Chances are that sometime during your school career, you were bullied. Perhaps a parent told you to brush it off, or you received guidance to ignore your perpetrators. Regardless of how you dealt with the abuse, it likely left a mark.
Though the scars of being bullied aren’t always physical, attacking anyone – be it verbal, emotional, mental manipulation or physical abuse – affect how one views and, in effect, responds to the world.
This point is exactly what Rosie Dutton seeks to convey to kids. The Birmingham-based teacher, who visits various schools to teach mindfulness, recently shared a lesson on her Facebook page – Relax Kids Tamworth – that was used to teach kids about the effects of bullying. The concept was so mind blowing, it went viral.
it seems to me that this world packs up “bullying” as a childhood nuisance. that bullies are just kids who need a little guidance. that we’ll all get over it, those of us who still live. bullies that only threaten your life aren’t even “real” bullies, they’re just “annoying.”
and you, living in fear of these abusers, get told: it builds character, it’s not that bad, just log off if it hurts you. of course we think this. abusers are good at making other people ignore what’s going on. abusers grow up and chortle at the idea that bullying is synonymous with abuse: “what can a little teasing do?” they ask, and there is laughter in the coffee room.
kids these days are too weak, i’m told. we have it easy. a little punching never hurt anybody. the people in my high school who recorded students without their permission in the bathroom and posted them on the internet to an audience of six million: only one of them got a two-day in-school suspension. there is a girl who, after having her life threatened one too many times, brought a gun on a bus. she hurt no one. she was arrested and is in jail for the first month of sixty years, for being a victim. for having fear. the people who hurt me never saw punishment. one time i reported it and was told to stop being so quiet, that the bullying would stop if i just stopped “putting up with it”.
but abuse isn’t easy to stand up to. once when i answered with a quick reply, i paid for it. i learned that quiet, hiding, be away is best. no teacher ever even noticed. i still sometimes hear her voice and feel panic rise up my ribs. i haven’t seen her in five years. i haven’t heard from her since.
bullying is abuse. it’s just that nobody wants to admit it.
You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.
Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (via psych-facts)
