The following story was submitted by a Bully Confessions reader known only as “A”. It’s easy to see it was difficult to write and took a great deal of courage to share.
Hello… I don’t know why I’m writing this, and whom it may help, but I guess I just wanted to get it out of my system somehow.
I was born in a middle class family, in a poor country, to a loving mother and father. I was sometimes abused by my other relative, but I did not pay much attention to that, once I learned how to stand up for myself, things got easier. I am now living in a different place, studying in a university of art, having a pretty good life. I have strong morals, I fight for human rights and am, as you may say, a closet feminist. But I wasn’t always like that.
When looking back at my past, the thing I regret the most, is me being a bully in elementary school. I’m ashamed that it used to be me. I was not the classic bully that would hit everyone, constantly keep them in fear and take their money. I think I was worse than that. I targeted a person and made sure their life was hell from that day on. Luckily enough, I only did it to one person before I changed schools. I never bullied again.
My victim was a girl of my age, that sat behind me during class. She was made fun of by the whole class, more or less, but no one was as hardcore as I. The reason for her to be bullied, was the fact that she smelled. She smelled strongly of urine, you could smell it in the whole classroom sometimes. Her mother was an alcoholic, and her whole family looked really dirty. All I can remember, is that I was completely disgusted by her. I didn’t see her as a human being even. Whenever I smelled her, I would forget everything and harass her. The smell was like a red cloth in front of a bull.
I don’t know if it was her fault, I don’t know the reason why she neglected personal hygiene so much, I don’t care. Freaking out like that and bully her, had no excuse whatsoever. I called her names, I laughed at her, ridiculed her in front of everybody. She seemed to have some speech troubles, she was slow when speaking and sometimes stuttered a little. that only made it worse for me, I had to mimic her. When I provoked her enough that she started snapping back at me, it was as a charge signal for me to start hitting her. Whenever we ended up in a fight, I did not hold back.
Nobody ever cared to intervene, for them it was just entertainment, because everyone disliked her. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must have felt, being hated by the whole class of 32 people. I wasn’t popular myself, sometimes picked on by 2 other girls, but I could stand up for myself, and fought back. But the girl that I bullied, she could not do it. I just wouldn’t stop bullying her.
I sometimes try to remember the motivation I had to bully her. I thought that maybe it was adrenaline, or I got some sort of satisfaction out of doing that to her, But all I can imagine was hatred, and desire to keep the hell away from her, almost panic. That made me think about a lot of things. None of that is an excuse for me to act like an animal though.
There is no excuse to bullying at all. When I got a little bit older, I bullied her less, but if it was ever needed, I would do it anyway. She tried to befriend me on a few occasions. That made me speechless. I realized that it must’ve been her mother telling her to do that, in order for me to stop doing all that. Maybe it had other motives, I don’t know. But even if I did talk to her, walk with her to the bus after school, I still acted cold, and in a week’s time, started bullying her again. I don’t remember much of what was going on during the days of my last years in that country.
I dropped the bullying completely when I got old enough, but I think it was only because I got tired of it, and she actually started smelling less and less. Pretty much everyone didn’t care about her anymore, she even got a friend.
Many years after that, I decided to look up my old class on a website similar to Facebook. But I think the biggest reason for that was to find her and see how she was doing. I started regretting ever doing that to her way before looking her up. I wrote to her, saying hi, and how was she doing. I got no reply of course. Why would I?
I don’t know if I want her forgiveness. I don’t think I deserve it. I made someone’s life miserable – if I didn’t get some karma punch in the stomach by now, I think I will sure get it later on. Her name always triggers some random guilt trip, and I get really depressed. I wouldn’t say it changed my life much, but it sure as hell changed my personality. I just hope that her adulthood will be much better than childhood.
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