Pink Shirt Day - My history with a bully

Today is Pink Shirt Day here.

For those who don't know, Pink Shirt Day started very small. In 2007, a grade 9 student (male) in a rural Nova Scotia community wore a pink polo shirt to school the first day. No big deal right? Well, a boy wearing pink was apparently a big deal to a couple of bullies. They threatened to beat him up. They called him gay. They did everything they could to humiliate him.

Two popular grade 12 students heard about this and were outraged. Rather than bully the bullies, they went out and bought 50 pink shirts. Then they recruited their friends and classmates to wear pink the next day. The school was a sea of pink that day. Rather than right the bullies, these boys made it clear that there was nothing wrong with wearing pink, being different. What started as simple support for a boy they didn't even know has turned into an international movement.

Today is Pink Shirt Day to raise awareness about bullying. To give a voice to people who sometimes don't get heard until we read about it in their obituary.

Bullying comes in many forms. It can be subtle or obvious. It can be physical, emotional or both. Oftentimes a 'difference' is used to single someone out for harassment. Sometimes it's just luck of the draw. In all cases, it causes distress, can cause depression and possibly even lead to suicide if it's not addressed.


We moved a lot when I was growing up. Eventually we settled into one neighborhood (2 different homes, same school area) when I was in grade 5. I went to the same school from grade 5-8 then onto one of the local high schools. In grade 5, there was a girl in my class who decided I was to be her victim. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was smaller. Maybe because I was the new kid. Maybe because I got good grades. Or maybe there was no reason. What ever the reason, she picked me. So what type of bully was she? She was the all encompassing type, both physical and emotional/psychological. She hit me whenever she could with whatever was handy. She humiliated me, or tried on any and every occasion. She threatened and intimidated me. I was scared of her. Terrified. I changed my route to school so I would not go anywhere near her. I dropped out of, or didn't sign up for certain school groups because she was in them. I had nightmares. The grown ups knew, and as they did back then it was dismissed as something to be outgrown, for me to get a back bone, or fight back. I tried the fighting back, got a nose bleed for the effort (she was bigger and stronger) I increased my avoidance after that. I did have some great friends back then. The didn't believe some of the stuff she said to try to make people tease me too. That made some of it easier.

Eventually, I finished grade 8 and moved onto high school While we were still in the same neighborhood, she was on the other side of the dividing line for high school, so we went our separate ways. I rejoiced (a lot) but I still had to avoid her in the neighborhood and even skipped parties if I knew she was going. At one point they talked about merging our two high schools and I didn't sleep for a couple of weeks. She still had that hold on me.

Even now, as an adult, I'm still afraid of her. Logically I know, she wont beat me up (the law would step in since while for some reason kids can hurt kids, adults can't hurt adults). She can say what she wants about my personality etc but I'm a pretty open book and have such a great group of friends there is nothing she could say that was true that would cause them to turn away from me and I know (hope) they know me enough that if she tried a lie, they wouldn't believe it. So why, as a successful adult can she still scare me? I saw her name on FB as a friend of a friend. Part of me wanted to say something but still, I was too scared. Not just of her, but what if she didn't remember? What if, her treatment of me, meant so little to her that she didn't remember it or me? I know I need to let go. I'm working on it. Maybe one day I will message her. Maybe.

I am so happy that when I grew up we didn't have the internet (heck we barely had PCs when I finished high school). Now you don't even have to see or even know someone to bully them, it can be done over the internet as easy, if not easier than in person.

I worry, a lot, about my kids growing up in this world. I am doing what I can for their self esteem so that at the least, if someone tries to emotionally bully them, they have the personal strength of character to get through it, or ask me for help. There are two of them, and they are very close, so honestly, I doubt either will be bullied physically as a twin will always be there to back him up.

The other part, doing something 'juvenile' and having it put on FB (or whatever is out there then) and having to live with it. I don't know how to prepare them. I guess make sure they have enough confidence to avoid the situation or if they find themselves in it enough trust in me or another adult to ask for help. I need to teach them to be 'social media' aware at each age and stage without making them fear the world.

I also need to make sure I model/teach enough that they never become a bully, or even just go along with a crowd who is bullying. In many ways, I think this will be harder. Peer pressure can be so overwhelming.

So, today is Pink Shirt Day. Everyday is anti-bullying day.

Results Not Typical

We see this in small print on assorted things (most commonly weight loss promotions). It's how companies protect themselves from lawsuits when things don't quite work out the way you hope/expect.

That is what life is all about, results are not typical. There is no such thing as typical. We are not science experiments conducted in controlled environment. We are people with emotions, thoughts and pasts. What works for one person, may not work for another.

Common sense right?

Why then do people find it necessary to attack someone who had a 'similar' experience but got a different result or even had the same result but felt different about it? We see it all the time in comments on Facebook posts or in blogs or op-ed pieces from News Papers.

I'm not talking about comments that disagree with the poster, but ones that attack the poster. Here is a simple example (and nonsensical)

Post
I painted the table red. It looks amazing. I'm so happy I did it.

Comments

• Wow, love it. Wish I had thought of that.
• To each his own. I would have probably picked blue.
• WTF? Blue sucks! You have to be pretty messed up to paint something blue.
• I agree. I had a red table once and it was in the room when my boyfriend broke up with me. Red is horrible. 
• Cute.
• How dare you paint that table! The original wood looked so much better. You totally ruined it. I hope you rot in hell.
• Ignore what other people said, if you like red, keep it.

You get the idea. This is a totally nonsense situation but we've all seen it. Differences of opinions are great. We don't all like the same things, we shouldn't have to. We are not clones, we are people. And even if we were clones, the second we split apart and had unique interactions, our reactions to the same situation could be different.

There is something about the internet that seems to make it okay for adults to bully other people. And that is what it is, bullying. This is not something you would do in person. Yes, posting something on the internet opens it up for public scrutiny. So if you have an opinion that is different and want to share your opinion, do it. But there is no reason to attack another person for an opinion different from yours. It's the opinion you have a difference with, not the person. I've seen some amazing writers pull their blogs because of attacks.

Most recently, I found some disturbing attacks in a series on adoption in Huffington Post called Portrait of an Adoption . The posts are by people with good and bad experiences on all sides of the complexity that is adoption, but most of all they are honest stories written from the heart. This is the third time the series has come up. It's very clear there are many stories to tell.

Adoption itself can be a very emotional issue. Different people may have different feelings on the same aspect of it. And that is fine, good, to be expected. And I think it's good that people share if they had different results in a situation that was similar. I don't think it's good, appropriate or in anyway useful to attack someone, call names etc just because they took a different path or had a different outcome. And that has happened. Some of these people have opened their hearts to share their stories and been attacked by comments. It got so bad that they have had to put comment validation in. I hate that. Comment moderation does stop the attacks but it also deters people from commenting at all. I loved reading some of the comments on the earlier stories where others opened up and shared, even if their outcomes were different from the story. There are less of those now.

So people grow up. There is so much in the media now about kids and teens bullying and how bad it is, how to stop it. Well, one way is to lead by example. Don't be a cyber bully.

Feel free to comment. This is just how I feel. Results not typical.