Why me?

This is a question I’ve asked myself many times over the years.

Why me? What did I do to deserve this? I’ve reached an answer, and it’s probably something the broader audience don’t want to hear.

The favoured perception of a bullying victim is the weirdo, the outsider. Someone who provokes their poor, normal peers into bullying them. Because no-one would ever bully someone for no apparent reason, right?

I have some bad news for you:

Bullies don’t bully because they feel helpless, provoked or scared. They don’t do it because they’re hurting on the inside or have a shitty home life. They do it mainly for entertainment. Because they’re bored. Because they like torturing their fellow human beings. Because it’s fun.

Like hyenas they single out the smallest and weakest prey and tear at it mercilessly, until all that remains are some unrecognisable, bloody pieces of flesh.

I know this is not a popular statement. In our society we prefer to paint perpetrators as victims. And it is a deeply disturbing and worrying trend. But I will come back to this in a later post.

So why was I chosen as the designated torturing victim?

I was a very timid and quiet girl. I was very scared of provoking anyone and would certainly never start a feud with someone intentionally. I tried to be agreeable and friendly to my surroundings. In other words, I was the perfect bullying victim.

At this point someone most likely will raise the question: So why didn’t you stand up for yourself?

A perfectly valid question. Why didn’t I? If I just stood and took it I can only blame myself, right? To this, my answer will be: Because you can’t defend yourself against an entire pack. Go on and try. Try being rounded up and attacked from all sides. Try walking into a hostile environment every single day, where you have to keep your guard up all the time. Try standing up for yourself and all you get in response is a roaring laughter, resembling the screeching of rabid monkeys.

To all those who was never bullied and can’t understand why the victims of bullying didn’t stand up for themselves or were so affected by the abuse they received:

You don’t know how lucky you are. You don’t know what kind of blissful ignorance you are living in. You have never suffered abuse and therefor don’t know what that does to a person. How it changes the person’s perception of themselves, the world, their fellow human beings, how it changes their personality.

And as a closing remark I have to say: I deeply envy you for this.