Dealing With the Fallout of Severe Bullying: A Personal Story

“MAN-WOMAN”

“FUCKING MAN BEAST.”

These are just a couple of the many “nicknames” I had at school.

On the downside, the constant name-calling and physical attacks in my teenage years have greatly affected me in adult life.

On the flip side, it sounds like my bullies already knew I was gender non-conforming…and gay! It’s nice of them to acknowledge that…

In all seriousness, I’m here today to talk about how we can carry the effects of childhood bullying way into adulthood and how the hell we can cope with the aftermath.

On the outside, I’m a success story. I escaped from my small town, made my own way in life, I’m financially independent, I love my job, I’m forging my way in playwrighting, I have a wonderful wife-to-be, and the most amazing friends. I am grateful for all of these things every day.

But this isn’t about that at all.

On the inside, I deal with episodes of depression, continuous low self-esteem, intrusive thoughts and PTSD.

I am not alone in this. I want you to feel like you’re not alone. If I can tell you my story and we can work through our troubles by discussing them together, then that’s something, right? Please do feel free to talk about your experiences in the comments.

“But the bullies probably had a tough home life”

I hear this one a lot. Your bullies may have had tough home lives, though there’s one flaw in the argument: bullied people may have also had tough home lives. It’s how you deal with your situation that makes the difference. I didn’t feel the need to push someone’s face into a wooden fence with nails poking through it because I was facing difficulties in my home life, for example. Isn’t that just common decency?

Someone did it to me though. Apparently, it’s because I’m “ugly.” The word is in brackets because, as I’ve learned over the years, the only “ugly” thing about a person isn’t their looks — it’s how they treat others. I know some may scoff at this, but think about it: psychologically most people are repulsed by people who do and say hateful things…no matter how conventionally good-looking they may be.

I threw myself into my studies from age 12 to 18. I got, and I hope this doesn’t come across as boastful, very good grades at school (see — I’m even too scared to properly acknowledge it in case people think I’m arrogant! Note to self: have more faith in yourself). My love of learning was my ticket out of my hometown and, more importantly, my coping mechanism for how suicidal I felt on a regular basis. That, and music!

The bullying was so severe that I could barely breathe without someone commenting on it and gathering all their mates to make fun of me. Oh, and beat me up. Regularly. I thought heteronormative people were supposed to condemn “boys hitting girls” but because I supposedly looked masculine, I was fair game. My fiance experienced the exact same thing at school. Her ribs were broken at one point (at this point in writing, I needed to step back for a few minutes, I get a lump in my throat every time I think of her going through that). We were constant targets. Why are people, kids and adults alike, so obsessed with picking on those of us who may not be “attractive” in their eyes? I have the same question for those who are negatively obsessed with someone else’s gender or sexuality.

Bully-spotting at the pub

During the holidays in my first year of uni, I came back to my hometown to the very few friends I had managed to make in my part-time Saturday jobs during my time at school.

My friends and I were sitting in a pub and I spotted one of the bullies from my school, slumped at the bar. I didn’t do or say anything. I caught his eye by accident and he laughed at me and pointed to me and whispered to his mate. I can only imagine it was something like “That girl is from my school. We used to call her Diego Forlan after the footballer….because she’s a fucking man-woman.”

It still hurt. Even if Diego Forlan was a “good-looking” guy, I knew they meant it as an insult. A woman who looks more masculine is a threat in their eyes. The pub bully looked at me like I was shit on his shoe. It hurt because in all those years I had never said or done anything nasty to him — even in retaliation (more on that later…I did retaliate against another one of my bullies).

Instead of getting upset, I surprised myself. I realised I felt sorry for him. He was 18 years old, stuck in a grotty pub, propped up at the bar in the middle of the day still bullying the same people he bullied at school.

It dawned on me that this guy was sad…in all definitions of the word. They say it’s a cliche that bullies “peak” socially at secondary school. I don’t think it is a cliche. Sure, some of those bullies go on to become people in positions of power but, for the most part, many bullies are unhappy and insecure. Or just incredibly emotionally unintelligent.

It was a little bit easier from that day onwards not to take bullying as personally. It helped me forge a few coping tools for adult life…

The bullying doesn’t stop when you reach adulthood

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there are still fully grown people that act like school bullies. I couldn’t quite believe it when I became the victim of bullying again in my early twenties.

I was in a meeting at work. An ideas pitching session. No holds barred. I mentioned a competitor and how a particular work environment set-up was doing well for them and how our company could do something similar. Somehow, this turned into a rumour that I was a spy working for the competitor. A fucking industry spy!

Of course, this is categorically false, but everyone believed it….because a “popular” employee had spread the rumour. I called them out on it and they had the audacity to be surprised that I didn’t like that people were spreading rumours about me. I quit later that month.

I have an enthusiastic, cheerful but slightly nervous demeanor in “real life.” If you ever meet me in person, you would never believe I have been through so much trauma. My Golden Retriever-like demeanor has worked against me several times in the workplace. A colleague told me that I should “stop being so fake because you’re making everyone look bad.” She continued to pick on me for a few years. I had to quit that job too. I know I could have talked with HR, but I can explain…

Please don’t beat yourself up for not speaking out — the bullies do that to us enough already

We don’t always have the emotional and mental strength to call every single bully out, so I just persevered with some of my experiences of being bullied in adulthood.

You know the drill as a child, if you ever dared to call a bully out for shitty behaviour, there was always someone waiting outside the gates at hometime to beat us up (arms and back only in my experience — so my family wouldn’t see!).

