Bullying, permanent consequences and how to deal with them

Hello everyone, my name is Stefan, and I am a person who has been a victim of bullying when I
was younger, both physically and mentally... I was born in a more or less poor family, we
bounced around from an apartment to an apartment, through my life I lost count in how many
places I lived. I am an only child and lived with a father, who was a long time soldier, survived
two wars and was a higher up in the army in our region, safe to say he had his ways of
educating a child and his ways of treating one. My mother was from a destroyed family,
bounced around the system, started working at a very young age, which left plenty ‘’scars’’ on
her mind and made her a very possessive and paranoid woman... I know what you’re all
thinking, a perfect family to raise a child, right? 😀
So, at the age of 3 I was diagnosed with a case of asthma. I had an attack in the middle of the
night and finished in a hospital later that night. Due to that and the wrongful treatment of a
doctor who ended up behind bars later on, I stuck with it till puberty, which made my
development as a young boy very difficult: I was small, skinny, and in constant danger of
suffocating to death. Having a mother who made every attack ten times worse with her own way
of panicking didn’t help, even though she did it out of love. My father, however, had a different
philosophy on bringing up a child. He tried to teach me that I need to be tough, to stand up for
myself, to value my pride above anything, to not accept failure, to set up impossibly high goals
to myself and to feel extremely bad each time I don’t reach them; hence, I wasn’t really able to
hear ‘’I’m proud of you!!’’ sentence.
So, after some of that backstory, it’s time to go to the main topic, Bullying, well, as you all see,
the happenings of my early childhood, made me a very scared, mentaly shaken up, skinny and
short person. The kids, who are ruthless without even realising it, due to again, different kinds of
wrongful bringing up into the world, never had mercy on a kid like me. In my primary school, I
survived constant beatings, hurtful words like I'm never good enough, that I am a failure... And
someone would think - you were a kid back then, you grew up, that is gone, get over it. Well, for
some people probably, I am amazed by them, but, in my case, the abuse lasted for years,
almost daily. Every other day when I would come back home, completely beaten up, I would
have a paranoid mother crying and a father yelling at me because I didn’t hit back hard enough,
that I am a failure for putting myself into that situation and not being good enough to deal with
it.It all went on to that point, that when I ask for help from teachers or anyone, they would just
shrug it off, stop paying attention, since I wasn’t seriously physically hurt enough or because
that is not in their job description. I was left broken, again and again, with no one to help,
knowing I have to endure abuse day after day. For an older person, for a person with a healthy
mind, it’s a thing that can be changed, that can be dealt with, but not for a kid. All kinds of
toughts fell on my mind, even though I never attempted suicide, I was often thinking about it. It
destroyed my confidence, my self-worth , to the point I thought I deserved it. And I thought it
was okay - that is my destiny, until, one time in fifth grade… A kid ordered me to give him my
chair, it was one of the good ones in the class, the one where u can lean on comfortably. I loved
that chair, so I refused, I held on to that chair like it was the last thing on earth, like it was the
thing I believed in the most. Out of nowhere, he started slapping me and when that didn’t work,
he started hitting me with fists, hits… I was getting the punches I was used to, waiting for it to be
over, I looked at the other kids, who were laughing, pointing fingers and nobody really wanted to
help. And I could swear then that those looks, hurt me far more than any of the punches, that
feeling of cold loneliness damaged me far more than the punches and the kics. It broke me, to
lose trust in everyone including myself. He threw me to the ground, dragged me out to the
school hallway and I was still hugging that chair so goddamn tight. With the blood running down
my face, he kicked me while my arm was badly hurt, and I remembered then, why didn’t he
stop, when this torture is going to end? I felt a click, I felt me, my beliefs, my hope, gone,
everything inside me broken, including my mind. And to this day I believe that one of the
moments like that - if not that exact moment, was the birth of all self doubt, insecurities, life
damaging anxiety and a reason for not loving myself enough. I didn’t let go of the chair though.
