confessions of an unwilling bully (Bullying in Schools)

Member Name: dawnfrancis

Product:	Bullying in Schools
Date:	16/08/01 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: it turns you into something inhuman

I am not proud of what I am going to write here, but it has been on my conscience for some time. Having read the ops of many Dooyooers who were bullied at school, I thought it might help someone to see the other side. If even one person feels some comfort from what I write, I will be pleased.

At the age of 13 I won a scholarship to a boarding school. The experience was terrifying because from the moment I arrived I was different, an outcast. I had a Brummie accent, my parents were not rich, and my whole lifestyle was alien to the priviledged kids who surrounded me. I was desperately, desperately homesick, and was all alone in this hostile and threatening environment with no way out. I suffered considerable psychological bullying at this school which has influenced my adult life in many significant ways.

During my first couple of weeks there was an empty bed in my dorm. The other girls sharing my dorm had great delight in telling me about the low-down creature who occupied this bed. She was ugly, she was a witch. Everyone hated her. She was weird, had a stammer and couldn't speak properly. Every term time she was ill and so her return to school was delayed. This gave the girls the chance to poison the minds of any newcomers against this poor sod, so that she was damned before they even met her. She was disgusting and subhuman and nobody could stand to even speak to her, let alone be friends with her.

I very quickly caught on that it would be dangerous to make friends with this girl. I realized that they hated her more than they hated me. Therefore, I concluded, by hating her too I would become part of 'the group' and would be relatively safe. Inside my heart I knew I should give her a chance, as I'd not even met her. I pride myself on being a fair person and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I could feel a more selfish side saying 'This is a way to get them off your backs, don't miss
it'.

Soon enough the girl returned to school. And I was witness to a level of victimization that haunts me still. The others dismissed it as 'teasing' but I will tell it how it is. Her possessions were stolen, her food and drink spilled over the floor on purpose. She had a morbid fear of heights. I witnessed people trying to push her down some stairs and laughed along with the rest of them. People would stare at her as she got undressed at night and say she had so much hair she must be a werewolf. She had a stammer, and she was terrorized to such a degree that she could barely utter a full word intelligibly. From the moment she woke up each day she was tormented mercilessly. Even night-time was no solace. Evil taunts continued in the darkness of the dorm. The girl was so traumatized she began to sleepwalk, which, of course, made their ridicule and hatred of her even more.

Everything, but everything this girl did was wrong. She was treated like a piece of dog dirt. I can still see her eyes the day someone threw a glass of water right at her face for absolutely NO reason apart from that they wanted to.

Even when a terrible tragedy befell her family she got no respite. Her mother fell down the stairs and spent weeks in a coma and was not expected to survive. The torment went on regardless. I remember her parents returning her to school after one holiday. Everyone was really nice to her while he was around. He literally had hardly left before the abuse began. I can still see her screaming and running hysterically down the street, trying to find her dad.

Despite myself, I did befriend this girl to some degree. But to my disgust, I always ended up retreating back to 'the group'. I remember one time slagging her off so that the others would know I was one of them. I didn't know she was outside and had heard every word. I apologized to her and I bought her a little present, but I think that
hurt her more than any of the abuse she'd suffered because she thought she could trust me. And I stabbed her in the back just like the rest of them.

I never found out what happened to this girl. I left the school after two years, I do know that she left shortly afterwards.

Many, many years have passed. It's a cliche I know, but I am older and wiser now. I have spent many years battling clinical depression and other mental health problems, and I now know fully what mental torment feels like. And I think of this girl often.

I wish I could get in touch with her, to explain why I acted like I did, and to tell her that she is a valued human being and should never have been treated in that way. It was we who were the inhuman ones. I wonder how her life turned out, if she still bears the scars of what happened. Sometimes I even wonder whether she survived at all.

I hope that bullied Dooyooers will realize, from reading this, that bullies have their reasons too. It doesn't excuse them in ANY way, shape, or form, but it might make you feel better. I now know that bullies pay for what they did, later on in their lives. Many of your tormentors might feel the same. Perhaps, like me, they are mentally apologizing to you for the things they did.

I never hit or threatened or deliberately sought to hurt this girl in the way that many of my 'friends' did. But I stood by while the others carried on. Even having been bullied myself, I still did nothing to mitigate the suffering of another human being. I did not have the guts to reach out and help someone in despair. For these reasons, I am as guilty as the rest of them and that is something I shall bear for the rest of my life.

If by some fortunate accident the girl in question just happens to be reading this, I hope she recognizes herself. The school was in Somerset, and she knew me as Dawn Cox then. And I hope she knows how sorry I am. I ho
pe someday we can meet again and undo the wounds of the past.

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