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Being bullied

First of all, if you resent the people who bullied you, this post isn't meant to judge you. Different people feel different things. I don't think I'm a better person than anyone else here. So please take this as a description of my personal experiences.

I don't hate my bullies, nor did I hate them at the time. I didn't try to forgive them because I thought good people were supposed to be forgiving. I just didn't have it in me to hate them. And I'm a terrible actor, so I couldn't even pretend to be mad at them. It made it very easy for people to exploit me. Don't get me wrong, I would get angry at them. I cried. I even tried to fight back a couple of times (but I have always been physically weak, so that didn't stop them). But when it was all said and done, I couldn't get myself to impose any sort of long-term consequences on them. If they talked to me nicely enough, I would respond. I couldn't get myself to leverage the little political power I had.

I never told my parents about being bullied. They did notice something was going on, but they had no idea about the extent of it. They asked me if I wanted to go to a different school, and I said no. I was deeply ashamed of being bullied. And somehow, if I ran away from it, I thought I would become even more pathetic.

I had a more or less normal group of friends in my neighborhood. None of them went to my school. When I found out one of them would start going there the following year, I was paralyzed. I was terrified they would find out about who I was. A while later, we had a petty fight and she said, "I heard no one in his class likes him." I thought it was all over. I thought I was going to start being bullied at home too. I never actually had self-esteem issues. I was never disgusted with myself. I just had this overwhelming feeling that everyone else was--and if some people weren't, I was always afraid they would learn more about me and become bullies themselves.

I fully realized that people thought I was scum. I had got used to being scum. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if it didn't mean constant abuse. I completely understand it when people feel down because they are lonely. It didn't feel good to have to abandon my two friends at school because I couldn't go out in the open with them anymore (or else I'd be bullied). But at that point I didn't even care about being lonely. I would be happy if everyone just left me alone and forgot I existed.

And I suppose that's where I've been at since the end of high school. I even have a few friends now. I don't hate anyone now because I never hated them in the first place. I just wanted it all to be over. I'm glad it is.
 
Fishstick said:
In a lot of cases when it comes to bullying you can take the power from them by being self-deprecating and taking the joke from them. Whats the point in making fun of someone if they're not bothered by it? It works, but it takes some training and self-perspective.
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Aside from requiring "training [and where would get it?] and perspective", this can work only if bullying is limited to making fun of someone. When bullying involves physical assault, as was the case with me and many others, self-deprecation does not get you anything.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Or, you can do as I did and get into a lot of fights.

DR
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I only remember being bullied once. It was 6th or 7th grade, I forget which class, but this kid that sat behind me for some reason decided he didn't like me. One day in class, he started flicking my ears. Did it probably 10-12 times during that class. The next day before class, I calmly explained to him that every time he flicked my ears, I would stab him in the leg with my pen. Sure enough, about 5 minutes into class, he flicked my ear. I reached down and behind and stabbed him in the leg. I don't know if I broke skin or not, but I heard him cussing under his breath. He never bothered me again.
 
This thread could be bad for me. It has motivated me to contact my old school (I know the principal well - she was my third grade teacher!) and see if they can help me track down my old second grade teacher. They might have some info on last known address or something (albeit 30 years ago). I might be able to talk to the diocese, too.

Of course, the reason I want to locate her (if she is alive) is so I can send her a nasty letter, to let her know what she did to me. It would be something like, "I hope what I say to you haunts you every day for the rest of your life, because not a day goes by that I don't relive some of what you did to me."


I think it sounds cruel, but I really don't care.

Oh, I'm sure by next week I will be past this phase, and go on with my life again, but threads like this always motivate me to act.
 
Thank you to the OP for sharing that experience. I am new to JREF, but I am very pleased to see how this OP is treated, and others sharing kind and helpful thoughts about their experience too. As for bullying, it is something I have experienced a few times. I think I learned to be very extra nice to everyone, everyone's friend, to avoid negative attacks. It worked but it was not me, so I lived in a lie for many years and it became a habit. Bullies also target people who want to please as it means they are easy target. But it was all I could do. Now as an adult sometimes I have stood up to it and the bully ALWAYS shrinks away. I know that is because a bully is weak, but you don't know this till you actually do it. It took till I was an adult to fight back, and even then it did not always happen and sometimes I was still afraid to stand up to it (managers and stuff).

All I say to the OP is that actually they are brave although they won't feel they are. The weak are the bullies. It is like a virus, in a pack mindset, it takes over the bully and oftne they have been bullied at home = though I know this will not help if you are right in it. Try to feel pity for them if you can. What sort of man will pick on the weak? A weak one, not strong at all. A frightened one. And that is what these bullys are. Try to hold your head up inside, be proud and defiant inside even f you can't show it outside. Say 'They will never win' over and over. And hang out with good guys, the ones who may not be the smartest or prettiest but have good hearts and good family. Bullies don't like numbers as they pick of the isolated as it is easier. They are pathetic.

