These days everyone seems to want to join some anti bullying campaign, without disregarding the impact some of this campaigns are having on the young ones and the effort these public figures and organizations put into this campaigns my question is if everyone has some bullying story to tell, then who were the people who actually bullied this kids. we hear of teenagers who commit suicide because of the effect of bullying and we are shocked, sometimes we are confused on why anyone would want to take their lives because someone posted something negative about them on their facebook wall, but these kids are sensitive, who knows what other psychological B.S they are going through in their homes so those bullying acts just send them to the brink of insanity .
When we think of bullies we think of overweight senseless kids beating other kids up and stealing their lunch money or pouring juice all over another kids head because you can...at least in Glee that happens but to me those acts are less significant to the mind of these kids..to me the worst form of bullying is the Super Clique mentality, the IN crowd kids, the popular kids versus the nobodies ...that is the worst form of bullying , segregating people and labeling people as irrelevant because of their physical appearance, background or some form of disability that to me is the worst form of bullying that can ever happen to a person because it never leaves you , and unless you become a stronger person later in life , discovering your own strengths and learning not to define yourself by other people's standards you become a people pleaser ..heck that word is not correct but you know what i mean, you become desperate to belong, your self esteem is inter twined with how other people see you and that my friend is a pathetic form of existence.
You know it's at this point in time that like so many hollywood drop dead gorgeous stars with a teary eyed bullying story that it would become interesting to drop my own bullying story but looking back at my childhood i don't think i was ever bullied, not really...when i was a kid unlike kids of these days i was only interested in playing rough like a boy,i did not care much for who is talking to me and who isn't i did enough talking for three people joined together to the detriment of my poor mother's health and there was no facebook or social networking sites with cool kids groups or all that , as a matter of fact i was a rather cool cat myself or so i thought till i hit my teenage years then i understood what bullying was all about, my secondary school had enough Cliques to make Glee look like a 3 year old's adaptation of our real life, without the cute guys though and the amazing singing and the hot handsome music teacher lawd have mercy i would have cut my fingers to join that glee singing group if i had a teacher as hot as that but forgive me i digress , I remember one occasion where a new girl joined our school and suddenly people started spreading rumours that she was a hermaphrodite, let me tell you no one wants to go through that experience, whenever she came into a room people would stare at her, some would laugh at her, no one would talk to her, the poor girl was living in hell and just in case that was not bad enough she was cartooned...being cartooned was the worst disgrace that could ever happen to anybody back then, the whole school would gather at the wall, look at those cartoons and laugh at you when you passed suffice to say that girl did not last a year in my school before she was transferred , her roommates even went to complain that they could not live with her because they were scared she would rape them at night, she was not the only one that was bullied, they were the rumored bed wetters, the thieves, the liars, the scruffy looking poverty impoverished ones..i mean the list was endless, if all these kids in Europe and America went through half of what some of these kids in my Secondary School went through i wonder if there would be any of them alive today, they probably would have hung themselves but i tell you all these form of bullying paled in comparison to being labeled a witch, that was the worst form of bullying that could ever happen to any child back then and that was because as superstitious as we were , we took that that accusation very serious, i confess i myself avoided a girl that was labeled a witch as if she had some form of plague because i did not want to be initiated or infected or whatever we called it back then, recently one of the girls that went to my high school wrote about her ordeal in the hands of people after she was wrongly labeled a witch, someone would just wake up and claim they saw you try to feed them something in their dream, suddenly everyone would start looking at you funny...but you know this is Africa, things like this happen, feed young (girls) especially about ghost stories of Lady Koikoi and all that the ripple effect is disastrous so maybe we should put some of these acts down to childish immature rants of an over active imagination, that does not excuse these acts but at least we were just kids who did not know any better but fast forward to the present time you would be surprised how these bullying acts continue to thrive i cal it the "IN CROWD" mentality.
