Being bullied

[Roboramma]

My dad was in the Navy, so I switched schools at least every two years. It seemed random whether it would be a good experience or bad. I could go from one school where I was bullied horribly to another where I was actually one of the popular kids with lots of friends, and vice versa. That sometimes happened when I switched schools along with the same people because the next grade went to another school. Hell, I went to one school for my freshman year and was bullied, moved away for two years, and moved back for my senior year. The same people who bullied me three years earlier didn't remember me at all, and didn't bully me.

The thing is, bullying doesn't have underlying rationale behind it. It's senseless. How can you avert something that's apparently random? How could I be a popular fourth grader, despised and bullied fifth grader, and then back to popularity in sixth grade? But that's what happened, and you can see it from my birthday photos and, sadly, medical records.

It seems likely to me that bullying is affected by a large number of entangled variables, which is what makes it seem random. But that doesn't suggest that no behavior changes can affect it.

For instance, let's say that you just happened to have a 50% chance of being bullied and a 50% chance of not being bullied at a particular school. The particulars of that (the particular kids in the school and their personalities, the local culture among those kids - for instance, what's "in" right now - and anything else about you or them that affects that) aren't important to my point, add up all those variables and you get a seemingly random chance that you'll be bullied.

That doesn't mean that you can't affect any of those variables. Now, maybe at best you can only sway the probabilities 1% in either direction: I certainly don't know, but I don't see any reason to believe that doing so is impossible.

 

[The Sopwith Turtle]

I love the "If you just fight back" statements.

I did fight back. I was also shorter, lighter, and less psychopathic than most of my bullies. Fighting back never went well. It merely amused my tormentors.

My parents did step in. They did everything short of going to the cops. That just meant the bullying got meaner but sneakier, and I was soon begging them not to interfere, because every time they did, things got worse.

It's easy to say that the adults around should have done something. They didn't. I got sick. I developed stress-induced asthma. I got depressed and suicidal. I wet my bed. The asthma made me worse at sports, which increased the bullying. The bullies found out about the bedwetting on a school trip. You can guess how that ended. And because the bullies were the popular kids in a small school, I was also ostracized.

I eventually seemed to 'get over it.' I even became 'friends' with my bullies. All that meant was that I locked it all up inside. I learned to to grin mirthlessly when someone said something that hurt. I developed a truly evil talent at mocking people subtly, so that I'd get some satisfaction, even though they didn't know it.

And it's warped me. The one time I "fought back" I took one of my tormentors to pieces. He was the smallest, weakest of them, and he normally only bullied me when the others were around. He made the mistake of finding me alone, reading a book, once, and tried to play the usual game of snatching it away and taunting me with it. He never did it again...when he was alone. And I felt terrible about it, because I had just beaten up someone smaller and weaker than me.

My sarcasm wounds my closest friends, because my reflex is to take verbal advantage of any weakness anyone displays. And I feel terrible about that, and try to curb my tongue, but it's a constant struggle.

I've had my revenge now, such as it is. Most of the guys who bullied me are in dead-end jobs, while I've got a rather nice life doing what I enjoy, with even better prospects once I'm done with grad school. I'm independent of my parents, and they're proud of me, while some of my bullies are still living at home, and some of them have been in rehab and one guy's parents had to pull a lot of strings to keep him out of jail.

But that isn't enough. Every time I go home, I have to hang out with these guys, because they're the only people I know. And every so often, one of them, with a apologetic smirk, will say "Hey, remember how we bullied you? We're cool now, right?" I'll probably hear it sometime in the next week - I'm visiting home right now.

And I want to say "No, we're not. We'll be cool after you get punched hard, every day for the next five years. We'll be cool after you can't breathe properly because of all the stress. We'll be cool after you're suicidal and depressed. We'll be cool after you endure two months of silent treatment at your workplace because you told someone about harassment. We'll be cool after I punch you in the groin hard enough that you feel bruised and walk funny for a month. We'll be cool after you wake up every morning for years with a pit in your stomach, and ask "Why me?""

