Speaking of Bullies...Underdogs, How Dare You?

Recently I was nominated for the Canadian Weblog Awards 2010 People's Choice category.  I believe it was this post that got me the nomination.  I kind of stepped out of my mundane journaling box with that post and the rest is history.

Once the voting started I believe I honestly didn't have a hope in hell to win, or even be in the top 3.  I am a blogging underdog,  who got stuck in a poll with a ruthless top dog.   Lucky for me I have a wonderful network full of people with OCD who actually care about me and wanted to see me kick some ass succeed...they worked diligently posting reference to my blog, emailing their entire contact lists, texting and talking, facebooking and sharing.  It fired my neurons with excitement, I actually had a chance.  This little unknown blogger gained some momentum and started to take the first place spot.  Then this ass came along.  She calls herself a minx but I think weasel (small, active predator, long and slender with short legs) would've been a better fit.

Then the hits came. More hits on my blog, more hits on the voting but,  the hits soon turned to punches.  Low blows like the one in my first paragraph which felt so good is totally beneath me, I realize that but, I have to add some sort of humor in all this, otherwise it's just not honestly me writing.

According to some my blog was a snore, I was cuckoo (okay that one was bang on), I was a terrible lazy blogger who had no right to go toe-to-toe, and then I was a cheater.  Interesting that I am a small-time blogger with a poor design and I don't rank on Alexa (whatever that is) but, I somehow can manage to cheat on a fucking web poll and masterminded the whole thing while I was working a full time job, preparing for 3 family Christmases, baking and decorating gingerbread cookies for bake sales, attending school concerts and travelling to 3 separate out of town gatherings?  I'm more talented than Harry Potter I ever thought....apparently.


The final straw was when I saw that comments were infiltrating the Weblog Awards themselves and the attackers mother was on there calling everyone hater trolls and the administrator of the awards was observantly irritated with what was going on.  It is the Canadian Weblogs Awards position to maintain a free and public award system which will not be tainted by the creators personal opinion or infiltrated to police nominees behavior surrounding the awards. At first I felt like this was a no contest plea by the administrator and just another bullying bystander who was not willing to intervene but, after processing a bit I understand the position completely and agree with it.  There will be no People's Choice category in 2011 to eliminate any small people from ruining incidence like this from ever happening again.

I hate that I've even been named or involved in this whole shenanigan and my only comfort is that I kept my dignity and moral footing.  A friend wrote to me "Rest assured that you were second technically, but ethically you came in first!"  That was much more important than winning any sort of popularity contest or winning something at any and all costs, even if it meant tearing apart the other contenders in the process.

I'm glad that I have arrived at the final stage of the Kübler-Ross model which generally refers to the process you go through in the face of tragedy but, I find it usually applies to most difficult situations that provoke thought or emotions.

Stage 1 - Denial:  "Oh no, she didn't" / "She can't be referring to me" / "If I just ignore it, it will go away"

Stage 2 - Anger:  "Why me?" / "What did I do to deserve such hateful attention?" / "I'm going to fire back, I don't care if it's not "big" of me." / "I wish I lived in Toronto, I find her and kick her in her opinion with my ninja boots."

Stage 3 - Bargaining:  "I will send her a nice message, ya that'll work, kill em' with kindness" / "If I win, it'll all be worth it so, it's all good."

Stage 4 - Depression:  "Ugh, I don't care anymore" / "I wish I was never nominated, never blogged, never did anything that people could criticize me for." / "It's all pointless and stupid, I just want to cry and sleep and cry some more."

Stage 5 - Acceptance:  "It's not the end of the world" / "I still have things to say" / "Who cares if 1 person thinks the worst of me, I am not the jackass whisperer."

I decided to withdraw from the voting because the whole thing got ugly and jaded and it just became about winning.  The original  meaning behind the award got thrown out the window and it wasn't fun anymore.  I'm happy that the attacker will win it, she deserves it and has worked hard to obtain it.  Blogging is something I do, it doesn't define me.  It is not my entire life, only the most significant a small part of it.  I certainly do not want to covet an award or need one for validation...feel free to nominate me for every category next year.

I believe the entire experience was a total pain in the ass lesson for me, I still have more to learn.  So I blog on, good or not, award worthy or not.

I would like to thank everyone who broke into houses to use alternate IP addresses read, voted and supported....sorry to have wasted your time and energy but, I felt like withdrawing was the only way to end this with my mind dignity intact.

