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Original poster

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

102 replies

MoreGLessT · 13/01/2021 11:38

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 posts:
S0CKS · 13/01/2021 19:44

I've looked mine up periodically throughout the years in a nosey interest way. Their bullying has effected me my whole life so I'm glad they've mostly had a tough life

ColourMeExhausted · 13/01/2021 21:22

Yes. Seen quite a few on social media. Pretty much all still living in my home town and poor life outcomes I guess, is the best way to put it. I feel sorry for them - my school had a deprived catchment area and a lot of these kids were just struggling to survive, living in households where they were given scant attention. I was middle class so was always going to be a target. But I was also bullied elsewhere, I was a bit of a dorky kid and never really fit in with 'the crowd'.

There was one girl in particular who did make my life hell for a year. She was horrible and mean and just took a total dislike to me, never missed an opportunity to belittle or humiliate me. A few years ago, I found out she'd died at the age of 32. She left behind a little boy. I had very mixed feelings, couldn't really relate to the out pouring of grief on Facebook, but also sad for someone to die that young and with a young family.

So sorry you are going through this OP. Maybe some counselling might help (sorry if this has been mentioned, not RTFT).

glassacorn · 13/01/2021 21:27

[quote MoreGLessT]@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.[/quote]
Could you see if you could get support to access BetterHelp? You choose your own therapist and can have a trial session with them.
You're right that CBT doesn't really help to unpick the past - but it also sounds like you are stuck there. You deserve to live without dwelling on past trauma.

www.betterhelp.com/online-therapy/

Tanfastic · 13/01/2021 21:29

I looked mine up, looked rough as a badger's arse. Blocked her so she couldn't find me and there she remains.

notthemum · 13/01/2021 21:51

Op. I am so sorry that you went through this. I'm afraid I definitely don't subscribe to the bleeding heart brigade who say the bullies are unhappy. Not as unhappy as their victims. Hope you are ok. 💐
I Didn't look them up. One I served when I was working on a till. She asked me if I remembered her, I said yes, her and her cronies made my life hell. She said her home life hadn't been great. I said mine too, but I wouldn't try to ruin someone else's life because of it. She asked me if would go to a school reunion she was organising. I said not if my life depended on it. She told me she was a counsellor. That made me laugh. She did apologise and said if it made me feel any better her 12 year old was being badly bullied. I said that I would never wish that on anyone's child, no matter how much I still hated the parents. She also asked what else I did. I told her I had written a book and it was published. there was a reference to her and her friends in it.
Another one I met was when I was running a beauty section in a large chemist. She wanted some advice on a product and I was the one she needed to come to. I was more than pleased that I looked great that day.

AnneElliott · 13/01/2021 22:17

I haven't looked them up on FB but I saw one of them on a bus once when we were in our 20s.

I can't repeat what I said on MN as no doubt it will be considered beyond the pale (despite the hell I went through) but I'm glad to report her face crumpled and she cried.

I get the bitterness op. I know I'll get people telling me I should have been the bigger person but my God did it feel good.

HopingForOurRainbowBaby · 13/01/2021 22:28

Yes I'm Facebook friends with them, along with someone who kicked ten bells out of my head and left me with neurological issues. Life's too short to bear grudges

Canyoncall · 13/01/2021 22:31

Doesn't this attitude turn you into the "bully" though?

Thisisworsethananticpated · 13/01/2021 22:59

I have
Mine was dead , this was early 40s
So that was that really

Andromache77 · 14/01/2021 07:07

@Canyoncall

Doesn't this attitude turn you into the "bully" though?
No, absolutely not, there is a huge difference between not forgiving a bully and being one, the main one being that PP have not been seeking their former bullies out to make their lives hell. And confronting them is just natural consequences, or do you think that they should be spared the embarrassment as well?
Andromache77 · 14/01/2021 07:18

Now, to answer OP's question, I couldn't look up the people who bullied me at secondary school even if I wanted to because I have completely forgotten their names and faces, which makes me quite happy, to be honest. It wasn't anything terrible, but it was unpleasant enough at the time and I'm very glad that they have slipped away into oblivion.

SnuggyBuggy · 14/01/2021 07:26

Interesting reading these stories as I've never even been tempted to do this. I won't have anything to do with people from that time and I knew pretty much from early secondary school that I would need to move somewhere else as an adult if I wanted a happy life.

Thisisworsethananticpated · 14/01/2021 07:36

Well I definitely got closure when I learnt she was dead
Some medium post bullying trauma doesn’t compare to the grim reaper

kitschplease · 14/01/2021 07:40

Mine is a social worker - also hope she has had a massive personality change!

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 14/01/2021 07:57

No, even the thought of the evil little cow makes me shudder.
In any case it was so long ago and I wouldn’t have a clue about her name, that is if she married and changed it. As most from my era did.

mumnowformerrockstar · 14/01/2021 08:06

I have looked them up. Would never send a friend request though. Happy to report that most of them now live a miserable life, karma and all that Grin

CoffeeDay · 14/01/2021 08:14

@JustanotherTuesday

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.
I had the same experience! Although bullying was too strong a word since it wasn't ongoing and malicious. It was just a girl a year above us who I vaguely knew but would make snide comments about my clothing every time we passed in the halls. She committed suicide in university which was very sad.
mumnowformerrockstar · 14/01/2021 08:23

One of them, to be fair not the worst, was killed aged 21 or 22 when her car when under a lorry at a round a bout.
Another died of a heroin overdose aged 19, leaving behind a fiancée and young dc
A few other morbid as well. A few are doing okay though, all still live in the crappy Backwards local area I grew up in.

Lammergeier · 14/01/2021 08:32

My number one bully was my PE teacher. Genuinely made my life hell for 3 years and instilled in me a hatred of PE. I used to cry and beg my mum to keep me off school. My mother was a teacher at the same school though.

Once I was no longer under her “care” she died of cancer a few years later. And I was extremely happy about it. She was a monster to me and once she was dead she couldn’t put any more little girls through that misery.

ParisJeTAime · 14/01/2021 08:33

@kitschplease

Mine is a social worker - also hope she has had a massive personality change!
Yes, a girl who bullied my sister mercilessly is now a nurse. They are sort of friends now...well, acquaintances. My sister's a doctor and says this girl is still really unpleasant and pushy. Worrying. Not as bad as at school though.
Tier4muffintop · 14/01/2021 08:46

I hadn't really thought about looking, but this post has prompted me to have a peek. Hilariously, her profile picture is two children whom must be her grandkids, with the slogan 'be kind, always'
Also, and without being mean (as I'm not exactly an oil painting) the years have not been kind, and I was surprised by her choice of fella, given that she only dated the popular, good looking types in school.
I struggled with those feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment for years after being bullied, but thankfully I rarely think of it now.

elQuintoConyo · 14/01/2021 09:01

No, I have never looked them up let alone tried talking to them.

The past is the past, I hope they've grown out of it. I'm 40+ and am not the terrified introverted little girl who hid in the library any more.

Strength and love to everyone Flowers

Anon778833 · 14/01/2021 09:10

I’d never contact them. Most people don’t change.

Priddypuddycat · 14/01/2021 11:36

I actually had one contact me and apologised, was a bit strange but I did feel a bit better that my feelings at the time were justified and it wasn’t me.

RealisticSketch · 14/01/2021 20:24

@Priddypuddycat

I actually had one contact me and apologised, was a bit strange but I did feel a bit better that my feelings at the time were justified and it wasn’t me.
I think that must have taken guys to do that actually. Good they felt you deserved an apology and actually went out of their way to do that risking a (metaphorical) scalding.
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