But I won't. I'll bare my teeth briefly, grunt, and change the subject. And everyone will forget except me. I'll keep the rage bottled up, and then slowly exhale it over weeks, by riding my bike in the hills, by writing essays that nobody will ever read, and in the gym, and in ten days I'll forget all about it, because I won't be at home anymore.

So, to all you former bullies, don't apologize, because it isn't enough. And because when you apologize, it's about you, just as it was all those years ago. You want absolution. You may think you get it, but all you've done is simply re-open old wounds. And somewhere, you're still saying "Remember back in school, when I was better than you, and made you cry?"

 

[kittynh]

I was bullied when I had the misfortune to have to wear a medical device for a few years.

It was just paint a target on me.

I put up with it, I ignored it

Finally, after a really brutal day, I figured out a wonderful revenge. Since I was on medical "leave" from gym, I worked in the front office and had access to everyones locker numbers. The other boy that worked there with me was "oh yeah this is our chance". He was a hemophiliac that the kids liked to push around to see the bruises and swellings pop up.

We finally decided we could not go through with our master plan. Instead we both DEMANDED to talk to the principal, and when he pooh poohed our complaints we took a bus to the disctrict heads office. We also took along a friend that worked with the school newspaper, her dad worked as editor on the town newspaper.

The kids that had gone beyond teasing were denied the class trip. Mind you, our butts were toast, so we both transfered to another school. Which oddly, had middle schoolers that were nice. It was just the teachers had zero tolerance and people talked stuff out. So I remember explaining to a class about why I had this THING, and what it was doing. I answered questions, this was in my English class of all places, and word got around. My hemophiliac friend had people helping him instead of pinching and hurting him. I don't think the kids were bad, I honestly think that at a certain age you are almost agressive to stuff you don't understand and lack empathy. When the teachers and staff make a point of teaching empathy... kindness follows.

The shcool where I taught shares a campus with a school for the deaf. Hearing children are the minority. There is zero tolerance for teasing. If you have ever been around deaf children they are LOUD. Some of them have huge hearing aids. Those that do speak do it in an odd voice. There is TONS to tease there. We can only share the campus, and playground and cafeteria and gym... IF we get we are the "minority" and there is NO TEASING period by either side.

If we teach kids, hey we have to share this world with all sorts of people, and we have to be tolerant...or ELSE, they get it. It's not impossible, it just takes effort. The problem is the teachers and staff don't get the the OR ELSE. THe kids get it when it is enforced and they are the better for it.

 

[ConspiRaider]

I got whupped on so much in school and so early, that bullying was something I expected. It was part of life, a thing you simply had to endure, I figured. I counted it as "very good" if I made it through an entire day without any knocks.

I'd get punched out of nowhere walking to my next class in high school, would go crashing into the lockers on the other side of the hall. Guys would hide behind open classroom doors. When I went by, they'd bash my books into the air, and I'd have nice dirty footprints all over the inside pages of textbooks, homework and so forth. I trained myself to give doorways a wide berth if I could.

They'd pick me up and throw me into trash cans, or trash bins. Once in awhile into the creek behind the high school. I'd have to spend the rest of 10th or 11th grade classes that day smelling like a sewage treatment plant. The mud from the creek stank to high heaven.

Then they went through the phase of stuffing me into an empty hallway locker (by putting a pencil through the latch hole on the outside). I thought I'd have to spend a weekend in there once. They did it Friday, the school cleared out, and there I am, banging on this locker from the inside and yelling. About 20 or 30 minutes later, a teacher let me out. I can still see the huge "O" she made with her mouth.

I always saw the threat coming, and I also always knew there was no way to fight back, to get any licks in. Just too darned small, and I wore big thick glasses which I could NOT break. Weighed next to nothing. I simply hoped that what they did wouldn't be too bad - wouldn't accidentally kill me or leave me permanently maimed.

This was a HUGE high school. Two thousand kids combined in 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Then one day the bullying stopped completely, like someone flicking a light switch.

It's 11th grade, I'm walking from my Science class to my Electronics class with all those other kids in the crowded hallway. I was in a great mood; might have even been humming, but I remember feeling good.