Now for some lyrical genius by The Time totally related unrelated:

Body of a superstar
The mind of a 10-year-old
She wants 2 take U 4 a ride
The Stella has hair of gold
The lights are on upstairs
But is anybody home?
She's not lookin' 4 a man
The girly wants 2 be alone

She's the queen of glamorous, everything is right
All the fellas have a fit anytime she walks by
This woman would be dangerous if she had a mind
When Blondie tells U what U want 2 hear, don't waste your time

CHORUS:
And her name is Blondie, sexy socialite (Dumb blonde)
Diggin' out on the town any given night
And her name is Blondie, the queen of glamorous
And the game is money, the girl is dangerous

Her fatal beauty's blinding and her intentions not kind
She tried 2 take a part of me but I caught on in time
She lives a life of make believe, takes what she wants and leaves
Blondes, they do have more fun, but how dumb is she?

CHORUS

Blondie, my glamorous superstar
U took it much 2 far
And now U look like "What happened?"
Blondie, a dangerous socialite
She hangs out every night
And the neighborhood game is 2 dog U blind

- The St.Godard Brood Keeper (Moving on)

From the Bully's Mouth

In light of all the media and social attention that has recently surrounded bullying (that we've already seem to have forgotten),  I've been doing a lot of thinking...I know, totally unusual for me.  When I was young I was a bully, a bad one....I doubt there was even a glimmer of a somewhat decent human being in me during my tween and teenage years.  I will get into it a little more in posts to come. 

I have pondered blogging about my experiences as a bully, from my perspective.  I've frantically searched the web for articles, blogs, anything that is expressed from a bully's (past or present) point of view.  Sadly, I found very few and nothing really substantial enough to mention.  Really, it brought me back time and time again to the same question.   How can we even begin to attack this issue without acknowledging why bullies bully?

I wholeheartedly agree that the bullied are victims.  They desperately need the helping hands and comforting voices of their communities, their peers and their authority figures to lift them up when they have been beaten down by words or physical aggression.  They need others to step in, for everyone to make it their business, to be their voice when it isn't heard, to help them overcome and preserve some sense of self-esteem.  I also believe the bullies are also victims, also in need of help but, not help just anyone can give them.

It saddens me that most of what I have seen in the media is empathy toward the bullied (good) but, the dehumanization of the bully (bad).  Bullies are people too, damaged people, sick people, abused people....I am surprised that many have just chosen to belittle, verbally abuse and degrade the bullies rather than consider that those very people were/are the ones that needed the help in the first place.  Like bullies are magically born that way, they just come out of the womb fists flying, armed with verbal ammunition waiting to be unleashed at the first vulnerable person to come along.  I doubt it.  Why people think they can solve a problem without focusing on the root source is beyond me and still has me perplexed. 

Psychology shows that it was once believed that bullies had low self esteem and knock others down to make themselves feel better.  It is now believed that most bullies simply act in this way because they have been bullied in some form at school or at home themselves.  In fact, bullies usually have good self-esteem but, use their aggressive ways as a form of anger management, it actually makes them feel better, gives them a sense of release.  Really all bullying needs to be addressed at the source, with the parents.   The cycle that is sometimes passed on by countless generations needs to be broken.

I've read blogs and articles that say that bullies just need compassion, they just need a hug.  That is such poppycock, I had people show me compassion when I was younger but, the reality is that I still had to go home at the end of the day. If you were to give me a hug, I was bound to give you a swift kidney shot and run away laughing.   I didn't have an extreme abusive upbringing but, there was a lot of emotional torment and I took on the role of mediator during a nasty prolonged divorce which in turn affected my development much more than I'm sure my parents realized. 

My saving grace was that my mother eventually had me "committed" to a psychiatric facility.  People make fun of me for it now, even I think the experience was rather comical...plus, it makes the awkwardness of me actually being in the nut house a lot more comfortable when you are able to laugh at it.  There my feelings were addressed, my parents were spoken to about how their actions affected my behaviour.  I believe they were told "you are killing your daughter."  I can't say that this totally transformed my family life, fact being that my parents still to this day cannot get along with each other but, things changed for me.  I was able to cope with my life a little better.  I stopped externalizing my feelings onto undeserving people.  I respected myself a little more, even better I respected other people and by the time I was 18 about one year later I was on a straight and narrow path where I was open to learn the lessons life had to teach me and to start evolving as a compassionate human being.  I wish it would have happened a lot sooner than that.  I would've saved myself and others a lot of trouble.

I still have "bully" tendencies.   Everytime I think I am about to be hurt a protective wall appears and garbage is literally spewed from my mouth in the attempt to intimidate the other person into believing I am right...about everything.  I work on those tendencies though, because I was given the tools to do so by counsellors, psychiatrists and psychologists. 

