My Daily Reflections: Pity the Bully

So many bullied people 

It means there are so many bullies.

Why oh why are there so many bullies?

What sorrow creates the bully?

I heard once that the child who is bullied

By their emotionally wounded parents

Becomes a target for the school yard bully.

But imagine, what pain the bully

Must have had to endure

To become a bully.

Bullies all around

Bullies at home

Bullies in friendships

Bullies in families

Bullies at school

Bullies in the workplace

So many bullies

Bullies all around

Why does our society work on this level?

Why do people like to exert their power?

Why do the sensitive souls have to languish

In anguish?

The struggle to survive all the bullies

Seems at times insurmountable!
Bullied all my life I strove

To reach my children with love,

To teach empathy and compassion

And yet I raised another bully,

Who started bullying me at age of 7. 

I thought it was just childish ignorance

A lack of comprehension.

Teaching kindness did not work

Unconditional acceptance failed

Love lavished never solved anything

Demonstrations of compassion failed

Or maybe I failed to make myself understood

The taunts got worse as she matured
Always comparing me to other parents

Always I was the least satisfactory of all.

Always I was the one that caused her

Embarrassment simply for being me.

Always the message that I was not good enough

Always the message that if only I were different

Then maybe she could tolerate me.

Bullies, bullies all around me.

First the elders

Then the peers

And finally the younger generation

The common denominator me

What is it about me that invites

The bully to enact

Their hostility upon me?

Is it my meekness,

My humility, my desire to get along?

Is it my lack of boundaries

Or my desire for peace?

Why can’t we all just get along?

Why must my spirit be stomped beneath

Cruel words of judgment and comparison

For you to feel relief?

Slowly I learn that maybe my pain

Is less than your pain. 

My pain is to suffer at your hands.

Your pain is that you only find relief

When harming me and others like me.

My pain evaporates when I recognize

My strength,

My empowerment,

My ability to rise above your taunts,

To walk away.

As I recognize the value

Of my own goodness,

My kindness,

My ability to love even when hurting

As I heal

I transform

Things become more clear to me

On my path of love and compassion.

Your need to cause me pain

Is an illusion that never ends.

You believe that you prolong my torment

Never realizing

That in doing so

You are the source of your own torment.

 

Your only relief is finding another to torment

And then another
And then yet another.

For the hole of emptiness within,

The one that drives you to hurt others

Is a never-ending pit of self-deception.

Unexplored reasons for your anger

The invisible rut of your existence.
Suppressed and unexpressed emotions

Leaking out in hurtful speak.

I used to feel sorry for myself

Until I came to understand

That your life is worse than mine.

I only experience your hate filled

Excretions of pain

On those occasions when

I am in your presence.

When the vileness

Of your inner thoughts

Passes your lips

In outward condemnation.

Or sometimes

When I reflect upon,

Our past together

And the nature of the hurting things

You said or did to me

You however live it constantly

Unendingly,

Even in your unknowingness,

Your buried hate is your soul mate,

It is your constant companion.

You have no relief.

You cannot walk away from yourself.
Every time you look into the mirror

You see that person who copes in life

By tormenting others.

Do you ever wonder

Why you drive people away?

Do you ever wonder where

Those mean thoughts originate?

Do you ever wonder about

Your own dissatisfaction?

Or does hurting others make you blind

To your own deep inner hurting?

How would you respond

To know that I pity you?

To discover that I

Would rather be the victim

Of your bitter spitefulness

Than live with the anger

You carry buried

Festering away inside, 

The way you are doomed to do.

I can compassionately love you

My tormentor

Knowing that my torment

Though open and apparent

Is healable, transmutable,

Transformational.

Whereas yours is deceptive,

The cesspool of existence

You call your happy life

Influenced by unresolved issues

Things you fear to look upon

Things you keep buried in darkness

Because they are the essence

Of who you have allowed

Yourself to become.

Your vindictiveness

First a place to hide away from

Emotions too scary to face

Has become your prison.

I pity you,

The bullies of my life.

And I am grateful every day

To be your victim,

And especially I am thankful

That I am not you.

  
By Renate Dundys Marrello
2018 - 09 - 15 


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