The next thing I know, my nose is about an inch from the hallway floor and my hands were hurting like crazy. A bully had gotten behind me while I was walking and yanked both ankles out from under me. I barely stopped my face from bashing the hallway floor. My books went flying, of course. I twisted my head around and saw the bully's laughing face as he continued on past me. He's about 50 pounds heavier than me, but nearly everyone was. I was tiny, a bag of bones.

Then I don't remember what happened, for 5 or 10 seconds. I just remember this red curtain coming down in front of my eyes.

When the red curtain lifted, the next thing I saw was the bully's eyes as big as saucers 6 inches in front of my face. We were about 20 feet down the hall from where he torpedoed me. He was up against the lockers, and I had my left hand around his shirt collar. I don't know how that happened, or if I said anything (or snarled) or what. I let him go, and he boogied. This guy was in my Electronics class and loved to torment me. So we ended up going to the same place. Me a bit later, because first I had to retrieve all my books and papers from the hallway floor.

There was never any bullying of me in school, ever again. I don't know what was said or anything else, but it stopped dead cold. I'm still left with that blank spot - that missing time.

 

[slingblade]

/me waits for someone to show up to tell the most recent posters A) What they did wrong, B) How they could have done it better, C) How they must have exuded some aura that attracted it, D) What he'd have done it it had been him, and E) How his kids will be uberly soooo much better than them, because he's the perfect parent with all the answers.

 

[fuelair]

I love the "If you just fight back" statements.

I did fight back. I was also shorter, lighter, and less psychopathic than most of my bullies. Fighting back never went well. It merely amused my tormentors.

My parents did step in. They did everything short of going to the cops. That just meant the bullying got meaner but sneakier, and I was soon begging them not to interfere, because every time they did, things got worse.

It's easy to say that the adults around should have done something. They didn't. I got sick. I developed stress-induced asthma. I got depressed and suicidal. I wet my bed. The asthma made me worse at sports, which increased the bullying. The bullies found out about the bedwetting on a school trip. You can guess how that ended. And because the bullies were the popular kids in a small school, I was also ostracized.

I eventually seemed to 'get over it.' I even became 'friends' with my bullies. All that meant was that I locked it all up inside. I learned to to grin mirthlessly when someone said something that hurt. I developed a truly evil talent at mocking people subtly, so that I'd get some satisfaction, even though they didn't know it.

And it's warped me. The one time I "fought back" I took one of my tormentors to pieces. He was the smallest, weakest of them, and he normally only bullied me when the others were around. He made the mistake of finding me alone, reading a book, once, and tried to play the usual game of snatching it away and taunting me with it. He never did it again...when he was alone. And I felt terrible about it, because I had just beaten up someone smaller and weaker than me.

My sarcasm wounds my closest friends, because my reflex is to take verbal advantage of any weakness anyone displays. And I feel terrible about that, and try to curb my tongue, but it's a constant struggle.

I've had my revenge now, such as it is. Most of the guys who bullied me are in dead-end jobs, while I've got a rather nice life doing what I enjoy, with even better prospects once I'm done with grad school. I'm independent of my parents, and they're proud of me, while some of my bullies are still living at home, and some of them have been in rehab and one guy's parents had to pull a lot of strings to keep him out of jail.

But that isn't enough. Every time I go home, I have to hang out with these guys, because they're the only people I know. And every so often, one of them, with a apologetic smirk, will say "Hey, remember how we bullied you? We're cool now, right?" I'll probably hear it sometime in the next week - I'm visiting home right now.

And I want to say "No, we're not. We'll be cool after you get punched hard, every day for the next five years. We'll be cool after you can't breathe properly because of all the stress. We'll be cool after you're suicidal and depressed. We'll be cool after you endure two months of silent treatment at your workplace because you told someone about harassment. We'll be cool after I punch you in the groin hard enough that you feel bruised and walk funny for a month. We'll be cool after you wake up every morning for years with a pit in your stomach, and ask "Why me?""

But I won't. I'll bare my teeth briefly, grunt, and change the subject. And everyone will forget except me. I'll keep the rage bottled up, and then slowly exhale it over weeks, by riding my bike in the hills, by writing essays that nobody will ever read, and in the gym, and in ten days I'll forget all about it, because I won't be at home anymore.

