The Strong and the Weak

Juicy Peppah

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THE feeling of having to hide from the mockers who’d always poke fun at someone for accidentally pooping at school… the pain a boy has to endure from the blows of merciless fists just because he wouldn’t act like a man… the sadness of being isolated because one is not really a part of a family’s blood and flesh… the misery of being laughed at because one has an utterly different mind… Those were the feelings some of us might want to hurl at the gates of hell, if possible.

Being at a disadvantage might often make us think we are weak, but are we?

The richness of my imagination and the height of my spirit have been my downfall at a young age. Because I was confined in the world of fantasies at that time [well, who can blame me? I was a child], my classmates mistook me for a mad person. It lasted until I stepped foot in high school, maybe fired up by a classmate who happened to see me as an academic rival.

My classmates have been bullying me back then, singing songs which implied that I was crazy and of course, I got really pissed. And maybe for the stupid knowledge of it, most of my girl classmates refused my company [it’s thanks to the gay people whom they bully as well, I had a share of high school friends].

And how could I even forget a ‘favorite’ teacher who one afternoon asked my classmates, “Class, what do you call someone who laughs without any reason?” when he caught me laughing to myself just because I was leaning on my desk and was afraid he might see me doing so? To which one classmate answered, “A madman,” without a second thought.

Had I known earlier, I would have sued him for humiliating me.

Moving on, at my first few years in college, I was even treated meanly by a person of my own blood because of the same thing—thinking I have gone mad because I was having fun dubbing our stuffed toys whether there are people around or none—telling me I needed diagnosis and all that because I was neurotic, psychotic, and schizophrenic.

Up to the time my ‘intelligent’ college classmates would laugh hard at me for not understanding directions very well, asking me if I was dumb, or when they’d just see me tripping on something or sway and glide at a rock music.

Those times have been very painful to me, that for a moment, I wanted to take pity on myself. If I had been weaker than I was, I would have succumbed to their bullying and ended up in Mandaluyong [it’s the first place that pops in my mind as far as mental institutes are concerned]. However, there are much more things to set eyes on than to focus on their meaningless mocks and scorns.

I could have forgotten all about being bullied and just forgiven those oppressors after being confined inside the four corners of solitude for about nine months, but just recently, I have read a Facebook [again] comment from one of my young cousins, telling my other cousins to punch one of our nephews come next reunion because that nephew was gay.

The idea brought me back to the time I refused to care about it just to please those cousins. They bullied that little fellow, sealing themselves inside a room altogether, each of them throwing punches at the poor little boy’s fragile limbs and, what else? Actually, I was forbidden to see it. I am a girl, and it’s not a good idea to be alone in a quite huge company of the opposite sex; even if they were of the same blood.

To add more spice to that, they themselves bullied me because I spoke English in a Tagalized accent. I was accompanying a cousin who was about to take something to an aunt’s place [most of them live in Visayas, that’s why]. They asked me where I was going, to which I lazily answered, “Auntie Gloria’s house…”

And like a child, I got pissed, especially when they’d repeat that line over and over again. They teased me as if I were someone of their age. But we were centuries apart and I felt disrespected [thanks to another hidden form of bullying courtesy of the same nuclear family member who told me I was schizophrenic]. On the other hand, I think it was my fault. I was too excited to be with them I almost appeared flirtatious.

But back to the Facebook comment, I thought it was the time I did what I should have done a year ago. I told them, “Blah blah blah [I forgot this one]. Grow up, dudes!” to which the master planner cousin answered like, “Ate Angel, would you like it if a boy who acts like a toddler shows you his privates and dances in front of you?”

At first I didn’t get his point. But after a series of reflections, I realized he was talking about our nephew [who, by the way, happened to be unrelated to us in blood and flesh]. I initially wrote, “What’s your point, [cousin]? I just don’t like the way you treat [our nephew]. You bullying him may be the reason he does the same to his classmates at school. Think about what you did.”

Good thing he hadn’t read that comment yet or his mother would kill me [he was overly smothered with affection, unlucky him]. Seeing that none among our cousins have read the reply, I chose to delete it and replace it with a more reader-friendly comment. I wrote like, “That’s not reason enough. You should have taught him in a way other than bullying. I mean, BULLYING.”

Everyone has funny quirks, to quote Pops [from Archie Comics]. Nobody’s perfect, so why try to correct others? Daddy once told me, “No one has the right to meddle with one’s life. It is YOU who needs to change and when they see you, they might as well emulate you.”

True. People have no right to mock, scorn, isolate, or even physically harm others just because of being different from them. It’s none of their business. If they want physical or attitudinal change, they just have to look for a mirror and maybe throw punches and expletives at themselves for being a bunch of weaklings.