When the Bully From Your Past Reappears & What To Do About It
No surprises, I was bullied at school. It wasn’t the type where the big bully boy throws your bag on the ground and punches you in the stomach like in the movies. It was more the type where the ‘strong’ (read: insecure) and ‘bossy’ (read: bullied herself at home) girl was mean and deliberately destabilising to my emotional wellbeing. I was an easy target: the child of divorced parents; smaller than the other kids; cute faced and quiet, and the teacher’s pet.
Here’s how it would go. Edith would decide which Abba song we were going to perform as a group around the side of the school building, where the teachers couldn’t see. When I asked to do a different song she would tell me that I was wrong. We’d start practice, and it was my favourite thing to do so I’d be so happy for a second dancing and singing Abba songs imaging I was Frida. She would tell me that I was doing it wrong. I’d try harder. She’d tell me I was hopeless at it and tell me to go away. At this point I would walk quietly across the playground to the other side, sit down on a cold metal seat and cry my eyes out.
This story played out in various ways over the years but I only remember this one, or maybe two other versions in detail.
Some days, if I was lucky, my hero and the teacher who was essentially my surrogate Dad would be…
