U.S. President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

This is a true story. When I was in junior high, my friends and I were bullied by someone in our social circle. This person would pretend to be our best friend one day, reject us the next, and instruct everyone else to gang up in shunning the rejected-person-du-jour. After years of fear and desperation, our little group finally said: Enough.

It took a couple of courageous 14-year-olds to lead the charge. And the rest of us followed, walking away from the toxicity that had engulfed our lives. With our former friend out of our lives, our world became easy, positive, light. We were free.

I carry the weight of these events still – particularly the regret of standing by and allowing this person to bully others, in one case so brutally that the young teenaged girl left the school.

I’m calling this person a bully, even though their own life was complicated, and they needed help – but we didn’t understand that then; we were kids. We pretended what they were doing was fine. We pretended not to notice the cruelty. Or worse, convinced ourselves that it wasn’t cruel at all. It was just normal.

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