Anti Bullying Week. Blog #15
We all have a story. This week is anti bullying week and this is my story.
Fat dirty chink
I was born in Paris and grew up in Lyon in the 1970s. My parents came from Hong Kong to flee communism and decided France was their Eldorado. They didn’t speak French, only knew one person and have been exploited by her mercilessly until they saw an opportunity and started their own business out of blood, sweat and tears. In those days racism was normal and I remember my brother and I being the only foreigners (apart from the caretakers who were Portuguese) in a catholic school run by nuns in a posh area of Lyon.
I was overweight. My parents did their best and I remember having to wear second hand clothes that were sometimes too small for me and made me look ridiculous. I remember always walking in the shadow wearing a huge black coat even under 30 degree Celsius in summertime to avoid being seen, insulted and spat at. I remember my body posture looking like Quasimodo at the age of 10 like a giant walking foetus. I remember the spots on my greasy face, the dandruffs on my shoulders, the stammer, the collection of tics, the OCD, the constant terror...
From bad to worse
I will skip the details but only few people can really understand how cruel kids can be. I am one of them and some episodes gave me nightmares for years. And because my parents worked so hard for us I could never burden them with my problems. And because my brother went through the same as me but was bigger he used me as a punching bag every now and then. And because my Dad was working so hard the relentless stress brought him his first cancer and my Mum was terrified of loosing him to cancer. And because she was terrified of loosing him to cancer and being left alone with 2 kids in a country she didn’t speak the language she took pills that only made things worse. And because of that there were explosions between her and I and I ended up in the street for the first time at the age of 12 so not to be sliced by her and her giant kitchen knife (I found out much later that we were both bipolar).
I often mention how I have been diagnosed and treated for suicidal manic depression and schizophrenia, being addicted to alcohol, sex, drugs and rock'n roll, but also fear, anger, self harm and anything that could distract my mind from those memories for more than 25 years.
Life is the evolution of a seed
Nothing is ever because of just one thing. Life is a stream. Things lead to other things, and for many years I blamed my Mum for my disastrous childhood, teenage hood, and the 38 first years of my life altogether. Looking back at it now from a therapist perspective I can see how everything started at school with bullying because as far as I am concerned, in the timeline of my life, they were my first traumas. Instead of learning a coping mechanism I have infected my mind with a collapsing mechanism.
Bullying is a silent cancer
Despite my turmoils I don’t recall ever telling anyone in my family about the bullying. Why ? Because my parents had other priorities such as staying alive in order to keep on providing for us, and this is how I learnt I was not important enough to deserve help, protection and love. With compassion and without judgement I can see how it was always a matter of education. Any family regardless of the circumstances must learn the gravity of bullying. Bullying creates fear, disconnection, mental illness and ruins life and get people to commit suicide somewhere down the line. Bullying is serious, and to anyone thinking about the word “snowflakes” you are the problem.
Parents raise bullies
No child is born evil. They just repeat what they see and what they know. Of course parents are not the only source of information to children but it is the job of the parents to ensure they own enough goodness to function in society. If the parents can’t figure out how to they must seek education and help. The sole purpose and absolute priority of a parent is to protect their child. Protect them from being bullied AND protect them from bullying others.
Bullies suffer from bullying too
Bullying create individuals that believe they are either better or lesser than others. No one is better or lesser than others. We are all the same in the sense that we all share the same desires, and own the same value and potential as everyone. It is the very belief that some are better or lesser than others that creates all suffering in the world.
Children learn by observing. So if the parents practice casual discrimination at the dinner table or in front of the TV, or believe that it is a dog eat dog world with only a binary option of being the wolf or the sheep for instance so will their offspring.
Unhappiness at home also transfers directly onto the playground and impact other people’s life like an insidious gangrene.
Bullying doesn’t stop in the playground
Once we have been bullied it is easy to end up in the same situation again. We have learnt we were not enough, so we recreate the same situations subconsciously and we not only allow angry people to bully us but we can also invite weak and insecure people to turn into bullies because of the infectiousness of group dynamics. I know many adults who gets bullied at work, unaware of the fact that they are attracting and awakening the shark within their colleagues with their energy like a drop of blood in the ocean.
I had the opportunity to look after clients coming from both end of the spectrum
John was constantly suffering from depression and anxiety, feeling that he was constantly being bullied at work for being an overweight gay man. Using Rapid Transformational Therapy and a dash of mindset and mindfulness principles I addressed his feeling of helplessness. I reversed his victim’s mindset and empowered him with self beliefs. He has now found a better employer and has started to loose weight too.
Duncan suffered from anger management, lack of empathy and guilt for being horrible to his fiancée Susan. I managed to see them both individually and correct their relationship dynamic. In regression we found out that Duncan’s paranoid and toxic father taught him to behave like that to be a man, so he would use aggression as a kind of pre emptive strike and never allow empathy so not to have any weak spot for women to take advantage of him.
Susan believed she could fix her past having suffered from an abusive father by recreating it with a partner owning similar character and attempting changing him. I revealed to them both how obsolete yet poisonous their old beliefs were. I replaced the negative energy of their past into compassion for self and implemented a new set of constructive beliefs serving them as a couple. They are now discovering for the first time what a happy loving relationship is.
Conclusion
We all have a duty towards each other but the first action must start at home. Bullying happens because of the habits of fear, anger, desperation and feeling of not being worth... To eradicate bullying we must stop spreading the normalisation of those bad habits.