I used to be the target of a bully for several years over different schools, it was a rather unique situations. I always considered my bully to be my friend, and his friends to be part of my friends. In reality they where using me to find a outlet for there own fears, I used to never 'stood up' for myself. Eventually I developed a self defense mechanism where I basically placed all the bad experiences inside a little box in my brain (so to speak) where it can't hurt me. This wasn't a real solution but it meant that I wasn't emotionally damaged initially. However as this continued these feelings/emotions where still around, just hidden inside me.
At one point I was basically overcharged with emotions (and a few other reasons I don't want to mention here) and ran away for a day, my parents where extremely worried about me. I came back in the middle of the night, I left without any preparing anything. I just decided while cycling towards school that I wasn't going to stop at school and so I continue'd with no plan or anything. I am still wondering to this point whether its the stupidest thing I ever did or the best thing, when I got back I realized how much I hurted my parents. But the best thing looking back is that it all had to come out at that point, the little box was opened and everything spilled out.
This didn't mean that the bully's where handled at that point, in fact I'm fairly sure they still don't know I ran away. They couldn't do anything because it wasn't much more than constant teasing/taking things/etc. but nothing that was punishable by school. They got a firm talk from one of the teachers and there parents but I still had to solve it myself. This only stopped them temporarily, I know they also viewed me as a friend so they still hanged out with me. This groups mechanic was severely messed up and they considered it normal to 'bully' other members of the group. A while they didn't touch me so to speak, but it didn't take long before they got back in the same pattern.
At that point I made a decision that was both the hardest and the easiest in my life, I decided I wouldn't hang out with them anymore. Its an easy decision because it makes sense if you read the above that you don't hang out with the people that bully you. But it was the hardest decision because I knew these people since childhood, when I was young I swore to the main 'bully' that we'll be best friends for eternity (silly offcourse, but it illustrates that I did consider my friends).
This whole experience however did teach me something, it teached me that the greatest strength is inside of you. I know it will never get as bad again, I won't let it. Not because there aren't people that will bully me around, but because it doesn't hurt me anymore. I know I am above them, they might not realize but thats ok. I am better than the bully's and I am not going to lower myself to there level. This inner strength and realization gave me a lot of confidence in myself.
I am still recovering from all this (even though it ended 4 years ago) emotionally and socially because I still have reservations with friends/unknown people. Those bullies hurt me deep inside and this made me put a cage around myself, now I in the process of breaking down this cage and allowing people to 'touch' me again so to say. But because of my inner strength and confidence I'll be able to cope with it when they turn around and hurt me, after all if I managed to get through everything above than no matter what they do it can't be half as bad. Its difficult at this point to trust people and to trust my emotions to someone...
I hope this is helpfull in some way, it sure feels good to write it down. I'm not sure if its applicable to your specific situation, but hopefully you take something out of it.  |