BULLYING: How do you rise above a bully?
By Devin Varner, Staff Writer
Bullies are found in every corner you turn, everywhere you go. As a young kid you are told the basic story of a bully, “bullies make you unhappy because they’re unhappy themselves” or “bullies are just jealous.” Then you grow a little older and experience, first hand, what bullying feels like. You can’t fathom the thought process your bully goes through, allowing them to treat others with such disrespect. As you grow into a teenager, you pretend the effects of the hurtful words doesn’t hurt anymore and the emotional pain begins to numb. Soon after, bullying isn’t bullying anymore. It becomes a recurring sentence out of some random person’s mouth. It’s meaningless, therefore unimportant. This consumes you until it becomes the life of a person who has been bullied, but for bullies, however, their lives dramatically differ. As a kid they often ignore the pain they inflict, they choose not to hear the story of a bully. As they grow older they pick their first victim to project their own anger and sadness onto. Heading into their teenage years bullying becomes a part of who they are. They are no longer aware of the effects they have on others. At this point, bullies have developed a habit. “Dictionary.com” defines a bully as a “blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people,” but what they fail to mention is the influence bullying can have on one person.
Growing up with your own personal bully can cause a miserable childhood, but the result does not have to be negative. After having first hand experience with my bully, I realized that with every night I went home crying, or every public humiliation, I got a little bit tougher. The amount of strength I had built up allowed me to overcome the flood of emotions they had inflicted on me and allowed me to help others with their own bullies or even the same bully. If I had the chance today, I would take great pleasure in thanking the bully who changed my life. I’d thank them for challenging my limits. I’d also thank them for creating the person I am today. I was able to overcome the torment from my bully but not alone and certainly not without a few scares, but not all were as lucky as I was. Some people face, what seems like, endless torture to this day. Places, like school boards, have recognized this and created anti bullying regulations, but that is not enough. The adults cannot recognize bullies like we can. As a youth society, we need to stick up for each other instead of just walking by when we see someone getting bullied. We need to put our phones down and discourage fighting instead of encouraging it. We need to pick each other up instead of tear each other down. We need to rise above the hate we give each other. All it takes is showing a little compassion toward a victim in order to defeat a bully, but it saddens me to say not enough people are willing to leave their comfort zone to stick up for what’s right. This results in an alarmingly flawed society.