School bullies many years later.

[Cainkane1]

Once I left my high school I never looked back. I have no desire to.

My high school seems to be comming back to me. A lot of the students live in my town. I always thought it ironic at how what goes around comes around.

 

[quarky]

Jesus was not a bully, and look what god did to him.

Maybe bullying is a proactive method of avoiding Jesus's fate.

 

[Beerina]

I often wonder if their bad health and early deaths were somehow connected with their recreational torments? Could there be a connection?

Maybe bullying correlates with dumbness, which is known to correlate with being out of shape and dying early, totally aside from the direct socially risky behavior?

 

[Eyeron]

Not really. It's often the popular people who do the bullying, as well as the so-called normal people. It's all about the pecking order.

 

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

One of the ones that I knew got AIDS from his wife. I'll laugh when he dies. Good thing that's a miserable way to go.

 

[Brattus]

I had two bullies that made my life hell as I grew up. I also had a very physically abusive Father.
My youth was spent in fear. Fear of just about everything. Fear brought about from sub-zero self esteem.
As I grew older I began to realize where all that fear was coming from.
By the time I hit my late 20s I had worked through just about all those issues.
I worked out my hate and fear of my Father and we became quite close before his death. He asked for and I gave him the forgiveness he sought.
In my early 30s I got a second part time job because at the time I was kind of strapped for cash.
One of the bullies worked there. At first I was ready for him.
I knew he was not dealing with boy full of fear now. I also knew that if he started in on me he was going to learn that the hard way.
But that never happened and in fact he said he was sorry and had felt bad about his behavior toward me the older he got.
I accepted his apology and let him know that if he did want to test me he was more than welcome to try.
I then saw him as what he was. Just a person like any other. Not the devil or some super bad guy as I had remembered him.
That was a really weird realization for me.
Shortly after that I read in the paper that the other bully was sent to prison for 20 years.
While in his late 30s he was partying with a couple of teenage boys and crashed his car(the same car he was driving when I was a kid)into a bridge pillar and one of the boys lost his life.
Bullies are just like the rest of us. All screwed up and afraid.
Some work out their problems and some stay exactly the same.
I can clearly see the ones who do not change having many problems in life including massive health problems.

 

[Cainkane1]

I had two bullies that made my life hell as I grew up. I also had a very physically abusive Father.
My youth was spent in fear. Fear of just about everything. Fear brought about from sub-zero self esteem.
As I grew older I began to realize where all that fear was coming from.
By the time I hit my late 20s I had worked through just about all those issues.
I worked out my hate and fear of my Father and we became quite close before his death. He asked for and I gave him the forgiveness he sought.
In my early 30s I got a second part time job because at the time I was kind of strapped for cash.
One of the bullies worked there. At first I was ready for him.
I knew he was not dealing with boy full of fear now. I also knew that if he started in on me he was going to learn that the hard way.
But that never happened and in fact he said he was sorry and had felt bad about his behavior toward me the older he got.
I accepted his apology and let him know that if he did want to test me he was more than welcome to try.
I then saw him as what he was. Just a person like any other. Not the devil or some super bad guy as I had remembered him.
That was a really weird realization for me.
Shortly after that I read in the paper that the other bully was sent to prison for 20 years.
While in his late 30s he was partying with a couple of teenage boys and crashed his car(the same car he was driving when I was a kid)into a bridge pillar and one of the boys lost his life.
Bullies are just like the rest of us. All screwed up and afraid.
Some work out their problems and some stay exactly the same.
I can clearly see the ones who do not change having many problems in life including massive health problems.

Things seem to work out. The wrestler I was talking about was also an A student. He graduated from Georgia Tech and became a vice president for a company called ITT. He was married and divorced three times. His children are estranged from him. I on the other hand graduated college and did mid management clerical work. My alma Mata is a community college and later a liberal arts college that barely manages to keep its acreditation.

Well one day twenty years or so after high school I was sitting in a bar with five friends. We were tearing the place down in a nice way. Laughing, talking, drinking and such. In other ways having a great time. I heard arguing at a table near me and a woman got up in a huff leaving the man there alone. We made eye contact. It was the wrestler. I recognised him and he recognised me. I started to invite him over when I decided against it. Screw him. He had once hit me on the head with a book for no good reason and then spit on me. I didn't owe him anything he wanted to collect.

 

[Fnord]

B.T. died of a brain tumor, which was induced by steroid abuse. He simply could not face growing old and soft. He used to take great pride in beating me up with his friends G.R. and G.T., and then bragged about how doing so got him in shape to play football.

G.R. started a restaurant-supply business after graduation. eventually, he opened his own restaurant. He was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head after a back-alley drug deal went sour.

G.T. lost control of his 4-by-4 in a road-rage incident after a driver in a late-model Toyota Celica cut front of him on a two-lane road. He passed the Toyota on a blind curve, swerved to avoid oncoming traffic, and went over an embankment into a river.

 

[Meed]

One thing I've read about bullies is that the reason they are so overtly aggressive and noisy is that they lack social skills. There are plently of calmer, quieter people that wreak just as much havoc using political back-stabbing and other covert techniques.

I'm skeptical of the "poor social skills" angle. Anecdote meets anecdote, but bullies I've known were popular and had decent-to-good social skills.

My middle school was kind of effed up, it was this really small private school that never really consisted of more than one or two social groups/cliques, because there just weren't that many of us. New kids often became outcasts. I never participated in it, but I didn't question it or speak out either. I remember the guy who orchestrated that stuff the most. I would openly describe him as a dick, but I think if I said something like "maybe you guys should quit treating [insert outcast] like ****" they would have looked at me like I was on crack.

