I was a bully, I hate myself for that, I’m sorry

[very long, very deep and a very personal story — one of the stories that made me the person I am today]

I was a bully!

Yup, you’ve read that right! As a teenager I was a bully, but before you gasp, say how dare I say it like that and judge me, please stop jumping into conclusions and read along.

Initially as a young kid, I wasn’t a bully! I don’t remember myself being loud, causing any commotion or annoying anyone! not my family and not my friends.

However as I started growing and entering my teenage phase, the situation at home was changing, and thus that sweet little kid, was forced to change too!

let me give you some background.

Mom and dad got married, dad comes from a very prestigious family but where I come from that doesn’t mean you have money, so he didn’t have money at all, they conceived my sister (4 years older than me) while still they were living together in Syria and then my mom got pregnant with me and during that time, financially it was becoming harder and harder for them to stay afloat, so they had to make the sacrifice of choosing to live separated for a while (that while turned out to be around 30 years) and dad moving to Saudi Arabia for a job, following the footsteps of grandpa, into the devastating life of sacrifice and isolation.

So I come to this world, and few months later my mom, my sister and I move to Saudi to be with dad, keeping in mind that mom was a very established and independent woman on her own, a very liberal character, a civil engineer, one that had guy friends (at that time such a big frowned upon thing), one that drank alcohol with her friends (not only frowned upon but also crucified for as we are Muslims), one that actually was dating and had relationships like any other woman should have in this world (I don’t even need to tell you what this means in Syria at that time), so she was anything but “traditional” and on top of all of that unconventional character she was a hard worker, a strong willed woman who at that young age would be able to defy 1000 men with her opinions and always end up getting what she wants (yup..this is where I got it from folks).

My dad didn’t care about the “unconventional part” at all! He didn’t give two shits what the society thinks, as he was liberal minded too, actually and this is a fun fact! They met at a swimming pool! (If you know how conservative Aleppo is, you’d understand why this is shocking) My mom with her friends, drinking and enjoying life, and dad with his sisters! He fell in love with her seeing her in the most untraditional way and he loved and accepted that, the rest is history.

So, back to the story I want you to imagine my mom with that personality moving with two kids to Saudi Arabia :) and to a city called “Al Madina” probably the most religious place on the planet earth.

She endured such a drastic life change, from being what I described above, to being locked up at home 24/7 because women in that city were not allowed to go out alone without a man, we were only going out on Fridays as thats the only day that dad had a time off from work, the rest of the days he was working at a company with a 2 shifts schedule so he never really was able to take us out, other than Friday.

And just to give you more insights into life in Almadina at that time, Disney video cassette (Yup I’m that old) were sold without a cartoon cover because its Haram, so you’d buy a cassette with the word “bugs life” written on it, without knowing what the actual cartoon in it looks like, and if you are buying a toy with the shape of a human (barbie) then on the box she would have a dark black marker line cutting her throat (because they believed at that time that this is Haram and no one is allowed to create any form of life, or even drawing it other than god).

So mom had to endure that life for 7 full years, my parents tried and tried and tried, until I think they both decided that they don’t want for my sister and I to grow up in such a mind numbing, character assassinating and absolutely unforgiving place. Because if we did, god I don’t know who my sister and I would be today, probably — no bodies.

So mom moved back with us to Syria and she not only technically became a single mother taking care of the responsibility of us entirely on her own/dad was supporting her financially (his job was never high paying so we never really had the same experience as the other families, where the dad lived in the Gulf and was making bank — we were actually for as long as I remember, always barely making ends meet), but she also had after 7 years of isolation, to kick off her career back from the ground and to try and catch up with the most productive years in her life that she missed out on.

So mom was a busy person, she had her job, had us (two not very easy girls to manage) and also she was a perfectionist at home! She cleaned the house every day’ the floors were always spotless (that was the only place I was always comfortable walking barefoot!) To the extent that i didn’t even know how quick floors get dusty until I moved abroad to live alone, can you imagine 20 years of my life thinking that level of house cleanness is the norm and something very easy to achieve — Nope!

