Being bullied at school, my story (part 1)

In my last post, I gave you ten action points for parents to take when they realize that their child is a victim of cyber bullying. In this post, I am going to talk about my own experiences about being bullied. I think that many victims of bullying don't like to talk about what happened to them in the past because there is a culture of blaming the victim. They tend to blame themselves for not being popular, not being able to fit in and thus would rather forget about the horrible experiences. However, one of my favourite Youtubers Martina Stawski has been very vocal about this topic of bullying and I'll follow her lead and talk about my own experiences and maybe you could learn something from this. There were three periods in my life when I experienced bullying - let's start with my childhood back in the 1980s.

Now firstly, I don't think that there's any point in throwing a pity party in saying, "oh I suffered like the rest of you, I suffered more than you so your problems are nothing in comparison." Nah screw that, I actually know someone really well who subscribes to that kind of psychology and that is so unhelpful whenever she goes down that path. However, I don't believe in claiming to have special solutions that will easily solve all the problems. I think the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes. So let me begin in primary school: yes I was a shy, awkward kid who didn't have many friends. I mostly kept to myself and liked reading (it was easy to hide one's face in a book when all alone). In hindsight, I think my primary school was a really safe environment in that awkward kids were mostly left on their own and ignored rather than picked on. Now this was worth mentioning because a huge change happened when I got to secondary school - that was where things got really difficult for me. I started secondary school at RI in 1989.

The problem for me was that I spent a lot of time training gymnastics as it was my first love (and it paid off - leading to me becoming a 3-time national champion who went on to represent Singapore in many international competitions in the 1990s), but I was deeply unpopular with the guys on my school's gymnastics team. I think the issue was that the rivalry amongst the gymnast was intense and none of us were mature enough to handle it in a sensible manner, so it got quite ugly. Was I an idiotic asshole who deserved to be bullied? You'll be amazed at how it all started - you see, I was lucky enough to have done gymnastics in primary school so I turned up at my first gymnastics training in secondary school already able to do all these tricks whilst my peers were struggling to learn the basics. There was an element of 'hey it's not fair, how do you expect us to compete against someone who has been doing this for years'? It wasn't just those in my year group, even those seniors who were older than me treated me with the same disdain because I had the audacity to turn up, able to do all these tricks they couldn't do. The coach often used me to demonstrate the skills to the others and I tried to be helpful by teaching them how to do some of those skills which I have already mastered, but that backfired spectacularly in my face as they accused me of showing off, being arrogant and they even started a rumour that I did really badly in my PSLE and was only accepted into RI on the basis of my gymnastics skills. Call it the tall poppy syndrome if you like, The entire gymnastics team turned against me within weeks of me turning up, everyone really hated me before I even had the chance to properly offend any of them.

Let's try to understand bullying.

All this made no sense after about half a year really, because those on the team who were genuinely talented in gymnastics soon mastered the basics and were as good as I was (and there was plenty of talent in my cohort). This 'unfair advantage' I had by starting gymnastics a few years earlier was eroded away to nothing by the end of secondary one and we were all pretty much competing on an equal footing. Were those kids rational people? No, of course not. I didn't tell my parents how awful my experience was at gymnastics because I did love the sport - there was a huge generation gap between me and my parents so I always felt that the less I told them, the better. All I wanted was for them to leave me alone and I would solve my own problems. I was afraid to say anything to my parents because I knew their solution would be to simply stop me from doing gymnastics - I would rather endure any kind of bullying than to let them take gymnastics away from me, so I kept quiet about it.

So, how did the other guys in the gymnastics club bully me? It went a lot further than just verbal abuse which I got on a daily basis. They would do things like stealing or hiding things from my bag - once I got a brand new watch and that was stolen from me during practice. Another time, my bag went missing during training only for me to find the contents of it strewn across the carpark. Once they chucked my shoes out of the gym during training, I picked them up in the drain outside and they were wet, covered with mud. You get the idea - at least we didn't have the internet back then, it was 1989 - 1990, so it was all done in person and not online. There was a pack mentality - few people dared to be seen to be openly friendly with me during training so even those who didn't actively bully me were afraid to be seen talking to me. The school teachers didn't care either - there was this "oh boys will be boys, it is all just harmless boys' banter" attitude they took. My bullies made sure I was well and truly isolated and their aim was to make me so miserable I would leave the gymnastics club. They succeeded in making me truly miserable but I refused to quit.

