I Was Bullied

Hello. My name is Julie Fidler, and I am a victim of bullying.
Or, I should say, I used to be.

Like some of you, I spent my childhood being harassed, picking gum out of my hair, and crying to mommy about the scrapes and bruises inflicted upon me by other children. Namely, a girl named Nicki who lived down the street until the 6th grade. She was Satan in a midget's body. I can't say she was popular, though at the time I thought she was. I now realize everyone was afraid of her. She made 'friends' by force.

When the neighborhood gathered for a game of Hide & Seek, Nicki always excluded me. Nobody asked questions or defended me. I was chubby and sensitive, a perfect target for such a hateful being. She called me everything but a Child Of God. When she moved, I thought life would get better. Ah, but it only got worse.

Jenny, the girl across the street, quickly took her place with the help of her trusted sidekick, whose name I now forget. And because Jenny's family hated my family for reasons no one ever explained to me, they also bullied me. I once parked my bicycle in their driveway when I came over to play with Jenny. Her mother wasn't home at the time, but when she arrived, she found me in the basement and told me that she wanted to hit my "mother-effing" bike (she used the real words), but she knew I'd go home to daddy and she didn't want to listen to him "bitch." Just one example of how kind that family was to me.

Sometimes, some of the other girls up the street picked on me, too. Hell, everyone in my neighborhood picked on me at some point. I didn't have a backbone or any self-esteem. I had been sexually abused by a family friend and there were problems in my family. I just wanted to survive. Little kids are absolutely horrid to each other and everyone seemed to work together to make sure I was miserable. They were successful.

As I got older, I countered all of this by becoming hard as nails. So much so, I barely had any friends because I took the attitude that if anybody looked at me the wrong way, I would smash them to a bloody pulp. I developed a sick sense of humor and a foul mouth to back me up. I went from bullied to invisible... unless somebody messed with me. I wanted to kill myself. You bet your life I did. Either that, or I wanted a Mack truck to hit everyone at the bus stop on one of the mornings I stayed home from school.

Now I'm 31 and I don't hate those kids anymore. People change. I've changed, thank God. Do I still struggle? Yes, I do. I have been a churchgoing Christian since I was 13 and I still wrestle with the belief that other "church ladies" are better than me... or at least, they think they are. I don't like thinking about my childhood because it makes me very sad and as far as I am concerned, I never really HAD a childhood. But I have a good husband, a good life, an amazing God, and all in all, I think I've turned out OK.

What about the kids who never make it this far? What about the kids who take their own lives or go on a shooting spree at school? Who speaks for them?

Bullying used to be a rite of passage. You just...dealt with it. It was a part of growing up. Now we're all starting to realize that isn't the case, nor should it be. Bullying is serious and damages people for life. A talking-to by a teacher won't solve the problem. So what do we do? How do you take bullying seriously - and punish it seriously - while remaining age-appropriate? We can't throw kindergartners in jail for calling people fat, but we can't ignore it, either.

If nothing else, these kids need to be called out and held accountable. They should have to somehow atone for what they've done. And, because there is obviously a reason why kids act out in the first place, they should be given appropriate psychological help. I'm sorry, Nicki, but the way you acted back then wasn't normal. You needed a therapist. Desperately. We've all said something not nice, but you made it a way of life.

Those are the kids... that need to be dealt with.
The question is... how? Pin It