Have you ever been a bully? Why?

I think there are so many reasons someone might be a bully and ultimately when we’re talking about children, we can’t really hold them to the same standards as adults. I suppose I felt better about myself by putting others down - I have always had very low self esteem and I guess insecure attachment if you want to get psychological.

Please don't minimise bullying. They might be children but they destroy the self-esteem and ruin the childhoods of other children. Sometimes they cause irreparable damage which is lifelong. Have you thought about that?

Just because you are able to put it behind you doesn't mean your victim can. Own what you did and don't excuse it because you were a child. We were all children but not all children bully.

So much love for this!!!!

Oh what a brilliant ending!

I was bullied throughout primary school including physical assault and a racist element. Secondary school was a bit better but by then, I had lost all trust in people and never formed any true lifelong friendships with anyone.

I did enjoy being on the interview panel when one bully applied for a cleaning job at my company, I took great pleasure in telephoning her to advice she wasnt sucessful 😆.

I don't think many bullies realise how they have affected people and dismiss it as just kids being kids.

I suppose I felt better about myself by putting others down👌
Nail on head.

Yes I was probably a bit of a bully when I was at the end of primary school. I had also been bullied. I can’t really tell you why. I was just a bit emotionally mature, my parents split up around the same time so maybe that’s was part of it. I made friends with someone and we bullied a girl she used to be friends with. I don’t think we were extreme bullies (nothing physical or shouting abuse or constantly insulting etc). We excluded her and must have made mean comments but it got to the point where she was upset enough to report to the school so obviously did affect her. I then feel like I continued to be mean sometimes to some kids but not bullying a specific person until I was maybe year 9 and found a stable group of friends and got a little more mature.

I think there are so many reasons someone might be a bully and ultimately when we’re talking about children, we can’t really hold them to the same standards as adults. I suppose I felt better about myself by putting others down - I have always had very low self esteem and I guess insecure attachment if you want to get psychological.

I do feel bad about it now and in fact even in secondary school, I felt bad about it and regretted it. But that obviously doesn’t really matter.

But even if you managed in some small way to dent or make her doubt her own positive self-image, your tirade was not in vain. It will come back and sting in quiet moments.

My parents were the same to my face. Years later, my mum told me she worried about it and spoke to the school. Nobody at the school spoke to me about it, and Mum dismissed it as me being 'oversensitive' at the time.

I asked her why she treated it so lightly. I stopped speaking about it at home, because I'd be laughed at, made to feel I was being silly, it was just 'a bit of teasing'. She said she wanted to 'toughen me up'.

It didn't work. For those who have brought up the 'r' word, you don't get more resilient kids by abandoning them to the wolves because they need to look after themselves. We need to feel someone is listening. They don't have to go in all guns blazing, we just need to feel someone is on our side.

With you on the concerns about having kids. I haven't got any, but when we were talking about it seriously, all I could think of was that I wanted them to take after my husband. I didn't want them to look.like me, or be like me, so convinced was I that this was my fault, my personality, my physical ugliness (which my bullies made a point of announcing at every occasion).

I’m so, so sorry you and your daughter have suffered like this.

No, you don’t get over it. My daughter hasn’t got over it.

As pps have said, some bullies do eventually catch up with normal people and feel a modicum of remorse, but many don’t.

But their victims will be affected for ever.

I thought the ‘my child will never be bullied’ had distinctly threatening overtones.

I was chilled by her confession and I didn’t detect remorse. But I’m grateful that she posted because it was very instructive and I hope it will make an impact on people who have no experience of bullying and a) think it’s easily dealt with or b) are inclined to waste compassion and time on bullies.

I was a teacher as well as the parent of a severely bullied child so I saw bullying from a number of perspectives. I rolled my eyes at the highly ineffective meeting which Saltandvinegar found so amusing - even finding the extreme distress of the bullied child’s mother absolutely hilarious. Only a psychopath would feel like that and if Salt is one, obviously that is not her fault. But not all psychopaths behave like that - she was clearly a very nasty piece of work indeed.

It's an interesting question to pose, because many former school bullies will deny what they were, or try and minimalise what they did, saying they were ' just kids ' etc.

I was very much bullied in primary school and secondary school in the '80s. I never really got over it. In counselling it came out that I didn't want another child in case it was a boy like me, and he would go through what I did.

As it happens I have a daughter that is bullied, so history has repeated itself anyway. She handles it a lot better that I ever did, and at least I care and me and her mum take the school to task about it. My parents never cared, and it was later in life that I realised how badly they had let me down. Obviously they deny any poor parenting.

I find it strange how in 40 years schools haven't got any better with dealing with it, often the victim has to make concessions.

I'd like to say my bullies ended up losers, but they went to a local trades college for thick lads, and have probably earned ridiculous money as plumbers, plasterers etc.

You're probably right, but I don't know, I genuinely found some peace in the idea that she might not even remember it. It helped me to realise I'd let her keep on bullying me in my head, whilst SHE got on with her life without a backwards glance.

Maybe that wasn't how it really was, but it helped me at the time, when I still couldn't get past it, despite my life being so much better. Something about that exchange released a switch that released some of the baggage I was carrying.

I had an awful childhood, terrible parents, lots of abuse at home.

I was bullied mildly at Primary School - left out of things, teased. I remember going to Brownies and the other girls wiped their snot onto my jumper, laughing.

At secondary school the mild bullying continued and I never felt safe or wanted anywhere. I didn't have a solid group of friends but drifted between people.

Then some horrendous bullying started in year 8, I was threatened and harassed by older kids, it was horrible.

In one class I was sat by a boy who was really short for his age and I teased him; he must have dreaded coming into class.
And then another class, a very meak girl was in a seat and I told her to move, she jumped up really frightened and moved. I think I picked on her a bit.

