Stand Strong: You Can Overcome Bullying (and Other Stuff That Keeps You Down) (4 page)

As kids we are told what to do and when to do it, so the teen years seem to be the season when we declare our independence a bit, or a lot. Teens are expected to do that to some degree. The problem is that we aren’t independent yet. We still live at home. We still depend on our parents to pay for our food, clothing, and shelter, so they feel we should live by their rules.

It’s an age-old battle, but it can be more like a gentle tug of war than a nuclear war if you keep things in perspective and try to understand each other rather than simply react emotionally. I was lucky to have parents who always had my best interests at heart, even when we disagreed. My parents were also very protective. I couldn’t blame them for that, but I was much more comfortable taking risks.

When I first started cursing to be more like my friends, I felt uncomfortable. I knew it wasn’t me. Half the time, I’d be
asking myself,
What are you doing talking like this? What’s your problem?
Then the other half—my Bad Nick side—would say,
I’m just being cool like everyone else. It’s just an act. I’m playing a role to fit in
.

I was giving myself positive feedback for negative actions. I was creating a false face, a mask. I ignored the Good Nick voice telling me I wasn’t being authentic. I ignored it because I just wanted to get through the day without being bullied or made to feel like a “handicapped” kid or anything other than a normal guy.

S
MOKE AND
M
IRRORS

The longer you pretend to be someone you aren’t, the harder it is to go back to the real you. When I stopped being true to myself, it created all sorts of problems with my relationships, my performance in school, and my self-esteem.

I had to confront some tough questions eventually. One of these was,
How can I be honest with myself when I lie to everyone else?
After a while I didn’t want to pretend anymore. I looked
inside and asked,
How far am I willing to go? How long can I keep this up? What will my parents think of my acting like this? Who do I really want to please—those who love me or those who just want to control me for their own purposes?

By cursing, I put out a false image. In my heart, I still felt I was a good Christian kid, but my actions weren’t consistent with being a good Christian kid—and people judged me not by what was in my heart but by the way I acted.

N
EVER
T
OO
C
OOL FOR
C
HRIST

For a while, my actions were not consistent with my faith—or my beliefs. Cursing wasn’t the only bit of phoniness I put out there. For a time, I turned my back on my fellow believers. The serious Christian kids at our school had a Friday lunchtime prayer group. Only a handful of kids participated, and they took some teasing and bullying over it. Some called them Holy Rollers and Jesus Freaks.

I thought they were really nice, genuine people of faith, but I didn’t join their Friday prayer group. When someone asked me why I didn’t go with them, I said I’d rather be with my non-Christian friends. I felt uncomfortable saying that, and it bothered me for a long time. There was a reason for that feeling of unease. Again, I wasn’t being true to my values, my beliefs, and my true self. Part of this was because I was trying to fit in and I
wasn’t yet comfortable with acting like a Christian. I didn’t want to be called a Holy Roller or a Jesus Freak. I was afraid it might pigeonhole me and the non-Christian kids wouldn’t want to hang out with me anymore.

You can get away with being inauthentic for a time, but you really can’t fake it to make it long term. Sooner or later, living a lie will come back to haunt you. There will be a price to pay. In my case, one of those days of reckoning came when I accidentally took Foulmouthed Nick home.

I let one cussword fly, and my mom was all over it.

“What was that you said, Nick?”

“Oops, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from!”

Cursing was so uncharacteristic of me that I think my mom wasn’t sure what to do about it. She was stunned. I think she made me promise never to do it again, and after a few other chastisements, she let it slide. Still, that slip-up made me realize once again that I wasn’t living my faith.

S
LIPS OF THE
T
ONGUE

I considered myself a good Christian who’d given his life to Christ, but the part of my brain that regulated speech apparently didn’t get the memo.

As much as I tried to eliminate swearwords from my
vocabulary, they kept popping up. I managed to control myself at home for the most part, but when I was in school, surrounded by teens dropping the f-bomb right and left, I struggled to keep my conversations PG. Slowly, I cleaned up my act. My friends Scott and Reese noticed the change in my vocabulary and asked me about it.

“I don’t want to swear anymore,” I said.

“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”

“I was brought up to live as a Christian. Swearing isn’t part of a godly life,” I explained. “God doesn’t like swearing.”

Scott and Reese were good friends. They may not have understood or agreed, but they immediately tried to find ways to help me swear off swearing.

“I have an idea,” Scott said. “Instead of using the f-word, you can say ‘fruitcake’!”

That seemed like a crazy idea at first, but research has shown that shouting words that end in a hard consonant sound triggers chemicals in the brain that provide some emotional and physical release. So, as silly as it seemed, I tried using “fruitcake” as a swearword substitute.

It didn’t work for me. It just made me think of bad holiday desserts, and it was too long. By the time I got through the
fruit
and to the
cake
, something was lost. Scott then suggested I try “fire truck” instead, but I decided to go cold turkey on the cursing.