But also she was a chef (never tried any food close to how good mom’s food is, till this very day) And I dont ever remember coming back home from school to not find the smell of some delicious home cooked meal reaching the stairs of the building way before I entered the door.

Sounds like the perfect household right? WRONG!

That household was a very lonely and cold household, my sister and I had 4 years age difference, which is now that we are older its nothing, but back then, it meant we were never at the same life stage, I’d be wanting to play with toys and she’s in middle school yet to figure out about her feminine side, her interest in boys (which I was still at the age of finding that disgusting lol) and alot of other major life differences that made the gap between us waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than the number “4”

So, my sister and I were fighting day and night, beating each other up (or more like she was beating me up most of the time — those claws of her always leaving marks on my arms (offff- just remembering this makes me want to stop writing now and go beat her up, but now she have kids…not that this would stop me, but I don’t have claws — damn it!) but I was a fighter nonetheless so we would beat each other up and make up after few minutes because we get tired and then run shouting to mom to complain about what the other sister did, especially if I dared stepping out of the house with my sister’s clothes, even though she always wore my entire wardrobe and would beat me if I ever complained (the love and kindness of big sisters, eh?)

So we were never really friends me and her, and the thing that drove her insane the most (very understandable), was my mom forcing my sister to take me with her when she goes out with her friends, imagine the scenario, you are in your teenage years, going out with your group of girl friends and the boys looking at you from the other tables, at the most happening place in town for teenagers at that time “Al ittihad restaurant — if you know, you know” only to be forced to drag along your little sister with you, and worry about that whining little sister who had a big appetite and always wanted to eat, so she had to make sure I was fed, and also I got bored easily and was constantly nagging to go back home to play video games, I mean what’s entertaining about staring at the other gender across tables and if they were lucky they’d actually go to the side hidden somewhere from prying eyes (can’t escape mine tho) to chitchat and exchange numbers — SCANDAAAAAL ALERT- so she also had to deal with my constant nagging of how ridiculous and silly I think she and her friends are!

• I’m 31 years old now, she is 35 and a mom of two, yet I still think her and her friends are absolutely ridiculous (sorry sis, love u tho!)

Anyways you got the idea of how horrible it was between me and my sister.

Now the cherry on top was that my sister was a raging teenager, exactly like the ones that you see in American movies, but an American movie teenage behavior in a close minded and conservative place like Aleppo, Syria means DISASTER.

She was good looking, so she had the interest of alot of guys, literally ALOT! As in ALOT😂 the street underneath home was alwayss bussyy and loud due to guys passing by in their cars with music busting sooo loud any time a day with romantic songs that were dedicated to Nour (my sister), the landline rings 24/7, and if me or mom pick up they hang in our faces, and those bastards used to call from the street phone cabin so the number would’nt be trackable, and that was driving my mom insane, and depriving us all from sleep! (Probably my sister wasn’t complaining as she was already sleep deprived from being on the phone the entire night to those scumbags who were calling us).

So my sister like any other normal teenager wanted to experience love, to be loved and wanted to explore what the raging hormones make you want to explore at that age — in SYRIA THAT IS A DISASTER!

Her friends at school were pieces of shit, she was so naive and they took advantage of that, they would be the ones making troubles and she would be the one getting the blame, and my mom would be dragged into the principle’s office more days than the days that my sister actually went to school (she used to escape school alot lol). Yet another thing to make my already very busy mom lose her mind.

And at home, they were fire meets fire, a woman and a girl, both frustrated in life, both are raging, each in their own ways, both are shouting without any of them actually listening to the other, that the situation was…by now you know the keyword “A DISASTER”.

You know what sucks, is that I didn’t really care what society thought of my sister, I was actually at that young age keeping all of her secrets, not even once telling mom, even though alot of those things she confided in me, I was too young to even understand, but smart enough to know that they are things I shouldn’t blurt out to mom.

