Outcast

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.

I’ve thought a lot about how to begin my story, but frankly, I don’t have a clue.

Should I jump straight to where my daily hell begun, or sometimes before that?

I figured I should start with the beginning. Maybe not as intricate as David Copperfield – I will not bore you with the hour of my birth or go into great details of my early years – but I figured it is important that the reader knows a little of my background, to better understand where I was coming from.

My early childhood was a happy one, I know that for a fact. For one, that is how I do remember it. My parents were not wealthy by any standard, but we did have a house, I had more toys than I could ever play with, and we could go on a long vacation every summer. Like almost every child in my country, I went to kindergarten from I was a year old until I started first grade.

I loved kindergarten. It was not like it is now, with focus on teaching and preparing the children for school. We did nothing but play, all day, every day. There never was a dull moment. When we tired of one game we always came up with something new. I was surrounded by friends and it was always so much fun.

We didn’t have internet, computers or tablets in those days, so we had to use our imagination during playtime. Often I would take charge. My imagination never slowed down , and I liked to make up scenarios, characters and storylines we would play out. This doesn’t mean I was loud or particularly bossy. I was a very timid and quiet child. But I was surrounded by people who liked me and I trusted, and so I bloomed.

I don’t have to rely solely on my memories for this part, because the photos of me from this time doesn’t lie: I’m always smiling in those picture. I just look like the happiest little kid around. Even my mother, knowing my story so intimately, being with me the entire way, has commented on this.

I looked forward to starting school. To this day I can still remember with crystal clarity that the morning was an overcast day, that my backpack was purple, the dress I was wearing was blue, me walking into the schoolyard for the first time with my mum. I remember thinking I was a big girl now.

And knowing nothing but acceptance from my peers, I had no reason thinking my journey forward would be any different. That is the luxury of being naive and untried. Everything appears to be so easy.

Boy, was I headed for a wake up call.

To say that I’m nervous doesn’t begin to cover how I feel as I’m typing this.

To have been bullied and everything this entailed was my filthy little secret for so many years. Only my immediate family knew, and it’s still a silence that’s just there, not something we talk about openly.

Funny choice of word, some might say. “Filthy” alludes to something dirty, something that was my own fault. Something I rightfully should be ashamed of.

And I am ashamed. Because this is the how the world at large view bullying and bullying victims. It is something we invited in, something we are to carry the blame for. If someone is being bullied, it’s because they’re doing something to provoke their peers and you can’t blame those poor little darlings for lashing out at these annoying weirdos.

At least that’s my experience, whenever I’ve tried in the past to talk to people about the issues surrounding bullying, especially among school children and students.

So to write on a public blog for the whole world to see is very daunting to me. The idea for this blog arrived some years ago, but at that time I was still too much of a mess to be able to write in a concise and (somewhat) levelheaded manner.

A big concern was the abuse and harassment I might attract for writing what I do. When I first had the idea I knew I couldn’t take it, but therapy and many hours of reflection has somewhat helped me harden for that possible outcome.

You’ve probably guessed by now I don’t have the most positive outlook on the world and human beings in general. Why that is will become apparent in the blog posts to follow.

I have no expectations surrounding Outcast or what its future will be. Perhaps it will be a hit, perhaps no one will care, perhaps it will gain a few readers.

All I can promise is that I will be completely honest about my experiences. This also means I will not sugarcoat anything.

You’ve been warned.