I blamed myself  for the bullying - I suppose it was easier to blame myself than to blame others. For a while, I suffered in silence because I didn't know what else to do, I didn't know whom I could approach for help. Perhaps if you manage to track down some of my old classmates from RI and ask them what I was like back then, they would probably tell you that I was an arrogant, rude asshole who deserved all the bullying I got, that I was bullied and ostracized because I was arrogant. Part of that is true, but let's get the order right and this needs explaining. I didn't start secondary school off being arrogant and nasty - like I said, track down my primary school classmates and they would remember me as a very quiet person who liked to read and just wanted to be left alone. I was forced by the bullying to become a completely different person. Indeed, I still get a lot of crap today for daring to talk about my achievements on my blog by people who claim "oh he's so full of himself - he's so arrogant and rude, he's not a nice person at all etc" and let me explain how I turned from this quiet, shy, awkward boy into the nastiest bitch in school.

I thought that adopting this arrogant asshole persona was the only way for me to salvage some pride in this mad situation - at least if I actually gave people a good reason to hate me and want to bully me, then at least the whole situation would have made some sense to me. It would have been easier for me to have blamed myself for being so arrogant and proud - but what was the alternative? To accept that I was surrounded by bullies who hated me, that they would hate me no matter how I hard tried to be nice to them? Oh my, what kind of pathetic loser would that make me?  No screw that, there came a point when I thought, fine, fuck the lot of you - the feeling's mutual, you hate me and guess what? I hate the lot of you fucking idiots too - you guys all suck and I'm the best, I'm going to be better than the lot of you and I'm going to give you all plenty of reasons to hate me even more. So I went out of my way to offend people, insult them, put them down and make enemies: if secondary school was a popularity contest, I wanted to finish last and get everyone to hate me the most. In choosing to make myself really unpopular this way, I was taking control of the situation. I'm sure my regular readers can still see there's an element of that in my writing today when I go out of my way to insult some people but hey, at least you now know where that anger originated from.

Was my reaction right or wrong?

There was this guy in my class - let's call him Ajay (not his real name of course). He was relentlessly bullied by so many of my classmates despite the fact that he tried harder than most to be everyone's best friend. His parents had emigrated from India and he spoke with a very thick Indian accent (and he was a vegetarian who brought his own packed lunches to school). So he was a bit different from the rest of the Singaporean boys, but it was the way he tried so hard to be your friend that made it a bit creepy - once I met his mother when she came to pick Ajay up at school and she asked me about my family so I told her everything, including which JC my sister was at without thinking twice. Ajay's mum then tries to call me up at home to invite me to Ajay's surprise birthday party, but I missed her call because I was at gymnastics training. It was my sister who answered the phone and Ajay's mother started being really friendly with her. At which point my sister was like, "who is this Indian lady who knows so much about me, this is kinda creepy." My sister ended up with an invitation to Ajay's birthday party - bizarre but true. I then found out that she called many people in my class, anyone whose phone number she could get hold of and invited everyone and nobody showed up. At least I made the excuse that I couldn't miss gymnastics training that day - everyone else just said, "no way, that creepy Indian kid is not my friend." Sigh. Poor Ajay. He was a nice guy, really.

Did Ajay do anything to offend anyone apart from being too friendly? No, he was a really sweet kid who was super nice to everyone - yet he was ostracized and bullied relentlessly. I felt sorry for him but I didn't want to be like him. If people were going to ostracize me, I'd rather be known as the arrogant, rude asshole. The more Ajay was bullied, the more his (sweet but somewhat misguided) mother encouraged him to be nicer to other people, so that he could win them over with his goodwill. I was the opposite, the more I was bullied, the nastier I became to my bullies and others in school. Because I was good with words, I became sarcastic and would cut people down with my insults. So there was this gymnast who was not skinny (but he wasn't fat either - just a bit bigger than the rest of us). I knew he was conscious of his size, so I said to him, "hey did you ever consider trying Judo? I think you would be absolutely brilliant at it you know? I heard that they needed bigger, heavier guys on the Judo team because all these skinny guys were no good at Judo. You have the built and.. ooh what's that word... mass to excel at Judo, your sheer mass! Oh you would crush your opponents especially since, well, you've put on some weight recently. It's just a suggestion, I know some people on the Judo team - could I to introduce you to them?" He had tried to make me quit gymnastics by hiding my shoes, so I retaliated by telling him to try Judo instead because he was too big for gymnastics.

I used sarcasm to attack people.