There’s an incident that I never told anyone about, not even my sister, and I’m only sharing it with the world today.

I was part of the girls scout — the elite girls of the Syrian society- (horrible life experience — requires a post on its own) anyways the girls with me, the older ones, the ones that used to look after, guide and take care of us the young ones, were not only my sister’s age, but also some of them were from her extended circle, or *friends, or definitely knew of her, the disgusting elite society in aleppo was so small that we all knew each other.

Anyways, one Friday in a useless scouts gathering the topic was about asking us who is our role model in life and why?

So they started asking one girl after the other, until they reached me, and I said:

“My sister, because she’s strong, good looking and caring and I always look up to her.”

I wish I can bottle up that memory and share it with you here, for you to see how horrible it was, the girls who were supposed to be our guides, crack up laughing, start whispering to each other and making internal jokes about my sister in such a cruel way, at that moment I wanted nothing more but to disappear.

Honestly reliving this incident now, while writing this 20 years later, and I’m a grown ass woman! it actually made me tear up!

So history repeats itself, an unapologetic woman who was constantly being crucified for her actions by the society (mom), brings to the world a replica of herself (sis), what’s the keyword? DISASTER.

But before moving to the plot line, I want to tell you, now that you know who my mom and my sister are, I want to say that there’s no other mom who was as strong as mine, no other mom had that much of influence and power to defy the biggest most respected male figures in our society, today in society everyone knows how powerful mom is, she is the woman that can sit with a table full of men in the highest governmental positions and have the power to lead entire conversations and discussions while everyone else listens, she used to read, she was so educated, so cultured, and highly intelligent, yet veryyyyy good looking and charismatic! how many of you basic bitches who come from the same elite society can say that about your moms? Let me tell you…None of you!

Now about my sister, she dreams and she achieves, she is the only one from her friends (in our elite muslim society) that got to do her masters in Italy, while the rest, one after the other were shipped off to be married to some useless yet controlling man , only to turn into a still dumb but pretty housewife.

She always dreamt of living in Dubai, and she came to Dubai with nothing, literally nothing! Lived in a shared apartment, hustled her way from interior design, to insurance to real estate to whatever she could manage to do to get money to provide for herself and her stupid expensive lifestyle, and when everyone called her superficial, laughed on her and frowned upon what she’s doing on social media, she defied them all, she pushed through all of that negativity, to be today the top Arab influencer in the Interior design realm (I didn’t say she’s the best interior designer out there, I said as an Arab influencer in that field there’s no one better or as successful as her — prove me wrong), and where are those girls that used to make fun of her /probably still do?

They are watching her achievements from their sad homes and disfunctional marriages, in envy, probably making fake profiles to diss her, wishing they could be her 😊

Anyways I branched out because I got heated with passion, but I’ll go back to the main story, why I was a bully.

In a nutshell:

Mom super busy and extremely overwhelmed

+Sister and I, horrible relationship

+Sister and mom, horrible relationship

+Mom and I, she was too occupied trying to manage my sister being a handful, that I was unintentionally completely neglected!

= D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R

Simple equation.

So instead of following in my sisters footsteps, I was too traumatized from what I saw and chose the exact opposite path.

I was a nerd, I saw my escape window to the world through the internet and gaming (things that are still to this day very dear to my heart), I was a 10 years old girl hacking emails just for fun ( and walking around with the long list of emails and passwords of my victims, never leaving the house without that paper of unethical achievement in my pocket, ready to be pulled out for bragging whenever a chance arise😂 — brag about to who though? The maximum capacity of what people around me knew at that time was how to use MSN messenger, so they wouldn’t even have a clue what hacking, phishing, and bazooka pages are (putting this detail here hoping that there’s a nerd out there that would read and appreciate🙏) as mind you this is Syria we are talking about, a third world country where there was no technology advancement whatsoever and it wasn’t common for houses to have a computer in the first place let alone dial up internet, but mom being the awesome person she is, she got a computer, did a course on how to work it, she taught us and the rest is history…I became the biggest nerd ever!

I’d spend every waking hour nerding after school, and that’s btw how my English became so good, I had no option but to learn it myself so I can understand the content online as back then there wasn’t much Arabic content.

So I close that door on me, leave mom and sis fighting, and I go into the deep holes of the web, exploring anything and everything.

Had zero interest in boys, from what I saw happening to my sister, so I wasn’t causing mom any headaches.

Was passing my classes at school and not escaping, I wasn’t an outstanding student as i never really liked studying boring material or had any respect to my teachers — why?

Because why would I listen to you rambling and preaching for hours when you are nothing of what I aspire to be when I grow up? Actually looking at my teachers was the biggest motive for me to want to run away from Syria ASAP to become someone who’s anything but that!

As for my friends, luckily and still grateful about that to this day, my group of friends who started coming to my life one after the other, were from the same “Elite” society, but very humble, liberal but not raging, open minded but not provocative, so I got blessed by the best selection of friends out there, that even to my mom she’d always scold my sister telling her about her bad choice of friend’s comparing them to mine.

So Lin, you’ve been rambling on for an hour, talking about everything but not how you became a bully, what is wrong with you, you chatterbox!

Well impatient people! I had to tell you the entire story so you would understand what made me the person that I became!

So mom was too busy with work or fighting with my sister, my sister was too busy with boys and fighting with mom, and yours truly was busy nerding the life out of that computer 😂

But the situation at home wasn’t healthy at all, we each were locked up in our own rooms, no communication, no relationship, no warmth, nothing! mom was so overwhelmed with all the responsibility that she was holding (trust me no other woman from the society would’ve been able to) but that stress, exhaustion and nerve wrecking teenage daughter, made her a very VERY angry woman!

Mom used to shout at us in a way that I’ve never seen before, she shouts so loud that it doesn’t matter who’s the person infront of her is, and how old they are, that person would be shivering in fear!

So me the little quiet nerd that I was, every interaction with my mom, was one sided, it was her shouting at me, sometimes for a valid reason and most times without a reason, to the extent that I was so traumatized, that if I wanted to go ask her about anything, before daring to even speak I’d start trembling, my voice shakes and I feel like tears are forming up, and the question would be something as silly as:

Mom, can I get some money to go buy cds?

A very silly request! Nothing to be fearful of, and she never said no anyways! But I was so afraid of her anger that just talking to her made me panic, and if I was too weak and released those fearful tears by mistake, I’d get shouted at even more for being weak and why am I even crying, it doesn’t require crying!

Its true mom that request didn’t require crying, but all of the trauma gathered, required years and years of crying in my adult life to be able to heal — and still not fully healed.

*[the above statement is not for mom as she probably won’t even know I’m writing articles, this is for anyone reading this and have kids, your action today, will be their trauma for the rest of their lives — do not take that lightly]

P.S: I lived my entire life being unable to cry, considering it a sign of weakness, never ever crying infront of anyone no matter how close they were to me, until the age of 25 where all of those bottled emotions came to the surface — wasn’t how I imagined my 20's to be (another post).

Now, I cry whenever i feel like crying and turns out I’m a very VERY sensitive person, I’d see an old man working , I tear up, see a mom hugging her kids, tear up, literally everything makes me tear up happy and sad tears and I don’t care if I knew you for a life time or an hour before, If I’m feeling vulnerable, you’ll see it! Because that is a superpower and not a weakness (took 28 years to realize that )— others live their entire life and die not knowing that.

Back to the story:

Just to be clear, and I want to be very very clear here, back then I used to think my mom is a horrible person, now as an adult who falls into the deep folds of depression, stress and anxiety over waaaay less responsibilities and life encounters, I can justify exactly why she was the way that she was (along with her own life story and upbringing which was very tough and even more cold — but that’s not my story to tell)

So, that quiet, fearful and insanely weak kid at home, went out to the world to reflect the exact opposite persona, at school and with my friends, I was loud, I was strong, I was opinionated, always the smartest kid in my circle, always unapologetic and sometimes just rude! And the worst thing is my anger and violence…ooooofffff!

You just need to ask one of my friends about who I was back then, I was such an angry kid that I was always shouting at them, and the frequency of that was alot that they stopped actually taking me seriously, I boil in anger, and they laugh, I beat them up, they laugh! For them “yeah yeah its just Leeno being Leeno, let her be, she’ll calm down in a sec, don’t take it personal”

My friends loved me with all of my anger, with all of my shit, with all the bruises that I caused them on their bodies.

(Lina, Rana T, Laila, Haya, Rana S, Aya K, Ayah S, Layan)

*ranked not by importance but by when they entered my life- I love them all more than anything ❤️

They were/ still are the best friends a person can ever ask for, life would’ve been such a horrible and cruel place if I didn’t have them to light up my world, and to give me the love that I sooo deeply was seeking- btw we are still friends till this day — Blessed!

They loved me so much that I was always with all of my rudeness yet still allowed to head the gang, they fought who would sit next to me on the school desk — even though that literally meant being exposed to my anger and probably will be beaten up more than the others sitting behind 😂 I was treated like a queen on a throne, literally they made me feel I’m so special and always on top of the world!

But the way they were so loving and forgiving of my actions actually enabled me even more and backfired on me in a negative way that neither they or I expected, because when we grew up and life took us each into a different place/ path and I was separated from them, reality slapped me in the face, only to know that I am no one special, my actions are not okay, actually those actions are completely messed up, I am messed up, other people will never be accpeting of such actions, why would they? Many actually walked out, many till this day aren’t able to see through my anger to understand the pain and suffering that generated it and they walk out.

In a nutshell, I learned that who I was, was not someone to be proud of, and I needed to work on that (p.s: not easy, 20 years later and I’m still yet to scratch the surface…sigh)

So, me being that traumatized horrible kid yet so loved despite all of my actions, meant what? A perfect setup for a bully!

Not the bully that you see on TV, thats the westernized version, we weren’t that cruel, I’ve never beaten anyone other than my close friends mentioned above (maybe just once I pulled a hijabi girl’s head scarf in the middle of the street along with her pony tail) — not okay! But happened 🤷🏽‍♀️

But my bullying was more with words, with sarcasm, won’t remember much now but ooooofff knowing how sarcastic I am today, means I’ve definitely hurt soooooo many girls to be able to count on my two hands.

Now as an adult seeing how childhood traumas are the ones that are the hardest to cure, and the ones that shape us, honestly it breaks my heart to know that I was probably the cause of someone else’s trauma.

I don’t remember by now your names, and I don’t know where life have taken you and if you’ve healed your traumas or not (gosh how much I pray that you did).

But I just want to say to you, those who I at any stage in my life was the reason for their pain, I’m truly sorry, it was never about you, it was all about me, I was angry from myself, from my family, so neglected at home that I had to get all the attention from girls at school and the most thing that can gather attention is making everyone laugh, especially when its a comment about someone else — gosh how horrible kids can be.

There wasn’t anything wrong with you and thats why you didn’t fight me back! Your parents at that time probably loved, cared and listened to you more than mine did and thats why you weren’t messed up enough to be able to match my anger.

I am sorry for who I was, I was too young to be aware of the multitudes of my actions, but I want you to know that I’m in my thirties today, and I’m still so deeply regretful and I hope that whomever you are, you’ll find a place in your heart to forgive that bully, because that bully was suffering, still is, and didn’t know any better.

I’m sorry – انا اسفة

Now to my mom and sister who probably won’t even read this — despite everything we’ve been through — if it was a choice, I’d choose you as my family over and over again, in this life and in any other life ❤️

But sis! i’m growing those nails, and I’m coming for revenge!