Rape and Bullying

 16. RAPE AND BULLYING 

Hello and welcome. At this time, you get a glimpse into my life and past as a sexual assault survivor. Please stay to the end, to enjoy my gem of positivity.

In this post I’m going to discuss an issue which made me more vulnerable to my predators. To be blunt, as is my way, I was bullied at school by my supposed “friends”. It wasn’t because I had done anything wrong, or hurt them in any way. It was simply for the sheer pleasure that they got out of seeing me break, time and again. 

It started when I was in the third grade. The silent treatment, to the point of them even saying, “Do you hear something?” To which the response was always, “No, I don’t hear anything. It must be nothing.” That’s what I was. Nothing. If I tried to join their games, they would just walk off. Even in the classroom, I wasn’t safe from their torture of me. They would tear pages of work I’d done out of my books. They stole things of mine, then claimed they hadn’t. But if I went to the teacher, the stolen item/items would all of a sudden be on my desk when the teacher came to check. Their smug smiles said it all. 

As I grew, however, the bullying became physical and sexual. In high school, I was the butt of a ring of girls and boys. Often they would encircle me, pushing me from one to another, until I finally ended up on the concrete ground. I wouldn’t let them have the pleasure of seeing me cry, although I often did in private. Rumours would spread across the school that I was having sex with this boy and that one. I was rumoured several times that I was pregnant. People would pass me in the passage, sneering the words “slut” and “whore”. I am however grateful that there was no social media to continue this bullying to the greater world.

Because of their treatment of me, I dreaded going to school. I would make up every excuse I could think of, in order to stay at home. If I did go to school, I developed what I now know were obsessive compulsive tendencies. It also opened the way for other people, whom I had considered kind, to abuse me physically and sexually. In fact, one such person was my year eight English teacher. I wrongly believed that because they were being kind to me and hurting me out of love and kindness, it made their reprehensible abuse okay.

In this day and age, bullying is taken to new heights of depravity. There is now social media for the bullying to continue into the greater world. At least once I was home, the bullying stopped. Children these days are not so fortunate. It is bringing forth with it, higher levels of mental illness, higher rates of suicide in our youth, and at younger ages than ever before. It can also be the spark that drives the explosion of mass violence, particularly in schools.

It is not enough to tell the bullied victim that, “it will all blow over, you’ll see”, or “just stand up and say I’m not afraid of you”. The message needs to be directed at the population as a whole. Bullying is not okay. It is not acceptable. It is not a way to live.

This time, the gem of positivity I have chosen, is a quote that is attributed to none other than Abraham Lincoln himself:

I would rather be a little nobody, than an evil somebody.

I am starting to learn this. That those who bully, may think they are somebody, however those same words and actions portray them to be evil at heart. And I’m choosing to be a nobody and heal, than to let the evil of bullying fester within me. Which can so often happen. The bullied child, becomes a bully themselves in later years. But healing can happen — it just takes time.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk through my journey of healing. Please feel free to leave a comment on how you handle the bullies in your life. And until next time, just breathe and believe.