What I Learned About Being Bullied
When I was in 4th grade, my mother was going through a hard time so I moved into my father and stepmother’s house. My new school was only five houses away and I was so excited to go, I skipped to get there that first day. But once I arrived I realized it was not at all how I imagined it would be.
When I lived with my mother, I went to a private girl’s school and everyone wore the same dark blue uniform. At this school, everywhere I looked, girls and boys were gathered in small groups in bright public school colors laughing loudly.
In the playground at recess, I wanted so desperately to run and celebrate being alive, to introduce myself and make friends, to launch into this amazing new world double-dutch style, but I couldn’t find the right moment to jump in.
The fear of being unwanted kept me on the sidelines, standing there, as if I were glued to the ground, my arms folded awkwardly behind my back, my own voice stuck inside my head, hoping someone might notice I was alive and make the first move.
Eventually, someone did.
A boy with freckles wearing blue jeans and sneakers. I thought to myself how beautiful he looked. He asked my name and I nervously told him. Back then every sixth person was not named Jessica. It was an unusual name, believe it or not. But after I introduced myself, instead of telling me his name, he snarled at me in a way that startled me.
“Well, I’m going to call you Jessicow,” he said. Then he mooed at me and kicked dirt all over my shoes. I felt so confused, I started to cry.
He then called over some other boys to ask if they’d ever seen a cow cry. And when they didn’t understand, he told them his new name for me and when I started crying harder, he said, “See, it’s a crying cow!”
I could tell the boys weren’t sure if it was funny or not, but they laughed along nervously instead of helping me, and I ran back to my classroom and sat alone at my desk, feeling so strange, like I had somehow left my body but couldn’t quite figure out how to return.
I couldn’t understand why Greg hated me so. And why no one stepped in to help me or make me feel welcomed.
Every night I prayed that someone would show up and want to be my friend. But no one wanted to be friends with a Jessicow.
I finally confessed to mother what was going on.
She and I had begun spending time with each other again, and I thought maybe she could help me figure out a good way to get revenge.
“Please, Jessica. Don’t waste your creativity,” she told me. “I can assure you that this Greg Bennet is not a quality person and that he will amount to nothing. He’ll wind up a bully in a 30 year old body and no one will want to be anywhere near him. But you, darling, you will have character. Be strong, Jess,” she said. "And don't you dare allow his issues to become yours. You already have enough of your own. Things will work out. You’ll see.”
But one afternoon a few days later, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I was in art class. We had this fabulous art teacher, Mr. Jay, who taught us songs to help us learn the classic painters. He was a treasure. But whenever he’d get lost in a lesson, Greg would need a fix of seeing me suffer and he’d spin over and moo at me. And on that day, I had enough.
I was on my art stool and my face felt so hot and red. I tried telling myself that it was ok, that I didn’t need to panic, that in the future when I was someone really special, he’d regret not being nice to me.
But on that particular day I heard another voice in my head, that reminded me of right now. That I was already special and that it was time to take action.
The truth was, as much as I tried not to admit it, I’d already begun to believe I was a Jessicow. And a Jessicow can never really be special. She can only pretend to be special so that others won’t find out she’s really a Jessicow.
So I got off my art stool and walked over to Greg Bennet’s stool and I grabbed him by the lapels, something I’d seen on one of my mother’s detective shows, and I looked right into his face and repeated my mother’s line as best I could because back then, I didn’t really have many of my own.
And I said, “Greg Bennet, you are not a quality person! And in 20 years you are going to be the same bully except you’ll be in a 30 year old body and you will have contributed nothing of value in the world and no one will want to be anywhere near you!”
Then I let go of his lapels just like in the show, but Greg lost his balance and fell to the floor. I was so shocked by the sound he made and the vision of him lying there that I ran out of the room. And I ran down the hall and then outside of the building and down the street. I didn’t know where to go. I knew I couldn’t go back to school or back to my house.
So I just ran and ran and when I got tired, I walked, feeling the breeze against my burning cheeks, feeling kind of satisfied but so scared of what I’d done.
And then, a station wagon pulled up. In it was the principal, Mrs. Lindsay, who asked if I wanted to get in the car and talk about what happened.
And when I said, “No, thank you,” and kept walking, she pulled up next to me again, opened the passenger door and asked me to please get in.
I wound up back at her office where she smeared orange cheese on little rectangle crackers with a tiny red plastic knife.
And though I tried convincing her that I’d done a good thing, she only smiled and said I could talk all about it with the school psychologist who I would be meeting with twice a week during lunch in his office.
And when I got home, my stepmother had already been notified of what happened and told me I was crazy just like my mother.
I can still picture Dr. Bregar, the school psychologist, his rust-colored corduroys and long blonde receding hair.
The first time we met, he asked me all sorts of wonderful questions about what it was like to be me. It was the first time anyone ever asked me such things. But I was too nervous to say anything, so I took my journal from my bag and handed it to him
“Wow you’ve come prepared,” he chuckled.
“I keep notes,” I explained.
“Records of your life?”
“Yeah. I started when I moved into my father's. Writing stuff down helps me feel better.
