Small Things Count

Here’s a bully-pulpit for you.  There’s so much in the news about kids being bullied and the damage it does to them not just at the time but throughout their lives.  We never forget those bad experiences when others teased and belittled us, made us feel inadequate, unloved, unwanted, a laughing-stock, emotionally drained, physically ill, terrorized, totally alone in the world.

Use this forum to share an experience you had in which a bully made you feel this way and how it affected your life. Put your story in Comments and I’ll pass it on in a future blog entry.

I’ll start.  I was in 7th grade, shy and plump and walking on crutches and leg braces.  When I’d walk by a certain group of boys, they’d talk in a foreign language, look at me, imitate the way I walked, make hand gestures pointing out my roundish figure.  They even waited until I walked by the stairwell and dropped spit on me from above.  I cried a lot.  I avoided that stairwell whenever possible.  I was afraid to tell anyone or ask others to walk with me.  I was miserable and alone.  Later, that was the language I chose to learn for my college language requirement, and it took several friends from that ethnic group to get me over my fear and, yes, loathing of that group.  As an adult, I still get a twinge of discomfort when I think of those junior-high days, but I’m tuned into bullying and ready to step in whenever I see it.

Now it’s your turn….Write your experience in “Comments.”