By Ryan Legg
Art credit to idlemickey from DeviantArt
My name is Ryan, and I’m a bully.
(Hi, Ryan.)
Actually, it might be more accurate to say that I was a bully, but really, bullying is a lot like smoking—you’re never an ex-bully, you’re just one who doesn’t.
I don’t have any good excuses—there aren’t any good excuses—but I have some reasons. Of course, everyone has reasons. Mine tick all the usual boxes: strict military dad; lots of moving around; divorced parents; mentally ill mother—we could be here all day. Point is, I was a tall, angry kid with a bad handle on my physical strength and some lousy coping mechanisms.
Not an awesome combination.
I got lucky in two ways: 1) I read a lot of stories, and 2) before she was sick, my mom had this whole big thing about not beating other kids bloody.
Stories are empathy-training. Stories literally shove you inside someone else’s head, dress you up in their issues, and if the writing is good, make you like it. Stories are an early inoculation against impending jackassery because they introduce you to the idea of what it’s like to be other people. It’s a lot harder to kick someone into the dirt when you’ve just read, for example, Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series, which is all about a young girl wanting to be the world’s first female knight against incredible odds.
Does she get bullied? You bet, by kids and adults and the whole culture. Does she fight back? Oh, yes. Does she take her personal strength and use it to help other people? Check out the title.
Hello, healthy example of how to channel aggressive energy.
(Also, kickass female-identified protagonists are awesome. I’m just putting that out there.)
So there was that, and then there was the mom thing. One specific incident always comes to mind when I think about the wee horror I used to be when I was a kid. I have a baby brother, eighteen months younger than I am, and we used to tear strips off each other. He had a smart mouth, I had a short temper—and, well, brothers. But I was bigger, stronger, and I had no brakes. I don’t remember exactly what he did to set me off, but I do remember going at him with the intent to inflict serious damage. I wanted to hurt him, the little bastard, because—because—
Yeah, no good reason. He’d insulted my stuffed toys, maybe. Who knows.
Either way, he was bleeding and screaming before my mom got to us and wrenched me off, and then I was screaming. Full on rage-fit of thwarted fury and thrashing, flinging myself about because I hate him, I hate him so much, mom, what are you doing, let me go, I have to hurt him, I hate you, too—
It’s amazing how much anger a tiny body can hold.
So, I think I was about… seven, maybe? Eight. Somewhere in the region of old enough to know better, but this is what my mom did: she held me. Sat us both down with her back to the hallway wall, wrapped her arms around my arms, hooked her leg over my legs, and held on tight. Waited me out. Until I’d blown through screaming into crying—well, sobbing, because, y’know, seven—and past that, fading down into an exhausted little heap of snot and hiccuping silence.
And then she talked to me about emotions, specifically anger. I don’t remember the word-for-word byplay, but I still have the gist, which runs something like this: emotions are big and sometimes scary, often confusing, occasionally totally overwhelming, but everyone has them, and we learn to deal with them, and it’s never okay to be a little dickbag and try to skin your younger brother.
I’m paraphrasing slightly here.
But her basic point was 1) find your triggers, 2) figure out how to unhook from them, and 3) put on your big boy pants and learn better coping mechanisms.
Which is probably about the point I burst into tears again, because, y’know, seven.
Anyway. My parents split up when I was twelve, and my mom got sick soon after (schizophrenia: fun for no one), and I lost hold of her strategy somewhere in the wreckage. Puberty hit, along with all the confusion of sexual identity and gender, plus more moving, and I picked up some spectacularly poor coping mechanisms, I cannot even tell you.
People say that bullying comes from jealousy. They’re wrong. Bullying comes from two sources: privilege or pain. Often both.
Simple math: if it’s hell inside your head, if your life is falling down around you in big broken pieces, it’s easier to grab that chaos and spread it around with a shovel than to actually deal with it. To smoke and drink, do drugs, have sex with the wrong people, use words like a weapon, punch your knuckles raw—make bad life choices. Hurt other people, just because you can.
There’s catharsis in taking a chunk out of someone, body or soul.
The problem being, if you take enough chunks, you end up doing this to someone:
Or worse. There are hundreds of stories out there. They’re easy to find.
I have a friend who likes to say that achieving personal enlightenment is like leveling up. If you take a long, hard look at yourself, work to process your issues—everyone has issues, there’s no shame in it—and get a little bit better, a little bit more healthy, congrats! You’ve unlocked an adult achievement. Bonus points for you.
