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Have you ever bumped into a school bully later in life?

261 replies

IcyWinterWonderland · 14/01/2022 19:05

Has anyone bumped into a school bully later in life? like years after leaving school? How did they react when they saw you? Did they look guilty? I recently saw one of my many school bullies and as I walked past her I said "You are a vile nasty bully". She replied "I don't think so" and scuttled off quickly.

OP posts:
AudTheDeepAndCrispAndEven · 15/01/2022 19:12

@ifherbumwereabungalow

The chief 'mean girl' at my school, who made my life pretty miserable for the last couple of years of senior school, showed up on a reality TV show making an absolute arse of herself. When I saw her in a clip they played on Gogglebox my stomach clenched up but then, joy of joys, all my favourite Goggleboxers absolutely ripped in to her and completely took the piss! At that moment I was able to let go of so much stuff I had been storing up for years. I realise this is not an option for most people but I was lucky enough to actually see, in a few short moments, that revenge is indeed a dish best served cold.
Didn't begin with 'N' did it? NE area?
interferingma · 15/01/2022 19:32

DD's bullies didn't have terrible things happen to them. When I went to head of year sh said 'oh not those girls - their parents are so nice'. And so they were. Nice MC parents at a. Ordinary comprehensive school. Those girls were top of the pile but they still picked on DD.
Honestly I don't buy the 'bullies are always traumatised' argument. Some people are just horrible.

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 19:39

@interferingma

DD's bullies didn't have terrible things happen to them. When I went to head of year sh said 'oh not those girls - their parents are so nice'. And so they were. Nice MC parents at a. Ordinary comprehensive school. Those girls were top of the pile but they still picked on DD. Honestly I don't buy the 'bullies are always traumatised' argument. Some people are just horrible.
I'm not justifying anything they did or commenting on your situation. I'd just like to say that coming from a middle class home and being top of the class doesn't mean you can't have a shitty home life with an abusive parent.
lemondrop21 · 15/01/2022 19:44

I was bullied by a kid that lived in our street. He was about 4 years older than me and used to call me 'fat' I was far from it yet he was fairly over weight for a teenage boy.
He tried to add me in fb a few years ago, I declined but not before a quick nosey at his profile photo. He must be at least 25-30 stone now. The irony.

KohlaParasaurus · 15/01/2022 19:45

From the ages of 8 to 10 I lived in the same road as a family whose two children were both aggressive. The mum seemed to have problems with her health and lived in her dressing gown and slippers. The older child was in his early teens, a big lump of a boy, and had no reservations about seeking out and battering small girls. I was seen as fair game and took a few thumpings from him. They eventually moved away.

15 years later, I'd just started work in the surgical ward of the local hospital when the same boy, now a big lump of a man in his late twenties, was admitted. He had developed a psychiatric condition where he went from hospital to hospital feigning symptoms and he had long term problems due to complications of one of the unnecessary operations he'd had and was now always in and out of hospital for a genuine reason. He tended to be treated with a brusque attitude because his condition was seen as being self-inflicted and because he was whiny and demanding. If he recognised me when I took his particulars, he didn't let on.

Now, another 30-odd years later, whenever I think of that period in my life I have SO many unanswered questions about his family and what made him and his sibling the way they were.

Carinattheliqorstore1 · 15/01/2022 19:59

When I was at uni I bumped into my primary bully on a bus. First thing she did was apologise. She had been in and out of children’s homes and foster care since primary. I felt very sad for her. I had been to her house once aged about 9 and it was so dirty. That’s when she started to bully me.

My mum mentioned another girl who bullied me had asked for me. I asked my mum why she was talking to my old school bully. She said that I probably should know that she had been a victim of a lot of abuse from her alcoholic parents. She’s also had a lot of tragic experiences since. I have no hate left for her and just hope her life gets better

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 19:59

@lemondrop21

I was bullied by a kid that lived in our street. He was about 4 years older than me and used to call me 'fat' I was far from it yet he was fairly over weight for a teenage boy. He tried to add me in fb a few years ago, I declined but not before a quick nosey at his profile photo. He must be at least 25-30 stone now. The irony.
Well it's pretty obvious what was going on there.
bowchicawowwow · 15/01/2022 20:08

When I was in yr 9, there were a couple of girls that were well known for being horrible to lots of people. I had a couple of run-ins where they would try to intimidate me.

After leaving school, both of them lost their brothers in their 20's in drink / drug related incidents and then a couple of years later I saw one of the girls stood in the town centre, steaming drunk and shouting at nobody in particular in the middle of the day, mowhawk hair do, filthy dirty, missing teeth, she was drooling and wearing ragged clothes like she was sleeping rough plus the worst black eye I've ever seen. She looked pretty volatile so I gave her a wide berth but I know she saw me and she knew I had seen her. It was awkward.

