I wasn’t bullied growing up. I had too big a personality to become a victim. (I did get beat up a few times, one time by a pack of headbangers in a city park, but that doesn’t count as bullying.) Nor was I an active bully of others. I was, in the terminology of Barbara Coloroso, a bystander. I wasn’t a ringleader but I was one of the complicit masses. That remains a source of sorrow and guilt to this day, for I had the power to do something. I could have wielded my influence and risked my popularity to stand in the gap with the victims, but I didn’t.
That burden of guilt welled up within me when I watched the trailer for the forthcoming documentary “Bully”. Check it out. Support the film. Stand in the gap for those who are bullied, for those who need a friend.
And for all the people I didn’t help, I’m sorry.
