Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To have smiled sweetly and said nothing to this school bully

515 replies

DrinkFromMyFountain · 05/09/2013 14:55

14 years ago I left school. There was one girl who made my life hell, said a load of nasty things about me and told me I would never amount to anything. She also said I'd end up single and Childless at 30 working in a shop. (NB I see nothing wrong with this, but it was meant in a horrible, nasty, put downy way). This was amongst various other things she said and did to try to make my life a misery.

This morning I took my car to the car wash and saw her working there washing cars.

I ordered my car wash for my naice car with my baby DS in the back and said "fancy seeing you here". She made a grimace of a face and carried on with her work.

Karma you beauty.

OP posts:
StuntGirl · 05/09/2013 20:48

This is a horrible thread. Gloating at others misfortune and looking down on someone because of their perceived lower status than you is a vile way to behave. And that in no way excuses or justifies the bully's behaviour. But it sure as hell doesn't justify yours either.

SilverApples · 05/09/2013 20:49

Mine were boarding school bullies. No escape. For years.
So all you Chalet school types and Mallory Towers fans, you can stuff your fantasies where the sun doesn't shine. Grin

slurredlines · 05/09/2013 20:49

"My primary school bully got pregnant at 14"

That's just horrible. Poor girl.

How can you enjoy that?

LeGavrOrf · 05/09/2013 20:50

SDTG I am so sorry that happened to you. It bloody lasts doesn't it. I remember my dd crying on the way to school begging not to make her go.

Thank god I got her out of that school and her new school really looked after her.

Pimpf · 05/09/2013 20:53

To all those saying that the op is wrong, have you ever been bullied? I don't mean a bit of teasing, I mean properly bullied? Where you were physically threatened? Had pretty much whole class gang up on you to join in with the so called 'cool' bully? Have no one talk to you for weeks at a time, unless it was a sneering put down? Have someone who you thought was a friend join in with the bullies? To the point where you are suicidal? If yes, then you are an absolute saint to not feel smug when you see your former bully doing a job that THEY always thought was beneath them.

I would never have a go at anyone's job, I agree that there is a mentality in this country about jobs being beneath us, I think that whatever job you do, you should take pride in it and do it to the best of your ability. I was sneered at in a few of my old jobs, but I loved them and didn't care.

Saying that if I saw my bully working in a supermarket, I would feel smug, because if it were reversed, she wouldn't hesitate in taking a shot at me. Of course she may well have changed and be a wonderful person now (doubt it very much), but that wouldn't stop me finding it funny after the years of hell she out me through. And for those who don't like that, tough shit, you haven't lived my life and been through what I went through.

TheSecondComing · 05/09/2013 20:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

heartisaspade · 05/09/2013 20:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StuntGirl · 05/09/2013 20:59

I'm very sorry for everyone who has been bullied, bullyng is a terrible, terrible thing.

But some of the statements and behaviours on this thread are straddling the bullying line themselves. Perhaps not in actions - but that same wicked, mean mentality is running right through it.

JoInScotland · 05/09/2013 21:00

About a decade ago, my boyfriend of 4 years wanted to split up with me but didn't have the spine to actually tell me he thought the relationship was over, so accused me of having an affair. After I left the UK to teach English overseas for a year, he copied all my files and emails (he works in the computer industry) and also leisurely read all my diaries - I started keeping a diary in 1997. He decided I must have been having an affair (I wasn't - he had been working overseas for 2 years, his choice). He emailed me to say that unless I paid him to store my things that were still our flat, he'd just put them out on the street. I didn't have enough money to do that and also pay my overseas rent. So I had to come back to the UK and his anger of the (non-existent) affair.

