Yesterday I had dinner with my Middle school bully.

Last night I met up with 2 ladies that I went to school with 30 years ago. One of the ladies so happened to be a girl who bullied me (verbally) during our middle school years.

What I find interesting in this situation was the non caring on either part of us. I never was upset with her after school finished for her verbal abuse and honestly she probably had no clue that she had. As adults we are friends and like each other.

Why do I bring this up? Bullying doesn’t always last a lifetime, especially with kids. Bullying is not fun but it is a part of our lives in many different ways. We need to understand this and deal with it appropriately. Unfortunately, the war against bullying is not really dealing with it but trying to stop it rather than recognizing that to really make it less is to teach those who are being bullied to not take it personally.

I grew up in a time when I was expected to deal with the bullying, to learn to deal with it emotionally and find my personal way of dealing with it. By the time I was in grade 8/ 9 I had stopped letting words hurt me deeply. (Don’t get me wrong, I still have some of those words go through my head as an adult, but I have taught myself to divert those negative worlds and move past them).

To me this is where the Stop Bullying campaign has failed. In trying to stop the bully , we have stopped allowing those bullied to grow stronger, deeper and sometimes even survive in the ‘real world”.

A person who was bullied and survived are often productive and also can handle the workplace bullying that will inevitably happen. If a person hasn’t figured out how to deal with others and others opinions (true or not)of you in a way that is productive, disaster eminently occurs.

I have seen many of my friends who were the light of high school, had the “perfect” experience while is school, fail miserably after school emotionally. Dealing with work place bullies for example. Taking everything personally because it appears the bully is targeting you, it effects your work, how you deal with others at the work place, etc.

While looking for some information I came across nobullying.com . This sight appears to take bullying in a great way. Bullying is often due do to the stuff they are also dealing with themselves and projects it on those they bully.
The following picture is very good on understanding the cycle of bullying.

Without learning how to deal with an unpopular view of yourself and understand that it really isn’t you but a reflection of how that person feels about themselves, you will have an even harder time changing a negative comment to a positive and move forward.

One thing I learned during my middle school years, I realized that being nice and kind back you will find that the bully can’t push back. It may take time but it does happen. The bully often later becomes your friend and even stops bullying.