I Was The Bully.

Recently, my brother told me a story about how he was bullied in school — mostly elementary school, but in high school as well. It really, really fucked him up…

He ended up with serious body image issues, even now into his mid 30’s because he was a bit of a chubby kid, and then he was really skinny and lanky in high school, so he put all his energy and time towards becoming pretty much a bodybuilder. He was a bouncer for years and was never, ever muscular enough to his liking.

As he told me about his experience being bullied growing, my heart sank. I was one of those bullies. Looking back, I know I bullied him because he was such an easy and accessible target. I needed an outlet for everything going on in the family. He was shy, quiet, and didn’t really fight back. He was just a nice punching bag to get all my anger out.

We talked about this and I told him about how much regret I had for being such an asshole to him when we were growing up. It took me many years of therapy to work through all the guilt I hag and build an understanding as to why I acted that way. I told him why I did it….but he already understood, he knew. We both grew up with the same fucked up family dynamic, we just reacted differently.

I was the bully, who wanted to make myself feel like I was in control and to get attention. He was the quiet one who figured he might…