If you were bullied, does it affect you today?

[pearl24]

I was bullied at school and it's affected me ever since and probably always will. I was told I look like a man by a boy, who got others to join in. I'll never forget a boy walking past me when boys were told to leave the classroom for lunch. He said 'why don't you lead the way?'

As a result I'll always feel ugly. And unfeminine. They were only around 13/14 when they did this but I hate them even today. I've seen their profiles on Facebook, they have wives and children now. I wonder how they would feel if their children were treated like that, or what their wives would think about their bullying past.

Bullies are the scum of the earth and I'll never understand why people want to upset others. It's never even entered my mind to bully someone.

Sorry for the long post. It felt good to write it down. I am so sorry that you have all gone through such horrible times.

Very much. I've never had a relationship at nearly 30. Never even a kiss. I cant trust that any expression of even passing interest is not a cruel trick. This is thanks to a very cruel form of bullying in the shape of a game called pull a pig.
I challenge anyone to spend 5 years in that environment, being the butt of that joke and not come out of it with some fairly extensive trust issues.

I also have a constant fear of people being angry with me.

Yes, I was bullied at secondary school (shitty comprehensive in a relentlessly non-achieving area - it has not changed) for being too bright.

I learned to keep my head down and just not respond and to avoid all confrontation and live inside my head. I did people's homework for them to get them to leave me alone. I refused to dumb down though as I knew getting to university - the first in my family - would be my escape and my chance for a different life and it was.

It set me up beautifully to marry a narc bully though and placate him for the next thirty years.

I'm free now and I still hate confrontation and keep everyone at arms' length even long-time friends. Still have faith in my brains though - I dread getting dementia like my mum.

I'm autistic. I was bullied all through secondary. One girl bullied me at college and I was bullied by a mature student in nursing school who managed to get the rest of the class to reject me. I've also been bullied in a couple of jobs. The last friend I had ended up bullying me so I dumped her.

I no longer engage with people in the outside world if I can manage it.

@nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut oh love, that’s fucking horrible. I once went on a few dates with someone who told me that him and his friends used to do “pull a pig” when they were at uni.

He thought it was hilarious. I walked out of the date there and then and told him what a fucking nasty, sadistic bully he was when he asked why. I never saw him again. It’s such a terrible thing to do to someone and I’m so sorry it was done to you. Says a lot more about the arsehole who did it than it will ever say about you

I was bullied for a year in secondary school, the next year I dealt with it, I wasn’t bullied again.
It’s effected me to the extent I won’t let it go unchallenged if I see it.

It's strange how many of us experienced little and no help from teachers. My teachers often laughed with the bullies, made excuses for them or just ignored it. I assumed this is because I went to a crap school in a crap area, and the teachers are just as crap. I hope teachers today aren't like this.

@pearl24 my teachers were just as bad. In primary I lived in a rural area and I’m dark skinned so I took a lot of abuse from teachers and students alike. Teachers used to trip me up when I was 6 or so and laugh at me, call me ape and so monkey noises. I knew then my parents wouldn’t care so I never said anything.

Secondary school (in a much more multicultural city) they just saw me as the problem. I used to skive off school a lot as I couldn’t take the bullying, so fell behind etc. I told my dad about the bullying when I was 15 or so, (he didn’t believe me, again, I must be the problem, I must be doing something wrong if they hated me), and he brought it up at a parents eve where my tutor told him that there was no bullying. Said to me that he’d have word with my form if I wanted and get them all to publicly say sorry if they had done anything - could you even imagine!!

I obviously refused and they said I must be making it up then if I didn’t want “help”. My dad and the tutor ended up laughing about it in front of me and from there on, I was a liar and an attention seeker too.

When I look back at myself, I was obviously in pain, self harming, hiding in my room with the curtains closed rather than facing school and I was the fucking problem?

This was a grammar school so they washed their hands of me as I wasn’t one of the bright kids.

@pearl24
Yes the majority of teachers were bullies themselves, they just turned a blind eye, and we all endured.
I left school 35 years ago though, think it's improved.

Yes it taught me that I was of no value and no one liked me. I don't make friends and I don't trust people. I don't expect anyone to want to be around me.

@Connie222
That's disgraceful.
There's some heartbreaking experiences on here.

Some of it even happened in plain sight of the teachers in my experience. The attitude was very much if we don't explicitly hear about it its not happening. If bullying kept happening and you kept telling the teachers you began to be seen as the problem.

I was bullied pretty much through my whole childhood, I was bought up in very rural location with a tiny village school somehow I was always the victim the one left out etc.
It carried on when I went to a big comprehensive but somehow it didn't seem so bad as I also made some really good friends. It wasnt so constant at least. I guess I was just weak at the time but yes it has stayed with me and even now I really do hate those bullies.

I was bullied for my accent, but it hasn’t affected me as an adult. At the time it was awful and my mother kept me home from school quite a lot. This was the 80s.

My bullying all happened at home from my parents. The upside was nobody got to bully me at school or in later life because I knew how to deal with it. The downside is I have a very poor relationship with my parents now; NC with dad, LC with mum. As I have got older and raised my own children, I have pulled away from them as I realised just how awful it was.

@Perfectstorm12 I am not dealing with it at all and it is absolutely not OK. Nothing about it is OK. It would be bearable perhaps, if I could deal with it but I've yet to discover how. So it's shit that I put up with and I hate myself for living with it still.

I'm really sorry for everyone else's fucking dreadful experiences. I was picked on and ridiculed by teachers too. I've not exactly hit the heights of academia, as a result. I could have done a lot more with education but I was so desperate to get away from it because I associated it with humiliation and underachievement.

I identify with so many of you.

Yes, and it has dramatically impacted my life and mental health.

Decades later and I still wake from nightmares.

Bullying still affects me massively to the point I think about various episodes of bullying I’ve encountered every day and feel constantly weak and inadequate because of it. I’ve had counselling with 3 different psychologists to no avail- nothing can take away the memories or experiences so I’m trying to learn to live with it, but it’s a struggle-I’m constantly suspicious of other people, I avoid many social situations and it’s affected my ability to form friendships and relationships.

So in answer to your question OP, yes bullying has ruined my life.

The boys bullied me carelessly, fleetingly amused by my discomfort.
The girls put a lot more thought and energy into be dismantling myself esteem.
The long term effect is that I don't get close to people and I don't trust people to want to be around me for positive reasons.It is easier and less painful to keep myself to myself.