounds due to a battle with a disease called scleroderma. People kept saying “you look amazing, how did you do it?” She’d tell them she was sick and it wasn’t intentional. Some of them still had the gall to say things like, well so sorry to hear you’re sick, but you look great, so at least it’s worth it for that! Since she died from her disease, while only in her mid 30s, I don’t think she’d say it was “worth it.”

While body size issues and physical appearance are the two bullying issues that most resonate with me, all bullying needs to be stopped. Whether it comes from children, or from adults, it’s not okay. Ever. I plan to have extremely strict, zero tolerance policies about bullying when I teach. I plan to do multiple lesson plans that revolve around bullying, and the many forms it comes in.

I grew up to defy every nasty word a bully ever said to me. I’m still fat, and I don’t care if that upsets or bothers someone’s societal constructs of how a person “should” look. It’s how I happen to look, and you don’t have to like it or be okay with it. I’m happily married to an amazing man, and he loves me for who I am, not how I look. I was told I’d never find love or happiness, but I have found both, despite the supposedly overwhelming odds against it. I have a Bachelor’s degree in a field I love – anthropology – and in a field that taught me how to be more tolerant, and less critical of things I don’t understand. I’m working on my lifelong dream of being a teacher… and one of my childhood bullies friended me on facebook. I accepted because I want to believe people can, when they want, make changes. She and I grew up to have things in common we’d never have expected. We’re not exactly “close,” but I’ve long since forgiven her treatment of me from when we were kids. I’m one of the lucky ones. I took my bullying experiences and made them work for me. Doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt… but someday I hope like crazy I am able to take what I went through and save others from the same, or at least help them make it into a positive, too.

Will you stand by as people – children and adults alike – continue to be tormented by others? Or will you stand up, and sign the pledge with me? We may never be able to eradicate bullying completely, but with more education and increased awareness, we can absolutely make a difference in the lives of so many.

Disclaimer: This article is sponsored by TakePart.  My experience is mine.  Bullying is an issue about which I am very passionate, and I understand that my views may not be reflective of the general population.