Walking into the house, finally out of the cold, my mom calls me to come to her room. My body tenses as I drop my bag. “Alex!” She’s yelling. Opening the door I see what I feared the most: her face is red as if something in her brain blew up. “Why did you get suspended?” Now she’s screaming. In my head, hitting that kid felt good. Feeling flesh connect with my hand and knowing that he just might be in pain, felt oddly soothing. “I told you if he hits you first, THEN you hit him back. You don’t start the d**n fight. What the h*ll is wrong with you? Now I have to deal with this c**p in court. When will you grow up?” She continued to yell, but I got stuck on why she was concerned more about going to court than about me. I didn’t understand.

I knew from an early age that hitting someone first was wrong. I didn’t care. If I hadn’t hit him, I probably would have been lying on the floor with a knot where my forehead should be. At that moment in time, I thought about survival of the fittest and without hesitation, I hit him as hard as I could. The crowd the fight attracted began howling like a pack of wolves as my opponent stumbled back, holding his jaw. I fed them what they wanted. Conflict.
It’s sad looking back and seeing peer pressure as the trigger. About emphasizes what peer pressure really is: “Peer pressure is pressure from others to conform to the behaviors, attitudes and personal habits of a group or clique.” Peer pressure, without a doubt, is a form of bullying. A child growing up may never bully, but when peer pressure comes into play, everything changes.
At 13, my only friend was a kid named Adam. We always had each other’s backs, or so I thought. I protected him. Always protected him. But because his “friend” stepped out of line, and we beat his butt, he hit my little brother with brass knuckles.
Thinking about it now, I wonder if he, too, was bullied. Could he have been a victim of peer pressure, or did something else trigger it? Bullyingstatistics tells us “there are a variety of reasons why people bully." Some of them include: "Cultural causes, a culture that is fascinated with winning, power, and violence..." Others are "social issues, family issues and the bully's personal history."
Seeing the bottom of my little brother’s teeth reach the back of his throat kills me inside. I did this, I taught him this way. Now because of me, this a-hole who I thought was my friend, is the reason I can’t see my brother’s teeth. His shiny white teeth. The only color I can see is red. I protected Adam, and this is how he repays me.
Sitting in the car on the way to the hospital, I contemplate how I’ll take his life. Being the sadistic little s-t that I was at 13, when I lived in York City, PA, I had friends with knives, guns and many other deadly items. Thinking back on that now, four years later, I realize how stupid it all sounds. Going to jail at 13 wouldn’t have been worth it, but at the time, I didn’t care.
Knowing now that fighting is a form of bullying, I try to avoid it at all costs, but is it really avoidable? There is an internal conflict that rises up whenever I am confronted. I always ask myself, "Should I fight, or let myself be walked all over?"
In the article, "Social Goals: How Kids' React To Bullying," found on Futurity, Professor Karen Rudolph explained what a child with developing social skills will most likely say to his or herself: "I'm not going to do anything negative, that's going to make me look like a loser, that's going to embarrass me..."
She explained the internal conflict I talked about earlier: Imagine living in a world where peer pressure and bullying are normal to some children and they see nothing wrong with it. Now imagine yourself fearing school. "Mommy please, I'll do the dishes, I'll clean the walls, I'll help you do whatever you need. Just don't make me go to school please?" Then mom asking you, "What's wrong, why don't you want to go to school, is someone bothering you?" But you can't tell her because she'll go to the school and tell someone, then the bully will come back and do it again. So you tell her, "Oh no mommy, I'm just really tired," or "I just feel really sick."
I’ve wondered at times if adults could be bullied? Pondering this for hours and, in the end, deeming the theory impossible, I found contradiction in an article at www,bullyingstatistics: Verbal Adult Bully: “ Words can be quite damaging. Adult bullies who use this type of tactic may start rumors about the victim.” Another example the site offers involves “the workplace bully - an employee being excluded from company activities or having his or her work or contributions purposefully ignored.” As trivial as it may seem, this can cause a person to hate his or her job and when they quit because they want to find a job that creates joy, you give them a bad review because they weren’t “lively,” or “joyous.”
The stress and depression that tags along with scenarios such as this one are depressing enough. Adults don’t have their mothers or fathers to retreat to as children do. “Mommy can I please stay home? I'll help you do whatever you need. Please,” becomes “This is so f-in’ stressful. I’m going to quit, screw this. This is bull... but the bills. How am I going to feed myself, where would I shower?” If you have a child and a bad job, the stress level increases.

Lying on the floor as my mom passes by, I call for her.
“Yes, Alex?”
“I feel so lonely, why do I feel like this?”
Raising her voice, she replies, “What are you talking about, Alex? You know I love you!”
I can’t help but tear up and get angry to the point where I create a hole in the wall. Now she’s in my face, red as the devil on his worst day.
“Why would you do that?”
“I... I’m sorry, I hate this! I know you love me, I know it’s there, but I can’t help my feeling this way. If I could change it, I would!”
Continuing to blow up, she shouts, “Look at that wall, what am I going to tell the landlord?”
Again, she’s more concerned with saving her own butt. Glancing at me as I sob, she walks over to me, tears welling her eyes. “We’ll get through this, I promise you. Together.”
My sobbing continues, only faster.
I’m doing better...I’m working on it.