4 Reasons on How Being Bullied Made Me a Better Person

4 Reasons on How Being Bullied Made Me a Better Person

By: Brian Cotnoir

     Being bullied as a kid sucks.  It doesn’t matter who you are, if you get bullied, life f*cking sucks.  I know, I spent many years being tormented and being physically and verbally abused by people in my age group.  I hated Middle School and High School, they were the absolute worst times of my life.  So, it’s kind of Ironic now that I presently work as a High School Substitute teacher.  And over the past two years, I’ve met students that have been placed in similar dilemmas as myself when I was in high school.  Then one day it all sort of donned on me; I turned out much better and well-adjusted because I was bullied as a kid, and now I’m taking those negative experiences and turning them into something positive.  I want anyone who is being bullied or knows someone who is being bullied to know that even though your life seems like it sucks, it could be worst, and these trials and challenges can ultimately make you a better person in ways you probably never thought you could, and I wanted to share with everyone Rour Reasons on How Being Bullied Made Me a Better Person.

1.)  You learn not to care what others think.

When I was in High School I was picked don for everything: because I was tall, because I was fat, because I had glasses because I was weird, because I was Canadian (Yeah, apparently something as mundane as where your Great-Grandparents immigrated from is reason enough to pick on someone).  I never stood a chance in High School.  When I was a freshman I was really overweight (I had moobies and everything), so kids in my class would make fun of me for being fat.  My dad got my a summer job where he worked, and pretty soon I was spending 5-6 hours a day doing manual labor out in the sun, and by the end of that summer I had lost 38 pounds and was a perfectly healthy weight...and people still called me fat-ass (even though now I was skinnier then some of them!)  That was when I first began to realize you can’t please everyone and make them happy, so don’t waste your time going out of your way to appease people who don’t even care about you.                                                  

         My Junior Year of High school there was a kid who used to come into the locker room during gym class every day, and punch me between the shoulder blades and call me a “faggot”.  This went on for several weeks, and then one day he grabbed my back pack dumped the contents of the bag on top of me and slammed the side of my head against the locker.  I wanted to tell my teacher what this kid had been doing to me for close to 2 months, but I was afraid that everyone in school would “hate me” or “think I was a snitch”.  Then all of sudden a thought donned on me:  “Everyone here already f*cking hates me, so what do I care if they call me a snitch?  They’ve already called me every other nasty name in the book, so what’s one more?”  I told the teacher, he told the Vice Principal and that kid broke down in tears when he was told he was being suspended for 10-Days.  And yes, people called me a “rat” and a “snitch”, but I didn’t care!  That one kid never bothered me again the rest of the year (I think he actually dropped out), and I was happy.                       

    Till this very day, I have zero interest in anything negative people have to say about me.  I don’t care if they don’t like me, because I’m not trying to please them.  I only do things that make myself happy, and if someone doesn’t like or think it’s stupid, I don’t care, because their opinions of me mean nothing.

2.)  I am more supportive of people with differences.

I grew up in a small “hick town”, and if I had to make an estimate, I’d say 90% of the boys in my high school were extremely homophobic.  Every day you’d hear someone say “that’s so gay” or “you’re a faggot”, it’s just how things were in my high school.  I’m very ashamed to admit that I was a part of that culture.  I had two friends (a boy and a girl) who came out in High School, which was an extremely difficult and dangerous thing for them to do because they had just made them self open for verbal and physical attacks.  When they told me they were gay, my opinions on Gays & Lesbians changed forever.  I was no longer going to use the homophobic slurs that so many of my classmates encouraged, and I was going to stand by my friends no matter what because no matter what their sexual orientation was, they were still my friends, and to turn them away was never an option.  By doing this, I became “Gay by Association”, and barred a lot more torment from some of my classmates.  There wasn’t a day where some guy in my high school didn’t call me a faggot or pick on me because I was friends with the only two openly gay students in class.                                         

    I’m not claiming that my experience was the same as my friends and that I understand their struggle entirely because the truth is I don’t.  I had no secrets to hide, I knew I wasn’t gay.  My two friends had it much worst because not only did they have to deal with the torment of the kids at school, but they also had to deal with the disapproval from their families because of the way they were born.  I stick up for members of the LGBT community to this day and am supporter of Gay Rights because of what I experienced through those friends.  I was called a “faggot” and “queer” enough times that I know how much it hurts, and how much I hate being called that word.  Because of those awful trials and challenges my friends had to endure I took on a cause, I probably never would have even considered before.

3.)  I’m always willing to support the underdog or those in need

I will come to the support of anyone I see being bullied or unfairly treated.  I don’t care if there black, white, gay, straight, mentally disabled, handicapped, or whatever: if I see someone being mistreated because of who they are then I will be there to support them.  I didn’t have anyone I could turn in Middle school or High School or anyone who could tell  me what to do, I had to figure out a lot my own problems by myself, and I am more than willing to share my knowledge with anyone who seeks it.  Every time I see a student getting picked on or have one come voice their frustrations to me, I tell them the truth.  I just look at them and say “Yeah, people suck.  High School Sucks; it’s suck for lot of people.  The good news those is you don’t have to deal with it forever.  If people don’t like you because you don’t conform or because your different, who cares?  There’ opinions should mean nothing to you.  You’re awesome just being you”. 

4.)  If I can survive 7 years of being bullied there’s pretty much nothing I cant handle.

I started getting bullied when I was in about the 5^th grade, and it lasted until the day I graduated High School.  Because, of those 7 years—those 7 years of hell—I don’t think there’s anything I can’t overcome as an adult.  Student Loan Debt, Unemployment, failing relationships, are like nothing.  I’ve had to fight my own battles since I was 11; true a lot of times I need help from family or friends, but when a challenge arises I don’t run away from it or try to avoid it, I face it head on and I wont give up until I’ve exhausted every last possible effort, because that is how I was made.  I didn’t have in easy in Middle School and High School, I didn’t have anyone there to stick up for me, I had to fight my own battles, win my own wars, and do a lot on my own.  There is nothing, in adulthood I don’t think I can overcome, and it’s all because I survived 7-years of being bullied.