Can't Stop a Bully Alone

With all the recent attempts to put an end to bullying in schools (and 'end'? never gonna happen), I thought I should write something about it. Here goes:



When I think about my years in school, I never think about ever being bullied. The only bullies I knew were my brothers, and they were only bullies to me, so they are in a special category, and certainly I never feared for my life, nor did they ever physically abuse me in any way.



Yes, I was a gay kid, but in school there are priorities and the visual rules---I was fat. In the early years I was able to counter balance that by being smart. But fat was most important to bullies. This is true because bullies look for mental weaknesses, kids with weak self-esteem, and most fat kids had little self-esteem. For some reason(s) my self-esteem was intact. I hated that I was fat, but I saw no way out. TODAY I would have been all over exercise and healthy eating, but in the early '60s such things were not even discussed in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I was fat, my brother was fat---our beloved Aunt Violet saw to that. "You are just big-boned."



This doesn't mean there were not bullies in school. There were, and we all knew who they were. We tried to stay away from them. Through my elementary school years we stayed with our same group of kids every year. K-6. Not sure if that still happens and it certainly made going to a new school building with all new students quite dramatic. So, the bully was never in any of my classrooms, yet somehow he found the fat kid and began calling me names. I was good at ignoring, which infuriated him, so he began threatening...to kill me. He had a "gang" and he had a knife and yes, he took it into school. No one ever busted him. He was, of course, set back so many times that he was about 4 years older than the rest of us.



One week he scared me, though I hate to admit it, and his threat of getting me on my way home from school forced me to walk an unpredictable, very roundabout, long way home. I did that for months, telling no one. It seemed to work and eventually he gave up and found a new victim.


When I was about 9 years old, I was sitting at home looking out the window and saw the wide back garage door fly open, up into the air, then one of my brother's cars came out into the yard and quickly back through the broken door. WHAT WAS THAT?!



Yelling to my brothers, they ran out of the house and down the alley, catching the thief and his buddies in the car, which was 1/2 block away. Yes, it was that bully. Wow, did he look small next to my brothers, who were 16 and 17. That was the last I ever saw the bully in school. The cops were called and he went to jail. I never did tell my brothers or my mom that I knew anything about him. But, months later my mom told me, "If anyone ever picks on you, you tell your brothers. They will take care of it." Oh, sure, my brothers who tormented me all my life...right, Mom. Looking back, I do believe my younger brother would have, and I wish I had thought of it at the time.




The only other bully I can recall was my gym teacher, again, being fat made me an easy target. I hated gym class because of him, and having to undress around other girls. Once, when I could NOT jump over the (I just spent 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back, Google searching that gym thingy for a name---closest I can get is it looked like an Olympic high jump bar, but makes me feel good that I couldn't find it under gym class--have they removed that?) pole. Mr. Gimmer was so mad he lowered until it touched the floor and sure enough I tripped over it. Now, in my defense, he was telling us to jump it with a scissor motion in our legs and my legs just didn't scissor, I mean, OF COURSE I could have jumped over it so low, but I was trying to do it the way I was told, the way it looked like everyone else easily did it. Now, a beautiful thing happened that day.



One of the little boys in that class had a crush on me and he suddenly couldn't jump the bar either. After Mr. Gimmer punished me by making me sit against the wall, David also could not get over the bar when it was lying smacko on the floor. Mr. Gimmer (former military, which he told us often) was red faced, neck-vein popping FURIOUS and made David sit next to me. This was a treat for David and I felt a twinge of happy that David showed support.



When I traveled 2,500 miles home from Seattle to visit my mom and Aunt Vi, I drove over by Aunt Vi's childhood house that her dad built and sat in the car looking at it. It was less than a block over from the school (yes, Aunt Vi and I went to the SAME elementary school) and out of the rear view mirror---there he was: Mr. Gimmer. He looked much like I remembered him. I decided to stroll for a closer look.



