THE HATE YOU GIVE

THE HATE YOU GIVE

I didn’t know what bullying was. where I came from, we didn’t bully one another. We had normal, harmless, children squabbles. But we never resorted to vicious, premeditated acts of wickedness (what else can I call it other than wickedness?). Today a lot of children are doing hideous things to their fellow mates in school or the environment they are in. bullying is a touchy subject, and also very dear to my heart. I’ve endured bullying in my short life, both verbally and non-verbally.

I was in my J.S.S 1 when I accidentally stepped on a class mate of mine, she didn’t wait for me to apologize, she gave me a resounding slap that brought tears to my eyes instantly. That day a part of my self-worth fell off me, I did nothing wrong to deserve that slap, it still hurts thinking about it. I used to be a scrawny kid, because of my size, I got picked on a lot by my mates in secondary school. I didn’t have that much friends because I had a very low self-esteem, this was because of the way my mates thought some of us where not up to their standard. I had a mate who made it her life duty to draw me on the chalk board as a serving spoon and label it up as me, the class would laugh and all eyes would be on me (you get the picture right?), each time she did that I lost part of self-esteem. And each time someone called me a derogatory name. my self-confidence went down a notch. And by the time I was done with secondary school, I felt unloved, unworthy of love, worthless, I didn’t deserve to be happy or have friends, I began to accept the fact that I wasn’t up to nothing. Then I became depressed.

I started self-harming but no one noticed, or maybe they did, because they said I had sickle cell anemia (An-sickie, An-healthy, An-strong-blood), they didn’t know I was doing by myself, banging my wrist or leg against hard surfaces to make it swollen. I got called all sorts of degrading names back then. I couldn’t fight back because I wasn’t a fighter, I’ll instead cry myself to sleep. I didn’t tell my parents; I was scared of what would happen to me if I did. I wasn’t the only one being bullied, there were a lot of other kids being bullied, but I guess some of us find it hard to deal with emotional abuse than other people. The abuse I was going through kept being bottled up by me on the inside, until it resulted to me suffering from Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder.

I wish that I had spoken up or stood up for myself, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be here suffering from these mental illnesses.

Today you hear horrifying stories of bullying amongst youngsters and you begin to wonder where this kids get their wickedness from. I guess the big question is WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN TEACHING YOUR CHILD(REN)? Have you been teaching them that it’s okay to hurt their mates without remorse, or they should be cautious of people’s fragile emotions, it starts from home, before it manifests into something bigger and sinister.

Do I still harbor resentment or anger to all the people who abused me, who have contributed in bringing me to this point in my life? No I don’t, I’ve learnt to forgive myself and everyone who in one way or the other hurt me. I realized that hate is like a vicious circle and for love to be able to come in then you need to end that circle. After all it was Debbie Macomber who said in Mrs. Miracle that ‘To forgive is to set the prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you’. So I’ve learnt to forgive and focus on my health



I am WANYANDE ADZO, and this my story, have you been bullied before? If yes, then leave your stories in the comments section. I hope you enjoyed todays read, make sure to share the link to my blog post, thank you.