:D
So, two-three months later, as a kid who grew up watching Van Dam movies, Dragon Balls, I
was in love with martial arts.There was a newly opened taekwondo club near my house and not
really hoping for anything, I signed in. As I started training, my lungs got healthier, asthma
attacks lessened, and I started eating more… I was still enduring daily abuse in school, without
the will to strike back, but I was getting bigger, healthier... It went on for two years, until one day
in eighth grade, three of the kids came up to me and started slapping me into the wall, and I
remembered: same old, wait for it to be over, until one of them started insulting me. I can’t
pinpoint what it was, but it threw me into the extreme rage, it aggravated me to that point that for
the first time in years, I hit back! I kicked one, slapped him against the wall (later I found out I
broke his arm), while other pushed me on the ground. As I was getting up, I grabbed a chair, hit
him directly across the face, and made a cut from under his eye down his cheek to his mouth.
Third got scared and backed off, while the other kid fell on the ground with blood gushing out of
his face screaming. And everyone looked at me scared like I was a monster. But at that
moment, I didn’t feel that, I felt excitement, adrenaline, like I am free, like I did the right thing.
After all of those events, I ended up home, where my father was telling me how proud he was,
how happy he is for me to have done that. But when all the noise settled, and all the voices
calmed,I was feeling worse than ever. Everything I did made a dark gap in my gut, and
whenever I closed my eyes I could see the scar, and felt so bad about it. What I had done to my
whole life until that point, I did it. I became what I feared and hated the most. I hated myself for
it. Nobody ever threatened me, nobody ever bullied me after that, but that scar was a constant
reminder of what I did.
So, one day, after a long thinking, I swore to myself - I have to stop this from happening, I don’t
want to feel this, I don’t want to be this. I thought there are only two sides of the coin - either you
get beaten up, or you beat up. Then, I remembered the laughs, the eyes, the fingers pointed at
me and remembered how much they hurt. It wasn’t the physical abuse that left scars on me, it
was the feeling of loneliness.
Soon after, without realising, I found my escape code. When I was a kid, rap was a big thing,
rap movies like ‘8 miles’, ‘Get rich or die trying’ and a guy called Marchelo, one of the more
lyrically intelligent rappers in our country, which is really hard to find 😀 I started writing poems
first, and then I started writing songs. I realised that I don’t like singing about cars, women,
money... Almost all of the songs I wrote were about life, about struggles, love, all the things that
I was missing so much, all the things that caused my loneliness, all the things I longed for. One
of my friends had a recording studio, where we had done a few songs, showed them to my
friends, got an incredible feedback... People started giving me recognition, but that was a
phase, and I moved on from songs to novels. I was a horny kid (I still am xD), so in late puberty I
started writting errotic novels. At that point in time I believed that if you tap into your sexuality
deep enough and accept every weird part of yourself, you get to love yourself more, which was
not only truth, but it also helped. It was never a pure sexual content I wrote, I also wrote the
reason for it, mindsets, drives behind it, the philosophy, and I got an incredible feedback. Then I
realised, there is a third side of the coin. You don’t have to be beaten up, you don’t have to beat
up, you can just make sure that nobody else gets hurt and if that’s impossible, then to try to
lessen the number of ones who get hurt… that was through inspiring, educating people, making
them feel less alone, one less finger pointing and laughing, inspiring the ones who do violence
to stop it and show the dangers and consequences of it. Singing songs to the people so they
feel less alone, influence them... Influence them to reach into their minds, their hearts, their way
of thinking, and to show them - hey, there is another way, another side.
In the meantime, I became a two-time national champion in taekwondo... That’s how another
dream of mine was born: to become a master, open a club and teach kids, teach them how to
defend themselves without attacking others. As a chinese proverb says - it’s better to be a
warrior in a garden than a gardener in the war. Besides I always believed that no matter how
negative your day is, when you finish the exhausting training, and all the negativity is gone, at
least for a while. And that is what is at the core of martial arts, a clear mind, self love and
calmness. That is how I dealt with it, how It changed me and influenced me.