He had that same (well, same type) whistle between his lips and kids were running around the block just like we used to have to do. There I was, er, I mean, there at the end, after all the other kids had headed into the building and Gimmer was out of sight, was a fat boy, huffing, sweating, about to collapse, all alone. I became furious. This was my moment. I was meant to see that and have it out with Mr. Gimmer. I would tell him that being an adult and able to make my own healthy food choices along with exercising by participating in activities of my choice that I have fun doing was how I lost weight and became healthy! I just stood and watched. I never confronted Mr. Gimmer. I wish I had.

If there were bullies in Jr. High, I didn't know them. Aunt Vi used to pick me up in her car sometimes, but I skipped so many classes--who knows? By high school I was in with the Drama kids, and they were cool. Then there were speech meets, more cool kids, smart kids---if there were any bullies, I didn't know them.

My partner was born with eczema and in school the kids called her a leper. She was beaten up so often that her parents finally put her in a Friend's School. She was a slight child and easy prey. She cries when she remembers.

It shocks me how parents and teachers allow bullies to 'get away with it' nowadays. Who ARE these bullies? Are children taught early that a bully is a small, scared, ugly person? Are they taught that a bully is MADE, not born that way? The bullies I knew started young---can't a teach catch that? Is it just too much trouble because we adults know the problem is at the bullie's home? I have so few answers to this issue. To say, "It gets better," or "it will pass," to think, "we all go through it," or "just a kid phase of life," these are cop-outs in my book.

"Research shows children who stand up to bullies do better in life," really? We had a place by my schools called, "Beechwood Circle," a street filled with 'rich people homes' (I just googled it because all I could remember was beach wood and Ft. Wayne is not known for any beach...those mansions I remember? I can AFFORD them RIGHT NOW. Mind-blowing.) and it had a hidden area where kids were called out to fight. One day a boy who was called out was scared to death. I saw this happening and I told him I would go fight the no-good dirt bags. (I have no idea what I was thinking other than I always saw myself as invincible and mighty. Besides, I knew the family the bully came from, about 5 bully brothers, all smaller in weight than me. Maybe I just couldn't take it anymore.) So the school was on alert. As the appointed time grew nearer, I began to doubt that it had been a good idea, but it was too late to turn back. Off we went, a group on my side that grew smaller the closer we got to the destination. I arrived. We waited, The bully showed up, yelled a few cuss words and left. He was afraid to even come near me. End of story. Sort of.

One small boy did bring his bully to my yard and I wrestled him down, threw him around until the bully left, defeated. Sounds so bizarre now. In my mind I still thought: soon I would be a man. Oh, well. But, the idea that my 'standing up to' bullies made me a better person is just hogwash. The person who runs in front of a bus to save another does not become in some way better. They were just more able than anyone else around during that given situation to 'stand up.'

Many of us recall the Andy Griffith TV show episode where Opie finally fights back his bully. He hits him and the bully leaves Opie alone. 1. That bully will just find another kid to steal milk money from and 2. Opie learns that hitting and retaliation solves problems.

One last thought: Where are kids supposed to turn for help? Oh, sure, "Tell an adult." Right, like a gay kid has words to tell his religious parents that he is gay. Like a girl is going to tell an adult she is called a 'lesbo,' when she think she probably is. Then the kid has to hear her parents verbally destroy the bully because of such a HORRIBLE thing to be accused of. Yeah, that's fun.
And TEACHERS? Some schools won't allow "Sara Has Two Daddies" in their school library, what teacher wants to step into that?! And (SPOILER ALERT) many teachers are LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) themselves, well closeted and not about to appear as an ally to that "choice."

Maybe, I HOPE, that thanks to the Internet, kids will have a place to go to ask for help. My partner would have LOVED to communicate with another kid who had a disease whom she could relate to. I would have loved to email a kid who shared my darkest thoughts. Together, maybe we wouldn't feel alone with out struggles. Feeling alone is the worst part of being bullied.

As adults, we must all do what we can. Unfortunately, quite a few adults hate in others what bullies hate in those they bully. So, remember to work on that too. I'm going to look into some ideas, to help. Here is just one site I found. Please add any ideas you have. This can't be solved alone.