You would think that an adult with wife and kids would be immune to this kind of mentality but you would be surprised how many people still suffer from these "itch to belong", lets be honest it's everywhere, In church some people have special seats simply because of "who they are", in Universities some people who you've known all your life would come into school and pretend not to know you because you're not "IN", at work some people will refuse to acknowledge you at the cafeteria or include you in some social work event because you are not up to par with their group and don't get me started on what goes on in some of these social networking sites, sometimes i don't even know what the qualifying criteria is anymore, are you IN because you drive a fancy car? with car loans available everywhere what kind of standard is that, or are you IN because of your brazilian weave, or the kind of handset you have, is that why young girls would sleep with every Tom, Dick and Harry for a blackberry Device and come on Twitter and call each other out like a set of deranged wild dogs, or are you IN because you have a foreign accent even if it is obviously British, American and Irish mixed together with heavy tribal accent i mean i don't get it what makes you "IN"? maybe its because you appear on the pictures of every Event being covered by Bella Naija and Linda Ikeji even if you borrowed all the clothes you have on..let me tell you way back in University where we had ultimate cliques and all that pathetic form of grouping yourselves together a girl i know (name withheld) , a beautiful dark young girl from Benin attempted to kill herself by taking an excessive overdose of sleeping pills, i was shocked i thought all those stuff only happened in the western world, when i asked her why she did it, she said it was because she felt as if she didn't belong anywhere, she had no friends, no group and she was lonely i never understood it, maybe because i honestly didn't care about what others thought of me, i had friends who might not have been jet setting to yankee every holiday but accepted me for who i was , maybe because i was not in her shoes i did not understand it but it did trigger something within me what gives anyone the right to look down on someone because you feel you are better than them, if that is what it takes to be in the "IN CROWD" then i am glad i am who i am, i don't care if i never see my name under some best dressed list at least i can be myself wherever i am and with whoever i wish, that is why you see people who go and rent some expensive apartments in some plush area and every time their rent is due they have panic attacks because they cannot pay their rent, yes dear i am talking to you...next time when you are seated reading about some kid who hung himself because he was bullied think of everyone you have turned your nose up against and called names because of their background and physical appearance and say to yourselves that person could do the same..you might not be huge and aggressive beating up helpless eleven year old's but the effect is the same my friend..you are a bully, and for the kids reading this thinking of how to steal their dad's money to buy some expensive toy to belong to some "IN CROWD" if you are honest with yourself you will know that you have some mental disorder for you should never Lie or pay your way to be accepted, Be yourself and improve yourself then you would not have to struggle to be "IN" they will struggle to take you "IN" .......i will be extra corny by dedicating this post to my real friends, they know themselves i did nothing extra to have your friendship it came free like the best things in life.
When we think of bullies we think of overweight senseless kids beating other kids up and stealing their lunch money or pouring juice all over another kids head because you can...at least in Glee that happens but to me those acts are less significant to the mind of these kids..to me the worst form of bullying is the Super Clique mentality, the IN crowd kids, the popular kids versus the nobodies ...that is the worst form of bullying , segregating people and labeling people as irrelevant because of their physical appearance, background or some form of disability that to me is the worst form of bullying that can ever happen to a person because it never leaves you , and unless you become a stronger person later in life , discovering your own strengths and learning not to define yourself by other people's standards you become a people pleaser ..heck that word is not correct but you know what i mean, you become desperate to belong, your self esteem is inter twined with how other people see you and that my friend is a pathetic form of existence.
You know it's at this point in time that like so many hollywood drop dead gorgeous stars with a teary eyed bullying story that it would become interesting to drop my own bullying story but looking back at my childhood i don't think i was ever bullied, not really...when i was a kid unlike kids of these days i was only interested in playing rough like a boy,i did not care much for who is talking to me and who isn't i did enough talking for three people joined together to the detriment of my poor mother's health and there was no facebook or social networking sites with cool kids groups or all that , as a matter of fact i was a rather cool cat myself or so i thought till i hit my teenage years then i understood what bullying was all about, my secondary school had enough Cliques to make Glee look like a 3 year old's adaptation of our real life, without the cute guys though and the amazing singing and the hot handsome music teacher lawd have mercy i would have cut my fingers to join that glee singing group if i had a teacher as hot as that but forgive me i digress , I remember one occasion where a new girl joined our school and suddenly people started spreading rumours that she was a hermaphrodite, let me tell you no one wants to go through that experience, whenever she came into a room people would stare at her, some would laugh at her, no one would talk to her, the poor girl was living in hell and just in case that was not bad enough she was cartooned...being cartooned was the worst disgrace that could ever happen to anybody back then, the whole school would gather at the wall, look at those cartoons and laugh at you when you passed suffice to say that girl did not last a year in my school before she was transferred , her roommates even went to complain that they could not live with her because they were scared she would rape them at night, she was not the only one that was bullied, they were the rumored bed wetters, the thieves, the liars, the scruffy looking poverty impoverished ones..i mean the list was endless, if all these kids in Europe and America went through half of what some of these kids in my Secondary School went through i wonder if there would be any of them alive today, they probably would have hung themselves but i tell you all these form of bullying paled in comparison to being labeled a witch, that was the worst form of bullying that could ever happen to any child back then and that was because as superstitious as we were , we took that that accusation very serious, i confess i myself avoided a girl that was labeled a witch as if she had some form of plague because i did not want to be initiated or infected or whatever we called it back then, recently one of the girls that went to my high school wrote about her ordeal in the hands of people after she was wrongly labeled a witch, someone would just wake up and claim they saw you try to feed them something in their dream, suddenly everyone would start looking at you funny...but you know this is Africa, things like this happen, feed young (girls) especially about ghost stories of Lady Koikoi and all that the ripple effect is disastrous so maybe we should put some of these acts down to childish immature rants of an over active imagination, that does not excuse these acts but at least we were just kids who did not know any better but fast forward to the present time you would be surprised how these bullying acts continue to thrive i cal it the "IN CROWD" mentality.
