Bryan W. Alaspa 1The deep wounds of bullying
August 19th 2009 13:15
All across the country, in fact, all across the world, right now, as I type this, there is someone bigger or stronger pushing around someone who they know will not fight back or who is weaker than they are. It is almost like an instinct within human beings to want to do that. Just look at the animal kingdom. Lions chase after the younger, weaker and older animals because they are easier to catch. Bullies do the same thing. The one benefit to it happening in the animal kingdom, however, is the fact that when the animal is caught it gets killed and eaten. When someone is bullied, those wounds just stay there, often times open and raw, for the rest of their lives.
Too many people used to just say, well, being bullied is just a part of growing up. When you reach high school, in particular, people seem to assume that it is just something everyone should accept. Hey, if you are fat or wear glasses or are smart, the people who are not are going to pick on you. For some reason, the stupid and the muscular and the morons tend to be the more popular people.
I was a geek. I was a pretty smart kid. I walked into high school with several things against me. I was overweight (well, I still am), I had glasses and I had braces. I was shy and had been pretty much my entire life. It was only a matter of a few seconds before I was labeled and, soon after, the bullying started.
There were two people, in particular, who decided it was their goal to make my life as miserable as possible. Their first names were John and Paul and they were not part of the Beatles. They never got to know me. They never found out if I was a nice guy or had a great sense of humor. They just decided they didn’t like how I looked and that it was OK for them to pick on me. Like most bullies, they were, and still are, of profoundly low intelligence who seemed to sense that I was not the type who was likely to fight back. As such, they took every opportunity to humiliate me, make me feel low, destroy whatever tiny shreds of self-confidence I had.
One of them tried to set the school on fire and I had never been happier than when I found it was he who had attempted to do so. I believe I actually did a dance once I knew he would not only be kicked out of school but might be in trouble with the law. The other eventually just got kicked out of school for grades. That was another great day for me and I delighted in their defeats.
The problem is that they never just beat me up. If they had, it might have been something I could have gotten over. Those wounds would have healed. But their torture was much deeper, their wounds harder to heal. So, for twenty years whenever I was doing things I would hear their voices in my head. Whenever I met a defeat I would hear them taunting me and wonder, maybe they were right. Every day for twenty years I have attempted, in some way, to overcome the wounds and destruction these two galactically ignorant people left behind.
There are others out there experiencing that now. Those who do the bullying and those who hare not bullied cannot understand why we, the bullied, can’t just “get over it.” So many think that such pain and torment can just be put aside. That all can be forgiven and those who once did the bullying can just be talked to like old friends. But no, that isn’t how it works. Not when the internal wound cut straight through and those wounds can be re-opened into fresh, bleeding, festering pain so easily.
Sometimes people just cannot be forgiven. No matter what they have done since that time, they created so much destruction when they were the way they were, that they cannot be forgiven. I cannot forgive the two who did that to me no matter what they have done since or how much they have changed. God is supposed to be the one who forgives people, and I am not him.
Too many people used to just say, well, being bullied is just a part of growing up. When you reach high school, in particular, people seem to assume that it is just something everyone should accept. Hey, if you are fat or wear glasses or are smart, the people who are not are going to pick on you. For some reason, the stupid and the muscular and the morons tend to be the more popular people.
I was a geek. I was a pretty smart kid. I walked into high school with several things against me. I was overweight (well, I still am), I had glasses and I had braces. I was shy and had been pretty much my entire life. It was only a matter of a few seconds before I was labeled and, soon after, the bullying started.
There were two people, in particular, who decided it was their goal to make my life as miserable as possible. Their first names were John and Paul and they were not part of the Beatles. They never got to know me. They never found out if I was a nice guy or had a great sense of humor. They just decided they didn’t like how I looked and that it was OK for them to pick on me. Like most bullies, they were, and still are, of profoundly low intelligence who seemed to sense that I was not the type who was likely to fight back. As such, they took every opportunity to humiliate me, make me feel low, destroy whatever tiny shreds of self-confidence I had.
One of them tried to set the school on fire and I had never been happier than when I found it was he who had attempted to do so. I believe I actually did a dance once I knew he would not only be kicked out of school but might be in trouble with the law. The other eventually just got kicked out of school for grades. That was another great day for me and I delighted in their defeats.
The problem is that they never just beat me up. If they had, it might have been something I could have gotten over. Those wounds would have healed. But their torture was much deeper, their wounds harder to heal. So, for twenty years whenever I was doing things I would hear their voices in my head. Whenever I met a defeat I would hear them taunting me and wonder, maybe they were right. Every day for twenty years I have attempted, in some way, to overcome the wounds and destruction these two galactically ignorant people left behind.
There are others out there experiencing that now. Those who do the bullying and those who hare not bullied cannot understand why we, the bullied, can’t just “get over it.” So many think that such pain and torment can just be put aside. That all can be forgiven and those who once did the bullying can just be talked to like old friends. But no, that isn’t how it works. Not when the internal wound cut straight through and those wounds can be re-opened into fresh, bleeding, festering pain so easily.
Sometimes people just cannot be forgiven. No matter what they have done since that time, they created so much destruction when they were the way they were, that they cannot be forgiven. I cannot forgive the two who did that to me no matter what they have done since or how much they have changed. God is supposed to be the one who forgives people, and I am not him.
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Comment by Anonymous
This is Paul, the one you're discussing in your blog post...
I know what being bullied feels like. As a scrawny, shy kid who didn't play sports - I was physically and mentally beat up by bigger kids on a daily basis growing up. And by the time I hit high school I had decided that if I attacked other people first - they wouldn't have the chance to attack me.
I hate to make your memories impersonal but I attacked everyone in high school - teachers, other students, police officers, any authority figure in sight. Years of getting beat on as a little kid and being told to "toughen up" by parents and teachers - as if it was a good character builder - just made me mean and angry and I was determined to make other people as miserable as I was.
There has never been a time after high school when I didn't feel ashamed for how I acted or the pain I caused other people. No one thought it was "cool" or talked about it like a fond memory from back in the day.
I am truly sorry for anything I did to you. The person that did that doesn't exist and hasn't for a long time - I've made damn sure of that. Once I grew up and out of being angry at the world I've done everything I can to try and be a good person, a good husband, and a good father. And my kids are going to go to school one day and I pray to God that some asshole kid is not going to do to them what I did to other people, or what was done to me as a kid.
If you want to talk about this in person instead of on a message board...if you're willing...email me in care of this post. I would rather look you in the eye and talk to you about it as two adults rather than mud slinging on the Internet.
If you'd rather call me "galactically ignorant" in the present tense or throw my apology back in my face....it's your blog, you can do what you'd like, if it makes you feel better. But it isn't going to bring you any peace or change anything.
If you don't want to talk to me about it...I do hope that one day you can make peace with your past and make the most of what's in front of you. Life is too short to live with that kind of anger.
Take care,
Paul
Comment by Anonymous
I read this article and am shocked that you would stoop to the level of those you accuse by calling them names. 20 years may have not lessened your wounds but they sure did make you that which you do not like.
Ray Young
Comment by Adam Williams
Occam's Razor
Being called "galactically ignorant" and "of profoundly low intelligence" is not name calling and nor is Bryan stooping to their level. He has a right to say what he wants.
Comment by Anonymous
I agree with you that he has the right to say what he wants. But I have the right to question why he would call them stupid to this day when he has not seen them in almost 20 years.