But what happens if we, the bullied people, retaliate?

There was just one time where I retaliated against one of the biggest school bullies. I was sitting at my desk in the classroom and the bully pushed my chair right up against my desk…with me still sitting in it. He was trying to suffocate me and was telling me I should die because I’m “a disgusting man-woman.”

My fight or flight kicked the fuck in that day. I managed to grab a compass from the desk and I stabbed his hand so he would let go. I couldn’t scream because I had no air in my lungs. This was my only choice. That….or pass out.

He had the audacity to call me a bitch. The boy tried to suffocate me and I was a bitch for defending myself. He kept his distance after that. But, get this, I felt awful for hurting him so I never retaliated at school again.

Speaking of self-defense, I did take up judo for a while. I’m so glad I did because it came in very handy a little later on in life

A drunk man approached me and my then-girlfriend. I could see pure hatred in his face. I knew what was coming.

“Fucking dyke.”

OK, I thought, standard insecure homophobic man. No big deal. I get this a lot.

Then came the golden, inevitable line:

“You fucking man-woman.”

Then his fist flew at my head. He missed, but as his fist swooshed past my temple I uchi-mata’d the hell out of him that night…and no that’s not as fun as it sounds.

An uchi-mata is one of the first throws they teach you in judo. They also teach you how to “fall” properly so you don’t hurt yourself if things go wrong.

I’m 5ft 3 and the bully was well over 6 ft. You can imagine his complete surprise…

A common misconception about judo is you need to be super strong to throw someone twice your size over your shoulder. Sure, you need a little bit of welly, but most of it is based on momentum and balance. I was used to throwing much bigger men, too. My judo instructor was built like a brick shithouse and I still managed to execute the throws on him (he was very proud of me!). Basic physics helped me that night.

For those of you worrying about the “man” I threw over my shoulder. Don’t. He was prepared to endanger my life so I acted accordingly. He was fine. All he hurt was his pride.

That was my only retaliation to a bully in adult life. The difference between judo-gate and compass-gate is I didn’t feel guilty afterward. Hey, look ma! I’m getting a little bit more self-confident!

I’ve learned that it is OK to speak up if you feel you’re being bullied. I know people are supposed to learn that a lot earlier on in life, but when you have no self-confidence, these things don’t come easy to us.

It would be fantastic if I could say I developed a high level of self-confidence over the years, “cured” my PTSD and never felt any after-effects of being bullied. But I would be lying. We are forever-growing. Bullies who still bully are never-growing.

Sometimes I’m sure some of us would love to learn how to not give a fuck, but then you would lose the very essence of yourself: your kindness, your empathy, your sensitivity, your life experience, your awesomeness (yep — you are awesome. Air hugs to you in these covid-times).

Your toolkit, your way

I’m 32 now and I’m still healing from the aftermath of childhood and adulthood trauma from bullying. I have built up a good toolkit for myself to cope with flashbacks, intrusive violent thoughts and panic attacks.

The toolkit isn’t a fix-all for everyone. Mine was created through trial and error. What works for one person may not work for another. For example, I do what I call “audio journaling”. It may even have a proper name, but I can’t be bothered to look it up right now. Basically, I record myself talking about what’s on my mind. Of course, I will always talk to my loved ones about things troubling me, but audio journaling is a great way to get things off my chest when I just want some alone time. I rarely listen back to my audio journals, but when I do listen to them I find myself smiling. When you hear yourself talking about your problems, it’s easier to make sense of them.

Medication might be in your toolkit. I’m aware it doesn’t work for everyone but some people may find it helps with day-to-day tasks. If it helps you form some sort of routine or structure in your life, then you may be on to a winner.

Trivially, washing up is one of my coping mechanisms. I find it relaxing as I will listen to music very loudly on my big bassy headphones. If I’m in a particularly depressed state I know I need to go do the dishes with some loud music. If there are no dishes to do, I know I need to go have a shower as it metaphorically feels like I’m cleansing the bad thoughts away. I focus on thinking about new inventions in the shower. I don’t know why.

Your toolkit could also include your identified triggers (or, as I like to call it “things that make me go ARGHH!”). One of my PTSD triggers is social media (bullies galore!) — so I don’t have social media anymore. Another one of my triggers was alcohol…I quit that too. But don’t let that put you off — it’s not just about quitting things or avoiding things.

Identifying your traumatic triggers can help you deal with them head-on! One of my triggers is walking on narrow pavements next to a busy road. This is because people would shout abuse at me and throw stuff from their cars. It hasn’t happened for many years now, but I use breathing techniques to get through it and sometimes I might wear big headphones to drown out the noise of the traffic. If I don’t have headphones, I will just put my fingers in my ears. I’m aware this may make me look silly to passers-by but it’s how I cope.

Nothing changes the fact that you and I have, and still do, suffer the awful effects of bullying. There is no cure-all magic pill to take everything away, as much as we wish there was. But because we have been through these terrible life experiences, we know we can get through the next year, month, week, minute.

You are made of much tougher stuff than the bullies — because you lived through it. Maybe you’re still living through it (if you are, please do check out the links below).

You’re here. You count. I see you. Right now (don’t worry, just metaphorically. It’s not like I’m outside your house!). And for that, I really do have a lot of admiration for you. Thank you for reading this article and, if you ever need a friend to talk to, I am here!

A few helpful places:

National Bullying Helpline

Samaritans UK (I highly recommend the email service!)

Mind (PTSD specific)

Beat (eating disorders charity)