I Am The Bully
I intended to write a blog that would share my opinions and judgments about the bullying epidemic being witnessed in schools across America. I was pretty upset earlier this week when my fourteen-year-old asked me to take a walk with him after school. As we rounded the corner in our neighborhood, he says, “I saw a video of an autistic kid who got assaulted at school yesterday.” My stomach dropped and I instantly felt sad and sick. I asked him how he was doing. I spent the better part of thirty minutes listening to his confusion and angst. He couldn’t understand how people were watching the video that was being passed around. He told his friends it wasn’t funny and why would someone pick on a kid who was vulnerable? Ugh.
I ran home to blog. I wanted to write about all the A-holes there are in this world. But, the universe had other plans! Instead, my little sister called and as I was relaying the story that my son told me she interrupted my drama and flair and says, “Bullying has always existed. Don’t you remember how you bullied the neighbor kid on our bus growing up?” I was like, “No. I don’t remember.” She recounted how I would get on the bus and throw things at his back and make fun of him. She said, “It went on for years. Ya’ll were relentless!” She had to tell me all of the gory details as I sat in my chair feeling sick.
I could barely speak. I knew in an instant why my stomach was in knots. My discomfort isn’t because I don’t understand. My discomfort is because I do. My discomfort is because I am the bully.
As soon as I said it out loud, I knew I could finally get somewhere because owning my own stuff is the only way to freedom and solution. It is no longer about how can ‘those’ kids do that to an innocent child; it’s about knowing exactly how a teenager can be so distant and detached from self that they have no real connection to another kid’s pain, situation, or feelings.
I know because it was me. Angry at the world, the disconnection I felt at home, the lost feeling of being an adolescent and not knowing who I am or how to like myself. The turmoil of my home and the lack of any parental involvement made sure I was self loathing, confused, ignored and full of hate. I wanted that blackness out of me and the only mechanism I had to get it out of me, was to put it on someone else.
I bullied a substitute teacher so bad that she cried and ran out of class in seventh grade. I bullied my (now) best friend so much that I still bring it up to say I’m sorry on our annual girls’ trip. I tortured my little sister and disregarded all of her boundaries. And apparently, I made a kid three years younger than me a target on the bus each day we road to school.
Then it occurred to me that some of my bullying ways haven’t improved as I’ve become more self aware. Sometimes how I behave both in public and behind closed doors creates bullying energy. For example, it’s me at my son’s high school basketball game talking to all of the parents about how inexperienced the coach is and how he clearly he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s talking to those same parents about why certain kids are being played when our team is losing and I don’t think they are good enough to play. It’s me screaming at refs at basketball games and being mean without any regard to how difficult their job is. Little ways that I allow myself to be detached and disconnected from humans so I can just be mean.
You may think I’m taking this too far, but I promise you, I think this is the level of transparency we need to have with ourselves to address the epidemic of bullying. Where do we allow ourselves and others to bully or create bullying energy? How do we speak to our kids about politics? Neighbors? Co-Workers?
How do we show up in our professional worlds? Is there someone at work that everyone seems to dislike? Is it acceptable to talk about them with other coworkers and never to them directly? When we’re at sporting events, are we respectful of each participant? Do we scream at the refs and bully them from the sidelines? Do we talk to other parents about the coach or the problems we have or do we deal one on one with them?
Do we get frustrated with a teacher and start talking to other parents about how terrible they are? Do we make fun of teachers or administrators to our kids? Do we listen when our kids are talking about the “annoying” kid in class and how much they hate them? How about when our kid does something that they get into trouble for? Do we automatically take our kids side and make the teacher/coach/other parent the bad guy? Do we express these things in front of our kids?
Do we create acceptable bullying in our homes? Maybe not as outright as hitting an innocent kid when he wasn’t expecting it, but these ways contribute to the same detached energy that allows a kid to do something like that.
Maybe you don’t do any of these things. Maybe you never bullied or said an unkind word about anyone else. Maybe you have created tolerant kids who know better than to hit an innocent kiddo in a classroom (this is the extreme of bullying). But, how connected are you to yourself? To your heart? To your feelings? To your desires? To others? How often are you able to be vulnerable and share what’s really going on inside of you?
I believe that bullying begins and ends with connection. It begins because there are children who are not getting their emotional needs met (which usually indicates parent(s) who aren’t either) and it ends when kids are connected to in a real way, connected to themselves and they know they matter.
Kids who know they matter, know they are seen, know they are loved and are stable in their self-belief, will not possess the ability to bully. They will not be able to laugh when a kid is bullied. They will either walk away from the situation or stand up to the bully, but either way, it will be so uncomfortable in their body, they just won’t tolerate it.
This is called empathy. Empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings of another. If the kid who harmed the autistic child had possessed empathy, there would be nothing in his body that could have remotely aligned with hitting this kid in the head twice and making sure no one was looking. His behavior is the opposite of empathy: callous, cold hearted, and disconnected.
Some of you may want to excuse the kids around who were videoing and laughing as giving into “peer pressure.” Peer pressure might be applicable to kids taking a drink, smoking a cigarette, or engaging in sexual behavior because their peers do.
This is not peer pressure. This is about being witness to the degradation of a human AND laughing and watching like you’re at the movies with popcorn. This is worrisome disconnection. In my line of work, I have been worried for a long time about the level of disconnection I see all around me! It is difficult to do life without detaching and finding ways to cope with the stress and pain we are all in at some level. But we have got to do better if we want to be a part of the solution and ensure that it’s not our kid at school needing to get the darkness out of their body by taking it out on an innocent kiddo.
I would like to invite each of you into a real conversation and evaluation of your own level of connection.
Connection to self: Do I feel my feelings? Can I assess my feelings without reacting? Do I know how to properly identify feelings? Am I living the best version of myself or have I even considered what that might mean? Do I possess awareness of others and be curious about their experience or am I always thinking of myself? Do I take care of myself and my body? Do I listen to my intuition? How do I speak to myself? How do I speak about myself to others? Have I dealt with my own trauma?
Connection to others: Am I able to share my innermost thoughts and feelings with another human? Do I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes? Am I curious about what someone else might be going through or do I just personalize behavior and make them the bad guy? Do I allow people in my space to talk poorly about others? Do I speak poorly of people in front of others? How do I handle differences that I have with another human? Do I address it one on one with them? Do I talk shit about them? Am I in integrity in my relationships? Or am I harboring things that I mull over in my head that keep me from being connected to them in a real way?
Connection to children: Do I spend time with my kids that is undistracted (not driving, with phones out or working while talking)? Do I invite conversations with them about their feelings? What have my kids learned from me about being vulnerable and connected to their hearts? Have they witnessed me bully people? Are they properly disciplined? Do you have any idea what they are watching on their phones? Do they feel seen? Do they feel heard? Do they feel safe in my presence to be exactly who they are? Or do my beliefs shadow who they are with what I want them to be?
I believe that this is a good beginning. Awareness is always a great start. I would like to think that most of us care that children are suffering and disconnected. I would like to believe that we would like to contribute to the solution and not stay stuck in the problem. My commitment to my kids, to ya’ll, and to the world, is that I will do whatever is necessary to stay real, stay in my heart, and pass on whatever knowledge seems to gravitate in my space to those that want to listen and join me in this attempt to live an authentic life and help make the world a better place.
Until Next Time,
