I, Victim

Being bullied is not fun.

Nor is the affect. That soul-crunching hollow feeling you receive before you go to a certain place where your bully is. That feeling of wanting to run away and never come back. The despair and tears and pain. That.

The self-doubt is a killer too. If you are being bullied about something personal, you then amplify that in your mind. Paranoia that you are what the bullies say. You start looking at people near you just to see if you are having a negative affect on them. Anything you hear in passing is related to you. You overhear words that sound like something the bully might say. Half-conversations paused while you look at the people talking. It is all about you.

The constant watching for the bully to appear. And when he does, the silent plea in your head for him not to say a word about you, for him not to spot a friend of his and to discuss you in loud voices. That silent awkwardness, that wall of silence that surrounds and squeezes you until you are sweating. And if he does? Then you cringe and try to ignore what is being said, but how can you when this bully is pinpointing you to everyone else nearby? How can you cope? Even when he isn’t there, he is there.

You can try to rectify the fault that the bully says you have but what if the bully still continues? And you can’t complain if the bully isn’t speaking to you, if he is just boorishly speaking to a friend. He can deny he was talking about you and even if he is reported successfully, nothing happens. He may be forced to leave but he will be back the next day and the next day and the next day.

Taking matters into your own hands by confronting the bully doesn’t work either. Unless eating all your meals through a straw appeals to you. People say that bullies are cowards, that they won’t hit you. These people are idiots. Bullies are capable of anything. Hitting you is just the icing on the cake for them.

The only real solution is to grit your teeth and say nothing. To make sure that whatever faults you may or may not have are not showing or apparent. But that doesn’t matter because when he continues, people will hear him and they will know who he is talking about. They will pass silent judgement which is louder than words. You are skewered to your chair like a butterfly to a board.

When you are reduced to praying that the bully doesn’t appear or say something, creeping around a place which was once your sanctuary, then you know that you have been truly cowed into submission.

There is no respite. Only attrition, constant and eternal.

I have always never wanted to be here, to be anywhere else but here but that feeling of ‘I don’t want this’ is stronger than ever. That wish to simply not be here, that is what I want.

I am thirty-three. I am being bullied. I have never felt so powerless in my life before.

When I talk to people physically and online, I feel so disgusting and disgusted with myself. I now go out of my way not to meet people because I am scared of what they might think of me.

I don’t want this. I never have.