But swearing off swearing proved to be more difficult than I’d imagined. Cursing had become a serious habit. I kept slipping up and letting the profanities fly, but gradually I learned to shut down the potty-mouth machine. Around the age of sixteen, I went for eleven months and three weeks without swearing. Yes, I counted the days. I was desperate to break the Nasty Nick mold, but then I had a particularly bad relapse one day when something set off my temper.

I took God’s name in vain, which stunned everyone within earshot, including me. I can’t remember what it was that made me slip up after holding my tongue so long, but I felt horrible, just horrible. So I asked for His help. I surrendered to God, praying for an end to my swearing habit.

If you ever question whether He is a forgiving God, read 1 John 1:9 (“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”) and remember this: after I confessed and asked for His mercy, the good Lord wiped my vocabulary clean. I was very grateful, and I did everything possible to stay away from others who cursed.

I decided the “cool kids” were not so cool for me and returned to my circle of Christian friends. They forgave me my trespasses and welcomed me back into the fold. In their company I no longer felt like an impostor. It felt natural, and I took no offense from there on out if somebody teased me for being a Holy Roller.

Once again, as the Doobie Brothers song says, Jesus was all right with me. (I just hope I was all right with Him!)

Something strange and wonderful happened when I stepped into a place where I felt very comfortable and accepted: suddenly, it seemed like
everyone
wanted to be my friend! Even most of the bullies backed off. Once I finally stopped trying to hide who I really was and just put it out there that I was a Christian kid, people in general were more accepting of me, kinder to me, and even eager to get to know me. I’m thankful for the good and true friends who loved me and were always there for me. I could be myself around them, and as they saw me mature, we grew closer together, which helped me deal with the bullies.

B
EING THE
T
RUE
Y
OU

I realized then that one of the greatest blessings in life is to be honest
about
yourself and
with
yourself. Once I found a group of kids who loved me just as I was—Bible-loving, armless, legless me—my confidence soared, and that seemed to act as a magnet to attract other people.

It was my mistake to think I had to transform myself to be cool. Teens are hard on themselves, and they can be hard on others too. As teens, we tend to put people in boxes instead of just letting them show us who they are. We all have many
interests, traits, and moods. You shouldn’t put anyone in a box, least of all yourself.

Once I decided that pleasing God was more important than being the popular guy, I felt at peace. I also became less judgmental and more accepting of others after I realized that I didn’t have to fake it to make it. Being secure and comfortable in your identity, trusting that you have value, and having a strong sense of your purpose are important in every aspect of life. Those qualities also help make you less vulnerable to bullying.

How do you build a strong and secure identity, self-worth, and sense of purpose? Nearly all teenagers hit a point when they have a sort of identity crisis, wondering what their roles are in life, where they fit in, and what they have to contribute. If you’ve experienced this, don’t worry. It’s one of those universal human experiences. If you haven’t felt that way yet, you will sooner or later. We all are different, and we all have our own timetables.

T
HE
A
NSWERS
W
ITHIN
Y
OU

You may be asking yourself the questions we all ask eventually when trying to determine our places in the world. That’s good; it shows you are growing up and preparing for the next big stages of life. But where are the answers to be found?

Let me assure you, every answer you need is somewhere inside of you. Don’t panic if you can’t figure out each and every one right away. Some are meant to unfold and present themselves over time. The main thing right now is to know that you don’t have to rely on anyone else to tell you who you are or what your value is. God put you here for a purpose. He gave you a unique package of features that includes your physical appearance, your talents, your brainpower, and other components that make you beautiful and special.

We all have strengths and weaknesses, of course. Some of us may even be missing a few bits and pieces here and there. My advice to you is to build your strengths. That way, when a bully picks on your weaknesses, it won’t matter!

If you believe in your own value, no bully can take it away from you. If you know in your heart that God loves you and that you were created for His purpose, no bully can tell you otherwise.

We all have times when we feel down. We all screw up. We all fall flat on our faces from time to time. Insecurities can dog you. When I was a teenager, I’d sometimes get these huge bright red pimples on my nose. There I was, no arms and legs,
but I had zits! Some of the pimples on my nose were so big they seemed to block my vision. At times like that, I’d look in the mirror and struggle to keep it together. One thing that helped was to force myself to name one good physical feature I possessed and then focus on it.

“I have nice eyes,” I’d say. “People always tell me I have nice eyes, so I’m going with that.”

Why can’t we do that for ourselves? If we let bullies drag us down with their cruelty and meanness, why can’t we pull ourselves back up by being friends to ourselves and building up our confidence and spirits when we need a boost? (My big fear was that the next day someone would tell me that I had bags under my eyes—ruining the one good thing I thought I had going!)

Teens are often very critical of themselves. In those years, we’re always comparing ourselves to classmates or friends and asking why we can’t be tall like him or pretty like her or more popular or more athletic or smarter. If we can be critical of ourselves, why can’t we encourage ourselves too?