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?

Yes I have and 3 of them were a group together that bullied me and other people. So the first bully works in retail, was diagnosed with breast cancer but has recovered (thankfully). I felt bad for her even though she was the main culprit. The second bully is now divorced and has 4 children and works in a dead end job again I feel sorry for her and the 3rd one a single parent with a dead end job. I don't look down on them nor did it make me feel better about them.

I count myself lucky as I lived with decent parents who did their best so I could get a decent education and thrive in life. But when I was getting bullied at secondary school, I said to myself I'm going to do better than them and they will always be stuck in that horrible town which it did happen. They all live in the same town still and generally i am pleased where this bullying has pushed me to work harder and live a decent fulfilling life. I've moved on and only remember them if I ever come across a thread about bullying or if it's mentioned in conversations.

@MoreGLessT - I’ve resent my message. This is the first time I have used the PM facility and so I’m not sure why it is erroring. You could try starting a new message to me if it doesn’t work?

I have yes but no I would never make contact. The likelihood is they are still very unkind people and it could cause you more upset to speak to them.

I was a victim of a bully who pretended to be my friend and then continuously slagged me off to others, God knows why. I couldn't believe it when I found out. Then when I finally stood up for myself she tried to twist the truth and manipulate people again as if it was me who upset her and bullied her. Meanwhile for years she was putting me down about not having my periods yet (she started at 11, me at 13), not having sex (she started at 14, me at nearly 18), about not needing a bra when I was 11, then when I was 15 she told me to my face I looked poorly and put on "so much weight" (I was size 8). It's very strange but I only saw through that bitch years later when I went to university.

She once tried to make contact on Fb, years ago, but I ignored her. I looked her up once, randomly, about 4 years ago and she looks about a decade older (we're mid-30s now) and she's seemingly living a questionable lifestyle in & out of Dubai, IYSWIM. Meanwhile I look few years younger than I am, have a good career, lovely DH and a very loyal group of friends. Karma is a bitch. I have no time for her whatsoever, and what a relief this is.

I actually had a message a few weeks back from a girl who orchestrated a weird situation at school, telling everyone something private and tough about my family which led to loads of upset for me.

I was really touched as she said she thinks about it nearly every day and is so ashamed of her behaviour then. She took full responsibility and seemed genuinely, almost desperately sorry.

I replied telling her it was incredibly painful for me at the time, was a very cruel thing to have done but that I understand many children do things they will regret as adults, it was a long time ago and I am really happy with how my life turned out so she should forgive herself and not worry about it any more.

I felt good about the interaction and really was touched. She has had children now who I think would be at school now and I wonder if that has made her realise the impact her behaviour would have had on a child a similar age to hers are now. I don't have kids so that might not be a thing but perhaps.

I really appreciated it but it sort of wasn't ongoing bullying, more a lie / gossiping phase she had focused on me that spiralled when everyone found out the lie and she perpetuated it. If she had mercilessly bullied me throughout school I don't think I would have wanted to hear from her or be able to be gracious about an apology.

[quote BasinHaircut]@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.[/quote]
Literally every single person I've ever heard describe themselves as an empath is self involved, selfish, vain, never take responsibility for their actions and make everything about them...

I was friends with one on FB (still friends with her on Instagram) and I sent her a message saying I forgave her (apparently she had a troubled teenage life).

The other one who bullied me briefly is off FB surprise surprise.

The funny thing is about a year ago my bully must've pissed someone off a lot as they posted something very personal and damning with photos about this 'friend' and her teenage DD, who apparently had behaved badly - all open on her FB page but now deleted, one person liked it. I felt bad for a minute but then I did recall how this bully bullied me and others, so didn't feel that bad.

Funny thing is this bully for years has been into alternative therapies, has tried to sign me up for them (free one first then pay) which I've always batted away, she still gives a sense of 'falseness' out to me.

Contact would definitely be high risk of potential for making things worse as pp's have mentioned.
I have tried to look up a couple without success, but it was idle curiosity really. It sounds like you need something a bit more affecting than a satisfactory revelation that things are the pits for them, so I think as others have said your first choice for improving how you feel is some sort of therapy.
I have one person I would love to say sorry to. We were friends and would both have been classed as a bit weird. I had problems at home and she had some difficulties too. Most of the time we got on well, but sometimes our respective issues made us clash and I wasn't kind in a way that I hated at the time and hate looking back. I would love to tell her that I am sorry I made her feel bad sometimes. It wasn't anything overly serious but she was fragile and I think the impact was greater than the intent iyswim. Looking back I was doing my best, but I sometimes added to her problems by being impatient in an unkind way. I hope she is living a wonderful life free from the emotional neglect she suffered.