OP, you are going to be fine. Look at the other posters here - they lived through it and are smart and funny and kind to others. You will be there too, very soon! 'Hang in there', and if you feel desperate ask for help. Those are my thoughts for you today.
 
pgwenthold said:
This thread could be bad for me. It has motivated me to contact my old school (I know the principal well - she was my third grade teacher!) and see if they can help me track down my old second grade teacher. They might have some info on last known address or something (albeit 30 years ago). I might be able to talk to the diocese, too.

Of course, the reason I want to locate her (if she is alive) is so I can send her a nasty letter, to let her know what she did to me. It would be something like, "I hope what I say to you haunts you every day for the rest of your life, because not a day goes by that I don't relive some of what you did to me."


I think it sounds cruel, but I really don't care.

Oh, I'm sure by next week I will be past this phase, and go on with my life again, but threads like this always motivate me to act.
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Do you think you'll feel better by getting some payback? If she screwed you over badly, taking liberties with her role as a teacher, maybe she needs to know the truth of how badly you were hurt by her.

How you think you'll feel when you exact your vengeance is a question only you can answer.

Sometimes, it feels good.

Other times, you still feel like crap.

Anger is a real bastard of an emotion to deal with.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
Do you think you'll feel better by getting some payback? If she screwed you over badly, taking liberties with her role as a teacher, maybe she needs to know the truth of how badly you were hurt by her.
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I don't know. In some respects, two wrongs don't make a right. But as it is right now, I don't know to what extent she is aware how much damage she did, and not just to me (assuming she is alive).

If nothing else, letting her know will give her the chance to show remorse. She could even go to confession and be absolved from her sins. In that respect, I am doing her a favor, right? :-)
 
pgwenthold said:
I don't know. In some respects, two wrongs don't make a right. But as it is right now, I don't know to what extent she is aware how much damage she did, and not just to me (assuming she is alive).

If nothing else, letting her know will give her the chance to show remorse. She could even go to confession and be absolved from her sins. In that respect, I am doing her a favor, right? :-)
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That last piece had crossed my mind, and if you do that, you'd have crafted a nice piece of "killing with kindness" that can be a sweet form of revenge.

What is worrisome is that she might be oblivious to the harm she did.

Maybe she needs to know. If she knows the harm she did, perhaps she will seek to confess, be contrite, etcetera.

No idea.

ETA: Oh, and maybe telling her directly and truthfully helps you let go of the pain. Don't know if that thought helps either.

DR
 
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TragicMonkey said:
Honestly? I think hating them would have been healthier for you.
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Possibly, but I can honestly say the experience didn't scar me. It changed me, but I like whom I've become. Being bullied was probably the single most important influence on me growing up. Now I see how they could have easily broken me, but somehow they just made me feel like I could take anything. Obviously, stuff like torture, hunger, persecution, etc. would still get to me, but loneliness, the fear of loss, etc. have been dwarfed. I love some people, and I "fear" losing them, but I lost my ability to need anyone. There's a lot to life, even if you're on your own.
 
Darth Rotor said:
That last piece had crossed my mind, and if you do that, you'd have crafted a nice piece of "killing with kindness" that can be a sweet form of revenge.

What is worrisome is that she might be oblivious to the harm she did.

Maybe she needs to know. If she knows the harm she did, perhaps she will seek to confess, be contrite, etcetera.

No idea.

ETA: Oh, and maybe telling her directly and truthfully helps you let go of the pain. Don't know if that thought helps either.

DR
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I don't think I will let go of the pain, but can take solace in knowing that she has it as well.

As you say, what bothers me the most is the possibility that she is oblivious. That's not right, nor fair to her victims (of which there were many).
 
even though i was a pretty skinny, shy, unaggresive kid throughout school...I was never beaten up....or bullied in any serious/constant way. i often used my humor to get out of trouble.
 
Here's my bully story:

I was a quiet and introverted kid, so naturally I became a target. Intervention from parents and teachers only further agitated my bully, and made things worse for me. I was fortunate, though, to have tough older brothers. While neither of them truly understood me, they definitely understood the bully and knew how to shut him down. One of my brothers tried to teach me to fight, but it didn't take because I just didn't see myself as a fighter.

Eventually, he wound up tricking me into learning what I needed, by advising me to antagonize the bully next time I was confronted. He said that bullies are all talk and that he would walk away in denial if I challenged him in front of his friends. Well, that didn't happen, I got my ass beat. Fortunately, kids can't really hit that hard so I suffered only minor scrapes/bruises. Still, I felt defeated and broken.

