I had a weird response to bullying. I recognized that an injustice was being done and it frustrated the hell out of me, but it had little impact on my self-esteem.
I was bullied a lot by many others, particularly in middle school. The most annoying thing about bullies is they know how to act like victims around adults. When I was in third grade I had a babysitter whose two children were bullying little assholes, one of them tried to shove a snowball down the back of my shirt and I whipped my arm back, giving one of the kids a bloody nose. Oh, poor innocent baby, he was. Another kid pelted me with stones when I was in grade school, followed me around calling me ‘‘fatass’’ and threw my clothes into the lake when I was swimming, ruining my shoes. He was a poor, besotted victim, too. As he explained to his mother, he was only trying to protect his friend, who I once threw a snowball at. :rolleyes: I had so many goddamn bullies in my neighborhood, even people were who nice to me were backstabbing assholes. That guy who threw stones at me? His drunk-ass Dad once came out into the street, stopped me from riding my bike and starting telling me to stop riding my bike down his street. He claimed there were witness to my bullying his son. (I’m guessing someone saw me flip the kid off when he muttered ‘‘fatass’’ under his breath.) This grown-ass inebriated adult then realized where I lived and went off on this rant about how I had nobody parenting me and how could anyone reasonably expect I would know how to behave with such shitty parents? I was 10.
I got in a physical altercation with one girl in my neighborhood who really wanted to fistfight me for some reason and showed up with two guys who were also asshole bullies. To make it even weirder, my parents were there, they pulled out lawn chairs and sat in our front yard to watch the fight. They wanted me to fight this girl because they believed it was the only way to get her off my case. She was about four years older than me. I spent the entire time during the ‘‘standoff’’ telling her I had no desire to fight her. She punched me in the mouth, I literally said, in surprise, ‘‘Damn that hurts.’’ I kicked her in the crotch, then I said, ‘‘This is so fucking stupid, I have no desire to fight you,’’ and walked back in the house. She limped home and told everyone that she beat the shit out of me. I didn’t give a shit what she believed as long as she left me the fuck alone. And she pretty much did.
Is it necessary to mention that I grew up in a trailer park?
People in high school tried to make fun of me for being uber-religious (which I was, or starting to transition out of) and I waved my hands and mockingly cried, ''RUUUUN! BEFORE JESUS SAVES YOUR SOUL!" I didn’t take it seriously at all. By the time I got to high school, the band guy was the only significant bully I had left, and I told him probably eight times a day to fuck off and die.
I wasn’t what I would call an easy target. For this reason I didn’t get the worst of it, and for this reason I stood up for people getting the worst of it at any chance I could get. I was not by a long shot the most bullied person in my band. Most people liked me. I would light into people in public for bullying other kids. I once publicly excoriated the most popular kid in our school for writing the word ‘‘fag’’ on the blackboard. I shamed him into an actual apology on the spot. Then I heard a rumor that a bunch of the guys in my (trombone) section held another guy down and shoved a stick of deodorant into his asscrack. Holy shit did I rip them new assholes. Oh my god, I’m pissed off just remembering.
I don’t know why it didn’t get to my self-esteem more. But I had some serious shit going on at home so it’s all relative I guess. That’s the worst thing about the victims, they are usually victims at home, too. It’s fucking unreal how unfair life is for some people. I don’t consider myself a ‘‘victim’’ of bullying, I never suffered the way many did. These people were thorns in my ass, not sources of trauma.