'Dealing' with bullying

I was bullied. Particularly in high school. As you'll know from my hometown monologue, it was not a good time in my life. But it wasn't even the kind of problems where the same people made your life hell for years until you punched them and then they stopped. It was different people each year and this makes it worse.
You begin to think it is you. If it was just one person over 5 years then it is more likely to be them that is at fault - you are always told that the one person must be jealous of you or they must be having problems at home which is making them hostile. When it is at least 5 different people or groups of people over the 5 different years, you can make as many excuses for all of those people as you like, but you can't help but think that it can't be the case.
It's hard not to think this, but I somehow managed to hold on to it - despite my brain trying to tell me that I was deluded.

People try to teach you how to deal with bullying. There are courses for teachers. There are books on dealing with bullies. Parents are always trying to tell you ways to sort it out. People tried and tried, I tried and tried to use the techniques people tell you are completely fail safe to keep your spirits up in the moment and allow me deal with what was happening. It didn't work. It never works.

Realisation of this fact didn't really hit me until someone else said it. As with a lot of things in life, the truths that you will deny to the end of time become the biggest realisations of your life when you hear it stated by someone you look up to.

Hank Green hit the nail on the head for me and my experiences with bullying. 'Your job is not to deal with it, your job is to survive it, which you can do; because it will end!' (If you've ever heard Hank Green speak, you'll know how difficult it was to punctuate this).

A nerdfighter friend thought this was pessimistic and doesn't offer a lot of hope, and it's probably as useless as all of the other advice you could be given and I didn't want to agree with that, but I guess he is kind of right. But the truth isn't always optimistic and the truth isn't always helpful; but a lie is never helpful either!

I guess as advice, telling you to just survive isn't really enough. It needs more to actually be any use to someone who is in desperate need of something to help them lift their spirits. So, I tell you this: You get out of bed tomorrow morning, and you carry on with your life. Unless there is something you can do to actively stop this; such as some action that can be used to remove you or the bully from the situation most of the time (which did happen to me, I was put in a room during breaks to keep me out of harms way) this should be done where possible but it isn't always possible. When you're being bullied it is easy to think that every day will be a bad day and this prevents you from doing what you want to do with your life - whether its going to school and getting your qualifications, working hard to get up the career ladder or just a hobby that you enjoy. But if you don't get up and get on with it, you're not doing any of this and it is instantly a bad day. If you get up you could still have a bad day or you could have a good day, the point is that you don't know until you try.

If your day is bad then you can feel bad; you can cry, you can go to the gym and punch a punchbag for an hour, you can treat yourself to a piece of chocolate if that's your thing (though I don't recommend this as a long term solution). You should do whatever it is that makes you feel better (providing it doesn't hurt yourself or anyone/thing else), because when you're in that position, if you can find something that makes you feel better, then you should do that thing.

But even the cliché advice that I said isn't helpful still has some place. It isn't you, and it will end and it will get better (another thing that Hank Green said). My former best friend started working with someone who used to bully me at the start of high school and she told her that she was so jealous of me because I was very smart and people would ask me for help and things like that and I honest burst into tears upon hearing this. Looking back at it all I know that it wasn't me, and eventually you'll be able to get to a place where you can look back and know that it was all unfortunate and you handled it badly, but you did your best and it's made you who you are right now.

And I'm proud of who I am. I wouldn't change me for the world. And if I could go back in time and change something I wouldn't. And if I could go back and tell my younger self something it would be:

'You can do this, as long as you keep getting out of bed in the morning. You can't see it now; but in the end, you're going to be great!'