@snowy0wl, it seemed to work this time 👍

@youvegottenminuteslynn, that was really thoughtful. It shows true remorse, given she reached out to you.

@Saz12

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.

the thing about my bully was she did neither of this and felt deeply ashamed and upset about it.

She apparently was bullied by her own mum.

Yes! I have done this. One had a slightly unfortunate personal life and had relationships with some very minor slebs. The other has stayed in our home town and married one of the local boys. They have a child with a silly name. I probably would have known all this without FB tbf though, as I still have a few friends who live in our home town.

@BasinHaircut

I feel for anyone who has genuinely been bullied, but I do feel like that word is thrown around a bit to much these days. As kids I believe that at times we aren’t very nice to other kids, but as we grow we learn and correct our behaviour.

I think anyone who was an actual bully at school, is probably still a bully now and/or is now living a life that explains why they were a certain way back then IYKWIM. Either way I don’t think there is ever anything to gain by contacting them.

Where it’s just a case of kids being mean to kids in a transitional type way, again, what is there to gain? And if anything, you will look a bit pathetic for contacting someone to remind them of the time they called you ugly when you/they were 13 and telling them how much it upset you.

Re your first para - I think the sentence which ends with starts with 'go' has a middle word and ends with 'yourself' applies to you here.

I had a friend from secondary school who I met on a school reunion a few years ago and was talking about me and another school friend of ours (who has epilepsy) and was minimising any sort of bullying including in the workplace.

I was polite to her face but it certainly didn't make me want to stay in touch too much with her.

What it's useful to understand is that it's rare for children from stable, loving homes to be bullies.

Generally speaking children that bully others are very unhappy, they don't know how to process it or deal with it and so they project it onto other children.

This is also the same for adult bullies but I can see how this behaviour is forgivable for a child who doesn't know other ways of dealing with their own hurt and not for an adult.

Can you seperate the two things?

It's normal for you to still feel the effects of bullying which will have had a massive impact on you as a child. It's okay to be sad about that and to hate what happened to you.

However people change a lot from children to adults so it's best to move on from trying to reengage your bullies as adults. They may not even really remember it that well as children are by nature (and neuroscience!) very self centred and are unlikely to have reflected at the time about what their bullying was doing to you.

The biggest 3 bullies at my school....

1. is the manager of mcdonalds. she seems to have done quite well for herself despite the responsibility of having a child at 16. She became a single mum, then had a second child in her 30s who has severe autism and, by her own posts, makes her life a living hell and sleeps 2 hours a night. i do actually feel quite sorry for her.

1. had 2 children straight after school. became addicted to heroin and her parents fought her for the kids (and won). had another child whose dad took him when they broke up when he was a few months old and she pretends that child doesnt exist (hes doing really well, i worked with his stepmum but have never told her the link). she is now sober and has a 4th child and is a trained eyelash technician from home.

1. is still amazingly beautiful and still a bitch. she got married in Italy and her photographs looked like a modelling shoot. shes a teacher now but just got divorced from her husband and is now a single mum to 2. however i know people who work with her (they didnt go to school with her) and say she is a spoilt drama queen and horrendous to work with. so hasnt changed.

@umpteennamechanges

What it's useful to understand is that it's rare for children from stable, loving homes to be bullies.

Generally speaking children that bully others are very unhappy, they don't know how to process it or deal with it and so they project it onto other children.

This is also the same for adult bullies but I can see how this behaviour is forgivable for a child who doesn't know other ways of dealing with their own hurt and not for an adult.

Can you seperate the two things?

It's normal for you to still feel the effects of bullying which will have had a massive impact on you as a child. It's okay to be sad about that and to hate what happened to you.

However people change a lot from children to adults so it's best to move on from trying to reengage your bullies as adults. They may not even really remember it that well as children are by nature (and neuroscience!) very self centred and are unlikely to have reflected at the time about what their bullying was doing to you.

oh come on! surely you know when you're being a nasty person?