You would think that an adult with wife and kids would be immune to this kind of mentality but you would be surprised how many people still suffer from these "itch to belong", lets be honest it's everywhere, In church some people have special seats simply because of "who they are", in Universities some people who you've known all your life would come into school and pretend not to know you because you're not "IN", at work some people will refuse to acknowledge you at the cafeteria or include you in some social work event because you are not up to par with their group and don't get me started on what goes on in some of these social networking sites, sometimes i don't even know what the qualifying criteria is anymore, are you IN because you drive a fancy car? with car loans available everywhere what kind of standard is that, or are you IN because of your brazilian weave, or the kind of handset you have, is that why young girls would sleep with every Tom, Dick and Harry for a blackberry Device and come on Twitter and call each other out like a set of deranged wild dogs, or are you IN because you have a foreign accent even if it is obviously British, American and Irish mixed together with heavy tribal accent i mean i don't get it what makes you "IN"? maybe its because you appear on the pictures of every Event being covered by Bella Naija and Linda Ikeji even if you borrowed all the clothes you have on..let me tell you way back in University where we had ultimate cliques and all that pathetic form of grouping yourselves together a girl i know (name withheld) , a beautiful dark young girl from Benin attempted to kill herself by taking an excessive overdose of sleeping pills, i was shocked i thought all those stuff only happened in the western world, when i asked her why she did it, she said it was because she felt as if she didn't belong anywhere, she had no friends, no group and she was lonely i never understood it, maybe because i honestly didn't care about what others thought of me, i had friends who might not have been jet setting to yankee every holiday but accepted me for who i was , maybe because i was not in her shoes i did not understand it but it did trigger something within me what gives anyone the right to look down on someone because you feel you are better than them, if that is what it takes to be in the "IN CROWD" then i am glad i am who i am, i don't care if i never see my name under some best dressed list at least i can be myself wherever i am and with whoever i wish, that is why you see people who go and rent some expensive apartments in some plush area and every time their rent is due they have panic attacks because they cannot pay their rent, yes dear i am talking to you...next time when you are seated reading about some kid who hung himself because he was bullied think of everyone you have turned your nose up against and called names because of their background and physical appearance and say to yourselves that person could do the same..you might not be huge and aggressive beating up helpless eleven year old's but the effect is the same my friend..you are a bully, and for the kids reading this thinking of how to steal their dad's money to buy some expensive toy to belong to some "IN CROWD" if you are honest with yourself you will know that you have some mental disorder for you should never Lie or pay your way to be accepted, Be yourself and improve yourself then you would not have to struggle to be "IN" they will struggle to take you "IN" .......i will be extra corny by dedicating this post to my real friends, they know themselves i did nothing extra to have your friendship it came free like the best things in life.
I like this post. I can relate to it cos I'm a feddy girl. I think more focus should be placed on building self confidence especially in young people. If you are confident in who you are no matter what that is, then you can avoid the psychological trauma of bullying or name tagging. Nice one Adaks and kudos to all confident nigerians (especially boarding school products) who didn't kill themselves despite d bullyings. Always remember dat Everyone is a star in their own right including you.
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