Why I Hate Bullies

Yeah. I hate bullies. Big whoop, right? Don't we all pretty much hate bullies? Or, if we want to be a little more PC about it, we hate bullying, not bullies. A sort of "hate the sin, not the sinner" type of nonsense.

But I really hate bullies. I fucking despise them. I mean, my hatred for them is beyond the rational dislike of most folks, whom I like to think have a rational approach towards it because they have a sense of justice and fair play and bullying violates those principles. So they want to end the bullying and, depending upon how bad it is, they might want some sort of justice brought through the legal system.

No. My blood boils when I sense bullying. I fantasize about a comeuppance for the bully that is beyond all reasoning. I want the bullied to be a secret martial arts expert and beat the bully within an inch of their life; I want the bully fired and living in squalor. I want the bullied to be able to sue them and essentially ensure the bully is working to pay off the debt from that lawsuit until the end of his days. 

If it is actual physical bullying, I want that bully to suffer pain every morning he crawls out of bed, or a huge scar that they see every morning in the mirror.

It is a violent, irrational hatred out of all proportion to what a normal person would want to see happen.

It even infects my political beliefs. Now, I don't want to say exactly where on the political spectrum I fall, but I fall there essentially because that is where I believe a hater of bullying would fall. I believe political injustic is really just a large scale form of bullying and it makes me nuts to see politicians and the politically connected get away with some of the stuff they get away with.

I also know that there are those who disagree with me on every single issue, politically, who think the same exact way  --  that "their side" is the side fighting bullying and they can't believe any decent person could possibly disagree with them.

At least, my rational side realizes this. 

But, in this area, at least, my rational side does NOT win out. Not all the time, anyway.

But this isn't a political essay, and I'm not a political writer. I'm writing about mental health and my experience with my toxic family of origin and my struggles with anxiety, depression, and addiction as a result of my upbringing, and what the hell does any of this have to do with that?

Well, Marty was a bully.

Marty was my father.

The funny thing is, if you asked Marty, he'd say he hated bullies too. In fact, the two things he complained most about were bullies and phonies. Now, I'm not entirely sure what constituted a "phony" to him, especially since he called me one once when he saw me using chopsticks to eat sushi. (I remember asking him: "Do you think I'm faking this somehow?")

My worry is that Marty hated bullies because Pop-Pop was a bully.

After all, that's why I hate bullies: because my father was one. So it just stands to reason that Marty would hate bullies because his father was one too.

But I really hope that isn't the case, because my memories of pop-pop are full of fun and love and playing and laughing and all those cool things grandkids should do with their pop-pops.

(My grandmother, on the other hand…well, she was pretty mean. So, I guess there's the possibility that she was the bully and is why Marty hated them.)

So, in what way was Marty a bully? He did not physically abuse us. I want to make that very, very clear. Marty was not a physically violent man. Which is odd, actually, since all four of his kids are pretty damned violent. Of course, two are severely disabled so can't really use physical violence. But they sure as hell love to threaten it, or try to send one of their lackeys to get violent (I'll be writing soon about the time my sister sent a friend to shoot and kill my youngest brother, Joe, for instance).

So, once again, just to be clear: Marty was not a physically violent man and never physically abused us. In fact, I am old enough to have grown up during a time when spanking was considered a normal means of disciplining a kid. People who didn't believe in spanking were the "weirdoes", not the spankers. And, despite this, I think Marty only spanked me once, and even then, he felt pretty terrible about it.

No. Marty was a bully with "his" house and his protection.

Now, I'm not exactly sure at what age I started arguing back with Marty. Was it twelve? Thirteen? I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it was the normal time when teens or pre-teens start becoming great big pains in the ass to their parents. 

And because I grew up with a mother who actively worked to make her kids think worse of their dad, I argued with him about everything. 

Politics? Argued.

Race? Argued.

Movies? Music? Hell, even baseball? Argued. Argued. Hell, yes, argued.

The arguments were either stifled by my mother (ironic, since she had manipulated the souring of this relationship in what I believe was some sick, warped, attempt to be the "savior" of the family, or barring that, the "martyr" who sacrificed herself in a vain attempt to save it.)

(And, boy oh boy, she had no idea just how successful she'd be finding that martyrdom years later when my sister murdered her. But that's a story for another day.)

No, if we (because it wasn't just me who argued with him about everything; my siblings sure did too) didn't back down, we were told to leave his house. Didn't matter what time of day it was, even if it was a holiday. He would scream to "get the hell out of my house!" (Ironic since my parents had stolen our inheritance to buy said house).

Most often, we'd just back down and he would "win."

My youngest brother, Joe, didn't back down, I guess. I was never witness to these events, since I was away at college or had already moved out by then. But I guess he would challenge Marty to fights that usually spilled out into the front lawn. This is about the time when we became known as the "white trash" (yeah, I know it's a racist term, but it's what we were considered) of the block.

Years later, when, as a middle-aged man, my wife and I moved temporarily into the basement of "Marty's" house, he threatened a few times to throw us out. He once did it at 3 AM when I wouldn't wake up and go help him pick up Marty Jr off his floor. (Marty's physical disability had grown so bad by then he was completely non-ambulatory and lived in a housing setting that was not right for him. He would call on an almost-nightly basis because he'd fallen on the floor. But that's a tale for another day.)

I even asked him: "you're throwing me and my wife out onto the street at 3 AM because you're mad at me?"

"You're god-damned right!" he yelled back.

"My wife? Who did nothing?"

"Yep!"

Marty was a yeller. He was a threatener. He used "his" house as a way to bully and intimidate us. But he was never physically violent. I feel obliged to emphasize this.

So, basically, this is how Marty got his way.

For years, I hated Marty. I thought he was a mean, spiteful drunk, a racist who had pissed away his opportunities in life and took it out on those around him.

By the end, though, when he was old and decrepit and a widower, he was more like the Marty I remembered when I was real young - -  funny and kind of obnoxious and more at peace with himself.

I actually look back on him fondly, or at least the old man version of him.

I look back on the middle-aged bully version of him with sadness. I think he was very frustrated with his life. He realized there was something wrong with his wife, I think, and his kids pretty much hated him. I think he felt terribly, terribly alone. 

For this reason, I hate even writing this about him. But this is the truth of who he was and how it affected me.

I also feel he was just a part of a chain of dysfunction that went back who knows how many generations. It makes me nervous thinking Pop-Pop might have been part of that chain. 

But I do know this: I have fought hard to not give in to any bullying temptations on my part. I feared for many years I could have kids and act the same exact way. But Fiona didn't want kids herself, and I was glad to break the cycle, so we never had any.

So I guess these are the two biggest results of this whole thing: my deep almost pathological hatred of bullies, and no children to love and care for and to carry on when I'm gone.

But I think I can honestly say that I am not a bully -- at least, as an adult -- despite many temptations down through the years to be one.

If you found this interesting, think about subscribing to me. I write about my toxic family and how they have affected me to this day. This story includes my anxiety, depression, and struggles with addiction, but also how I found strength through the love of my life, Fiona; and the assistance of some great people along the way. As for my family members, it includes the destruction of our family unit, our complete estrangement from each other, mental illness, drug addiction, homelessness, and at least two murders and one attempted murder.