sensitivity and bullying
I often watch videos and read articles that make me tear up. Sometimes I hear a personal story and mid-conversation my eyes well up with tears. I must’ve gotten it from my grandfather, my father’s father, whose grey eyes have also been known to water in the middle of telling a story. Song lyrics, live instrumentals, children playing near swimming pools, wedding speeches, poverty, injustice and even happiness makes me react this way. I am very aware of other people’s moods and conscious about making them comfortable. Plain and simple, I’m sensitive. That’s why I must have reacted the way I did when I saw a video on Instagram of a dark-skinned child arriving at school after being away in the hospital. He returned with a shaved head and his blond and chestnut-haired classmates embraced him lovingly, commenting only on how he had gotten a haircut.
This brought about a wave of emotions for me, and tears — to see a child receive such a welcoming response. I wanted to tweet immediately that my childhood was not like this — I was bullied for everything from the clothes I wore to the colour of my skin. I wondered, for a moment, if children had changed for the better. But this also prompted me to look back at my childhood a little more closely. Was it something about me that made them affect me so? Was it because I was a sensitive child?
Over the past year I’ve seen a lot of coverage about young people being bullied. It’s always happened, but social media makes such stories viral as more people contribute their experiences. It’s also made me admit to myself that I was bullied as a kid. All this time, I supposed I‘d buried it and pretended it happened to someone else. After all, I’m nothing today like I was as a child. It seems so unlikely and it’s kind of weird to bring up. Why talk about something that happened to you as a kid? Now that I’m confronting those encounters, though, I find the wounds are still present.
My grade school was in a very white-dominated area on the east end of Toronto. Till I was 13, there were a total of perhaps three Asians, West Indians, and a Sudanese guy in my grade. I was the only Indian, but most of my classmates were Italian or Anglo-Canadians. The distance from my classmates began pretty much as soon as I arrived in Canada when I was 5-years old and followed me into high school. The racism is when my memory kicks in, though. See, my skin was not as dark as the child in this video and not as dark as my fellow visible minority classmates. They weren’t bullied, though. They were Canadian-born and they didn’t come to school with an Indian accent. They didn’t wear their cousins’ hand-me-downs or the air of newness that accompanies immigrants. But then, my older brother, who also had darker skin than me, didn’t face racism either and made friends in class from day 1. Was it something about me that made them target me?
Studies show that people who are more sensitive, quiet and withdrawn — which is how I was as a child — are more susceptible to bullying. I realize now that it must have been me who allowed this sort of attention. It would’ve happened whether I arrived with or without an accent, and racism was just the beginning. It was my personality that facilitated this — quiet, pensive and non-confrontational. It would have happened in India, or Dubai, or wherever else my parents moved to. It didn’t help that I was a “goody-goody,” probably a bit of a teacher’s pet, and I liked answering questions in class and doing my homework. I liked sitting by myself on the bus and reading, and I preferred the book fairs to the bake sales. Kids didn’t like that and I was a sitting duck .
I was teased over everything as a child, and it affected me deeply. I can’t remember things from 6-months ago, but I have distinct memories of my childhood. I was chased down a hill and backed up against a fence when I was 7 for reasons I can’t remember. I just recall being scared. I was asked if my parents dipped me in cow dung when I was 8, and if that was the reason for my skin colour. I had at least two nicknames I can remember vividly, neither of them affectionate. One was the title of a kids book, to mock my reading habits. Along the way I had chosen to wear my brother’s and mother’s oversized clothes because I liked them. My other nickname was “Raggedy Anne,” for my perpetually frizzy hair and awkward style.
During summers away from school I sought friendships with kids who lived on my street and from the ethnic communities in my grandmother’s apartment compound, always worrying that one day my new friends would discover by word of mouth what a loner I was during the school year. Before each school year started, I would fantasize about new classmates joining the school and if one of them would be like me — someone with the same skin colour who would want to spend lunch breaks in the library, or hopefully someone really, really kind.
