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
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 5th 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.
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