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In response to me saying “Cruelty and suffering are not requirements to create a strong society. ☺️” , I got these comments: but survival of the fittest and natural selection is☺️. That what life is pookie, you either blend in with society or you be “different” and get eaten alive 😘😘🥰. I used to be bullied when I was younger and for a while up until a few years ago and once I finally “gave in” and tried being normal, it changed my life. I made hella friends and connections who have helped me through life because people will accept you for being normal and when people accept you, they will boost and build you up and have your back. there is a huge difference between bulling and abuse 💀 (This commenter’s page is full of car pics. They have what is considered to be a socially acceptable interest. This is an important little detail in this conversation about “normal.”)

Pro-bullying is a very concerning worldview, because this is how people convince themselves that it’s okay to use violence of any kind on those who are different from you, simply because they are different, not because they did anything bad or hurt anyone. People who believe that “actually, bullying is a Good Thing because it makes us conform, which is Correct. Anyone who does not conform is Bad, and deserves abuse until they finally squash themselves into the mold we’ve decided is Normal.” It’s hard to understand if you’ve got any kind of grasp on empathy, or even if you don’t experience empathy but understand that differences are to be celebrated and that abusing people into hiding these harmless differences is, uh, bad? The only people I see defending bullying as some “necessary corrective action” in society are those who seem to think they turned out well and that life is great, except they really want to hurt other people for being different. Like, they’re thirsty for it. Their jaws chatter for the feeling of a slur between their teeth. They’re salivating at the thought and many can’t hold back, as evidenced by the comments I get on my “hey, bullying comes from insecure people” posts calling me ugly, stupid, weird, saying my hair is bad, my eyebrows are bad, I talk weird, I make weird faces/movements (ableism lol), my gender sucks or whatever, blah, blah. Which is strange to me because: isn’t the basis of so many belief systems, what we were taught in kindergarten is “Hey, we’re all unique and that’s by design. Be yourself! Also be kind, don’t hurt people.”

So… No, sorry. I will never agree with this stance. “Don’t be weird and you won’t get bullied”—All the things I’m labeled “weird” for are completely harmless. I’ll never be normal and that’s okay. How about just be kind to people even if they are different? Me being different isn’t hurting you or anyone else. 

What people like this fail to realize is that for many of us, there is no way to ever really “pretend” to be “normal.” We will never fit in, we’ll always stand out in some way, we’ll always be who we are. If the choice is between: use all my energy to hide who I am and still get abused just so I can have fake friendships with shallow and insecure people vs Just let go and be who I am, distance from people who don’t accept me unconditionally, make friends with cool, kind people Uh, I’m gonna go with the healthier, happier option? Wtf?

What you are saying is Good/Correct is to hide anything that is different: disabilities, gender, romantic or sexual orientation, very niche interests (which is a lifeline to ND’s)

Obsessively passionate about video games and comic books? I was “not normal” for this in the 90’s and even 2000’s. Should I have conformed and been interested in, I don’t know, boybands and pencil-thin eyebrows like my peers instead, to avoid their daily torment? Would that have made me “fit” to survive the world, or perhaps is it the bullies who are in the wrong for being horrible little devils to a child who just had different interests? (No, clearly, I was the one in the wrong for daring to exist, huh?)

Sensitive to stimuli? Probably my biggest autistic struggle, compounded by unending chronic pain. So I shouldn’t self-regulate at all, because that makes me stand out as Not Normal and make me a target? Instead of, maybe people should just accept that neurodivergent people exist and that it hurts no one if I need to decompress in a dark room and wear earplugs because my nervous system overloads easy? 

Ethnically mixed and hairy in places my white, blonde peers weren’t? That doesn't hurt anyone either. The bullying I got from my body’s natural state was so traumatic I started shaving my arms and legs at age 8. But it didn't stop; just the fact that I had hair to shave was another reason to bully me. I got called disgusting for being hairy, disgusting for being smooth. Conforming did nothing to stop the harm. Happen to be queer? Guess I should have “given in” and forced myself to be straight and cisgender because, what? To please whom? To appear more normal so I will get “acceptance and support” by people who would drop me if I wasn’t like them? How is the argument literally “either be exactly the same as us or we’ll hurt you! :)” solid in any way? It sounds unhinged. Not a social environment I would want to be part of at all. (Spoiler alert:  As an adult I have friends and a support system of people who like me for the ways I am different and myself, and that’s actually what is life-changing. That’s real love.)

All of that was “different” enough to get me verbally and psychologically (and a few times physically) abused for over a decade in school. I did nothing wrong. I was just different. 

To fit in and have a better life, I should hide all of this, because “that’s life?” What other ppl decide is normal and socially acceptable is “life”? We’re humans. We have free will. We can make the choice not to “eat people alive” just for harmless differences. There’s a reason these people try to justify it by relating to what they perceive as “mindless, empathyless” animal behavior and it isn’t good. 

And to address one of their comments: Incorrect. Bullying is a form of abuse. I endured sustained, systematic attacks on my sense of self and my body by my bullies for my entire school life and even early adulthood. That is abuse. Period.