How did childhood bullying affect you?

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I ask this as i was bullied pretty horrifically throughout school and as a result I developed PTSD and pretty bad social anxiety. I have come a long way since I began therapy, but I think a part of me will always find it hard to trust people. I also find it difficult to form sincere friendships and tend to be a people pleaser which I'm working on. If you were bullied, how does it affect you as an adult? Are there things you find have helped you to cope?

There should be a zero tolerance, same with sexual harassment and racism. Nobody should be allowed to treat anybody like what I've read here.

I've had counselling. It helps to have somebody listen.

My biggest bully cropped up on mumsnet years ago. So that was lovely.

Being bullied at school has held me back my whole life. I was/am weird, socially awkward, ugly, different, stupid. Home was shit and I had no one to safely tell. I have failed socially, professionally and personally in life and had I ever had anyone to talk to, I think my life would have been a whole lot better. I can trace a lot of my problems back to being bullied in school - it set me up for life in a very, very bad way.

Education departments should have to pay damages for victims of school bullying, past & present, it might make them do something about it instead of just paying lip service & giving isolations of one day. They don't understand how much it can affect victim's lives, even many years later.

Given the 'no blame' bullying policies which were popular until at least 2006 and the trainings I've been to where teachers have stated that the child being bullied should change to avoid being bullied, schools really don't care.

What I do know is, if my children are bullied when they get to school and the School does nothing, I will be making myself a thorn in the School's side and taking it up the complaints chain as far as I can go.

My son was being bullied in a similar way to what I went through, I contacted school after every incident & when I didn't get a satisfactory outcome contacted my MP who tore a strip off school & Ds & I received an apology from the Head. There is a new head at the school now who is more on top of things & really cracks down on bullying. From mine & ds experiences the bullying tends to peak around Y8/9 & then reduces, maybe because the children finally start to grow up.

I feel absolutely heart-broken reading these stories. I had a lot of bullying when I went to live overseas. I was spat at, was hit in the face, constantly called names. Even some teachers weren't nice. I now feel like I dont belong anywhere, I shy away from people, thinking they couldn't possibly like me. I am often nasty and I feel an ever present undercurrent of injustice and rage. It's root is probably the bullying, I often act very cold and unfeeling. There is the constant fear that I'm just not good enough. It hurts and makes me angry, because deep down, there is a part of me that doesn't believe this.

I was bullied in primary school for having red hair, i was always a very quiet child but it made me more so and very introverted.
Unfortunately when I told my teacher they never took me seriously and so nothing was ever done, even after meetings between my mum and the head teacher. She ended up moving me schools and the new school was a lot better but I was never able to fully trust my teachers.

As an adult I find it extremely difficult to make friends and talk to people, I only have one friend who I've been friends with since I moved to the new school.

I was bullied at school but worse was at home with my brother and sister. They were horrific to me.

I was bullied at school. Called fat, ugly etc etc etc. I believed it because I was hearing the same at home. My mother wouldn't stop going on about how fat I was and that someone hopefully might find me attractive one day. She refused to buy me nice clothes due to my size (I wasn't massive. At all. In her eyes you are a non-person if you are any bigger than a size 6. She's still the same. Whole other thread!) so that was yet more ammunition. I was so self conscious and quiet because I considered myself fat and ugly that I provided yet another reason for the bullies to go for me.

I have zero self-esteem now and very little confidence which I mask very well.

The issue is not so much the bullying, but the learned helplessness. Children learn that there’s nothing they can do to make the bullying stop, they can’t escape and nobody will help them. They carry that learned helplessness throughout life. It can lead to stress, clinical depression and mental illness, they’re more likely to be abused and less likely to try to escape from an abusive situation, more likely to struggle with social isolation and lack of friends, all because of that limiting belief that “there’s nothing I can do about this”.

Personally I still have a panic attack if I hear a sound that’s similar to the alarm clock that used to wake me up for school. I’m terrified of people who are dressed like the people who abused me. I’m wary all the time, looking over my shoulder for attackers. I don’t like going out of the house because I still feel like I’m going to be attacked. I have a constant expectation that nobody cares and nobody will help me, regardless of what the problem is. I don’t bother trying to make friends because I already expect that people will dislike me. What makes me the most angry is that appropriate adult intervention could have prevented all of these issues.

Very sorry to hear of everybody's shit experiences.

This thread sadly proves that bullying is forever, and when people talk about forgiving and moving on, it was a long time ago and the bullies were just children, they don't really understand.

Someone just mentioned that undercurrent of injustice and rage. I recognise that.

Sorry to hear about everybody experiences, unfortunately I was bullied to at secondary school and behond.

Suffered with Social Anxiety all my life, have no friends, never have. Find it hard to trust anyone and have put a wall up.

Didn't have a serious relationship until in my 40's and struggling with my relationship, he says I act like I'm on my own, which is understandable as I have been for most off my life.

My mum was my best friend until she passed away 3 years ago. If I hadn't had my DP I would hate to think where I would be now.

