If a bully is someone who deliberately down-ranks and demeans a vulnerable other, imposes unwanted stress activation to achieve a premeditated interpersonal effect, conjures waves of predatory-derived dopamine as an anticipatory pleasure inducement, and invites a celebratory audience or enlists allies to heighten the experience, could I become such a one? Have I been such?
I recall a grade 9 gym-class locker-room incident. Surrounded by cheering supporters I picked a fight with an annoying classmate. He didn’t want to fight. He looked scared. I remember his para-verbal expressions of fear and helplessness as he stood before me.
Somehow, despite his anxious display, the circling crowd demanding a sensational and satisfying outcome, and the incongruent nature of knowing myself as a quiet, unassuming introvert, I nevertheless punched him in the stomach.
As his posture folded, I kneed him in the face. He fell to the ground. And like a self-convicted criminal, I ran from the scene only to be arrested by the gym teacher in the hallway to face justice soon after.
Fast forward 40 years since this memory was ingrained as evidence against me. I evolved to become a correctional Chaplain and a Psychotherapist. But my memories remind me that a bully once occupied this life I now regard as a remorseful, reformed, nurturer of self and others.
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