So, to all you former bullies, don't apologize, because it isn't enough. And because when you apologize, it's about you, just as it was all those years ago. You want absolution. You may think you get it, but all you've done is simply re-open old wounds. And somewhere, you're still saying "Remember back in school, when I was better than you, and made you cry?"

Killing them will work wonders. Sorry you feel bad about the weak one - everyone is different, my feelings can't be yours, but it would not have troubled me for a second. By my standards and beliefs, anything done to a bully is fine. They have no justification for existance - no more than a functional KKKer or Nazi. They are not human in my eyes, they are just targets.

 

[fuelair]

* slingblade;6050303 waits for someone to show up to tell the most recent posters A) What they did wrong, B) How they could have done it better, C) How they must have exuded some aura that attracted it, D) What he'd have done it it had been him, and E) How his kids will be uberly soooo much better than them, because he's the perfect parent with all the answers.

No one in here did anything wrong as long as they did not bully/ fighting back is great if that is how you work and what you believe is right, not fighting back is fine if you do not have the skills or do not believe in it or know you can't do it successfully. Being bullied is something done to you, not something you bring on. And, in my mind, all bullies should be dead bullies, all gang members should be dead gang members, (and do not play games with the terms, please, I am pretty certain we both know what I mean by the term). Feel free to assume I am not a nice person, but I am honest and my loathing is clear for certain things.

 

[fuelair]

I got whupped on so much in school and so early, that bullying was something I expected. It was part of life, a thing you simply had to endure, I figured. I counted it as "very good" if I made it through an entire day without any knocks.

I'd get punched out of nowhere walking to my next class in high school, would go crashing into the lockers on the other side of the hall. Guys would hide behind open classroom doors. When I went by, they'd bash my books into the air, and I'd have nice dirty footprints all over the inside pages of textbooks, homework and so forth. I trained myself to give doorways a wide berth if I could.

They'd pick me up and throw me into trash cans, or trash bins. Once in awhile into the creek behind the high school. I'd have to spend the rest of 10th or 11th grade classes that day smelling like a sewage treatment plant. The mud from the creek stank to high heaven.

Then they went through the phase of stuffing me into an empty hallway locker (by putting a pencil through the latch hole on the outside). I thought I'd have to spend a weekend in there once. They did it Friday, the school cleared out, and there I am, banging on this locker from the inside and yelling. About 20 or 30 minutes later, a teacher let me out. I can still see the huge "O" she made with her mouth.

I always saw the threat coming, and I also always knew there was no way to fight back, to get any licks in. Just too darned small, and I wore big thick glasses which I could NOT break. Weighed next to nothing. I simply hoped that what they did wouldn't be too bad - wouldn't accidentally kill me or leave me permanently maimed.

This was a HUGE high school. Two thousand kids combined in 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Then one day the bullying stopped completely, like someone flicking a light switch.

It's 11th grade, I'm walking from my Science class to my Electronics class with all those other kids in the crowded hallway. I was in a great mood; might have even been humming, but I remember feeling good.

The next thing I know, my nose is about an inch from the hallway floor and my hands were hurting like crazy. A bully had gotten behind me while I was walking and yanked both ankles out from under me. I barely stopped my face from bashing the hallway floor. My books went flying, of course. I twisted my head around and saw the bully's laughing face as he continued on past me. He's about 50 pounds heavier than me, but nearly everyone was. I was tiny, a bag of bones.

Then I don't remember what happened, for 5 or 10 seconds. I just remember this red curtain coming down in front of my eyes.

When the red curtain lifted, the next thing I saw was the bully's eyes as big as saucers 6 inches in front of my face. We were about 20 feet down the hall from where he torpedoed me. He was up against the lockers, and I had my left hand around his shirt collar. I don't know how that happened, or if I said anything (or snarled) or what. I let him go, and he boogied. This guy was in my Electronics class and loved to torment me. So we ended up going to the same place. Me a bit later, because first I had to retrieve all my books and papers from the hallway floor.