We are not all that blind, everyone can point out the bullies in children's lives early on.  I see the bullies in my son's group of friends even now.   I know who to keep my eye on...I think we all do to some extent.  My son has even participated in some forms of low-key bullying himself to fit in with those kids.  The first people I look at when Aidan does something that I feel is out of character is myself and my husband.  What did we do to make him feel like he needed to be mean to someone to fit in?  If I can't figure it out myself and change that thing within our home you'd better know that I would find a professional who could offer some insight before it got out of control.   

So, my plea is to the parents and caregivers.  Show the children empathy, teach them how to have some foresight as to how their actions can actually damage another person.  If you know the child is naturally aggressive or compulsive start teaching them early how to curb their aggression and how to handle conflict.  Show them how to be helpful and have a sense of community rather than helpless. 

Keep children social so they develop the skills and filter to know what is appropriate and what is not.  Enforce clear consequences and healthy consistent discipline so children learn to have respect for authority and understand proper conduct. 

Take an interest in children, monitor their activities and give them a sense of self.   Talk to them and listen to them, you'd be amazed at what you learn about their outside life from a dinner table conversation and a few questioned asked. 

Stop telling kids they are the best at everything.  Reality is they are not the best dancer, swimmer, skater, reader, wrestler, hula hoop er out there.  If they are the "best", everyone else is inferior to them.  Don't reward them for being the top dog, congratulate their efforts. 

Most of all teach them that compassion is not a weakness, love them unconditionally and make sure you show it so they feel it...don't just say it. 

Getting off my parental soapbox now.  No, really I am not a perfect parent, nor is my child perfect but, I am always trying to improve.  In my short-term experiences thus far and from observation and research I think these are key things to preventing bully-minded children.  I could be way off base. 

I really honestly believe the parents (or caregivers) are the only one's who can cease the bullying.  They need to care enough to look in the mirror and figure out what they are doing wrong.  If there is a child that you know is a bully, in whatever form grow a pair and talk to the parent/caregiver you could make them see something they didn't realize was there.  If you can't muster up the courage, talk to their school, daycare or in extreme situations child protection agencies.  Believe it or not some parents actually want to know how their children are behaving the 10 hours a day they are away from them....as for the others, all you can do is try.   

- The St.Godard Brood Keeper (Reformed bully wanting to save others the trouble)

Fork in the Road

Today is Monday, it's a good day for a personal crisis, well I thought so.  Damn bloggers, you are single- handedly ruining my life, you'd better hope something good comes of it because I know where you blog....that is without a doubt NOT a threat.

I think I've officially given up on Reverb10, although it was a nice frame of mind to be in even for but a moment, to commit to something for 31 days, it was just another thing that I wanted to do but, couldn't find the time.  I guess I could be writing one right now instead of this but, I much prefer to be narcissistic and write about myself than respond to a prompt.   

Things come into your life when you need them to, at the precisely the right time that they will actually mean something and inspire you to think of things in a whole new light.  Sometimes you just have to open your eyes and allow yourself to see.  So maybe I'm not able to fully commit to Reverb10 because I am just too lazy busy right now, however through it I stumbled upon an insane amount of posts from inspiring writers with valuable lessons to teach.

One of the thoughts that surfaced most often when reading was what part of my life, or what I "do" with my life rather, is actually significant?  I've always just settled with the notion that I do my best and I am currently raising a child so that should be adequate.  I mean raising a child, growing an adult, someone who is going to be a contributing member of society one day and if all goes well a betterment to the world.  Is that enough?  I used to think so....today, not so much. 

I read blog after blog, written words that were drawn from huge inspiration.  People who have fought cancer, travelled the world, taken in the needy or physically disabled, stood up for the abused and neglected.  People who have conquered the obesity battle, have overcome their darkest fears, have lost a child, have struggled through poverty and adversity.  People who make me question if anything I'm doing is actually going to matter, make a difference or nurture change.

This is definitely something I am going to ponder over the next few weeks.  I feel a bucket list coming on....squee!   No really...if the new year is meant to bring resolution then for 2011 I will focus on taking less and giving more.  I think Aidan has approached the age where it is important for him to start learning how to pay it forward, more than just theoretically.  He understands that giving back and doing for others is important, I'm just not sure he is mindful about anything beyond what Lego set he wants next.

We have definitely led by example in helping our community and people we are close with, I'm just not sure we've really ventured out too far beyond that scope in a meaningful way. 

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It's not." 

~Dr. Seuss

- The St.Godard Brood Keeper (Mulling it over, one day at a time)