I'm not sure why I was unkind to those two classmates, and I deeply regret it. I wasn't really horrible but I could have been kinder especially feeling so dreadful and full of anxiety myself.

I don't think bullies are happy. Low self esteem? Bullied themselves? It's no excuse.

Ha ha that’s hilarious!

I honestly doubt she had forgotten. She can remember you enough to contact you on facebook but not remember what she did to you? Oh she definitely remembers alright.

It’s a bit like a narcissist when they do or say something unkind and will then gaslight you by saying “I never said that… and if I did I can’t remember”. I can assure you she will remember.

I have a weird situation in that from the ages of 6 to16 I was constantly and relentlessly bullied in one form or another both physical - had a rock thrown at my head, I was picked up and dropped several times, people running away from me, barking, name calling, especially about my looks, stealing, hitting, spitting. Had it all and from several different groups. I felt like worthless trash, scum of the earth, unloved or loveable by anyone.

BUT I blew the gasket in year 8 and made some one-off nasty comments to some girls in my class and it wasn’t completely warranted. I don’t know what happened other than to say I started to fight back, but too hard? I internalised all of it, maybe like a pressure cooked. Couldn’t talk to my parents about it. I was just hurt and broken in hindsight and it was misguided.

One of the girls who made my life a living hell at school messaged me on FB. It was just like that, as though we'd been pals.

I wrote back giving her what for, and she came back with puzzlement, as if she'd no idea, and I think she genuinely didn't. It sort of helped me. She'd forgotten, it was so insignificant to her. Why was it so significant to me?

I let her live in my head for too long. Needless to say, I didn't accept her friend request.

I thought the same tbh.

And there is still a residual pride in the way she discusses it.

Wtf

Well, we will have to agree to disagree then. After 25 years in mental health, I have met lots of people who have blind spots about how their behaviour affects other people. @saltandvineger gave one example of why this may happen - raised to be spoiled and self centred. There are others. Some people who bully as children are never going to grow out of it. Some will. It’s just not as simple as everyone doing it for exactly the same reason.

As for contact- in victim offender work nothing happens that is not initiated by the victim and I think that’s the best way. That’s why I am not a fan of the 12 step programs with the focus on amends. I think it’s probably well intentioned but in practice it is mostly done very selfishly.

As for contact/conversation/forgiveness- for some victims this is healing. If it’s not for you, fine. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in it.

It’s horrifying how people-led/caring professions attract bullies, or at least people who were nasty as kids.

A glance at the careers of people who bullied me (to the point where I basically became elective mute and am still very quiet and have low self esteem even now, in my mid 40s) - one’s a HR team leader and another is the head of a primary school in an extremely deprived area with children who face significant challenges in all aspects of their lives.

And there were a lot of really nasty, bullying people in the NHS organisation I worked for some time ago.

I fundamentally don’t believe that @saltandvinegerdidnt really realise that her victims were real people being impacted by her appalling behaviour, when she shares that one of them (for example) was physically shaking and struggling to stand through sheer terror during one of the bullying episodes.

It scares me that people like her go on to have children as I believe that they are wired in a way that is dangerous.

Some have praised her honesty and say she has changed but because she tried to claim that she didn’t really realise that her victims were real people being hurt, I don’t believe she has actually taken ownership of what she did. Same with the cocky ‘my child will never be bullied’ comment, as if she can prevent that happening.

People like her make children kill themselves. She’s lucky that she was warned off and wasn’t the cause of a child committing suicide. I hope her victims are safe and happy now.

Oh I’m so sorry this happened to your mum. That was very cruel. And yes I’ve also seen a lot of bullying being done to patients by nursing staff too.

Yes a lot of nurses and teachers are not bullies, however a lot of bullies do seem to go into teaching/ nursing/ caring etc. just generally jobs that you wouldn’t have been able to see them doing. It’s very surprising.

I was a teacher, so I’m not knocking all teachers! But oh gosh, I saw some bullying in the schools I worked in (not towards me, but it was rife).

Again, I have some lovely nurse friends so I’m not stupid enough to think all nurses are bullies, but when my mum was dying she spent many months in hospital and at one point my sister and I went to PALS in tears because the treatment she was receiving from some of the nurses could only be described as bullying. We’re not a family of natural complainers either! I’m afraid it was a smallis, non- teaching hospital and the staff weren’t of the highest standard. I’ve experienced many excellent hospitals and excellent nurses. Some of them did look scary.

OP asked for first-hand experiences of bullies and bullying and there’ve been some heart-rending stories here. There has also been some generalised (and trite, in my opinion) pontificating about why children bully, and appeals for understanding for them.

I really hope that the people expressing these views will think hard about what’s been written here. I hope their eyes will be opened to the appalling nature of sustained bullying of youngsters and the deep anger that remains with the victim.

I wasn’t a bullying victim but my daughter was and her life has been irrevocably changed by it. I have to suppress my rage against the bullies every day (she’s 30 now) for torturing such a lovely, kind, gentle person.

So unless you, your child or very close relative have experienced severe bullying please don’t tell us to understand bullies or feel sorry for them. If your work involves dealing with this issue, please listen to the victims and have the humility to know that you will never understand what they’ve gone through. Please stop making excuses for bullies.

I do wonder why so many bullies go into nursing or being a carer, teacher, TA or whatever as these are the complete opposite roles to the type of person they once were.

I mean, those who are TA’s or teachers, I wonder how they deal with bullies at the school they’re working at. I wonder if they look back and think “yeah I was an evil bitch like that”. I bet they have to have words with the bullies and tell them how wrong they are. I wonder if they squirm whilst doing so.