bullying

Resist, Rise, Reign

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When dealing with bullies, or harassment, or systemic oppression, or any persistent problem, really, there are three important facets in affecting positive change.

The first is to resist. Anything they try to do to you, you evade or circumvent their efforts to whatever degree you can, you sabotage their efforts and you power through. Most importantly, though, after you’ve done any remediation you can, you simply live your life as though that wasn’t going on.  Take the wind out of their sails. Bullies can’t stand it when their efforts go in vain.  Take pleasure in knowing that it pisses them off to see you flourish. That helps to alleviate your own rage. Turn the tables on them.  It’s not that they’re harassing you and getting away with it. It’s more like you making them ineffective and feeble, irrelevant, and pathetic losers. That’s what they are, of course.

As you resist, you will also rise against them.  You will rise to a new level of existence. As you live in heightened awareness and ramped up determination, due to necessity, you will hone your coping skills and sharpen your God given strengths.  You will learn that you are stronger than they are, and even stronger than you knew  yourself to be.  Bullies are weak, childish beings. They are powerless before God! Keep that in perspective. 

Unfortunately, when bullying or harassment continues for years on end, as I am experiencing, it’s inevitable that it will get to you at times. You’re only human, after all, but just keep your eye on the prize. Play the long game, and play to win! You’re better than they are!

I have a magnet that has a silhouette of Bigfoot and says “Believe in yourself, even if no one else will.” I claim that over and over.  I’ve been maligned and defamed and slandered by my enemies, underestimated and dismissed and misunderstood by friends and family, but I’ve learned to be self reliant. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, friend or foe. No one else has walked in my shoes. They can judge and dismiss all they want. I shall not be moved!

The last leg of the tripod of defense may seem a bit surprising.  To reign.  It’s bold, I know, but what I mean is to reign over your own life. Own the things you can control and let go of the things you can’t. Be you, and do it full blast! The more they try to crush you, the more you rise! Double down defiantly against the tyranny of the inferior!

An example of that is when I started weight training last fall despite continuous and ever escalating harassment.  Despite being dog tired all the time, and getting a cold once a month like clockwork, I started working out for the first time in about 12 or so years.  I was inspired by a book by David Goggins called “Can’t Hurt Me”.  I highly recommend it.

So, get out there and reign over your mind, your emotions, your talents, your life!  Take help if and when you can get it, and don’t shut out family and friends even though they may piss you off sometimes with their misunderstanding.  No human is an island. You’ll need allies, but you’ve got to have your own body, mind and soul in the right place first. And remind yourself every day that: I believe in myself! I can do it! I shall not be moved! I will overcome! I will Resist, Rise, Reign!!!

Editor’s note: a friend who read this entry posted a comment, which I chose not to approve because it was a bit sarcastic and even felt a little bit mocking. I’m sure that wasn’t the intention, but I just didn’t want to allow any negativity to spoil the post. (I will note that this friend is very good about reading my posts and nudging me when I don’t post for a long time. I appreciate both those things. But I think he misinterpreted the part about starting to workout despite harassment. I was not saying that I’m harassed during workouts, but that the harassment has been constant in every aspect of my life for years on end and I began working out in that environment, despite external negative pressures. I took a positive, healthy action in the midst of petty people trying to drag me down. Perhaps I’m tooting my own horn in saying that, but hey, I deserve it. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. And if they still don’t, double down.

How I met my bully

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I had a paper route when I was a kid. I think it was from about 6th to 8th grades. It was a small town rag, the Bangor Daily News, eight pages or so. Pretty light work. Good thing since it was a whole dollar for the two week collection period. Guess I’m dating myself.

I remember delivering it through all kinds of weather. A record summer where it was in the 90’s about every day all summer. An ice storm which found me teetering on the edge of the curb as if I stood at the top of a hundred foot precipice, desperately trying to save face and not tumble over the edge in an embarrassing array of flailing limbs.  The jock who delivered the bigger regional newspaper in the same part of town, looked on with a sort of bemused suspense from across the street. I managed to recover my balance, long enough to take a step and then fall anyway.  No harm was done.

Then there was the thunderstorm that blew my umbrella inside out, and the time I went to put up my umbrella, but when I pushed the button, it flew right off the handle on to the sidewalk. And then opened. Good times.

I look back now and laugh, and value the character building experience. Some of that character building came in a different way, which I value even more, though it’s not so funny.

I had several encounters with an older kid and his sidekick/friend. To this day, I’m not sure if he wanted to fight me and was pushing me to that end, or if he just wanted to see how much I would tolerate.

What I do know is that I was totally passive in those meetings. I talked back to him, kind of defensively, but I didn’t raise a fist, or shove him or block him or anything physical. I tried to just keep walking. They would walk along with me, but block my way at some point. It wasn’t that I was refusing to be violent, or making a conscious decision to be forgiving or turn the other cheek. I simply didn’t want to deal with it.

I didn’t want the other boys to be there, to bother me, or even to talk to me. I just wanted to deliver my papers and make the long walk back home to resume reading the latest fantasy epic I’d picked up at Waldenbooks at the mall. (Now I’m really dating myself.)

I couldn’t understand why anyone would do that to another person. It was so alien to me. Unfathomable. And I suppose that led to the feeling that I was doing something to deserve it, that I must have annoyed him somehow.

The bully started with verbal antagonizing the first time I saw him and the sidekick. I can’t say for sure how many times I ran into them, but two times were more distinctive.

One was shortly after a snowstorm and in his efforts to pick a fight had me head first in a snowbank. I was trying to get up and he was pushing me down. A car going by honked loudly, and slowed down. That was enough to scare them off for the day.

The other time, the bully was taunting me with a cigarette saying I wouldn’t even know how to smoke it. I said I didn’t and I wouldn’t want one. He flashed his lighter in my face several times, until finally he accidentally caught a bit of my hair with the flame. I remember that he looked genuinely concerned, and he patted the singed hairs out.

Both boys laughed heartily of course, but some part of him felt bad. I thought about the look on his face sometime later, and I knew that he didn’t come from a good family, just by knowing the part of town he was from. I assumed that he was abused, and that’s why he was acting out. Yet, despite all that, he felt bad when he went too far. I could forgive him then.

But again, I can’t say there was any lofty nobility at the time this was going on, except for God’s presence in me. But I think my low energy, depression and anxiety, and low self esteem left me all but paralyzed in the face of a bully I just wanted to avoid.

Perhaps this is why I get so incensed by injustices now. But some kind of reaction is good for me, and anger can be useful when channeled into something constructive. I hope I’ve found a good balance.