Naturally, I was upset that I had been led astray. But then he pointed out to me that I received worse beatings on a daily basis from Mother Nature every time I fell from a tree or crashed my bmx bike trying to do tricks. That was when everything changed for me. Once his psychological advantage of fear had dissolved, the bully no longer had any power over me.

The next time I got cornered, I insulted his mother. This enraged him and he wailed on me as best he could, and I found it laughable. I didn't have to hit him back, just made fun of him for hitting like a girl. Once he had been disgraced in front of his cronies, they quit hanging out with him. As it turns out, they were previous targets of his who hung around to feed his ego so they wouldn't become targets again. Once they saw how weak he was, they quit hanging out with him, and we became friends.

The End.

I'm sure there's a moral to the story somewhere, but I'll let you make of it what you will.
 
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I experienced some bullying at primary school. At one stage my brother and I were getting beaten up each day on the way home from school by a couple of guys about 4 or 5 years older then us. After about a week my father went to the headmaster and told him about the bullying. The headmaster said ‘that it would make men out of us’. To which my father said ‘well step outside and I will make a man out of you’. Needless to say the bullying was dealt with

Later in high school I got bullied again. My mother was always a pacifist (‘there would be no wars if no one joined the army’ was one her favourites). She enrolled me in the local Judo class. I only had to use my new found skills once and the bullying stopped. It wasn’t really the fact that I had learned to defend myself, but more the new confidence that Judo gave me. Just knowing that I could look after myself gave me the courage to stand up for myself

The worst bullying I ever had was when I was a young adult. I had just left school and moved away from home. With my new found ‘friends’ I thought I was doing alright, but soon things began to go bad. It started off with being the butt of the jokes but things just got worst. It ended with my drink being spiked and been beaten so badly (mentally, not physically) that it took me years to recover. It was one person who led the bullying, but all the other people that I thought were my friends joined in. I think this was the worst part of it, the betrayal of friendship.

I moved home and stayed in my room for about a year. It almost destroyed me. However, now that I look back it also started my life. After sitting around for a year I just got so angry that this person had hurt me so badly, but more to the point that I had let that person hurt me. I could have walked away at any stage before it got so bad, but I hadn’t. Really I had no one to blame but myself. I was determined to do something good, make a change, so I could prove to them and more importantly to myself that I wasn’t that bad a person.

I went to university, got a good job and am doing alright for myself now. Sure, it hasn’t always been great, but it has been an upwards trend. One day I was walking through Brisbane city and I saw the guy running through the mall, being chased by a couple of other blokes. I almost felt sorry for him…almost.

The one problem I do have and it is one that still bothers me a bit, is that I sometimes over react when someone is making a joke at my expense
 
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SimonD said:
my father went to the headmaster and told him about the bullying. The headmaster said ‘that it would make men out of us’. To which my father said ‘well step outside and I will make a man out of you’. Needless to say the bullying was dealt with
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Cheers to your father for this piece of wit and wisdom!
 
For me, the bullying starting somewhere in elementary school, around 2nd or 3rd grade I think, and continued until 10th grade. Everybody seemed to have grown up after that, switching to high school in 11th grade (German system).

I still remember very clearly how it was... the daily torment, the fear, the ever-repeating stupid, useless "advice" and empty word shells from my parents, the indifference of the teachers (except for one who really sucked at helping, and one who didn´t)... :covereyes

I second the comments about school shootings. If I´d had access to a gun back then, I know for sure there would have been a massacre - unless those jackasses would had gotten lucky and simply driven me to suicide.

The best (if extremely brief) time I´ve ever had was one morning in 6th grade, on the bus to school, when I just snapped and punched one particular bully in the face, then got to watch his horror as he noticed his nose was bleeding.

Then there was the time, a bit after that, when another bully, the first guy´s pal, had to answer for his deeds. Turned he´d threatened not just me, but also by best friend at the time and one other classmate, extorted lunch money from us at knifepoint, and various other whacky pranks like that, and each of us independently of one another (and without knowing the others had been victims too) decided to talk to a teacher about it. Some day, the four of us were pulled out of class and taken to a room where the headmaster, one or two other teachers, and the bully´s father were waiting; we had to recount what he´d done to us, then got to watch as the father read his son the riot act, interrupted by the son´s increasingly feeble attempts to defend himself - unfortunately they were speaking Farsi, so we didn´t understand a word, but the tone of it was pretty clear. Just remembering this episode, and the fearful, almost panicked look of the bully brings a malicious smile to my face... :p That particular bully was thrown out of school over this, by the way.
 
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