 

[Cainkane1]

I'm skeptical of the "poor social skills" angle. Anecdote meets anecdote, but bullies I've known were popular and had decent-to-good social skills.

My middle school was kind of effed up, it was this really small private school that never really consisted of more than one or two social groups/cliques, because there just weren't that many of us. New kids often became outcasts. I never participated in it, but I didn't question it or speak out either. I remember the guy who orchestrated that stuff the most. I would openly describe him as a dick, but I think if I said something like "maybe you guys should quit treating [insert outcast] like ****" they would have looked at me like I was on crack.

Youd be right. There were plenty of times I wanted to say something but the attention was on the victim and I was just glad it wasn't me. These people do their cruelties because they enjoy what they do. its a hobby to them. They can be strong or not so strong. They can be a genius or a retard. I knew plenty of low lifes in school growing up and they came from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Sometimes they get whats comming to them and sometimes they live to be a hundred and die rich. There is no karmic cosmic justice except the justice time and bad judgement sometimes metes out to them.

 

[Modified]

I know of three exceptions to that rule. Three of the worst bullies I knew in school were athletes. A wrestler and A student and a basketball player and a weight trainer. Its personality more than anything else.

I'd say 2/3 of the football players at my high school were casual bullies. Other sports, not so much. Most of the "full time" bullies seemed to fall into the poor-social-skills category.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I'm skeptical of the "poor social skills" angle. Anecdote meets anecdote, but bullies I've known were popular and had decent-to-good social skills.

It depends on how you define "bully". Tormenting someone else is necessary but not sufficient to be a bully. Most of what is called bullying is (IMHO) just people caving in to social pressure.

To me, a true bully is someone who needs to control the emotions and actions of others, and does so with the "brute force" approach. Unfortunately, many of them end up in positions of authority when they grow up. I know, I've worked for them.

 

[Meed]

I had an evil boss once too, although she mainly took it out on our programmer. That was definitely a level beyond hobby.

Definitions get tricky.

 

[Aepervius]

We had a group of 5 bully, which terrorized 2 schools. One died of AIDS at 18-19, one died of a head gunshot (nobody was ever sure it was a suicide, he was found in a park with a gunshot wound), one landed in a psychiatric asylum, and he is still there, so far my old friend told me, one nearly OD'd, went into cure and is now a worker at some metal barel making company, the last one has been in prison for drug traffic for the last 20 years.

Really nowadays I pity them much much more than I fear them.

 

[Cainkane1]

I had an evil boss once too, although she mainly took it out on our programmer. That was definitely a level beyond hobby.

Definitions get tricky.

I had a sadist for a boss too. The lady loved to make people afraid of getting fired. She had other coworkers quit on her on numerous occassions.

 

[sigmund]

Became a heroin user, with associated methods for gathering money, including but not limited to prostitution and stealing from friends. Has since been on the methadone program and is wondering why so many bridges are burnt.

(Not me, the bully)

 

[Ralph]

I remember the year in high school we got a new science teacher.

He'd just retired from playing semi-pro football...........a linebacker.

One day he came walking into class between bells and saw one the class arse-holes pushing a smaller kid around--just generally doing his best to make this kids life as miserable as possible.

Being the early 60's--teachers weren't restrained to the degree they are today.

He walked over to the punk---grabbed him by his shirt collar and just lifted him off the ground so his feet were just dangling a foot in the air and just got right in his face....

I should add here--his nickname was "Turk" and he was one mean looking mfer...

He simply told the kid "don't ever let me catch you doing that again".

As far as I know---nobody ever saw him pick on anybody again on school grounds again......

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Don't know. I haven't seen or spoken to anyone who was a thug or bully or mean girl. And I'd like to keep it that way.

I haven't heard of them through others, either. And I'd like to keep it that way.

I did hear of one girl who was a pretty big jerk to me in elementary school. She was cruel and snobbish but not pathologically so. She was a little princess but not a bully, really. She never started or got into fights.

She's now working towards a nursing degree, according to my mother, who heard about it from someone else.

I also saw her on Facebook- apparently she's a friend of a classmate from high school, what a coincidence- and even seeing the name gave me a jolt. I hope she never searches for me.

It would be very fine by me if I never see her again, too.

 

[Piggy]

Cainkane1:

There's a very interesting article in this month's Atlantic called "Orchid Children" which is not actually about the bullies, but touches on that.

I recommend it to you.

It has some interesting views on the genetic underpinnings of the bully's psychological makeup. And yes, that psychology puts them at high risk for the kinds of deaths you describe.

It's basically a combination of faulty impulse control, a brain that gets a rush from risk-taking, hair-trigger aggression, and a severe deficiency in the faculties that allow us to interpret social and emotional cues from other people.

Bullies tend to live their lives in a state of continual psychological stress, to repeatedly put themselves in dangerous situations, and to fail to care for their health.

 

[Fnord]

Another bully from the Fnordic past ...

P.C. was (imho) the most beautiful girl in school. I asked her to the junior prom. Not only did she laugh in my face, but she 'decreed' that no other girl should ever go on a date with me because I was obviously too stupid to realize that only another low-life would ever date a spaz like me. The other popular girls followed her word because it was 'cool' to do so, and the unpopular girls followed her word because they wanted to be cool.

She now lives in a double-wide, taking care of her twenty-something autistic son, who stims by scratching and rocking while humming in a high-pitched girly voice.* Her appearance is what you might expect from a woman that has given up on ever having a social life, much less a committed relationship with a man.

Sometimes ... just sometimes ... I wonder if 'Karma' might actually exist as a natural force.



(*No ... he looks nothing like me ... not that there was ever the remotest possibility that he could.)