Sometimes there is no explanation

A while ago I mentioned that I was going to write a post about bullying and the time feels about right tonight.

Bullying is one of those things that is shared across cultures and according to news media people use to consider it to be a rite of passage of sorts until the more recent years, where the string of suicides had made people realize that maaaaaaybe we should find safer rites of passage.

For a while I was considering whether or not to write about it because, let's face it, most of the people I know who reads this share similar political and philosophical views with me, and anything I say will be preaching to the choir. Then I realized that maybe I should talk about it because my friends are at the stage where they are getting married and having children, the oldest child is around two, and the concept of bullying and discrimination is something that is taught, if not by parents, then by society and media, in which case a passing explanation that Bullying is Bad is not enough to combat it. People have noticed an active role in parental teachings, not just in what is right and wrong, but what are the correct actions, or what should be done, does make immense difference in how children treat others in school. That takes extra time. That takes extra effort. Both of which are hard to give for an abstract problem. By which I mean yes, there are starving children in the world, but it's abstract -- how many of us lose sleep over it. So I wanted to make it more personal, because it is personal for me, so I hope the people close to me, at least, could see why it's a big deal and can hopefully make the extra effort. And then I felt all my preaching is getting...not so much condescending as well...as someone who doesn't plan to procreate, how much right do I have to lecture others on how to deal with their toddlers? Which led to me second guessing how much of the delay (because this post has been years in coming but I just wasn't ready to talk about it until more recently) is just me being cowardly...which led to more second guessing...which led me to conclude that, okay, I'm just going to write this, and people can make of it what they will.

So let me use many many words to tell you why the phrase "bullying builds character" has always bothered me, since I learned enough English to understand it....

The reason why people consider bullying to be a rite of passage is because, I think, of how common it is. The article I linked above suggested close to 50% of third graders in one state has been bullied at least once. Some places predicts nearly 1 in 3 teens are bullied, some place the percentage lower, around 1 in 7. It is so common, in fact, that it is shared across cultures, which I know, because I've been bullied, in two different countries even.

I am  your one in seven. One in three. One in however many.

As a girl I suppose I'm fairly lucky: the bullying isn't anything that has caused any physical damage, as opposed to some of the things I've heard happening with the boy victims. That's right, I count myself lucky because I am very much aware of how easily things could've gone differently a number of ways, and for nearly all of them "different" meant "worse".

I would love to start my tale at the beginning and to tell it the way a story goes: once upon a time there is this, and then this happened, and so that is why. Except I can't do that. For one thing, I didn't know why I was targeted (some guesses, nothing conclusive, not even my two years of self-directed research in psychology helped), I still don't, and probably never well. For another thing, I don't actually remember the first period of bullying.

You see, for the longest time I thought I was sent to boarding school for preschool (age 4) as punishment, but I never knew exactly for what. It wasn't until one of the later years when I had a moment of breakdown, when my mother asked if there's anything she'd done that I wish she didn't, and I asked her why she'd sent me away. (I hated boarding school. I was 4, transferring in mid semester to be surrounded by total strangers 24 hours a day. I cried every night the first week I was there. I remember this because it was so horrible.)

"Oh," she replied, surprised, "It was because you were being bullied at your old preschool. The other children were throwing balls at you to hit you and making you cry. I went in to talk to the teacher about it...." And it didn't get resolved, because it was a preschool attached to a university so there was politics (Dean's children, for instance, got special treatment or something), the teachers were cranky and perpetually under paid, I was sickly as a child and therefore high maintenance (need to take meds regularly from teachers), and some implications by the teacher that I was a crybaby (probably true, I used to cry a lot). So, my parents had two options, to let me suffer through the bullying or to transfer me somewhere else.

They transferred me.

To a boarding school.

To be fair there was only one instance of bullying I remembered from there, which was immediately halted because a) the boarding school was a lot more expensive and much better run and b) WE WERE THREE AND FOUR AND FIVE (older kids in a different division), so the teachers took the "keep an eye on us at all times" part of boarding school very seriously.

I still hated that boarding school. Because I was, you know, four, an introvert even then, and apparently a bully-victim.

The oddest thing is, when my mother was explaining it to me, I felt that it was true -- not because I believe her (which I don't always), but because somehow something in my subconscious is telling me that the being-hit-with-ball part (yeah four year olds aren't very creative) really did happen. Which creeped me out because I have pretty much written off intuition in place of logic for those years of my life (which I may explain at some later day) and here's something telling me that something did happen while I have no memory of any of it.

For the record: my more continuous memories don't start until ages 5-6. (No idea if this is early or late or what.) My earliest memory as verified by parents, however, is age 3-4. I always remember the really horrible things though because, I assume, of the emotional content. (Briefly made attempts to delete some of it when I was 14-- gave myself really bad headache and gave it up as bad job.)

So yeah, can't start at the beginning because I haven't a clue what precisely happened there. That was the first instance though.