But now I want to talk about the permanent consequences and those are: anxiety, confidence
and self love, depression. Let’s talk about anxiety first. When you’re in early age, you are
constantly faced with judging, you lose trust in your words, you get scared of the effects of them
before saying them and you decide not to, to that point that it becomes a physical thing. You
open your mouth but your heart starts beating too fast, and your throat tenses up. Then the
version of you that was supposed to come out is not there, and you’re left with clumsy insecure
wording without any conviction. Some think, oh well, it’s just a phase, it’s nothing you can’t
solve, and that may be true, but in my case, to this day, I haven;t been able to solve it... It
always comes back no matter how much I love myself or how much confidence I build up. But
what you can do is to find ways to fight it. It’s like a virus that comes back, and every time it
takes a new shape, every time u have to find a new way of dealing with it. Oof, just how many
times that affected my job, my security of it, my interviews, where you prepare to shine but a
total insecure version of you takes charge. It starts to ruin your love life, where a girl does not
see the version of you that is dominant and secure and feel safe, she sees something else
instead and you will start believing it is true. It goes to the point where you are scared of the
social interaction, overthinking - will they like me, will they judge me for my looks, my thinking,
it’s better to stay home, it’s better not to talk to people to avoid all that uncomfortableness.
Anxiety very well, ruins your chances in life, your love life, your day to day social activities. And I
know many of you, can attest to that, since the newer generation is more rid of the real world
socialising. We all do it trough masks of social media, the version we put out because we think
that is the version of us somebody else wants us to be so we can please others. But, when it
comes to actual contact, we get anxious. It looks like an unbeatable enemy, how do we deal
with it, how do we cure the incurable? Well, there is not one solution for it, there is no
permanent solution for it. But there are ways to fight it, to trick it and win against it enough times
to leave the enemy weak and to take control. And now I can’t tell you your solution for it, but I
can tell you mine and another thing - if u don’t look for a solution, it won’t ever find you.
The way I dealt with it, since I am a kind of a guy that likes motivation, inspirational stories,
before I would go on dates, I would watch Rocky movies 😀 I would listen to inspirational
speeches before I’d go to job interviews, I would train, I would watch movies. I felt adrenalin,
hype, or even anger to that point that I would overcome it. When it comes to how to deal with it
in the heat of the moment, one trick always worked for me, when it hits you, and you don’t know
what to say, just say give me a moment, and then, look for the three things you can see in the
room, two things you can touch and one thing you can smell. It puts your mind out it, it calms
your breathing, and you can keep going. It might work, or it might not, but it helped me. The
most important thing, when it comes to anxiety is to try again, and I know it - if you don’t beat it
today, yeah, it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. But if you kick your enemy once, he
may not fall, so you have to do it again, and again, and again. Failure is just a step before
success... And if you don’t fail, you won’t appreciate success so much, if it’s just given to you
then you won’t know how to appreciate it. So, find your way of dealing with it, and do be sure,
there are ways and they work, you just have to find what’s working best for you, and deal with it
again and again. And do know that when anxiety hits you, and your throat gets tight, and your
brain does not form words fast and good enough, it wasn’t you that fucked up, it’s not your fault.
It wasn’t your choice to fuck it up, so instead of dwelling on it, if there is a chance to try again,
try again. If not, then it’s over and there is no point dwelling on it, so move on to the next one,
next girl, next job, next conquest. Believe me, no matter how much it hurts, there is always more
of this life then we are led to believe by suroundings and our society. Confidence and self love,
oh boy, may be the hardest one to acquire, when happenings of ur childhood lasted that much,
that often for that long period of time. It’s hard to separate yourself from negative way of thinking
and with no one else loving you, you stop loving yourself, the successes you have don’t seem
as good as they should.
