1. Hate is a fire that can spread through words

I was nine years old the first time I knew I would die,

I had gone on vacation to the village—a small village of less than two thousand inhabitants where news spread faster than gunpowder.

One of that news was the death of a young man no more than 25, a legionnaire (the Spanish version of a marine) who had committed suicide in his mother's house while on leave.

Over the years, my grandfather told me that the boy had been constantly teased by his fellow soldiers in the barracks, and because he could not desert the army, he could not stand the pressure and took his own life.

At that time, I did not know that my life, like the soldier's, would be marked by the shadow of bullying.

But the memory of that summer would help me a lot in life.

Lesson: hate is a fire that can spread through words and end up burning you from the inside if you don't take action in time. Always remember that psychological abuse is also abuse. And don't let them set you on fire inside.

2. Predators smell fear and feed on it.

As a pre-teen, I began to face constant abuse in my school, not only from my peers but also from teachers. Some humiliated me (including the math teacher, Don Santiago), and others looked the other way.

But every summer, I could get away from it all until that abuse began to be replicated in my town and the camps with the Scouts.

As I always say, "Predators smell fear, and the tribe has to abuse the weak to fit in with the tribe and not take their place."

The point is that there was a boy from Barcelona, who I only saw in the summers, who loved to pick on me, to provoke the rest of the boys to join in the public scorn and make me the buffoon of his court for the summer.

Until I stopped being annoyed by that boy's insidious comments, the kid started looking for other victims when I didn't get on his wrong side and didn't take offense.

Lesson: there are bad people in the world, and sometimes we forget it. Some people enjoy doing emotional harm to others. So much so that when they no longer have emotional power over you, they lose interest in criticizing you.

3. Don't ever put your hand down!

In my last year of school, a group of boys told me that I would be beaten up on the way out the next time I raised my hand to answer the teacher's questions.

I raised my hand :-)

At the exit, inside the school itself, about ten 14-year-olds made a human corridor I had to pass while they beat me.

One of those blows, I was hit by Ruben, a boy I had supported more times than I could count from the other kid's attacks. That punch hit me in the pit of my stomach and made me fall to the ground, out of breath.

Then the kicks started.

I rolled into a ball. And no one came to my rescue (never came); they left when they got scared because I wasn't moving.

When I got home, my father told me something hard: "Boy, the next time you get hit and I find out that you have not defended yourself when I get home, I'll hit you for being a sucker."

But my mother cleaned me up, and while she was treating my scrapes with mercurochrome, she said, "I'm very proud of you."

"Why?" I asked incredulously.

"Because you raised your hand."

Lesson: when they want to silence you, it's because you're on the right track. Please don't give in to blackmail; raise your hand and never put it down! A virtual hug from my inner child to yours.

AG

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