1:56am October 28, 2014

Something that took me a long time to learn about bullying.

It wasn’t “just ignore it,” the way people who have never been bullied, tell people who have been bullied. For that, the only thing I’ve found effective is Dave Hingsburger’s mantra, “I’m okay, you’re mean.” As in, there’s nothing wrong with me, it’s the bully who has the problem.

But there’s something else I had to learn, and it was really hard. Really hard. And that was how to take insults as compliments.

My problem was, is, and always has been, that I feel the insult. And I feel the insult, I feel what the person meant to convey, so much more than I feel the words that they use to convey it.

So when I heard another child say with scorn in her voice, about one of my drawings, “She cheated, only a famous artist could’ve drawn that.” I could not hear the compliment in the insult. And I would not calm down and I would not stop crying and I would not “just take it as a compliment” the way the teacher kept begging me to do.

And in many ways there’s nothing wrong with my response. She meant it as an insult. I felt the insultingness radiating off her body, in her every movement, her every word, her every tone. And I took it as intended. And I don’t think anyone should fault a child for seeing the truth of the matter, nor beg a child to “look on the bright side” while being bullied, all the while ignoring the bully and doing nothing to stop or control the bully.

But also.

I’ve found that for myself, learning to take insults as compliments has turned into a completely invaluable skill for dealing with bullies and bigots of all types.

“What, you’re calling me a retard? You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Hey, that’s proud mong to you.”

“Rather be a ‘tard’ than a bigot like you.”

And it works. It really works. When I can turn around their words so that their insults are either compliments, or at least not insults, then they don’t sting as much. When I can throw it back in their face, even better. My brother is straight but he wore a lot of makeup and tights in high school and was frequently bullied for being “gay”. His response to these groups of bullies was to blow them a kiss. They’d freak out and run away. I wish I had half my brother’s attitude, resourcefulness, and style.

I’m not saying this is the solution to bullying.

But it’s the only thing I have in my anti-bully arsenal that actually works, besides “I’m okay, you’re mean.”

Today, if someone accused me of faking my art because it was too good to come from someone like me, I would say “Thanks for the compliment, because I really did make it myself.”

But it takes practice.

It takes practice to shift your mind from focusing on the feel, to focusing on the words. The feel tells you what the bully really meant – to insult you, to make you feel like crap about yourself. And if you focus on the feel, that’s what will happen. But if you can focus on the words, and find a way to make an insult into a compliment, and better yet throw it right back at them once you do (sometimes this takes advance practicing for possible common scenarios, since we don’t all think well on our feet), then you can come out of it feeling amazing.

Again – the solution to bullying is for the bully to stop bullying. That’s the only real solution. I’m not proposing this as a solution to the problem of bullying. I’m proposing it as a way to handle bullying in the meantime, along with “I’m okay, you’re mean.” Because those of us likely to be bullied need those strategies, until bullying becomes a thing of the past. Which it likely won’t in my lifetime. Hence, strategies for handling it on an emotional level are crucial. Even if you just think these things to yourself, even if you never say them out loud, they have an effect.

One of the biggest reasons it took me so long to learn this was the way people taught it to me. They taught it to me in contexts where they ignored the bully completely and focused on my response to the bully. They treated me like I was the problem. No victim of bullying can learn to psychologically deal with bullying, when there’s a bully standing right next to them being treated as if they are in the right and their victim is in the wrong. They treated me as if I just didn’t see things the right way. No. No. No.

You see things right. You are being bullied. But you do have choices in how you deal with it. “I’m okay, you’re mean” is one. Turning the insult into a compliment is another. But these are choices you have to make on your own, nobody should force them on you, and nobody should treat you like you’re the problem (not the bully) just because you feel the insult in their words.