In my case, after I was a national champion, I was supposed to go to the European
Championship, and right before it, my parents got divorced, my mother gets thrown out of the
house, I broke my ankle and moved away from the place I was training at. My father, when I
stopped with the training, was disappointed because I stopped, so for a long time, I looked at
my career as a complete failure. I always thought I could have done more and done better,
which is maybe true. I didn’t do something absolutely amazing, something that would pay of
everything I put that much effort in. You should absolutely have high goals in life, but do not tie
your happiness with them, do not think of them as failures if you don’t reach the destination,
because if you had done something and you couldn’t do more, holding on to it will hurt your
future endeavours. If you, however, feel that you could have done more and you didn’t, that
gives birth to regret, and that regret eats you away. It’s a form of pain, so, use that pain as a
reminder and fuel for your future endeavours. The most important thing about confidence, self
love and the first step to achieving it is to separate yourself from societal goals and other
people’s opinions of how you should look, what you should be, and what you should like.
Separate yourself and don’t base yourself on what others tell you, that you are too fat, not funny
enough, that you got a big belly. That way of thinking is wrong. Now, wanting to get healthy,
looking better is alright, but if you do it for the sake of others, you will never reach your
destination. You will never be good enough, because there will always be someone to say -
your nose is too big, your personality is shit. You will be stuck in the endless loop of thinking -
I'm not good enough. You should ask yourself, how do you want to think, how do you want to
act, what do you like, and do it. Be the best version of yourself, to yourself. When you achieve
that it will bring people to you, who appreciate and think that you’re perfect just the way you are.
You’ll never have to pretend and put on a picture of what they want just so you don’t end up
alone; sometimes, alone is better than being in a hurting relationship. When you are yourself, no
matter how disgusting or wrong it seems to others, you’ll feel good about it and in that skin, if
you are one of the one hundred that goes the oposite way, it never means that those one
hundred are right just because they are the majority - majority once thought slavery was right.
That mindset gives birth to self love, for the most fucked up and weird parts of you. And when
you see someone gets attracted to the real you and starts loving it, it gives birth to confidence,
which again, depends on you. Positive feedback certainly helps, we all smile and feel better
when someone tells us we are beautiful. *points to the crowd, your
beautiful and breathtaking in Keanu Reeves style haha*
In my case, when I was writing, I was writing errotic novels, putting my wildest sexual dreams
and fetishes on the paper, because I felt I will be judged if I tell them to someone, they will get
scared and run off. I decided to post it anonymously, on the internet, and the amount of positive
feedback I got was mind-blowing, and I thought, oh my god, people love me for what I love me.
That’s the whole point, love yourself, show people why you love yourself, even the worst parts,
and if they don’t like that or if they are judging, well those aren’t the people who should stay in
your life. I showed them to people in my life, and it paid off in all kinds of ways, if you know what
I mean. Confidence, self love, it all starts with you, embracing the darkest parts of yourself,
loving them, and then having the courage to show them to others without caring for the
consequences - you are doing it for you, not for anyone else.
Another most important thing for confidence and self love is associating happiness with another
person. This usually happens in relationships. I’ve gone through two tough breakups in my life,
one of them happened recently. Finally after this one, I realised where have I been going wrong.
I again associated my happiness with that person, I became dependant of her and made her my
whole world. That person felt like that’s too much pressure for her, and that’s too much
expectation from one person. It felt suffocating. Little by little she started losing attraction to me,
respect, and ultimately love that we had because I started being what I thought she wanted me
to be. I lost a spark of mine, I lost the shape of a man she fell in love with, lost the drive to fulfill
my dreams, goals, things that I enjoy and poured it all into her, running away from my
responsibilities, goals, problems, putting it all in her. She was the reason I was getting up in the
morning, and when it all ended, I was left empty, my reason for existing, my purpose, ripped
away from me and I was left with nothing. It least I thought so. It hurt me, hurt me like hell and it
took me a while to realise where have I been going wrong. It was associating happiness with
someone other than myself. Living a life for someone else it can last a bit that way, it is beautiful
- to live your life for the love of another, it sounds romantic and it works well in the movies. But
that is not what true love is, that’s what it’s called a parasite relationship, where the parasite
ends up getting squashed in the end. Again, for anyone else to love you, you have to be able to
give them the reason to, reason for what you love yourself will be the reason they love you for.
