Sticks & Stones: how resilience will overcome oppression

“Sticks and stones

Will break my bones

But words will never hurt me”

Such was the advice I was given when I tearfully relayed my latest humiliation at the hands of my classmates. But words did hurt — a lot. I was systematically bullied throughout my school years by my peers, and, in one appalling instance, for an entire year by a teacher. The fear would start every Sunday afternoon — tomorrow I would have to go back there…