The kid who bullied me for years finally got what was coming, all the way back in 5th grade. 30 or so years later after I finally hit back, he still has a speech impediment from his severely broken jaw and spends his days slowly stocking shelves at the grocery store. I lost my temper that day, everything went red and when I “came back” I was sitting on his chest trying to punch through his head deep into the ground. I also punched multiple bystanders that tried to pull me off of him, and I punched a teacher that tried to intervene. I suffered no significant repercussions at the time due to several witnesses to my efforts to ask office staff for assistance with the bullying. I was, however, grounded by my parents for violating their no fighting rule.

The day that happened was the day I vowed to never lose my temper again. I tend to avoid fighting and physical confrontation, but I also do not tolerate nonsense. As a mature adult I now look back and feel sad about the way that it went and acknowledge that it was a failure of democracy and have focused heavily on de-escalation. I spent some time working in education and had very little tolerance for bullying.