When you lose that by becoming what you think they want you to be, you lose yourself, and u
lose their love. So, when you are with someone and it feels so good, that is unreal and magical,
when all you want to do is look at them, kiss them, make love to them all day long, you need to
force yourself that you got friends, responsibilities, goals, you shouldn’t stop being you because
you meet someone so magical. If you stop being you, the person she or he fell in love with will
not be there anymore. You need to put yourself first, so the other person can fuel your passion
for life and you do the same for her. You don’t ask her to change, don’t expect things from her
and force her to something just because you’re desperate for love. You need to be yourself,
amaze the person and make them do it by themselves, make them want to kiss you, make you
laugh, spend time with you, by working on yourself and proving to yourself how amazing you
can be. Once you do it, for them to love you, it becomes more and more real.
Depression, again, is another long-term effect of bullying and negative thinking, another one of
those that’s not a choice and never really goes away. The thing that makes it hard to get up in
the morning, where colours lose their shine, where everything seems slow and grey, nothing
makes sense and you almost search the way to feel bad. In my opinion, sickness, mental illness
like this is greatly underestimated by society, and people do not really comprehend the great
danger of it. It kills your will to work on yourself, it slows you down, it makes things 1000 times
difficult, the simplest things, like showering, going out, watching a movie. It’s an overall constant
feeling of sadness, boredom and loneliness. Now, this is for me the toughest one to overcome,
since it always comes back stronger. I didn’t really find a way to permanently beat it, but I found
a way to fight it, as I said for anxiety, again and again. It’s hard to lie to yourself, and you should
by no means do it, but you can trick your brain. Depression, anxiety, love, they’re all mashed up
chemicals in your brain, particles and ways of thinking affected by previous happenings in your
life in an age when you were developing. If you feel bad, you can trick yourself to feel good as
well. I tricked it by forcing myself to put myself in situations that I logically think would do me
good. Yes, I don’t wanna get up from the bed, but I should, so I’d push through the pain, one by
one. Depression can be forgotten and tricked. Keep yourself busy, write a song, watch a movie,
any movie, go out with anyone, be social, work, talk to people, somewhere you will find the drive
to live through the day and hope that the next day it won’t be there. Believe me, there will be
plenty days it isn’t there... The same as with all other demons in your head, voices. Fight them,
daily, and sometimes you will win, and those days you win will make your life not only worth
living, but it will bring you happiness as well. Also, how do you stay busy, how do u make
yourself do things, well, put it on paper, that worked for me. Put on the paper what you need to
do on a daily and weekly basis, and every day look at that paper and try doing it, be productive
that way, fill in your free time, don’t let your brain overthink about it. Make depression look the
other way, and that’s when you pull a punch to the gut. Play dirty. When you have many
positive things done, feelings of accomplishment and happiness for the things well done will
give that punch to the gut, and your days will be more and more amazing. Now when I look at
myself, I am a former national champion in taekwondo, I’m a chef on a cruise ship, seen so
much of the world, I do music, writing, ted talks, martial arts and I continue to inspire people and
make my dreams come true. I love myself and am proud of it for each and every one of those
and many more I shall brag about some other time. So say it, be happy with it, and show it to
people, it’s you, and you shouldn’t be someone else. You have been bullied? Good, perfect, in
fact, use it, use all of that pain and suffering, and make your life amazing with it. I’ve told you my
story, I've told you my problems and solutions, my version of it, and here I am, trying to inspire
each and every one of you. If you are able to feel one person feel less lonely, do it, if you are
able to inspire one person to do good, do it. Affect them in your own way as I am affecting you
right now. Bad things will always be there, I still have anxiety, self-doubt, depression... But on a
daily basis, I do my best to kick their asses and many, many times, it works. That makes my life
more amazing day by day. So fight, for yourself, because life is a constant battle, and warrior is
dead without his will to fight.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk!