I was a person who was an easy target for those nasty bullies. I had a speech impediment known as a stutter or a stammer. Despite attending different forms of stuttering therapy I was only able to achieve fluency when I was in my twenties.
I was rather an obese child and was a lot shorter than most of my friends.
I had hoped that people who I would meet at work would be rather more mature than these school kids – they are adults after all. How wrong could I have been?
There was one main bully who made my life hell, his name was Gary. Gary constantly took the mickey out of myself and would mimmick my stuttering at regular intervals. I tried to not let it bother me, but it did. I let this continue for nearly year and by now I was feeling very depressed and was ready to quit.
I then read a book about the subject of bullying and it wrote about something which they called, playing the nutter card. Basically at for example work, you can be who you want to be. Nutters come in all shapes and sizes and if you threaten the bully in a strong enough and convincing manner, they will normally back off, as most bullies are cowards.
I decided to be brave and give it a go. Trying to fight back in a physical manner was not really an option due to the fact that Gary was probably twice the size of me. He does not know the people in my circle of friends though, I needed to convince him that they could.
On the day when I actually went for it, it had not been planned. I will have to admit that despite really wanting to do this I did not feel that I would have the courage. This day the bullying was very distressing and was in very bad taste. I was really mad and clocked out of work and went to wait by Gary’s car, but hidden behind a tree.
Gary eventually approached his car and went to unlock the door, as he did I jumped on his back but quickly fell off. He turned round with a shocked look on his face, however was happy when he saw that it was me. I started swearing at him and told him that I had had enough. I informed him that a number of my friends are a bit tapped in the head, but that they would do anything to help me. If I told them the abuse he was giving me, they would not be best pleased and would basically beat him to a pulp. I told him that if I ever heard him bad mouthing me again, whether it was directly to my face or behind my back – then I would let them know – he would then have to await his punishment to happen. I then ran off shaking.
The next day I went to work in a nervous state, I am happy to report he fell for the bait and was as good as gold after that.
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I have met many people in my life who are very negative. They moan about seemingly everything and walk around with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I was also like that until the age of twenty-two, at this age I decided to have a new approach to life.
During an afternoon at work one day (we worked for a composite door company), aged as I say twenty-two, a colleague I was working with started to talk to me. What he said was a shock to me, however would have a profound effect on my future. He said to me:
“Your are somebody who always thinks in a negative way, you a right depressive person, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
I said in a rather cautious voice – I had not realised that I was negative in comparison to other people. There were reasons for my often depressive state; I had a stuttering speech impediment for a start.
He continued:
“Yes you are. You very rarely smile, you are negative about most issues and you always seem to be carrying the world on your shoulders”.
This man was aged around fifty three and continued:
“I used to be like you and then I was given some advice, of which I am now going to relay to you. Whenever you start to become slightly depressed or in the state of feeling sorry for yourself – start to watch the news on the TV. You may then realise that you are in fact one of the lucky ones.”
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