There was never any bullying of me in school, ever again. I don't know what was said or anything else, but it stopped dead cold. I'm still left with that blank spot - that missing time.

Never had the red curtain effect, but it is part of berserker. Berserker is good!!! My fights have never had to go to berserker - and I hope they won't. But, if they do someone not me will be really unhappy.

 

[ConspiRaider]

Never had the red curtain effect, but it is part of berserker. Berserker is good!!! My fights have never had to go to berserker - and I hope they won't. But, if they do someone not me will be really unhappy.

I'm a very non-violent dude (then, and still now) so this surprised me big time. Although I was a kid of 16. And the shellac on everything cerebral-cortex-wise isn't quite dry yet at 16, nor even several years later. There's still a lot of situating going on in the gray and white matter. I got in that state just once more, a few years later. But never again, and I'm thankful for that.

Very very short-lived, this red curtain deal. I was out of it in 5 to 10 seconds. I think it was the unexpectedness of the action that prompted it. Always before - I could see the danger approaching and get ready for it. This came out of left field and something snapped. I think this is akin to someone lifting a car off their child - that short but intense burst of adrenaline-fueled superhuman strength.

 

[slingblade]

No one in here did anything wrong as long as they did not bully/ fighting back is great if that is how you work and what you believe is right, not fighting back is fine if you do not have the skills or do not believe in it or know you can't do it successfully. Being bullied is something done to you, not something you bring on. And, in my mind, all bullies should be dead bullies, all gang members should be dead gang members, (and do not play games with the terms, please, I am pretty certain we both know what I mean by the term). Feel free to assume I am not a nice person, but I am honest and my loathing is clear for certain things.

Oh, I know no one did anything wrong. And I've met you, and know you're a nice person. I'm just waiting for the resident expert to show up, again.

 

[rjh01]

* slingblade;6050303 waits for someone to show up to tell the most recent posters A) What they did wrong, B) How they could have done it better, C) How they must have exuded some aura that attracted it, D) What he'd have done it it had been him, and E) How his kids will be uberly soooo much better than them, because he's the perfect parent with all the answers.

In the absence of such an expert I will give my answers to the above questions
a). Probably nothing
b). Probably not
c). Live in a fantasy land
d). Probably the same or worse
e). Do not have your own kids. Help other parents raise their children. They need it. I have seen so many children being badly treated in public.

Sorry, you guys. This response is guaranteed to temp out one such expert to tell you all how this post is 100% rubbish. LOL.

 

[Chaos]

Never had the red curtain effect, but it is part of berserker. Berserker is good!!! My fights have never had to go to berserker - and I hope they won't. But, if they do someone not me will be really unhappy.

I think I agree - berserker is good. Berserker scares the crap out of those on the receiving end, and scaring the crap out of them seems to be about the only thing that can stop bullies.

 

[Roboramma]

Very very short-lived, this red curtain deal. I was out of it in 5 to 10 seconds. I think it was the unexpectedness of the action that prompted it. Always before - I could see the danger approaching and get ready for it. This came out of left field and something snapped. I think this is akin to someone lifting a car off their child - that short but intense burst of adrenaline-fueled superhuman strength.

I remember experiencing something like that a few times in seventh grade. Once when one kid started making fun of me, suddenly, and out of no where, I punched him hard enough in the throat that he flew out of the chair he was sitting in. He couldn't talk right for a week, but after that he was okay. I felt really bad about it and couldn't believe I'd done that.

 

[fuelair]

I'm a very non-violent dude (then, and still now) so this surprised me big time. Although I was a kid of 16. And the shellac on everything cerebral-cortex-wise isn't quite dry yet at 16, nor even several years later. There's still a lot of situating going on in the gray and white matter. I got in that state just once more, a few years later. But never again, and I'm thankful for that.

Very very short-lived, this red curtain deal. I was out of it in 5 to 10 seconds. I think it was the unexpectedness of the action that prompted it. Always before - I could see the danger approaching and get ready for it. This came out of left field and something snapped. I think this is akin to someone lifting a car off their child - that short but intense burst of adrenaline-fueled superhuman strength.