He thumbed through the pages. “Who are all these conversations with?”
“Well I used to think he was my imaginary friend, but now I think maybe he’s my guardian angel. I talk to him about stuff that happens since I don’t have anyone else to talk to.”
“And you have conversations with him on paper?”
“Yeah.”
“What an excellent coping strategy!”
I smiled as he continued flipping through, feeling proud of myself for the first time in years.
“And why, may I ask, are so many pages filled with the sentence I will not flush the toilet?
“Oh. My stepmother makes me write it 500 times whenever I forget because the sound wakes up the new baby. And I forget a lot.
He shook his head and closed the book. “She sounds like a handful.”
“Yeah,” I said. And we both laughed.
Have you told anyone about the bullying?
“My mother. And my stepmother found out. She moo-ed at me.
He closed his eyes and shook his head again.
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of toxic people in your life.”
I nodded.
“But do you know the main ingredient that makes people toxic?”
“No.”
“Pain. People in pain who think giving away their pain will make theirs go away. But it never works like that. Giving someone else pain only does one thing: It makes more people in pain.
The only thing I know that gets rid of pain is to understand it. And that’s what I’d like to teach you how to do. Would you be willing to let me help you?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. Thank you.”
After my next session with Dr. Bregar, he said he wanted to show me something.
He then opened the large curtain in his office so that we could see out into the playground.
“What do you see out there?” he asked.
“Kids playing.”
“Do you see Greg Bennet out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch what he does on the playground.”
I watched Greg go from group to group, except no one was paying any attention to him.
“Everyone’s ignoring him,” I said.
“That’s good noticing. And how do you think that makes him feel?”
“Invisible?”
“I think so. When you arrived at this school, I think maybe Greg thought you might be his answer to being seen.”
I nodded.
“What does it feel like when Greg’s being mean to you?”
“Um. It feels like I’m turtlenecked.”
“I’ve never heard one that before!”
“Like I’m closed inside a giant turtleneck.”
“Is it safe in there?”
“Yeah, but sad, and it’s hard to breathe. And embarrassing.”
“Like who you are in there doesn’t even exist?”
“Yeah.”
“Greg made you feel the way he feels. He passed that feeling to you, thinking it would make him feel better. But did it work?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“When people are in pain, it can feel like a hot potato. Something we want to hand off to someone else because it burns. You took Greg’s, because you didn’t know there was any another option.
And when you knocked Greg off his art stool, I can see why that felt like a victory. You were trying to give him back his pain. But I bet somewhere in your heart, it didn’t feel quite right.”
“Yeah.”
“Standing up for yourself to a bully sounds like a good idea, but it’s actually a form of revenge.
People have been using revenge to make themselves feel better since the beginning of our time here.
It’s the main ingredient of most every war, whether the war is in a person’s mind, in a person’s home, or out in the world. But to have peace, which is what I think everyone really wants, there needs to be another way to handle our pain instead of giving it away.
Do you know what alchemy is?”
“Um. Turning dirt into gold?”
He laughed. “Kind of. I like to think of it as a metaphor. Of the ability to turn pain into understanding. Instead of standing up for yourself what if you could stand up and be yourself.”
“I would like to do that.”
“But to be yourself you need to pick what you want to stand for—what values you’d like to stand for. What you want to be seen as.”
“Not a jessicow.”
“Well you’re not a Jessicow. You are a precious living breathing human being who’s been hurt and doesn’t understand how to make the pain go away. But you can make the pain disappear by understanding where it comes from and sharing your perspective. Communicating what’s real for you could be a place for you to stand. Does that feel right?”
”Yes.”
”Well, since you’re already a writer, my assignment to you is to write your story. Write the story of your bully and what you’ve learned from your experience. And I will make copies of it and share it with all my school psychologist friends so that your story can make a difference for the kids who they meet with.
That’s how you start being a junior alchemist. By turning your pain into your perspective. And when your perspective exists out in the world, so do you. And you will get to be seen as who you are, not as someone getting revenge.
And from now on, when you see someone being mean to someone else, you can make it your job to be friends with the person being bullied so that you can teach them what I’ve taught you. Because just as people can share their pain, we can also share our love and our wisdom.”
“Thank you, Dr. Bregar,” I said, my eyes tearing.
And from then on, I practiced expressing myself. Instead of waiting to be asked to be involved, I practiced involving myself by sharing my thoughts and my interests. And yes, I wrote my side of the story— What I Learned From Being Bullied. And Dr. Bregar shared it with many other kids who had also been bullied.
I never did work it out with Greg Bennet, but I didn’t really need to. Sometimes people aren’t in a position to understand their pain at the same time that we are. And that’s ok.
But Greg never mooed at me again. He left me alone. In fact, I sometimes wondered if Dr. Bregar gave him a copy of my book. But I never did find out.
So if you’re listening and you’re being bullied, never feel ashamed. Other people’s pain has nothing to do with who you are. In fact, you can do what I learned how to do and turn your situation into an opportunity to develop the courage to stand up, not to get revenge, but to be seen as who you are and to share your wonderful self.
-JLK