Hi everyone,

I have a slight complain about how bullying is being looked upon and dealt with.

I live in Norway and, at least here, when I read about bullying etc. the articles and the comments below the articles usually come to the same conclusion: the bullies have to be stopped, and everyone has some sort of idea about how to stop them: call the police, suspend them from school, make the bully switch schools etc. I feel like the focus should perhaps be a lot more on how to empower the victim, rather than trying to stop the bully (though I know the two are not mutually exclusive).

I was bullied for several years at school, and I found anti-bullying campaigns (that were actually obligatory at our school) to do more damage than good for me. Now, I know not everyone has the same experiences as me, and I would never speak for everyone when it comes to this, or deny them any help they might wish for, I still, though, feel like getting this off my chest.

The anti-bullying campaigns at my school would talk to classes and encourage everyone to be nice to each other and not bully and, as an example, talk to those who are "alone in the class". I know this is supposed to promote respect, but in my eyes, this in a way promotes disrespect. For instance, I feel it is wrong to teach people to feel pity for outsiders and try to involve them in a group, because, that way of thinking assumes that everyone who is left out is miserable, in other words, nobody could possibly be happy unless they are part of the group. To me now, and at the time, this message that the anti-bullying campaigns were giving sort of felt like a mild bullying. Because, in a way, they did the same thing as most bullies: picked on something which was not considered normal, even though they had good intentions.

Another thing is, relationships should not be based on pity, and the message they give sort of promotes pity-based shallow relationships. I mean, I was always left out, but would everything really have become butterflies and sunshine if the people hurting me suddenly realized this was wrong and than out of pity became friendlier to me, or if the administration had forced them to become nicer. Because, I really believe that bullying is more a symptom than the real problem, the real problem is that those people had no respect for me, so even if they had stopped the bullying on the surface, the lack of respect would still be there.

Basically, I feel like bullying perhaps can not be simply stopped. And even if you stop the bullying something is still not right because bullying is just a symptom. I remember I had times when people would push me around, other times when they would verbally abuse me, and some times where things would get pretty quiet and I was simply just left alone (feels a bit strange to write this, I am not trying to gain any pity, I am just trying to sort of argue my point), but at all of those times, no matter how hard or soft the bullying was, things actually sort of felt the same.

I could have talked so much more about this, but I guess I should try to cut to the point here soon.

Basically, my parents considered to switch me to another school, but I decided in the end not to do this, and today I am happy I made this choice because I feel like I really learned something from all of this. I realized that the point is not to live without the bullies but DESPITE the bullies. I mean, there are many reasons why someone gets picked on, but let us say that in an island where everyone wears white shirts the person who wears a black shirt is bullied. This person could than move to another island where people wear black shirts, and the person would no longer be bullied, and than the problem is solved... or is it really? In my opinion the core issue is still not resolved, not at all, because bullying probably exists at the black-shirt island as well, the only thing that changed is that the individual now fits the new "norm". The individual is no longer part of the white-shirt island, so the individual fits in, but that is just because the new standard is better met. What happens if the white-shirt island is too small and at some point they have to go to other places and be among individuals that wear purple shirts, or red or any other color than white. At the end of the day, the happiness of the individual is, just like originally, dependent on everyone around him or her, so in a way, the individual is a slave of his or hers circumstances. What if the individual learned how to be happy even if it was living amongst people with shirts of other colors, that treat the individual badly? Than the individual would be truly and forever powerful and other people would not affect its self-esteem.

Basically, perhaps we should focus a lot more on how to make a person happy despite the bullies, rather than trying to remove all the bullies, because, at the end of the day, I believe this is what would make the victim truly powerful.