If you were to ask me what has been one of the biggest events of my life, I would say the bullying which I had to endure about my race in the earlier years of my life. I am not saying that it was always easy, but if I had not been bullied, I would not be the person I am today. Being bullied made me stronger, it gave me confidence, and I would even go as so far to say that, in a lot of ways, it gave me purpose. It gave me a never-ending feeling to achieve more, just so that, initially, I could prove my tormentors wrong. However, as time wore on, the feeling of wanting to achieve more was no longer about proving people wrong, but rather because it was just something that I wanted to do for myself.
There were other positives that came out of the bullying as well. One of the biggest and most important was a deepening of my faith. I am not ashamed to tell people that I am a Christian, and more specifically Lutheran. I had been going to church my entire life before the worst of the bullying started, but as things began to spiral out of control at school, and it felt like the walls were closing in on me, I turned to my faith and found that in some of my darkest hours, it was great to have someone there to absorb the pain and reassure me that everything was going to be OK. Without being bullied, I may have never attended two Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Youth Gatherings, the first one as a youth in New Orleans in 2012, and the other one as a volunteer in Detroit in 2015. I would also point out that being bullied help me decide to pursue conflict resolution as my major.
It is true that the global conflicts which the world is forced to confront on a daily basis reach far beyond the type of bullying that occurs in a school setting, but in some ways they are exactly the same. A lot of bullying can stem from a perceived disagreement; someone says something about someone else. That second party now feels threatened. As a result, they intensify, possibly bullying the first party. It can even sometimes involve people taking sides, each party trying to make their side look better. If you replace name-calling with guns, bullets, and missiles, this lays the framework for some of the world’s largest conflicts, but the core of a lot of these conflicts is not much different than what causes bullying in schools.
Sadly, not everyone is able to take their bullying experiences and turn them into a positive, but I do want to say, as a person who has gotten through bullying, and navigated some extremely dark spots, it is possible. Probably one of the best things that you can do if you have been bullied is talk to someone. It does not have to be a parent, or a counselor; it could be someone such as your best friend. Bottom line: do not let being bullied drag you down; instead, rise up from the challenge and become stronger.
