LibraryLady
Emeritus
Much has been written in these forums about bullying, the bullies, the origins and the consequences. What is hardest to write about is how it feels specifically to be bullied. Everyone knows that it feels bad, that it breaks the spirit, that it hurts. But how to describe exactly the way it feels?
Imagine a hard rubber hammer. The business ends are about two inches in diameter and smooth. Imagine four smaller, similar hammers. Imagine the sharp pain as it connects with your forehead and the dull pain it leaves behind.
Imagine that one day at school you are an ordinary blend-into-the-background kid. A little too bookish to be popular, a little too pudgy to be athletic, a little too shy to be funny. You make a gaffe, seemingly small. You smile at a popular boy or an unpopular girl. You answer a question in class no one else can answer. You pick up someone else’s notebook. The offended party pulls out the large hammer and hits you hard, above the left eyebrow. Your eyes water and for a few seconds the world is in slow motion.
What do you do? If you complain to the teacher, the teacher will wonder why you’re complaining about such a small bruise, the wielder of the hammer will just get angrier, and there is always the code of the adolescent. You do nothing. By tomorrow, you say, this will have disappeared and once more you can scurry along the hallways in blissful anonymity.
But the next day, the offended party is openly carrying her hammer and has armed several of her friends.
In gym class, you suit up in the ugly little tunic required and get in line. You stumble a little landing from the vaulting horse and a hammer hits your knee. You miss a shot at volleyball and the hammer lands on your shoulder. In the showers, your chest is covered with small, round bruises.
But at least classes are a refuge. The teacher would notice the swing of the arm and hear the connecting thud. It’s the trip down the gauntlet in the hallways between classes, where the fresh bruises are collected and the old bruises revived.
And for the following months, that is what school is. You read Thoreau and Gandhi, and try to practice passive resistance. They have not read the same books and don’t know that your seeming meek acceptance is supposed to make them stop. The blows still land on your back, your head, your legs, your arms. You tell your parents, and they explain that this is a part of growing up, that you need to learn to defend yourself. You tell the gym teacher and she tells you to be nicer to them and stop showing off how smart you are. But at least in class, the hammers are neatly stowed under the desks.
One day in class, your favorite class, one kid slyly pulls out her hammer, leans over cautiously, and whacks you on the elbow. The pain paralyzes you. The other kids smell the blood in the water and lift their hammers, glancing cautiously at the teacher. And the teacher watches with a foolish, embarrassed grin on his face as the blows come fast and hard. The last refuge is gone. No other student will come near you for fear of contagion, the teachers look away; the only place to hide is your room at home. And there you stay until the next day of misery.
If you are very lucky, it is near the end of the school year and the next year is a new school.
You begin your new career in your new school with your head down, your mouth shut, and your wall built sturdily around you. Because you know that in the book bags with the high school emblems and the back packs of these new peers, the hammers rest, waiting.
Imagine a hard rubber hammer. The business ends are about two inches in diameter and smooth. Imagine four smaller, similar hammers. Imagine the sharp pain as it connects with your forehead and the dull pain it leaves behind.
Imagine that one day at school you are an ordinary blend-into-the-background kid. A little too bookish to be popular, a little too pudgy to be athletic, a little too shy to be funny. You make a gaffe, seemingly small. You smile at a popular boy or an unpopular girl. You answer a question in class no one else can answer. You pick up someone else’s notebook. The offended party pulls out the large hammer and hits you hard, above the left eyebrow. Your eyes water and for a few seconds the world is in slow motion.
What do you do? If you complain to the teacher, the teacher will wonder why you’re complaining about such a small bruise, the wielder of the hammer will just get angrier, and there is always the code of the adolescent. You do nothing. By tomorrow, you say, this will have disappeared and once more you can scurry along the hallways in blissful anonymity.
But the next day, the offended party is openly carrying her hammer and has armed several of her friends.
In gym class, you suit up in the ugly little tunic required and get in line. You stumble a little landing from the vaulting horse and a hammer hits your knee. You miss a shot at volleyball and the hammer lands on your shoulder. In the showers, your chest is covered with small, round bruises.
But at least classes are a refuge. The teacher would notice the swing of the arm and hear the connecting thud. It’s the trip down the gauntlet in the hallways between classes, where the fresh bruises are collected and the old bruises revived.
And for the following months, that is what school is. You read Thoreau and Gandhi, and try to practice passive resistance. They have not read the same books and don’t know that your seeming meek acceptance is supposed to make them stop. The blows still land on your back, your head, your legs, your arms. You tell your parents, and they explain that this is a part of growing up, that you need to learn to defend yourself. You tell the gym teacher and she tells you to be nicer to them and stop showing off how smart you are. But at least in class, the hammers are neatly stowed under the desks.
One day in class, your favorite class, one kid slyly pulls out her hammer, leans over cautiously, and whacks you on the elbow. The pain paralyzes you. The other kids smell the blood in the water and lift their hammers, glancing cautiously at the teacher. And the teacher watches with a foolish, embarrassed grin on his face as the blows come fast and hard. The last refuge is gone. No other student will come near you for fear of contagion, the teachers look away; the only place to hide is your room at home. And there you stay until the next day of misery.
If you are very lucky, it is near the end of the school year and the next year is a new school.
You begin your new career in your new school with your head down, your mouth shut, and your wall built sturdily around you. Because you know that in the book bags with the high school emblems and the back packs of these new peers, the hammers rest, waiting.