Don’t get me wrong, I made friends along the way. Somewhat strategically but also out of loneliness, I befriended the “big” girls who didn’t make fun of me and those who were outcasted by the “popular” girls because they were humbled. When I was 11, my best friend at the time was a tough, confident sort who never once cracked from people talking about her weight. In fact, I think people were scared of her. She defended me when the twins wearing clothes from the GAP followed me around singing K-Mart jingles — “…where the lowest price is the law.” I broke my arm a year later and they chimed in on a new song my classmates used to rhyme with my name. I never told them to shut up. I always wanted to appear as if nothing could affect me. But really, everything got under my skin and I guess I’m picking all of it out now.
At some point one of my bullies found out about my parents’ business. “Oh. We thought you were poor,” she said, announcing it to a group of classmates. I didn’t say anything in response. It didn’t make a difference. A few years later, when we were 13 and in our last year of grade school, I remember the same girl and her friend laughing while drawing on my face with markers. I remember her breath on my face as I stood still and let her colour on my forehead. I didn’t stop them, again. My eyes filled up with tears that time and that’s when I believe I got my first apology from any of them. That was our last year together before I moved to a new highschool and they separated into another one.
In my last couple of years of elementary school, I discovered live music and found friends I could go to concerts with. I can truthfully say that grade school was a terrible time for me and high school was slightly better, only because I knew how to put my guard up immediately and recognized the value of my own company. In high school, I laughed everything off and nothing from the outside could penetrate me. By then I was much, much stronger. I also realized how much I’d gained from being targeted as a child, and it propelled me. When a child is tormented by classmates, it’s really difficult at the time but understanding what’s happening makes growing up easier.
What I learned from being bullied
- Sensitivity helps develop empathy.
When you’re used to being the butt of most jokes, you become hyper aware of others’ discomfort and insecurities when they’re targeted because you’re so aware of your own. It’s given me a better understanding of how to treat people and choose words carefully, because words are often what injure people the most. - Criticism is easier to swallow.
Having a thick skin when it comes to criticism helps with self-improvement. I seek criticism at all levels. It doesn’t need to be masochistic, but it creates an honest dialogue about positive change in personal relationships and in the work place. - You gain self-awareness.
As a child, when you’re bullied and targeted without cause, you tend to be on guard a lot. You’re not sure if someone will make fun of your laugh or the shoes you’re wearing. At some point, as an adult, this should fade away. But because you start analyzing yourself from a young age, it becomes second nature to look at yourself from the outside. - You have a strong idea of your own identity.
Once you’re an outcast, you can pretty much do what you want and be who you are. Nothing’s going to bring you into the cool crowd, and that’s OK. You won’t be swayed as much by peer pressure and you can be yourself completely. You can start developing your identity earlier on and stay true to it. - You can get lost in your own world.
I built my first website when I was 13 and started acting, writing and doing volunteer work early in high school to keep busy because nobody made social plans with me on weekends. I wasn’t invited to the house parties or movies on Friday nights. My classmates had boyfriends when they were 13 while I was reading my parents’ set of Encyclopedias. Instead, my first kiss was halfway through high school at 16, the same year I made a friend who gently helped me recognize that I could be confident, strong and beautiful. - You’ll get along really well with geeks, who are ultimately the rising stars once adulthood hits.
It’s a known fact that geeks triumph in adulthood and that the majority of bullies get lost between the cracks. After high school, the geeks run everything. I’ve taken great pleasure in clicking “ignore” on repeated Facebook friend requests from the GAP twins, and blocked one of them because she was so persistent. Petty, I know, but it’s been 20+ years and it’s too late to respond with comebacks. Oh, and they didn’t age too well. How’s that for a comeback?
I’m certain that if it weren’t for those terrible years, I would’ve been someone completely different, and today I really like who I am — as do the majority of people who know me☺. Whenever I see reports about kids falling apart and suffering through cyber bullying, I want to nudge them along and tell them that it really, really does get better. There is so much empowerment you can find in yourself when everyone around you is doing their best to push you down.
(this was written in 2016 and published much later)
