Today at Barnes and Noble, I saw the book "Whipping Boy: The Forty Year Search for My 12-Year-Old Bully." It definitely seems like an interesting read. My personal search for my childhood bullies would be rather less exciting, due to the world-shrinking effects of social media. Thanks to Facebook, I'm sure it would take less than a dozen clicks to see just what my middle school tormentors are doing these days. One of them even works with my dad.
I'm a pretty confident person anymore, but I've always been much better at remembering an insult than a compliment. For whatever reason, the taunts of one particular preadolescent shithead are crystallized in my brain. Picture it: eighth grade math. I'm surrounded on all sides by malicious boys, who have chosen me as their target for the year.
"FUCK you," the ringleader spits. "You're fat. You're fucking ugly."
He didn't bother to call me stupid and complete the mantra of the rude person who lived in my head during that delicate age. I dare to suggest it might be because insulting my intelligence didn't occur to him, as he'd already destroyed the most important things to me at that time: being thought attractive by other people, particularly boys.
Eighth grade. That was the year I started running, the year I stopped eating much until I was thin enough to fly under the radar as a high school freshman. I'm sure the whispered insults were just part of the equation that started me down the path of an uneasy relationship with food and a lifelong struggle with self-confidence. But for whatever reason, they're the memory that stuck. They're the memory that has been popping up lately.
Part of the reason I've been thinking about bullying is the relentless cyber harassment and threats that Tess Holliday, a truly plus size model who was just signed to a major contract, constantly endures. I read an article here on the Militant Baker, which made an excellent point about internet trolls in particular, but I think applies to all bullies. In short, (and I highly recommend reading the article) there's something they don't like about themselves and they've decided to demean someone else to make themselves feel better.
I think in a school setting, establishing a social hierarchy is absolutely another reason people bully. No one wants to be at the bottom of the getting-shit-on pile.
So if for some reason I decided to ask my former bully a question, "Why are/were you a bully?" would not be it. We've pretty much covered that. I don't really need to know the particulars about what flaw in himself caused him to be such a vicious asshole to me.
The question I do have is what made me such an easy target, and how can I prevent my daughter from becoming a target of bullies during her school years?
I am no psychiatrist, not even the armchair variety, but I've given this a lot of thought through the years. Here are some of the possibilities for why bullies enjoyed making me cry:
1. I was sensitive. I cared way, way too much what my peers thought of me and I hinged my self worth on the approval of others.
2. I never fought back. I don't necessarily mean with violence, though the thought of slapping a few jerks occurred to me during those hellish middle school years. I mean, why didn't I ever stand up for myself? I could have talked to a teacher, interrupted class and told my bullies to leave me alone, stood up and left class to speak to an administrator... the choices seem to be obvious now. But everyone always just said, "Ignore them." So I sat there, stony-faced, and internalized their hate.
I don't know if there's a specific third reason, just the nebulous societal pressures on girlhood and the way Seventeen Magazine or whatever I was reading then subtly told me to hate everything about myself.
It's important to me now to be the kind of person who raises children who are neither bullies nor bullied. There are a number of things I try to keep in mind in order to raise confident but compassionate children.
1. Provide an example of self-confidence. I want my daughter to see me caring for myself and loving my body even if the rude person in my head still squats there sometimes and whispers hateful things. I want my daughter to know that I believe I'm beautiful, and know she's beautiful, and that she doesn't need other people to tell that to her for it to be true.
2. Emphasize the more important things. While I think it's important to feel good about your body, there are so many more important attributes to a person than beauty. I want her to know that kindness, empathy, intelligence, friendship and many, many other things will serve her better in the long run than obsessing over her eyebrows or her muffin top or lack thereof.
3. Discuss the messages we see in the media we consume. I don't blame my parents for anything, but I definitely don't remember them talking about what I read in magazines and, you know, the underlying agenda of the beauty industry or the weight loss industry.
More than anything, I just want to let this go. I want to stomp out the little sparks of negative self talk in my brain before they flare into wildfire. I want to be at peace with myself. So if you're reading this, middle school bullies, I forgive you. Go in peace from my mind and please, don't come back.
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