I felt sorry for her, I don't think either of them had nice lives while at school and I'd be amazed if the one above was still alive today

interferingma · 15/01/2022 20:39

@DrSbaitso they really didn't have any of those factors in their lives. Honestly. Small community. They didn't. There really is such a thing as simply horrible people

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 20:48

[quote interferingma]@DrSbaitso they really didn't have any of those factors in their lives. Honestly. Small community. They didn't. There really is such a thing as simply horrible people[/quote]
Honestly, you can't know that. How many times does domestic violence happen in secret and people just don't suspect a thing, or can't believe it? Or other stuff, not necessarily abuse, but just...other stuff.

I'm not saying anything about your situation, I've no idea. I'm just saying that you really don't know how people are living behind closed doors, however small your community.

Personally I think it's always more likely that there's something happening that the outside world doesn't know about than that someone is just sheer evil for no reason. That doesn't give a person carte blanche to be a shit, but I'm very wary of dismissing people as being no more complex than just "horrible".

x2boys · 15/01/2022 20:52

I left school 32 years ago any hate or malice I might have felt towards some individuals has long since gone life's to short to keep baring a grudge ,people change ,I m glad to see most people I went to school with have turned out to be decent human beings.

TheBestofTimesTheWorstofTimes · 15/01/2022 20:53

No police action?

Totally agree - 3 years of bullying certainly deserves police action. Why people brush it under the carpet I will never know. Maybe it is because it is children. And then sometimes the victim snaps and THEY get the blame?! Unbelievable

interferingma · 15/01/2022 20:54

@DrSbaitso
Ok.
Several of them. 'Nice' families all of them.
Maybe they all had abusive homes. Or maybe....

Honestly there were plenty of kids at that school who had truly horrible home lives. Not these girls

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 21:19

[quote interferingma]@DrSbaitso
Ok.
Several of them. 'Nice' families all of them.
Maybe they all had abusive homes. Or maybe....

Honestly there were plenty of kids at that school who had truly horrible home lives. Not these girls[/quote]
You simply do not know that. You don't.

Or maybe it wasn't their home lives. If they were all horrible, maybe they had some sort of toxicity among them.

But it's much more likely that they knew something you didn't than that they were all just born horrible for no reason and are inherently bad people. That doesn't excuse victimising others, but if we want to tackle bullying, it helps to know how it starts. And very rarely is it as simple as Innately Bad People.

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 21:22

@TheBestofTimesTheWorstofTimes

No police action?

Totally agree - 3 years of bullying certainly deserves police action. Why people brush it under the carpet I will never know. Maybe it is because it is children. And then sometimes the victim snaps and THEY get the blame?! Unbelievable

Snaps? Seven years later, on a random sighting, as the person is leaving?

Unbelievable? That police might be involved when someone breaks a person's nose as they leave a nightclub? There's nothing to investigate when that happens?

Where do you live?

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 21:26

I suppose at least we're getting an insight into how some people lose sight of what's normal or how humans work. People are not generally complete shits in an absolute vacuum. Nor are most people offended at the idea that breaking someone's nose as they leave a club might lead to police involvement.

ifherbumwereabungalow · 15/01/2022 21:43

My girl wasn't from the NE, she may well have had a soul sister there though!

interferingma · 15/01/2022 21:46

@DrSbaitso toxicity between them? I'll say! What's a little toxicity between friends? Honestly there've been times over the last 6 years when I could have actually lost my DD; when she hasn't wanted to live. But that's ok. Poor bullies.

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 22:26

[quote interferingma]@DrSbaitso toxicity between them? I'll say! What's a little toxicity between friends? Honestly there've been times over the last 6 years when I could have actually lost my DD; when she hasn't wanted to live. But that's ok. Poor bullies.
[/quote]
I'm afraid I can't be guilt tripped with things I didn't say or imply.

If we want to find ways to tackle bullying, we need to know how it happens. That doesn't mean we excuse it, or owe bullies anything. But rarely is anyone a shit because they were a born a shit and were inherently and irredeemably shit as a baby, a toddler and a young child.

