Mario Gonzalez

So, I was severely bullied by a friend group / cult in my early twenties. Two years ago I read the book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, by Rachel Simmons, and it felt incredibly familiar. She explores the covert forms of bullying often employed by girls, but not only girls, in school—shunning, the silent treatment, gossip, ganging up on a single person. Simmons interviewed dozens of kids. She found that bullying is pervasive in the school system but tends to pass unnoticed by adults. Surprisingly, the bullies tend to be one’s best friends. Most bullying is inflicted by friend groups who turn on the victim suddenly. Thus the experience of being bullied is deeply scarring for many kids because the abuse was inflicted by their most intimate companions. It’s disorienting, and leaves us feeling that we must have done something to merit the abuse. We drive ourselves crazy with worry. Even more shockingly, Simmons found that the bullies often claimed not to have known that they were doing anything wrong. They seemed genuinely attached to their victims and thought they were being helpful. They view the hazing, shunning and slander as a form of tough love. In several of the cases Simmons studied, the bullying began when the victim learned a sexual secret about the bully—who is often a popular, charismatic ringleader, a Queen Bee. The bully then goes to extreme lengths to isolate and defame the secret-keeper so the secret remains hidden, which makes the bullying feel warranted. Bullying tends to manifest in communities where kids are socialized to be “nice” and polite. Not having an outlet for their feelings of anger and frustration, they end up unleashing them, collectively, on a group scapegoat—someone who is, often, too meek to resist. This is important, because people ask, “Why didn’t you defend yourself?” But in communities of toxic niceness, kids can’t protest mistreatment because they’ve been led to believe that even mild pushback will result in the loss of the friendship. Thus they keep silent. And make no mistake, emotional bullying can be just as devastating as physical bullying. For a period of two years I was severely bullied by a group of university friends who had formed their own religious sect. They accused me of doing witchcraft and collectively shunned me for nearly a year (we lived in the same house). Malicious lies were spread about me. I became so depressed that I stopped eating. One of my best friends, also abused and shunned by them, took her own life. These same patterns recur in the girls Simmons interviewed. One girl made the mistake of flirting with the “wrong” boy. Her friend group turned on her, telling teachers that she cheated on tests, threatening to kill her, writing sexually explicit letters to her crush signed with her name. But being a member of a friend group that bullies? It feels AMAZING. There’s a sense of righteousness at being in the inner circle, a collective exhilaration at hurting someone. One girl described it to Simmons as “a sense of power that I’d never felt before.” Being the scapegoat changes people in ways that are pretty consistent. We become chronically anxious that people hate us and that we’re accidentally upsetting them. We become terrified that folk are talking about us behind our backs. We don’t know who to trust. As Simmons writes: “Many survivors of bullying described feeling unfamiliar with the most basic rules of relationships … They no longer feel certain of what makes people angry or upset … This can turn a girl into a cautious ghost of her former self, stifled and silenced by fear.” In the book Simmons interviews a girl named Erin who was savagely mistreated in middle school. When it ended, Erin decided that she talked too much and had too much personality. She tried to disappear. She had recurring anxiety attacks and found it difficult to sleep. I was angry with my bullies for a long time. Distance and contemplation have given me a bit more perspective. “Forgiveness” is a loaded word in these contexts, but I no longer resent them for mistreating me. I realize they were young and dumb and wanted to be helpful. And letting go of past grievances has been good for my heart. I believe the goal of life is to become more compassionate the older we get, and for me that means being kind to those who have wronged me in the past—and being kind towards my younger self. Some of you may be reading this and realizing for the first time that you were bullied. Don’t make my mistake of spending years thinking you deserved abuse. Don’t shrink or diminish yourself because of long-ago voices. Don’t cower any longer in fear of the axe. And I’ll say this: I think former bullying victims can be some of the most beautiful people. You have an empathy and wisdom that is hard-won. I hope in time you’ll come to appreciate what has bloomed out of the foul dust of the past.