How was this resolved? Well I was incredibly lucky - an opportunity presented itself when I was in secondary three. You see, back in those days, RI and the Chinese High School (CHS) had an intense rivalry when it came to all sports and we were mortal enemies on the sports field. I was selected to train with the combined schools team (it was like the Singapore students' gymnastics team) in preparation for a competition abroad and the head coach of that team was Mr Foo - who just so happened to have been the head coach of the CHS gymnastics team. So I took that opportunity to have a clean break from the toxic environment in RI and whilst I still studied in RI, the moment I finished school, I got on the bus and went to CHS in Bukit Timah to train with their gymnastics team there. I was the only gymnast from RI who was a part of that programme (there was one other guy from Whitley Secondary) and I suppose I was slightly older at 15, I was more aware of the rivalry and group dynamics. I entered the group humble, respectful and polite to everyone. Don't get me wrong, they had plenty of in-house rivalry within their own gymnastics club but as an outsider, I was not part of their politics. I was simply warmly welcomed as a guest and I was so incredibly grateful. Mr Foo saw me as a very hardworking, obedient kid who truly loved gymnastics and told me I was welcomed to train with his team.

Did things get awkward back at RI? Yeah it did - like during the inter-school competitions, I would deliberately sit with the CHS guys and go for lunch with them whilst avoiding my own team mates. I suppose I did it to prove to them that I had found great new friends. I stopped trying to antagonize them as I didn't need to 'fight back' anymore. But since I had effectively removed myself from that environment, they realized they couldn't bully me the way they did before so you know what they did? They picked on someone else to victimize and I knew exactly what was going on. Well there's a part of me that could have stepped in and help the new victim - but I was a 15 - 16 year old kid then. My point of view was, "look I solved my own problems, it wasn't easy. Go solve your own problems, I can't help you but good luck to you. Remove yourself from that toxic environment and go find new friends." Thankfully I wasn't involved in a team sport (like basketball, rugby, football or hockey) which tied me to a team - as a gymnast, it didn't matter where I trained or whom I trained with as long as I had access to good equipment and coaching. I was lucky - remember Ajay? His entire 4 years at RI were miserable and by secondary 4, he became withdrawn and very quiet - even he got sick and tired of trying to be nice. The bullies had broken him, but they didn't break me. I hope life is treating him well today.

Life at RI was pretty miserable for me.

You know what the irony is? To the rest of the school, the worst of the bullies were just normal students - some of them excelled at their studies and were very popular with the teachers and student body in general. Others were surprisingly ordinary and didn't really stand out in the crowd. Being extremely nasty to me was just a hobby for them, something they did for fun - I am just surprised that no one ever questioned just how ostracized I was back then. I suppose even I just accepted that it was my fault that things were the way they were. It was clear that there was indeed a culture of bullying in the school under the facade of academic excellence and respectability. I wasn't sure how aware the teachers were of the situation but I don't think cared to get involved anyway. Bullying was just normal back then.

Life at RI during my secondary 3 and 4 years did improve - I managed to get myself a new group of friends through the drama club Raffles Players and drama is a completely different environment. In any kind of sports, there is a lot of testosterone driven rivalry to be the best whereas in drama, there are not gold medals to be won on the stage, instead you come together as a team to put on a good show and have a lot of fun together at the same time. The group dynamics were totally different and my positive experiences there led me to follow up with TSD in my VJC years, which turned out to be one of the best experiences in my life as I met some incredible people at TSD during my JC years there. This led me to want to pursue a career in acting later on in my adult life. The irony of course, is that not all actors are so laid back and nice people, recently when I was working in Hungary - I had to deal with some pretty competitive and nasty dancers who indulged in bullying behaviour towards me. Nowhere in the world is bully free.

I found a sense of belonging amongst the artistic community.

During my JC years, I was able to continue training at CHS as part of the national team whilst I avoided my former team mates who all went on to RJC. It was easy for me to keep my distance from them then. I have not made any effort to contact them since - our paths never crossed when I was in the army and I left for Europe as soon as I finished NS. Some years back, when I was in Singapore, I met up with some old RI classmates I did get along with and I heard that one of the boys who used to bully me was nearby - at a family funeral and I was asked if I wanted to go say hi. I said no, why rake up the past? Funeral or not, I had no desire to see him (talk about an awkward social scenario). What's the point? A part of me does wonder what life would have been like if I did go to a secondary school where I was allowed to be left alone as a quiet loner in school, the way I was in primary school? Would I have been a nicer person if I didn't experience that kind of bullying which turned me into this evil, nasty bitch? I don't want to say that surviving bullying made me a better person, hell no. I'm just glad I had the inner strength to survive the ordeal, I've seen others who were well and truly broken by the bullying they were subjected to.

