Bully for OT!

[catorman]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:
> Well well, good ol' OT has now raised bullying for my perusal!  
Very thoughtful of you all.  Yes, well, I'm not short of first hand 
experience here either, sadly.
> 
> I might have well have tattooed "victim" across my forehead in 
primary school.  I was a terribly timid, desperate to please, self-
conscious and uptight little kid, which was a bad start.  Worse, I 
did well at school, and a lower middle class Australian primary 
school in the 70s and early 80s at that.  Such things are not to be 
tolerated.  Worse still, I was useless at ball games (though not bad 
at athletics, and I now suspect my uselessness at ball games may have 
its origin in self-fulfilling prophecy: I was a goody-goody loser, 
and therefore by definition bad at sport).  Worst of all, and this 
was the clincher, I was, undeniably, Not Australian.  I don't mean in 
the eyes of the Australian government, oh no.  I was born and raised 
in Australia, both my parents were citizens at the time (my mother 
duel with Malaysia).  I mean in the eyes of my peers.  I did not look 
white and of British or at least Northern European stock and had an 
undeniably Chinese looking mother waiting at the gate when I started 
school.
have been removed]

This is all so me, apart from the Australian part - but I also, 
undeniably didn't fit in at school.  During Primary school, I 
remember when I was 6 years old, being held up against a wall by two 
11 year olds, while their ringleader kicked me.  This happened 
regularly until my parents removed me from the school.  Unlike 
Tabouli, I made a very bad decision about my secondary school - The 
next primary school made me throw up my place at the Grammar school - 
I got 3rd place in my county for 11+ and refused to go, because 
someone else I knew who was going to the Grammar school had bullied 
me mercilessly.  Ironically, she became a very timid, introverted 
personality and wouldn't really have given me any trouble.  

Secondary school...useless at PE, top of my class in every subject, 
spoke differently from everyone else ... it was horrible.  To make 
things worse, my father taught in the same school, which made me even 
more susceptible to the bullies - on one occasion I was pushed down 
the tower block stairs.  Not pleasant.

One thing I learnt during this time was that fighting back didn't 
work.  If I did, I was so feeble physically, that everyone would just 
laugh at me - the same if I tried to talk back to them.  I eventually 
stopped being unpopular at school by helping people with their 
homework.  Very sad, I know, but at least it gave me some allies who 
managed to keep the bullying at bay.

There have been a lot of programmes on television lately about the 
effect of bullying on later life - and how it has had very negative 
consequences on the victims.  Not so in my case - I've never put up 
with any such behaviour since my school days, to the extent that I've 
seen bullying in the work place and managed to do something about 
it.  

To be honest, I also take comfort in where I am now, and where my 
bullies are now.  In every case I know about, I am better off.  I am 
happy with my life now and I know full well that many of the people 
who made my life hell as a child and a teenager are not happy with 
their adult lives.  This doesn't make me feel happy, but it does make 
me think that going through hell as a child is worth it if your adult 
life is going to be much happier - I would much rather that than vice 
versa.

Catherine