Have you looked up your past bullies on FB?....

[MoreGLessT]

And did you make contact? Did it help or just open wounds?

I'm mid 30's, but have only very recently joined social media and I couldn't help but search for my school bullies.

What was I hoping to find? Well, is it wrong that I wasn't exactly hoping for profiles of beautiful and successful people?..

Have you done this? I don't really know how I feel tbh. Part of me wants to ask if they remember doing x, y and z....do they realise the impact they've had on my life? But this was 20 plus years ago! I'd be wrong to do this, right?

Does anyone have experience with this?

OP please ignore @BasinHaircut she obviously has never been affected if she thinks it’s ok to minimise it in this way.

@snowy0wl not really. I’m just saying that I don’t think that everything referred to as ‘bullying’ is really bullying, and that word is thrown around a lot these days.

I said that I feel for anyone who was genuinely bullied. I do actually have experience of real bullying and am also quite the empath to the point where I have taken on the pain of a bully to my own detriment.

am also quite the empath

Yeah, no. Unless what you mean by empath is rude, dismissive and unpleasant.

@BasinHaircut - perhaps I shouldn’t engage further with you but I, too, have been severely bullied and so this subject is close to my heart. It is wrong of you to belittle the OP’s post without any knowledge of her experience, especially since you claim to have been bullied yourself. Thankfully other Mumsnetters do not appear to share your view.

@AnneLovesGilbert no I just don’t think that people should be labelled as a bully automatically for something they did as a child.

And those who are actual bullies are often troubled and (I’m going to get torn a new one for this comment to but in for a penny) end up troubled or dysfunctional adults.

I looked up a girl in the year below me, who had bullied several people but not me. Even her older sister didn't get on with her.
I discovered she had committed suicide in her early twenties. I actually felt quite sorry for her doing that.

Reading my original post back now I will apologise to the OP, that last paragraph was a general comment and not directed at you.

As I say, I feel for anyone who was genuinely bullied and I am not saying that the OP wasn’t, it wasn’t my intention to imply that.

Social media such as FB is not healthy for things such as looking up people from your past full stop. Being able to do so enables people to hold on to things and times that we previously could have moved in from.

I did look up one bully. She had a dead end job, a completely open fb page and a habit of sharing Tommy Robinson/ Britain first shite. Ewww. I'd never dream of contacting her though.

Can people tell if you look at their profile on Facebook?

I looked mine up and it was very satisfying to see shes locked up for drug dealing. I found the newspaper reports and had a giggle at the bloody awful police mugshot of her. She made my life a misery for ages.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm sorry to those of you who can relate.

@BasinHaircut, even if there was some truth in your point about the word bully being over used, I fail to see the correlation with my thread, as I have gone into very little detail about my actual experiences, so I just don't understand why you would make this point. Do you think I'm making it up? Exaggerating? Or just actually "pathetic"?

OP - I have PM’d you.

@BasinHaircut, cross posted. Thank you for clarifying.

@MoreGLessT

The thing is, I'm still bruised by it all. I'm angry and bitter and I know that's not healthy.

As well as angry, I'm also embarrassed that after all this time, it still effects me so much. I still get flash backs and they're recently getting stronger and clearer and for a moment, I'm that utterly miserable teenage girl.

I'd say access therapy instead. 💛 What you want them to give, they may not and it will cause you disappointment and further upset. But talking it through with a professional and working through the issues that have led you to this question will help you lay it to rest and reclaim your life. You don't deserve to be stuck on their teenage actions decades later. ✨

points out the irony of @snowy0wl’s treatment of me on bullying thread

@Basin no, bullies don't always grow up to live troubled lives. Some are ruthless, spoilt and shallow and are successful due to their inflated opinion of themselves and lack of conscience in how they treat others in their path.

I looked up three people who made mine and a few classmates' lives miserable.

One (the 'thuggish' one who beat people up) is now a police officer, which is a bit alarming!

The one who verbally abused people non stop and could talk her way out of anything is a senior sales manager for a multinational 'Big Pharm' company. Figures, she has the gift of the gab and would elbow her granny under a bus if it got her what she wanted.

The third who bullied me for being a 'swot' has a chaotic life, going by her over dramatic FB posts. Cheating exes, teenage kids in trouble with police, fights with neighbours, always skint, posts littered with spelling mistakes, shares racist Britain First memes.

I don't envy any of them now, but 30 years later I still struggle with the effects of their bullying.

Jesus Christ Sandra, you still haven't changed, you are still a snidey begrudger.

@Bluesername I said often, not always

Yes. She is cabin crew for a well known company and seems to have a serious alcohol problem.

Yes. Found out they work in waste management. Was happy with that.

@snowy0wl, thank you. I have tried to reply, but for some reason I get a MN alert to say it won't send. Could you re send?

@glassacorn, I think I'm reluctant to go down the therapy route again. I've already had 4 therapists over the past 10 years! As I say, I have mentioned these times before, but the aim is to focus more on my self confidence and moving forward. CBT isn't really about focusing on the past and general counselling probably wouldn't be enough. That's all that is offered on the NHS I believe. I waited over a year last time.

Dont contact them. They’ll either:
a) Minimise what they did “it wasn’t bullying, I never hit you/ didn’t hit you that much/just didn’t like you...” whatever.
b) Tell you you brought it on yourself in some way “well, you were so wierd /spotty /tall/ small/ swotty /clumsy / spaced out / boring / whatever.
c) Tell you they “don’t even remember”

None of it will help you. If someone really understood what they’d done and regretted it, they could contact you.

I did look up the girl who made my life hell at school. For five years I had to put up with her bullying. She is now in prison for murder. It's a very mixed feeling to be honest, although a relief that for now she is behind bars at least.