In front of the chain link fence (a personal viewpoint about bullying)

For those who know me, I have been talking recently about chain link fences and the significant role they have unfortunately played in my childhood.  I'll discuss the chain link fence separately in my next post and explain the story behind it.




In front of the chain link fence, pen drawing and gouache, A3 (2014)

In this work the chain link fence is a symbol for the bullying that I've encountered throughout my life.  I'm not one of life's victims or a martyr.  I have too much self respect to start a pity party, however facts are as they are, throughout my life bullying has unfortunately played its despicable part. 

What is bullying?  It is using a person's weakness (or perceived weakness) against them in order for the bully to feel better about themselves.  In my case it has usually hinged on my quiet/shy personality.  As a kid, this shyness meant other kids felt they could name call, punch and hit, spit or do any other type of nastiness because they felt a quiet kid wouldn't tell anyone and wouldn't fight back.  At first this was true but as I got older I did learn to fight back with devastating results for the bully I'm glad to say.  Still, one cannot physically fight back with adult bullies when one is an adult.  It's a different game altogether from childhood bullying.  Adult bullies (and there are an awful lot of them out there) still use your weakness against you so that they can feel better about themselves.  They nick pick, fault find (you can never do anything right), gossip nastily behind your back, start slander campaigns against you, try to character assassinate you as a person to anyone daft enough to listen to their vitriol and in certain cases say nasty things directly at your face.  I've had all of the above.  If you fight back against them they either learn their lesson and stop the bullying or in the case of adult bullies that I've encountered, they play the victim and make you out to be a terrible person for pointing out their nasty behaviour to them.  These bullies are particularly crafty because they need an audience thus the 'poor me' act is played out to the eager onlookers, lots of lies are told about you and their behaviour (they put themselves across a good people, saints, while you are the devil incarnate).  This is where the character assassination happens.  In order to 'win', they must make sure that their audience knows just how rubbish you are as a person, even how 'mad' and psychologically unstable you are for daring to confront their crappy behaviour.  I'm sure all of you reading this knows of child and adult bullies that resemble the bullies that I have described.

What is my opinion about bullies?  They exploit a perceived weakness because in reality it is they that are weak.  They have fragile egos that need to exploit the perceived vulnerabilities of others.  Quite pathetic as far as I can see.  Yes, some bullies were bullied, but that isn't an excuse, I've been bullied everywhere I go and that hasn't turned me into a sad bully.

The chain link fence isn't shown clearly in this piece although it is actually there behind the distorted leaf and branches.  I think it's right that the branches and leaf are somewhat distorted, it sums up my thoughts about bullies as people.  Also, the way I've drawn this is in a chain link style so its essence is carried though.  As a symbol, a chain link fence is there to separate one area from another, to keep some things in and some things out.  It is also used around prisons.  To me, the chain link fence is like a prison when you are caught in the sights of the bully.  You can't escape their nastiness and you are forced to either take a beating (physically, verbally or via character assassination) or you fight back.  Either way, you are put in a situation you would like to escape but cannot.