I certainly did anyway and the few times I was unpleasant to people I regretted it immediately and apologised.

Both bullies I know (one attacked me by lighting my hair with a lighter but only a one off) knew exactly what they were doing. I actually left the school due to the first incident because I didn't want it to escalate, and I'm so glad I did.

I also know second hand of a couple of bullies (not to me) who are from lovely stable homes and when they've been asked why they bully had no explanation.

@umpteennamechanges

What it's useful to understand is that it's rare for children from stable, loving homes to be bullies.

Generally speaking children that bully others are very unhappy, they don't know how to process it or deal with it and so they project it onto other children.

This is also the same for adult bullies but I can see how this behaviour is forgivable for a child who doesn't know other ways of dealing with their own hurt and not for an adult.

Can you seperate the two things?

It's normal for you to still feel the effects of bullying which will have had a massive impact on you as a child. It's okay to be sad about that and to hate what happened to you.

However people change a lot from children to adults so it's best to move on from trying to reengage your bullies as adults. They may not even really remember it that well as children are by nature (and neuroscience!) very self centred and are unlikely to have reflected at the time about what their bullying was doing to you.

Would you also count 13, 14 etc as children still? because technically they still are but they know what they're doing as wrong.

Very different in my eyes to a child up to e.g. 11 who is still learning right from wrong behaviour.

Nope... he gave me low self-esteem issues I have no desire to know what happened to him.

Yes. I count 13 and 14 as children.

You're frontal cortex part of the brain doesn't stop maturing until 21.

I'm not saying that they don't know what they're doing is wrong. I'm saying they don't care at that age. Children (including teenagers) tend to have lower levels of maturity around empathy and consequences.

This is all scientific fact.

Children who have trauma in their lives in particular will have all sorts of dysfunctional behaviour including, but not limited to, bullying others.

Also, it's not whether I count them as children.

Age 13 and 14 are literally children in any sense you can think of - legally, socially, biologically.

Because they were our bullies we go back to feeling like that 13 year old being bullied and seeing them through their eyes - as someone with power over us.

Objectively, they are just children. Usually traumatised children to some extent or other.

@umpteennamechanges

Yes. I count 13 and 14 as children.

You're frontal cortex part of the brain doesn't stop maturing until 21.

I'm not saying that they don't know what they're doing is wrong. I'm saying they don't care at that age. Children (including teenagers) tend to have lower levels of maturity around empathy and consequences.

This is all scientific fact.

Children who have trauma in their lives in particular will have all sorts of dysfunctional behaviour including, but not limited to, bullying others.

*Your not you're!

I have. They are fairly successful (far more so than me, career wise, thanks to crippling social anxiety) It didn’t make me feel any better and I would never get in touch.

It's also why a fair amount of those bullies mentioned on this thread end up in stories of suicide, drugs, other criminal activity, issues coming to terms with their sexuality and all other kinds of red flags that point to possible childhood trauma.

Two of them yes.

One we are FB friends and I recently found out that she and DP were are uni together and she kept coming onto him and he turned her down. How I laughed. She always comments on anything I tag him in 🤣🤣

Second one we actually reconnected as we were both widowed in our early thirties so we spent some together and are now friends.

You are not weak, childhood bullying and the transition from primary to secondary is known to have a potential lasting effect into adulthood.

If you were to contact your bullies, what would you get? Ok I once told a friend (who really became a friend because it was better than her being a bully) that the things she said really fucked me up, or to that effect, e.g. what she did and how it affected my confidence. She was genuinely quite horrified. This was kind of surprising and slightly cathartic I guess, but it still doesn't change that it hurt and was nasty. I was just a victim on her path, but I won't be a victim if that makes sense...you are amazing and great how you are op. No doubt if I'd spken to more of them, some of them might have said 'meh' and 'what gives'. One in particular I can think of. I guess though people are not all horrible so I let it go.

What does help/what you can do...is work on perspective. I can't explain it very well but its realising you are stronger than you think and have achieved loads and there is still more ahead.

I looked up mine, all fake smiles and acting like life is wonderful (which is what I expected). Seeing their smug faces made me angry and want to kick them in the head, as they made my entire childhood a living hell so I haven't looked since. I do hope that they have shitty lives - I can never forgive them for the ways they physically and mentally hurt me.