The second instance is the first year after I arrived at the US. This story is sadder, in my opinion, because I didn't realize there was any sort of bullying until I was ...what? 19? 20? Despite of the fact that there was pinching and even one instance of punching (nothing serious enough to show up as bruise, mind  you), which is a pretty good clue, usually, that something isn't right. And why, you ask, why didn't I realize? I seem like a reasonably intelligent person, right? How could I not know?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the concept of of emotional bullying. Coercion. Psychological abuse. Whatever your preferred term may be. In other words, I didn't realize at the time because I honest thought that I deserved it -- that all the abuse and order-taking was an acceptable price, in exchange for their "companionship" and "friendship". Think about it, I had just arrived in another country, I was sent to school, I spoke about three words of English. Those Chinese girls understood me, at least language-wise. I can speak to them. They can speak to me. We all just came to the US. They knew, or so I thought, what I was going through. I was all alone again and desperate not to be. I was young, soft-spoken, polite. I had gone through phase I of Crying Less (there were three phases in my life between my crybaby self and my current self) but still a bit...I believe the term people have used was "overly sensitive", I was still trusting. (At that age I would lend a perfect stranger money.)  The two girls declared themselves to be my friends. They accepted me. So they must be my friends.

Right?

My parents didn't know any of it. Nor did I tell any of the teachers, even after I learned enough English to try communicating. It wasn't even a conscious choice and later on, for a while, I wondered why didn't I go to an adult. Now? I have hypotheses, but nothing can be proven, because I'm so far removed from the person I used to be that dwelling on it makes me uncomfortable. After the last few paragraphs I'm sure you have hypotheses as well.

What eventually happened then is this:
1) I start to not like the two girls not as much. I had a sort-of verbal disagreement with them, which another girl persuaded me to not do. I listened to the other girl and made my ammends.
2) Of the two girls, one was the leader, the other was the follower; the leader moved away.
3) I tested out of the first Language Development Class, realized that I don't like the other girl at all, actually, and don't want to be around her anymore. No let me rephrase: I realized I don't want to deal with her before I officially tested out, and spent a lot of time near classroom doors with a book in hand.
4) Made a new friend. Who was nice and wrote me a letter before I got transferred to another school, upon which time we lost touch.
5) Upon which I decided to put this entire incident behind me, because there were things I did that I'm not proud of, and there were things I let done to me that I didn't want to think about until...
6) Ages 14-20, when I realized that I had a !#$%-ton of baggage in my subconscious that I need to deal with, if I want to be anything like a functional (not normal, I have repeated the experiment and concluded I can either be normal or happy but not both, so screw normal) adult, dragged out those years of memories from a metaphorical closet somewhere and thought, holy crap why on earth did I put up with that? I did not deserve it. Any of it. (And it was a very empowering moment because I didn't even realize how far I came along in terms of insecurities and self-worth in those six years until then.)

I have gone into slightly more details than I intended, making this already long post even longer, but allow me to circle back to my point in the beginning:

Does bullying build character?

I wish I can tell you, but my memory prior-bullying is a tad shaky. Certainly I've got plenty of character, (possibly too much, depending on whom you ask,) but is it necessarily the characters that should be built? (Am I too quiet and too serious and do not smile enough by default or is this a result? We will never know.) True, I've had low points in my life where I'm on the floor, in the dark, telling myself to get up, get up, yes it sucks and it hurts but I've survived worse, I know I have, so get up because I can survive one more day and then things will slowly get better, and it works. I get back up. True, a lot of normal teenage angst seems silly in comparison to the Bullying Experience, and if you survive the ordeal you do learn a certain amount of perseverance.

BUT: what I have gone through is not something I would wish on any child, however educational it may be. We are continuously shaped by our experiences, both good and bad, and bullying is, in fact, one of those things I wouldn't wish on anyone, friend or enemy, adult or child.

To circle back further: the lesson isn't without it's price, you know, and the price is steep. Do you really want to know how bad some of those days are, during that point in my life? Do you really want to know how close I came to giving up? We all know people who have given up everything. Their photos are splashed across the news. The kinder ones take themselves out of a win-less situation. The more determined tries to destroy the situation, regardless of who is caught in the crossfire.

Does bullying built character?

I don't know.

I do know this, however: I may be ready to talk about this now, but I am never and will never be able to laugh at any bullying based jokes, regardless of how "harmlessly" they are meant.

...and while I may never reach my aspiration of being a "cool" aunt, I want a chance with at least one group of children that I do / will care about, to talk to them about the meaning of self-worth (I feel very strongly about it, and want to share, with the next generation).

For all the kids who posted their stories on the anti-bully sites and forums. I want to tell them "It's not your fault" and "You don't deserve it, no one does"...and maybe feed them chamomile tea and chocolate. (Did you know in the language of flowers, chamomile = energy under adversity?)

Now take from this massive post what you well.