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December 2007 GCDA Magazine

Interview with a Bully

DEAR DIARY, December 2007, Jenifer Merifield


Interview
with a Bully 


Her name is Kelly. But just for this story. She wishes to remain anonymous because she has a story to tell that’s not so nice. “Kelly” was a bully for three years and she’s not proud of it. While it happened she says it felt like it was “no big deal”, but now, in hindsight, she feels pretty awful about it and wrote in to tell her story so that “maybe somewhere, someone would read the story and realize that they could be ruining someone else’s life!”

Sounds harsh to use the phrase “ruining someone’s life”, but for a tween or teen being bullied and feeling afraid, to them it IS their life.

How it started...
“I was ten years old in grade 5 and a new kid came to our school. I don’t know why but I made a joke about her to my friends in front of her and everyone laughed. At the time, I didn’t think about how she was feeling, I was loving how everyone laughed at my joke and said stuff like ‘good one’ and ‘that was so funny when you said it’ and stuff like that.

What did I say?
I called her the "new loner B****"

That’s not all though, as the weeks went by it just became habit to call her things, like the ‘S’ word and other things I probably can’t say in a magazine. I became popular and other girls never said anything bad to me about it. Mostly, they just called her names too. My friends and I would do high fives or props when we came up with new versions of mean things to say.”

But Why?!
“Honestly? Because she never did anything about it. She acted like she didn’t care and that it didn’t bother her. I knew it did. Sometimes she would say stop and stuff, but she also said stuff like ‘I don’t care’ or ‘get lost’. It kind of made me want to do it even more for some reason.

The sad part is I didn’t care. I didn’t think about it at home or after school or if she wasn’t around. If she was there and I felt like it, I would bully her. At the time I didn’t think I was bullying. It was just fun. It got me attention and I guess I thought it was cool.

By the time I was in grade 6 and 7 I picked on more people. Boys too. No one ever did the same to me, I guess I was like the leader of my friends or what ever and what I said was what we did. Once when one of the girls in my group annoyed me, I made everyone dis her. It was easy. It just became normal to me. I mean, I wasn’t mean to everyone all the time. I still was nice and stuff and adults never knew that side of me because I was smart and polite. My Dad was always on the school committee and teachers liked me.”

So what changed?
“It was the wake up call of all times. We had an assembly for the intermediate grades (We are now all in grade eight). So we sat and listened to the announcements and we had a guest speaker and stuff. I don’t even remember what that was all about. The next part stood out and I’ll never it as long as I live. The principal made an announcement that one of the girls in grade eight wouldn’t be graduating with us in a couple months. I looked around and notice that the only person missing that day was her, the girl I had always bullied.

It turns out that her aunt just died in a car accident, who I didn’t know she was living with because her Mom died when she was only six and she had no Dad. So for the last seven years and struggled with the loss of her mom and now lost her aunt who she knew to be the closest thing to a Mom.

It gets worse because I found out that she had been taking care of her little brother after school and in the evenings while her aunt worked two jobs to support them. She took babysitting jobs on the weekends to help her aunt pay for stuff and she pretty much had no social life and hardly any friends. Her grandmother was in an old age home and she did stuff like make cookies for the old people and bring her cat to sit with her grandmother to make her happy. Now, since she had no one to take care of her anymore, she had to move to a foster home with people she never knew.

That night I went home and cried. I cried all night and I never felt so ashamed in all my life.

I realized that she was a person who was much more real and worthy than I thought I would ever deserve to be.

If I never made fun of her what would have happened? Would we have been friends? Maybe I would have learned to care more about other people that just myself if I took the time to get to know her. For three whole years all I thought about was myself. I will never forget it and I’m sure she never will too.
I wrote eight letters the next night to apologize to all the people I was mean to, including her. I know it doesn’t take away what I did, but hopefully if this letter gets published some other bullies out there will think twice and realize that even the people who annoy them or who they don’t like are worthy humans and have the right to be accepted. Please, do the right thing and don’t do what I did.

~ Anonymous

 

Comment

Nat'ia
God bless her , such a sad story ):

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