I found it difficult to write this without being reminded of my own little instances of, ‘being bullied’ and re-living the feelings I experienced from every remembered occasion. Franklin Roosevelt once said that there is nothing to fear except fear itself and he couldn’t have been more right. For example: The bully at school and the thought of facing this each and every day. Such a torturous existence knowing the inevitable was awaiting through the doors of a perceived safe environment. On the contrary, from a small scale this is not the case. Instead, a child somewhere is walking along the hallways of any school, USA, walking in fear and wading through feelings of lament, for the appearance of, ’the bully’ and its outcome. Ridicule, humiliation, shame and worthlessness are a few emotions that only begin to scratch the surface.

How many kids across America fake being sick? How many children took a different route home from school? Anything, at any cost, just to avoid the onset of further escalating the emotion of dread. When most kids are looking forward to seeing their friends, the unfortunate aspect is that the few who are bullied don’t usually have friends. They want friends. Real bad. They want to fit in, go to parties and after school events. They want to be called at night. To feel included. To feel normal. Instead, the bullied lead a bleak existence of internal torment. The young should not have to endure emotions which are bestowed upon the unwilling.

The small, timid and weak. The ugly, slovenly dressed and funny named. The overly obese and strangely skinny. The ones who arrive first in class and they’re first to leave too. They must in order to get a head start. Ahead of the fear and loathing, poured onto them, from their nemesis. We know all too well that kids can be cruel as hell. No mercy or compassion and the bullied are relegated to running for their little, kid lives. It must be a momentous occasion for one of the poor souls to make it home unscathed.

It is not hard to spot someone who is most likely being picked on. They’re the quiet ones. They walk with their heads down. Always avoiding or initiating contact with anyone. Very reluctant if prodded or asked repeatedly about anything personal. It is sad. Very sad and it shouldn’t have to be this way. How many of you wanted to stick up for someone? I did. Even though, I too, was small, there were many instances where I wanted to, because I felt bad for the individual. You can see the humiliation. The wretched, “why is this happening to me” look on their, teary eyed faces. This is what compelled me to want to intervene. To my disgust, I was unable. I was sometimes smaller than the ones being picked on. Fate wanted me to, but my body wouldn’t allow it.

There were a few occasions when that shining knight in armor did ride in and save the day. Usually, in the form of an adult. Still, the horror was extinguish; albeit, temporarily. The most hopeful event, we wish would happen, is if an oddity of a kid in the same grade who towered over all the other kids. The one kid everyone feared. Even the bully themselves. We all envision this big kid, in an adult’s body, would take the bully and throw them over the schoolyard fence. Very much like the old movie, ‘My Bodyguard’ starring Matt Dillon as the bully. He picked on this middle-school kid one time too many. So the middle school kid hires a bodyguard. A guy in the same grade who did look like a Neanderthal, but took the kids money and beat up Matt Damon. This allowed all the other weaker and bullied kids to rise up and stand up for themselves. Then, as if to expose their new-found confidence, and shatter it in a million pieces, Matt’s character in the movie went and hired a bigger guy to beat up the weakling’s hero. To the horror of all the school, the hired bodyguard lost and the bullied were vulnerable, yet again. They were forced to stand up and take matters in their own hands. And they did and drove the bullies from ever thinking about picking on them again.

A good moral. Gather up all like-minded, picked-on, and otherwise weak kids. Band up together and over come the adversity which causes the worry, anguish, and solitude developed over a lasting episode of being bullies. If it were only that easy. The feelings of the bullied are hard to dispense with and they’re still around. On another boy or girl who at this very moment, are being bullied.

Jeff Payne

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