I’m twenty-four now, which is pretty much adult-shaped, and I’ve learned better coping mechanisms for anger. I write; I listen to angry music; I read dark fiction. I vent at length to good friends who are patient enough to listen to me. I take advice. I did therapy for a little while, which was its whole own thing. I go to the gym and thrash myself out on punishing equipment. I find art that speaks to me — seriously, get into art, there’s a lot out there and it’s awesome.
Mostly I try to educate myself, because I’d actually like to be a decent human being.
And the thing about catharsis at the cost of someone else’s mental health is that it never lasts. It really doesn’t. It just gives you another reason to hate yourself.
This week is GLAAD’s anti-bullying lead up to Spirit Day on Friday, October 19th, when lots of cool people will be wearing purple to show support for LGBTQI youth. I don’t own anything purple, it turns out, so I went into the city today to buy a purple bandana because I am absolutely okay with looking like a massive dork for a good cause.
Sometimes it’s the little things.
So, from one bully to another: level up. Be a better person. Because the alternative is good for no one.
It takes courage to level up and to admit your past mistakes. Props to you. I hope you are a happier person now.
As a kid that was bullied from as far as I could remember as a child all the way through high school, it took me almost 30 years to let all of that pain go. There was a time where hate consumed me, and I was secretly planning on getting revenge on everyone one of those individuals that treated me horribly growing up. There was never a moment where I had peace and tranquility.
But when I look back, my childhood was a very unhappy one. I had two assholes for parents, one walked out and didn’t want us, while the other went crazy and had nothing but contempt because she was alone raising me and my sister. There was never a day where fights weren’t happening all the time. My mom had nothing but pure hatred for me because I unfortunately physically looked like the man she later divorced because he treated her horribly. I often felt that I was in direct competition with my baby sister for my mom, and because of that, her and I would fight often turning into physical ones where my mom would often side with my sister even though I was right and my sister was wrong.
The bullying started I believe in kindergarden. I never knew why or what exactly was about me that became a target. Was is because i didn’t fight back or simply didn’t know how. But wherever I went or moved to a different school, I was targeted. At 13 years old, I tried suicide as a way out that finally it got my mom’s attention. She realized that I needed help. I was seeing a counselor but eventually during my teens I decided to drop out of high school at 17. But even after that, I was filled with hate. All I could think about was getting revenge. Things at home only got worse. I could no longer handle the verbal abuse and even I was started to show signs of becoming abusive, so I moved out. I was on my own. My mother and i were somewhat close, but in the later years, my sister grew to become a problem child and my mother would unfortunately not discipline her. Once i was out on my own my mom would not lift a finger for me. I eventually severed all ties and stopped communicating altogether.
Years later, I wrote my mom a letter explaining why I did what I did and she simply didn’t get it. She refused to understand the bullying I went through, the abuse I constantly got, and even worse, dealing in a very homophobic environment.
For a while I was working, then traveling around, meeting people, and making friends along the way, and even getting into some rather messed up relationships with some rather screwed up people. I got my GED 7 years later and decided to enter college. I was pretty proud when I graduated. Meeting the love of my life and being with him for 17 years has helped. He came from a very loving yet dysfunctional home and family. He was raised totally different from me.
But I still had this yearning to track down those that tormented me as a child. Every single one of them. In truth I wanted them all dead. with the dawn of facebook and the internet, the floodgates were opened. What a surprise. Many of those are either dead, in prison, or some form of tragic life. Many did not amount to much of anything, and still live in the same shit neighborhoods they did as children.
Karma did a full circle. I felt sorry for them. But the thing is, I found closure. That’s all I ever wanted really.
You have stopped your bullying with help and with hard work. That is something to be proud of. If you want to take the next step, be one of the ones to help someone else stop bullying or to help victims of bullies understand that they don’t deserve the bullying. Help them get over it. You have as a very young adult achieved the maturity to admit your bullying and put a stop to it. That gives you a lot of years to help and teach others how to help. Your mother had exactly the right idea holding you safe while you raged and then discussing your feelings and actions with you.
wow. thank you ryan. tremendous courage and integrity. you are a fabulous person
But her basic point was 1) find your triggers, 2) figure out how to unhook from them, and 3) put on your big boy pants and learn better coping mechanisms. That’s a journey that never ends – for anybody! Your mom was a smart lady. Thank you for sharing this story …