Rupertgrintismyguiltypleasure · 15/01/2022 22:35

I didn’t really have a school bully but a girl that thought she was better than everyone and would what I call talk down to people and make them feel small... when I worked at my old job (about 3 years after I left school) she came in and we got talking and seems she’s matured a lot, we message quite often as I now live somewhere else.

interferingma · 15/01/2022 22:38

Well we agree something needs to be done to tackle bullying @DrSbaitso
DD's school wasn't keen though, preferring to ignore it. It would have helped DD to know it was being taken seriously.
And while I'm sure many (even most) bullies may do so because they are damaged in some way I still won't concede that they all do it for that reason. Some people are simply little or big sh*ts, whose behavior can endanger life.

elfycat · 15/01/2022 22:38

in Year 7 I was tormented on the coach going to secondary school. I lived mid way between two villages and the coach picked up the children from one village, stopped to pick us up, and then carried on through the village I'd gone to primary in. My old friends were on another bus from that village.

4 boys in my year made my journeys miserable. Starting off with verbal nastiness, then poking, then punching and then started strangling me from the seat behind by twisting my collar.

Finally a girl in my class had enough and dragged me (physically) out of an English lesson and to the headmaster and explained what was going on. The boys were immediately suspended (elfycat, go home on the coach tonight. The boys will not be on it) and their parents called in to pick them up. They did return to school a couple of weeks later, but were told to never, ever speak to me, or touch me again.

A few years later I was in my final year training to be a nurse. I'd finished a run of nights and went home to my parents for my days off. My dad came up and woke me an hour or so earlier than my 'day' sleeping pattern adjustment alarm and asked if I could go down and look after a young man who'd just been in a significant but non-injury causing car accident (DF was a mechanic with a garage/recovery service). He'd been in a fatal accident a year before on the same bend in the road (as a passenger in a car which hit a drunk man wandering in the road at night) and was very shaken.

I think his day got a whole lot worse when I walked in the door. And I got my revenge by being lovely and kind and caring to one of my bullies.

Another of the boys (now in his 20s) spent an evening chatting up my very pretty sister, and when he asked for her number she laughed in his face and said very loudly in the pub that after the way he'd tormented me there wasn't a cat in hells chance.

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 22:46

@interferingma

Well we agree something needs to be done to tackle bullying *@DrSbaitso* DD's school wasn't keen though, preferring to ignore it. It would have helped DD to know it was being taken seriously. And while I'm sure many (even most) bullies may do so because they are damaged in some way I still won't concede that they all do it for that reason. Some people are simply little or big sh*ts, whose behavior can endanger life.
I'm sorry, and sadly not madly surprised, to hear that the school was shite about it. And I'm not trivialising the effect on your daughter. There is no excuse.

I just think that, in at least the vast majority of cases, it's not inevitable that a newborn baby is destined to grow up treating people like that. Something at some point happens. That doesn't mean it's ok. It does mean that we may be able to take various preventative measures. It may even mean that a bully can reform.

And really, take it from me... coming from a middle class house where we all have nice accents, foreign holidays and A grades really does not guarantee there isn't abuse or mental illness or anything like that. Yes, even in a tight knit community. I don't know these girls so I'm not saying anything about them. I'm just saying that people outside of the home just don't know.

IsMaeOnTheAsmae · 15/01/2022 22:47

Yes. At school she had surrounded me with about 15 other girls , they backed me into a corner and threatened me until I cried. I was in year 8 and she was in year 10. I started kickboxing shortly after and got really good at it

A few years later I was 16 and in the pub ( used to borrow my sister's ID ) and she started on me infront of everyone. I shouldn't be proud but I am, I absolutely battered her. The police came and SHE got arrested. The next day I found out it was her 18th birthday that night Grin

A few years after that I was invited to a house warming party by my work friend. We get there and its the bullies house. She literally tried attacking me as soon as she saw me. After we had been pulled apart over half of her house warming party came with me and my friend to her boyfriends house and left her party

I'm 30 now, I was 16 and 19 at the times these two incidents happened. I'm not violent nowadays Grin

DrSbaitso · 15/01/2022 22:49

@IsMaeOnTheAsmae

Yes. At school she had surrounded me with about 15 other girls , they backed me into a corner and threatened me until I cried. I was in year 8 and she was in year 10. I started kickboxing shortly after and got really good at it

A few years later I was 16 and in the pub ( used to borrow my sister's ID ) and she started on me infront of everyone. I shouldn't be proud but I am, I absolutely battered her. The police came and SHE got arrested. The next day I found out it was her 18th birthday that night Grin

A few years after that I was invited to a house warming party by my work friend. We get there and its the bullies house. She literally tried attacking me as soon as she saw me. After we had been pulled apart over half of her house warming party came with me and my friend to her boyfriends house and left her party

I'm 30 now, I was 16 and 19 at the times these two incidents happened. I'm not violent nowadays Grin

That's self defence, surely.