Be bullied totally ruined my life and I hate myself for letting do

I can't sustain romantic relationships. I'm told I'm unapproachable and "don't need them."

It's true. It comes from being bullied all through school. I don't trust easily, and I've had to fend for myself with chronic illness all through life.

I was bullied quite a bit.

I'll never forget in Primary school one of my classmates calling out that I wasn't pretty enough to be a princess when the teacher was assigning roles for a school play. That one comment weirdly has never left me and I've never felt attractive since.
In secondary school things escalated and a group of girls targeted me (probably because I was academic and was quiet) and gradually removed the little friendship group I did have. I frequently had my head slapped, was swiped by bags going past them in corridors etc and had my feet stamped on. I spent most of my teenage years with my head down desperately trying to not get noticed.

It wasn't until I started work full-time that I started to gain a little confidence and I gradually learnt to embrace by introvert nature.
I now treasure the friends I do have - probably to the point of people pleasing.

A couple of years ago I made a new friendship group through a holiday and I thought I'd made a valuable new set of friends - until during Covid I was purposefully ignored for some reason and I've not heard from them since. That incident brought all the horrible memories from school right back again - it was awful.

Even now if I see any of the secondary school bullies in town (not often thankfully) I still cross the street to avoid them - I'm 49!

Maybe some senior education leaders need to see this thread to realise how long term the effects of bullying are??

I was bullied mostly for wearing glasses and being a 'swot'. It left me with no self-esteem (actually, with a deep-seated self-loathing) and crippling social anxiety, which I still have to this day. I still can't bear to wear glasses in public and have a tiny pair of rimless reading glasses that I whip on and off as needed. I took DS to his swimming lesson a few years back and another mother shouted 'goggles!' after her child who was leaving the changing room without them - that word, shouted, hurt like a slap, and I had to go and hide in the toilets for a minute to compose myself.

I had severe acne in my teens as well, and although I was never explicitly bullied about it, it all fed into my self-loathing and led to an eating disorder and self-harm, both of which have never entirely gone away. I have felt ugly every day of my life. I live in jeans and plain black tops, trying to be as invisible as possible, never wear make-up and hide behind my hair. My clothes were mocked mercilessly at school (older mum, dressed me from M&S), and if I tried to wear anything trendy, that was mocked even more. I ended up alienating myself from that whole world as much as possible by adopting a 'uniform' of ripped jeans and metal band t-shirts in my latter teens. I struggle to wear anything nice now because it was always worse at school when I made an effort and was laughed at all the more for it - now, I am so certain of my ugliness that I feel as if people are thinking 'Oh bless her - she thinks she can make herself look OK.'

I'm male, and it made me vicious, untrustworthy, and cold. By my mid 20s I was well on course for prison or a coffin. Had a stroke of very good luck and stopped being a twat. Took another 30 years to be happy.

I didn't realise how badly it had affected meuntil DW2B first touched me, and my skin twitched like a horse shaking off a fly.

It totally destroyed my self esteem and my ability to trust others. Aswell as being bullied in school, my sister has always been a bully in her own way aswell and I've been bullied in jobs, don't understand it reallt because as another poster said earlier, I'm quiet and laid back and don't go out of my way to cause trouble for anyone

I’m aware this thread is a year old, but I stumbled upon it today - for some reason I’ve been revisiting a few awful memories from school today. Always a sign that my mental health is taking a slight dip, so I’ll be taking the necessary steps to look after myself.

Primary school was lovely but I was bullied by a group of “friends” who turned on me on Year 10. The ringleader turned on me and the others followed suit, just glad that it wasn’t them getting bullied. I still feel such a sense of injustice about it. The ringleader spun a story to the teachers that it was me bullying her, and they believed her. A total Regina George. Complete with Oscar-winning tears. I still don’t, to this day, understand why she did it.
I’d known these girls since I was 5, and suddenly had no-one. It was heartbreaking. I eventually made friends with a different group of girls, but I never discussed the bullying with them. I suppose I didn’t fully trust them after what I’d been through.

I went to 6th form college and Uni and loved both, made friends I’m still close to. I genuinely felt fine for years. But since having children, I feel so worried that they will get bullied. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. But I know for a fact I’ll be on it, watching for any little sign. And as a teacher, I know exactly what steps to follow to make sure school tackle it.

So far DS loves school. He is very quiet, used to be very timid, and has (gorgeous) red hair. I had sleepless nights before he started Reception in 2020. But he’s ok, he has lots of friends, is great at football so quite well liked amongst the older boys, and is clever. So far so good.
DD starts school next month and is very confident and outgoing so I’m hopeful she’ll be too.
But so was I until I was 14/15. I know I’ll constantly be on high alert.

My heart goes out to all of you on this thread.

Relentless people pleaser, just so I can keep everyone “onside”, no matter what it costs me personally.

I’m the human equivalent of a dog dumped in the pound, whole wag it’s tail and beg to be taken home.