I was bullied...

On the way to work this morning, I heard about this video out a kid who was being bullied snap and slam his would be bully onto the sidewalk.  I sank into my seat a little and sighed.  It flashed memories of my childhood and the problems it always caused me.  I was bullied... daily... until the day I graduated high school...

This video (if it doesn't embed, click here) shows Australian student Casey Heynes first being tormented then snapping and protecting himself.  Many people will stand and open their mouths and try to derationalize Casey's actions as hot headed, over the top, or down right criminal assault.  These people who stand against Casey have never had to fear what Casey feared.

Casey feared for his life and made a decision that saved it.  If Casey was really trying to hurt the little punk, he wouldn't have walked away after the act, he would have pummeled the brat to death.

I wasn't physically bullied until 6th grade.  It started with these kids, Lee and Bill, who picked me out of the "easy target club" and began to pick on me about weight.  It started as jokes, bad ones, then they started pushing me, which was tough because I had a hard enough time walking as it was.  One day Bill dumped his lunch onto my lunch tray and told me to eat it all.  He was a little weird.  They never did anything, though, unless their boys were with them.  Lee was worse, though.  He never wanted a chance of a fair fight.  Finally, one day, Lee slammed a lunch tray to the back of my head and laughed about it.  Back in the class room he sat behind me and started to poke at my side.  I pushed my desk away, stood up, in the middle of class and asked him if he had a fucking problem.

I learned my language skills from my father, God bless him.

Lee rolled his eyes and sat back down and this other kid, Bill Marco, one of those returning to the 6th grade for the third time kids, who also had my number, started egging him on.  "Go ahead and knock him out, Lee, take him down, it'll be easy enough."  For some odd reason Bill's addon pissed me on more.  I turned over two desks, went right at Bill, pushed him back and asked him if he was done egging people on.  If they wanted to beat me up, did it really take two of them or were they too much "a bunch of pussies" to do so themselves.  Again, my father's teachings.

Bill swung, hit me, and I dropped like a ton of bricks.  I was expecting an ass kicking but because it happened in the middle of a classroom the teacher had finally made his way in and saw Bill hit me.  I didn't move until I felt a hand on me, I spun around on my back, not knowing the teacher had already pulled Bill out of the room.  It was another teacher and she helped e up and to the nurse's office.

The vice principle asked me what had happened, I told him Lee had gotten in my face, Bill was provoking the situation, and I got into Bill's face, and Bill knocked me out.

I was given the day off, to cool down, Bill was suspended for three days, and nothing happened to Lee, until three days passed.

I was sitting at lunch when Bill came over and sat down next to me.  He was smiling, I was expecting my ass to be handed to me.  He told me no one had ever stood up to him and it took balls to do it.  He respected me for it, and told me Lee wouldn't be a problem again.  Bill, and one of Bill's friends Stephen, would watch my back until they both got into a pretty bad fight near the end of the school year and both were kicked out of school.

Things weren't helped any by the fact I was a big kid.  I won't say fat because calling a kid fat is wrong.  They can't rebound from something like that without major mental damage.  So, I was a big kid.  I was big enough that I had man boobs, at the age of 12.  It made me an easy target, to one kid in general.  All through sixth grade, daily, he tormented me, grabbed me, and I told, everyone, and nothing was ever done.  Back then, sexual harassment was only between male bosses and their secretaries, not between two kids.  Bullying?  It was like hazing, and it was accepted as something all kids go through.  Mental abuse isn't hazing.  It'll mess you up.

The same kid would cause a race riot to break out, and then having it pinned on me.  No one believed me, because no one gave a damn.  I was the fat kid that people shunned, hated, talked about, made jokes about, and he was their ring leader.


Half way through seventh grade year, one of my only friends died.  The same week, we were walking to lunch, and this same kid started in on me.  Pushing me, slapping the back of my head, whispering crap into my ears that today the thoughts boil my blood.

Like Casey, I snapped.

I grabbed him by his neck, picked him up by his neck and slammed him against the closest thing near me, which happened to be a locker.  I chocked him, screamed at him that if ever spoke to me that I'd "break every bone in his fucking face" and then slammed him into the locker two more times.  I don't remember all what else happened but a teacher finally stepped in, grabbed me and tried to pull me off.  The little prick bit me and I swung, still being held back by the teacher and I hit him, on the left side of the kids nose, his eye, and I remember the look in his eyes.

Fear.

I was literally dragged into the vice principle's office, in tears of pain, rage, all while the teacher who had pulled me off was trying to figure out what happened.

I didn't even know the kids name.  I hated him so much, all I could do was point him out in the yearbook.

They called his parents, maybe mine, I don't remember much until I was called back down to the VP's office and the kid apologized in the most sarcastic tone.  I looked at the VP then back and the kid's father smirked.  He was a product of his father.  I told the VP I didn't care and walked out.


The kid as put into the other seventh grade section, and life moved on.  High school was the worst, but is for another post, all together...