Bullying in schools

They can be just as cruel as adults if not worse. Being bullied is the worst. It hurts you in ways you never thought possible. Bullying can be physical, emotional or financial. Whatever type of bullying it is, it comes with the constant feeling of rejection. Bullies are the worst children. Yes, I know that most people think that children are innocent but once you get bullied things change. You will start to see the truth a little differently. 

Some children have died in the hands of their bullies. Then there are those children that took their own lives because of it. Great many TV shows have been made to show this problem; Teach you a lesson which is a Korean drama on Netflix is my favourite. Because it shows the bitter truth of bullying and the students who suffered it were only rescued by the ERPB. It shows you the cruelty that can be exerted by children on other children but also on teachers in this modern era. It is being rejected, intimidated, assaulted and beaten for no reason at all. 

It can be because they perceive you as different. This is why most neurodivergent children are targets for bullies. It can be because of jealousy. Like in my story below. I had dared to date another girl’s ex. But then everyone is someone’s ex. The most troubling is when bullies think that you value yourself better than they value themselves therefore you need to be taught a lesson. It is usually accompanied by words like putting him/her in his/her place. Someone feels inferior for whatever reason and wants to take it out on you. The final reason is when you come from a vulnerable background like you are poorer than them or you are skinny or whatever your issue and they just believe that you are an easy target. Sometimes, a group of people are looking for a scapegoat so they bully you. The tragic part is there are people who want to fit in so badly that they are willing to hop on the bullying of you instead of defending you.

I was bullied in middle school and high school. I used to dread attending classes. All bullying is bad but mine was worse because I was at a boarding school. There is no escaping your bullies. You are with them 24/7. If you are a day scholar, at least you get to go home at the end of the school day and maybe forget about it. Or if you are lucky, have a family that is attentive that can see that you have changed, become more withdrawn and hopefully they can help you address the issue. That was not possible for me. I was at a boarding school in the early 2000s so that means there were no cellphones that you could call home or text. 

The only phone at the school was at the administration office. You had to be ill or something very bad had to have happened, to be allowed to make a call. Bullying was something bad for me but as a child brought up to be ‘tough’ I didn’t see how bad it was. I didn’t make the phone call and because my mother never attended parent and teacher conferences, it meant that I suffered silently alone for the whole semester. There was no relief for me. They tortured me in class and tortured me at the dormitories. I became very stressed to an extent that I became physically sick. Powerful pain medications were prescribed after a hospital visit. It is true that mental stress manifests as physical pain. 

My sin or the reason they gave me for my bullying was that I had ‘stolen’ one of their ‘queens’ boyfriend. Ha ha ha! Just imagine that. A guy broke up with his girlfriend. He asked me out and I knew they had broken up so I said yes. I wish now that I had said no but I was young and a bit naive. The ex-girlfriend was not over it. She still wanted her man back. But instead of her coming to me to tell me that, she chose to make my life hell. She was joined by her little minions. My friends ignored me. They would sing songs beating on a bucket as a substitute for a drum right outside my dormitory window. They would beat that drum until 11pm sometimes. Our night studies were until 9pm. Then we would go to the dorm and have an hour or two to prepare for the next morning. That meant washing socks, uniforms and sometimes ironing and polishing shoes. Those bitches made my life a living hell.

I stayed silent because I also did not want to get in trouble with the teachers and my mum. Dating was forbidden at school. How do you explain to a black African mother that you were dating at an expensive school that she is struggling to pay and now you are being bullied for it? Black African mothers don’t like their daughters dating especially at that young age. I was 14 years old. The teachers would have punished me. But in hindsight, both those options which were bad were better than the bullying I endured. I lost joy in everything. My grades went down. I lost weight. Crying became an everyday thing. I lost my trust in people. I think up to this day, it’s a struggle for me to trust anyone. 

I have seen how evil and cruel people can be. Being a victim of bullying had me in a dark place. I could not escape. Then the boy did something worse, much worse. Or the ex-girlfriend. I am not sure. On Valentine’s day of that year, I was expecting a card, flowers or something. But, I remember walking into my class after school dinner and finding love cards and poems in my desk that he had written previously to his ex-girlfriend, my bully. I froze. I did not know what to think. The champion of this game then walks into the class. He saw me holding those cards, he looked at my face, turned around and walked out of the class. That guy dumped me the next day. A week after that he was back with my bully, his ex-girlfriend. When people tell  you that you can’t break a heart twice, they have no idea. Yes, you can. 

My life became even more hell than before. I could not escape the snickering, the quiet, painful remarks that are uttered just above breathe to devastate you. I could not escape that girl. She had won. I withdrew into myself. I stopped dating for a long time. Books, studying and classes became my friends. Books became my passion. I did not want to befriend anyone because I was not sure who was on my side and who was serving the queen. Doing my own thing. made me isolated. I am glad that I managed to pass my exams and went home. My family saw that I had lost weight and was withdrawn but I never mentioned why. I could not handle any more of people’s judgements and retorts. I just wanted peace. 

That experience taught me that bullies are cruel and evil. I got to understand why other children who were victims of bullying, committed suicide. To this day, I don’t judge them. I get it. It’s torture. The scars of that experience live on in me. I still don’t trust people easily. Dating still scares me. Especially if there is an ex that’s still lurking nearby, I pass. My life changed forever. And I know that some hurt, some pain gets skin-deep. It reaches parts of your soul that you never thought possible. Your innocence was shattered, but you try to get on with life. It becomes easy to withdraw from society. I hate bullies. The funny thing is bullies are everywhere; where you work, in your neighbourhood, in positions of power and sometimes even in your church. These people don’t stop being bullies because they are grown. No, they just learn to be strategic and fake polite about it. They are monsters.

 Certain industries like nursing are full of them. Shocking, I know. But what is a better fit for a high school queen than a career that is predominantly women? Nursing has a bad reputation for this. A lot of nursing students quit due to bullying. I am one of those too. As far as I am concerned, bullying is a crime. Bullies know exactly what they are doing and have a goal in mind when they say or do these bullying actions; to cause psychological and physical harm. People should go to prison for it. It is a crime that destroys lives. How many children do we have to lose to suicide or to physical assaults in the hands of bullies before it is classified as such? 

They are methodical in their abuse. And bullying is abuse, no matter how you want to look at it. It is not little kids on the playground testing each other’s power as some people want to believe. It is a child monster causing lifetime wounds onto another child. Most bullies never change. No child has a right to do that on another. In some extreme cases, bullied people become serial killers. It shatters your psyche. As for me, I quit my social media. Every time I saw anyone from that school, it used to cause me anxiety and great sadness. Even when they did not participate in my humiliation rituals, it was because they stood by and watched. That is also unforgivable. I want nothing to do with anyone from that school. I know that , that is my wounds speaking. But if that’s what it takes to heal, then so be it.