Bullies

Three guys were waiting for me behind a little wall next to the classroom. They pulled me out of sight and started beating me up. The fact that we were all six years old didn’t matter. They had had enough time to grow feelings of resentment towards me and I was ready for my first lesson about injustice. I was Dutch, they were Belgian, I was a protestant, and they didn’t know what exactly that was. Neither did I, that is, for me it came naturally to describe myself like that, it was normal, I didn’t know anything else until then. It slowly started dawning on me that not everyone was raised in church. A bleeding nose and a black eye later, the dawning stopped and from then I knew. I was different, weird, and worthy of being bullied.

I can tell you many stories about bullying and what it does to a kid, what it turns that kid into. And maybe I will tell you more stories later, but for now try to focus on those three guys. You’ve probably met them. Maybe you ran into them in high school, maybe you share an office with them and maybe you married one of them. Bullies are everywhere, and because of that, we learn how to deal with them. Even though we all encounter them, and we all must find ways to live with them, it’s interesting to see how different people react differently to the same problem.

Some people become bullies themselves. Some people become scared of everyone. Some people like me learn how to act untouched, learn how to become a leader in a positive way, but are still very scared deep inside. I can remember many times where I didn’t feel comfortable because of other people’s behaviour, gestures, or remarks, and they probably didn’t even realise what they were doing. It goes as far as being afraid of new environments, new people, and new tasks. As I am writing this, I’m on holiday in a new country. I don’t understand the culture, the language, and the facial expressions. It makes me very distant and reluctant towards everyday situations. I remember being in another country for the first time, this is a country that “is known” for being untrustworthy, and I had to tell myself: “Johan, don’t be an idiot, the whole country cannot be a criminal!” Telling myself that helped put things in perspective. Maybe these people aren’t being pushy and manipulative, maybe they are just very helpful and friendly. 

Ok, back to bullies, when I said earlier that you’ve probably met bullies in your life, I’m making an assumption. If this is not the case, I’m actually really happy for you, for all the others, I’m sorry, it’s terrifying. Bullying shapes patterns of thinking in us that we are not designed for, so if we have them, we need to be transformed. That’s right, we not only need to be transformed in our way of dealing with our own sins and wrong doings, but we also need to be transformed in dealing with what others did to us. The only experience I have is my own, so I can only share from that. 

I have three bullies at the moment, their names are guilt, shame, and despair. I only identified them as such after hearing someone say: ‘guilt and shame are not your friends.’ I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I imagined them being two guys that were offering me cigarettes while pretending to be my friends. They are not, they are manipulative, evil bullies and I should stay away from them. But the problem with bullies is that it’s just not that easy. Try telling a bullied teenager to just stay away from the bullies and all will be fine. He will laugh… or cry. Bullies come looking for you. I think I need to learn again how to deal with bullies. What I did in the past never worked… Running makes it fun for them, telling a teacher makes them more passionate, trying to be one of them gives them more ammo and it only empties me out. I need to be in a movie for this. Spider-Man could beat them up for me, Gandalf could probably do even more, but what I need is a permanent realistic solution. My brother always claims to be less bullied than me, even though we were in the exact same situation. He ignored the bullies. 

How do I ignore the three bullies in my life? Guilt, shame, and despair? Can I just ignore them? I would need to transform my way of thinking to be able to do that. Why do bullies get to us? Because we want to be loved, we want to belong. And here is that word I’ve been looking for: Bullies get to us because it touches who we are, our identity. If I learn to live out of an untouchable identity, I would basically be Spider-Man myself. But I will never find so much security in my own identity as long as it is built upon my own idea of what that is. Jesus offers a better security and I’m learning that with trial and error. He’s bigger than Spider-Man and wants to transform me into Himself. And in that way, I don’t need to beat up the bullies, they will have less and less impact on me until I can finally ignore them.