Essentially yes - the slight difference is that in berserker rage it goes on until there is nothing left to fix or you are dead or wounded to the point of no longer able to move your weapons (though everything is a weapon during it). I suspect, but do not know, that adrenalin is involved, but not in single dose delivery mode.

 

[fuelair]

I remember experiencing something like that a few times in seventh grade. Once when one kid started making fun of me, suddenly, and out of no where, I punched him hard enough in the throat that he flew out of the chair he was sitting in. He couldn't talk right for a week, but after that he was okay. I felt really bad about it and couldn't believe I'd done that.

Throat, solar plexus, testes. The big three targets that take minimal training, all leave the opponent on the ground with difficulty breathing and too much pain to even think of coming after you. And in a nice straight line up or down the body - and the nose makes it four - though slightly less effective normally.

 

[qayak]

- and the nose makes it four - though slightly less effective normally.

Switch "nose" for 'eyes" and you have four equally effective targets.

NOTE: And for those too weak in the stomach to attack the eyes just remember that a tap on the testes can cause serious, irreversible damage ranging from having to have a testicle removed to damage of the lining which, because sperm only has 1/2 your DNA and is recognized as a foreign body by the immune system, causes the immune system to kick in and destroy the sperm, effectively making the person sterile.

 

[Tricky]

Some off-topic and bickerish posts moved to AAH. Please keep it civil. There is never any need to discuss who you are ignoring.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[qayak]

Being bullied is something done to you, not something you bring on.

I don't think you could make a very good case for this claim. In any relationship, and bullying is a relationship between the bully and their target, it is the behaviour of each party that decides how the relationship evolves. The behaviour of both individuals matter. That you choose to use a inflammatory term like "bring on" doesn't change the fact that the victims behaviour has a huge bearing on the relationship.

And, in my mind, all bullies should be dead bullies, all gang members should be dead gang members, (and do not play games with the terms, please, I am pretty certain we both know what I mean by the term). Feel free to assume I am not a nice person, but I am honest and my loathing is clear for certain things.

Fortunately, we don't live in your nightmarish world of death and . . . well, more death. It would seem to me that people need practical and realistic solutions to these problems not whimsical fantasies.

Just so you know, I used to have the "kill them all" outlook to bullies too. After a couple of incidents though, I realized that they were just that, my fantasies and nothing like that was going to save me so I better figure out a realistic method that worked. It was probably somewhere around 4th grade that I came to that realization.

When you get a speeding ticket, are you a victim of the police officer or did you play a role in getting it? When you are conned by a scam artist, are you a victim or did you play a role in it? When you lost a job, were you a victim or did you play a role in it?

In everyone of those situations, I am not a victim, I always play a role and if I want the situation to turn out different next time, I have to address my role in it. Someone once said, "the definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different result." The only thing you can do is to change what doesn't work into something that does. Many people have stated what worked for them against bullies in this very thread but several others seem to not want to listen. When a few of us state outright what these people are writing stories about, we are accused of "blaming the victim."

There are no victims until someone decides they are a victim. Unfortunately, once they accept the label of "victim" they begin to act more and more like one.

 

[JoeyDonuts]

NOTE: And for those too weak in the stomach to attack the eyes just remember that a tap on the testes can cause serious, irreversible damage ranging from having to have a testicle removed to damage of the lining which, because sperm only has 1/2 your DNA and is recognized as a foreign body by the immune system, causes the immune system to kick in and destroy the sperm, effectively making the person sterile.

I've never heard anything like this before.

Are there any medical case studies we could take a look at where this has happened?

I know of testicular torsions, (even had one when I was a tyke - most painful thing ever) but I wasn't aware they could be brought on by sudden trauma.

 

[rjh01]

<snip>

There are no victims until someone decides they are a victim. Unfortunately, once they accept the label of "victim" they begin to act more and more like one.

OK. I want to kill a stranger. So I will go out and kill a stranger at random. Or if you think that is too extreme, then maybe break into a house to steal money and things that can easily be turned into money. A crow bar will force open most doors. The people who are impacted by what I do, are they victims? If not what are they?

Edit. The above are for illustration purposes only. I am not going to go and commit a crime. Nor should you.