Bully? Or Bullied?

I have loads of regrets about my childhood, I know, I know, we would never expect a child to understand the repercussions of certain behaviours but let me just clarify what I mean. I have always been acutely shy. As a child I got a lot of unwanted attention, I did, and still do look like the life-sized model of a porcelain doll. My skin has always been extremely fair, and my hair has always been close to white. My mother dressed me in the most adorable outfits, so its no wonder that we couldn’t walk down the street without some strange random person speaking to us. I hated it, I hated it so much, I didn’t want to leave the house at all. I didn’t know how to handle social interactions or people in general, I just wanted to fade into the background, and I was pretty mute if I’m honest. I had a speech impediment, which is actually quite ironic now, as these days people tend to comment on how beautifully I pronounciate my words but it wasn’t always the case. I became so self-conscious about my speech that I would actually just hide behind whatever object was closeby and ignore whoever was speaking to me — How rude huh? I had always felt that I missed out on a lot of things due to my shyness, I had no friends growing up, and never really managed to fulfil any potential.

So, I mean, you get the picture; shy kid, introvert, boarderline agorophobic, chronic anxieties.. I had believed, probably up until my early 20s, that these behaviours had only ever affected myself. I’ve always been very introverted, and I had never once stopped to think about how other people may have translated my behaviour.

A few years ago, I began ’getting out there’ and I found a lot of connections with people I had once gone to school with. A common theme was the perceived ‘snobbery’ people believed I had, and I’m really ashamed to say, but even whispers of bullying. There was one girl in particular, that I haven’t met since we were children but I’d become friendly with a group of her friends. One day, I’m not too sure how it came about but it was relayed to me that this girl had said in regards to them spending time with me; “Oh, is she not dead yet?”. Ok, so this is a horrible thing for someone to say, and I was deeply hurt and upset by it. As we discussed it further, it became clear that my self-loathing behaviour had actually translated to this girl as a deeply embedded hatred, she genuinely felt that I snubbed and bullied her. It’s haunted me for years, wanting to reach out but knowing that actually that would be only to ease my own conscious. The bullying that she felt, I can understand, I didn‘t speak to her, I probably did ignore her, perhaps I did unintentionally gave her dirty looks (I do have one of ‘those’ unfortunate RBF), and I obvious did make her feel uncomfortable.

I think I will always feel bad about it, but, hearing that made me alter my ways. I started to really identify how people interpretted behaviours, body language, silence and I tried to rectify it. As for this girl, our paths have never crossed, but I’ve had the odd snoop on facebook and she’s beautiful, has a wonderful job, loving husband (which, FYI, is more than can be said for me). We all want the revenge on the school bully, and even if we don’t realise it ourselves I think we are all guilty of both intentional and unintentional bullyish behaviour, I accept responsibility for mine and I hope that this girl - who will remain unnamed, does eventually see that during the years in which I made her feel bad about herself, where years in which I actually felt bad about myself. None of it was intentional, so much in fact it took 15 years for me to even become aware of it. Its something that I am deeply sorry for, and if I could extend an olive branch, apologise for how I made her feel, I would.

In reality, I hope that those negative feelings and experiences she had due to my behaviour are completely forgotten, its a fairly egotistical belief that I would ever still cross her mind and I think that speaks volumes when comparing a bully to the bullied. You always remember the bully, and I can promise you, that you never realise that you, yourself may be remembered as the bully, but in the unlikely case that you are, its ok to forgive yourself. The person that you made feel shitty and unworthy, is most likely doing a damn sight better than you. If you’re anything like me, the behaviour was legitimately unintentional and came from your own feelings of inadequacies, they most likely didn’t have any deep rooted demons that they carried through to adulthood.

Of course, I don’t want to think that I ever bullied someone, and I certainly don’t want to be remembered for that, but the truth is that I did make someone feel deeply unhappy, I did make them feel bullied and victimised whether that be intentional or not, it only leads me to believe even more so, that we need to be mindful of how things may be perceived, not as children obviously. I’ll cut myself a break on this, this girl and I frequented the same school from ages 6-7 (I left after a year) and the same ballet class for around 6/5 years when we were very young children so you cannot expect a 7yr old to understand that a snidey sideways glance may be conceived as nasty to someone else. I am just speculating about the damage that can be done, the need to forgive, and the need to allow yourself to be forgiven.

That has been my first turning 30 idea, to just let it go. It really has been a feeling of contention for quite some years. I think getting it out there on paper is sort of putting it to bed for me. I don’t want to go into my 30s holding onto all of these regrets or beating myself for things I didn’t know better for.

So to that girl who remembers me as a bully, I wholeheartedly apologise, and to the little girl that I was, lost and scared, I apologise to you too. I should have been kinder, the world should have been kinder to you and to the big girl writing this rambling nonsense, you too are forgiven, even more than forgiven, you are not a bad person, you are only human.

Bullies, and bullied alike, lets forgive and lets love and learn. I know I have.