I wonder if you have an image in your mind of what a typical bully at school would be like and what they would become when they grow up to be 40? Most people would make two simplistic assumptions - that bullies are probably bad people with criminal tendencies who will end up in jail, or they would have managed to bully their way to the top of the food chain and are incredibly successful today. Well, I can tell you that neither assumption is true. I had a look at the Facebook profiles of some of my bullies from the period 1989 - 1990, I could even look them up on other websites like Linkedin as well. None of them are in jail or anything like that but none of them are particularly successful either. They mostly look bored, stuck in mundane lower/middle-management jobs in some small company, not particularly interesting jobs but they are probably neither that happy or that miserable. There's nothing for me to gloat about - it's not like they are miserable or struggling today but none of them particularly stood out in terms of success or popularity. In short, they are all, without exception, incredibly unremarkable, ordinary and boring today. Some of them have children today - I wonder how they would feel if their kids were subjected to the same kind of bullying they inflicted on me back then? And no, I don't feel anger as I looked at their profiles on social media - just feel somewhat baffled at the juxtaposition between their very boring, mundane lives today and just how shockingly evil they were back then.

My former bullies are very ordinary people who lead mundane, boring lives today.

What is interesting though, is that today, I have two very close friends: one is a diver who was a former Hungarian national champion and the other was once on the British national junior team. They have confided in me that they both experienced a lot of bullying when in their early teens as well, the same way I did. The diver had the worst stories to tell - her team mates would go out of their way to shatter her confidence and when you're teenage diver standing on the edge of a 10 meter platform, imagine how easy it is for your evil team mates to break your spirit and confidence by shouting nasty things at you. So it goes to show, it's not just boys who indulge in this kind of nasty bullying behaviour but girls of that age can be equally vicious. My Hungarian diver friend hung on and was the best female diver from Hungary when she was in her prime, but my British gymnast friend quit the sport when the bullying was too much for her. You know, I always encourage people to make their kids do more sports but it is precisely this kind of environment where the intense rivalry can bring the very worst out of seemingly normal kids and turn them into the most evil bullies. The adults in charge should have done far more to have prevented it in the first place. The problem with competitive sports is that some coaches actually encourage rivalry as it motivates the athletes to train harder to outdo each other, but it should be closely monitored to prevent it from turning into outright bullying.

What have we learnt from my story then? Which pitfalls can you avoid? Here are some bullet points for you.

1. I think that whenever you venture into a new environment, such as a new school - beware of the tall poppy syndrome. It is scary just how much hatred there can be for people who happen to be the tall poppy, even for a short period of time. If you're especially good at something (or if your family is very rich), you may wish to be quite careful about how to disclose that information to those around you.

2. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes: you'll be amazed at how some of the bullies who attacked me were excellent in their studies and so polite to the teachers - yet they did some pretty awful things to me. So don't be fooled - there isn't a stereotype image of a bully in school - anyone can be a bully.

3. There's a pack mentality in terms of the bullies, they rarely operate alone. Bullies thrive from having this power over others - they will coerce others to either join in the bullying or at least ignore the victim.

4. Victims are not passive, we can fight back but it's hardly a war you want to start in the first place. But sometimes when trouble comes looking for us (rather than the other way around), then you have no choice but to fight back.

5. Most victims find it hard to ask for help because they often feel a sense of shame and blame themselves for the situation they have found themselves in.

Did school feel like a popularity contest to you?

6. Please don't underestimate just how evil some children can be and dismiss what they do as innocent banter amongst children - some of these teenage or even pre-teen bullies are so fucking evil they are worse than adults.

7. The best solution is always to remove yourself from the toxic situation rather than try to deal with the bullies.

8. Victims are picked for the most random reasons - do not assume that those who are ostracized/bullied are victims because they did something wrong and thus they have brought this upon themselves. Often, victims have done nothing wrong and they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

9. Some people can be both bullies and victims of bullying (as in my case). Bullies may have once been victims.

10. Your chances of being bullied increases infinitely if there is a well established culture of bullying in that school. By the same token, there are more healthy environments where there is little or no bullying.

Here I am, at the age of 40, still enjoying gymnastics

So, I have only just started with my story about bullying. Little did I know what awaited me in the army - but I shall save that for my next post where we shall take bullying to the next level. Look out for the next installment coming soon. Let me know what you think - were you bullied at school? What do you make of the bullies at school? Have you ever met someone like my Indian former classmate Ajay who was bullied through no fault of his own? Many thanks for reading.