Weirdly, I've forgiven the ringleader of my school bullies. She died of a heroin overdose.
It turned out that she was a lesbian, at a time when it was impossible for a teenage girl to come out. Looking back, I realise that part of her problem was that she actually liked me. She actually stuck up for me (verbally) one time when her sidekick started to mock me for having started puberty.
I do not forgive her utterly evil sidekick and I do not forgive the hangers-on. I cannot now remember the name of the girl who strangled me in class one day (after the teacher left) but I'd want nothing to do with her.
I've said on another thread that one of the group actually messaged me - and some other academic girls - prior to a school reunion for our joint 65th last year. She was looking to apologise...Apparently, there was some kind of Tik-Tok trend?
Anyway, she breezed up to me at the reunion: "I do apologise for anything I did to you."
"Okay."
She then grinned, as if to say "Job done!" and practically skipped off.
At the reunion, I realised that the bullying group was all sitting together and being ignored by the rest of us.
A Whatsapp group was set up. That particular girl joined, kept making comments...She was ignored.
Three of the bullies have become Pupil Support Assistants. One worked beside a relative of mine and found out from her that I was going. Coincidentally, said bully then became too sick to attend. (She broke my nose when I was 14, as her chums stood around me, making sure that I couldn't get away.)
One other member of the bullying group approached me at the reunion and grinned as though she were an old friend. I didn't realise who she was at first, but two other girls did and - touchingly - came over to make sure I was okay.
I hadn't realised that the group had so many victims. I got away from them to an extent when I moved up to S3 - we were set in ability groups then for everything except PE.
In our area, all the "academic kids" were moved to one central senior high school, so when new kids came in from three other schools, the bullies turned their attention to them. (Our school was in the process of being comprehensive and the teaching staff clearly couldn't cope.) I only realised this at the reunion: many of the girls from the other schools had opted for Secretarial Studies and found themselves with the bullies who weren't quite as academically challenged as the rest. (The rest were moved into the 'S' class together with the quiet wee souls who had been in the 'R' class the year before.)
I look back and wonder whether it was a class issue, but I doubt it. Most of us came from working class backgrounds and some of the bullies were a bit better off than us, though they'd claim that we were 'posh' and 'rich'. (My dad was a coalminer.)
One girl who had apparently had a miserable time is now living abroad, so didn't attend the reunion. However, she was added to the Whatsapp group. She messaged the bully who had sent out messages to several of us and told her that the bully had put her through hell and that she hoped she had a miserable life.
How do I feel about them? I loathe the sidekick. She didn't attend the reunion, thank goodness. I'm told that her sons attended our old school and were absolutely feral.
As for those who are now putting on airs and graces and looking for fake forgiveness? I despise them.