Bullying and all that...
I can't really think of a creative way that I used to get back at the bullies I once knew, but, heres my story.

1990s South Yorkshire High School

I was never really the popular one at school. In fact, I was the one that always seemed to attract the punches from the bullies. I wasn't the most intelligent one around, but I knew enough to get by.

There were 4 or 5 lads in my yeargroup that seemingly made it their sole objective in life to make my life hell. Each one finding new ways in which to get at me without drawing the attentions of the teachers.

I seemed to become more and more withdrawn, which, for some reason, didn't make anyone wonder why this was happening. My grades began to suffer, I put on weight, and I had no confidence to do anything.

I tried fighting back. I know I tried fighting back. But, for all the efforts I made in trying to fight back, I just got hit harder. I suppose I could have shouted for help, but, at 14 years old, without anyone I could call a friend for support, I just panicked.

It drove me to the brink. I considered extreme action, starting at overdoses and ending with a rope. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

All that came to a head about 6 months later.

It was before a German lesson, and one of the lads from my year who wasn't a bully as such, decided he wanted a piece of me.

I saw him coming a mile off. Running at me, arms windmilling like some circus strongman, and then it happened without me even thinking.

I stepped forward, and as he was running straight at me, held my right hand out like a 1960s policeman attempting to stop a pursued car. The bridge of his nose caught the heel of my hand, his glasses cartwheeling one way, his head snapping back, and him ending up flat on his back.

You could almost hear the gasp come from the students, all stood milling about waiting their next lesson.
They all began to circle round, in the typical school fight way. He got the next punch in, then decided to throw caution to the wind, trying to connect with a kick to my face. He missed, and that allowed me to get the upper hand.

I suppose the plus side of putting on weight due to the bullying I was subjected to was that I could use it to my advantage, and I did.
I connected with a left hand to his cheek, rocking his head back.

He swung a wild right hand, that was more danger to the passing flies than me, which was followed by a right hook from me. In all of my 26 years on this earth, I don't think I've ever thrown a harder punch.

I think it was the 2 and a half years of stress all coming to a head, and, speaking to people I know since then, they all said it was a perfect punch. It seemed to come from somewhere far behind me, and my right hand connected just beneath his right eye.

He staggered round, like a Friday night alcoholic walking home after one too many, before crumpling in a heap.

I'd like to say that all the bullying stopped completely after that, but it didn't. It seemed to get slightly worse for a week or two, then, when the lad who'd been subject of my punch got back, all the trouble seemed to gravitate towards him. I wasn't sympathetic towards him, he'd tried throwing his weight around, but had come off worse, and, in the eyes of the bullies, he was fair game.

I've still been subjected to bullying, mainly in the workplace, but fortunately, nothing as bad as the stuff I was subjected to at school.

Bullying? Some say its character building. But it isn't. It takes us back to tribal times, and survival of the fittest, and has no place in our times. Some people weren't as fortunate as me, and couldn't fight back.
(Code of Post lives at the moment in time that is..., Thu 14 May 2009, 18:45, Reply)