I moved out, looked for work, and started a law degree. I also became a Special police constable, to see law in action. Ex-partner's very expensively-educated sister (as all the family) had tried and failed to become a police officer. All the training and hours of volunteer work were worth the look on his face when I passed him in a shopping mall when I was on the beat in uniform. He had tried to ruin my year abroad, leave me with no where to live and in a poisonous atmosphere while I sorted out somewhere else to live.... but I rose above all that rubbish and made something of myself. Karma is indeed a bitch, but only if you are.

HappyYoni · 05/09/2013 21:00

I agree with marmalade and cantspel etc. a girl who picked on me at school recently was in the local paper for being arrested for crack possession, I just thought it was so sad that she was once a child with the world in front of her and this is how she's ended up.

I can see it from both sides really, she and others bullied me, and in turn, I being a stupid, immature, hormone ridden adolescent with lots of bad stuff going on at home was deeply unpleasant to some other people in our year. I never did anything horrendous buti was certainly guilty of low level bullying...laughing at people and general being unpleasant. I feel really guilty when I look back and when I have had the opportunity to apologise to people I have done so.

I don't earn much money but I am happy in my life and what I do, and I would never sneer at anyone as an adult because I've woken up to the world and realised that you just don't know what people have been through, or how we would behave if we walked a mile in their shoes.
For those who are still feeling the effects of what happened at school, I am really truly sorry that I wasn't a nicer/wiser/kinder teenager, but i think it is true when they say that being happy in your skin is the best revenge.

Sorry for waffling on.

Pimpf · 05/09/2013 21:01

I don't wish ill on her, far from it, in fact she's not crossed my mind in years, but I think the op (and others with similar stories) have come in for a lot of stick on here. Whilst there are many stories of people who bully because of shit they are getting at home, there are many others who are just nasty little shits.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 05/09/2013 21:01

I was bullied badly in first/second year secondary. By the queen bee who had a sister in 5th form so I had the delight of having her friends give me shit too.

Thankfully, I fell in with a nice group featuring a girl not afraid of a ruck if someone was giving her friend shit :) In the end, my bully swapped school after I had a fight with her on the tennis court. It had taken me years to retaliate, but I did in spectacular fashion.

I know she is married with kids now and she has aged badly. You get the face you deserve, after all. I judge her on what she did. I couldn't give a shit if She swept the streets or got a job as president of Europe tbh.

Snoopingforsoup · 05/09/2013 21:05

crikey
There are a few reformed souls bleating on this thread about being belittled in their job choices.

I read some pr

TheSecondComing · 05/09/2013 21:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SilverApples · 05/09/2013 21:06

Does that help the virtuous understand how corrosive and damaging being bullied is, how it can lead to depression, self-harm and twisting a usually lovely and kind person into one filled with such hatred for another person that they wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire?
That's why bullying and victimisation needs to be cut off and dealt with as soon as it rears its nasty heads, and why if your child is beginning to display bullying behaviour then you ought to be clear-sighted and honest about what's going on.
I've known children that were vicious bullies at a young age, and all of them had been damaged and manipulated by others in their lives, even those from fabulous and wealthy backgrounds had something nurturing and empathic missing in them.
Very few are born like that, they are created by the circumstances and relationships they are formed within.

Chottie · 05/09/2013 21:06

I was bullied at school over 40 years ago and I have never, ever forgotten how it felt.

I don't know what happened to the person who bullied me and to be honest I do not care. If I ever say her again I would not waste a second of my time speaking or even looking at her.

Until you have been really bullied, I do not think anyone is in a position to judge others. Everyone has to come to terms with bullying and the outcome in their own way. So please, do not pass judgement on others.....

Snoopingforsoup · 05/09/2013 21:08

Cut short by my own thumb!

A couple of posters here were damning of someone they'd never actually met for their career and Doc Martin boots not so long back.

How ironic!

SilverApples · 05/09/2013 21:09

Victim blaming?
We Believe you?
The only reason that you were bullied is that you encountered a bully, it's not your fault.
Anyone on this thread talking about being bullied by men/boys?

Celadorthepinksequineddragon · 05/09/2013 21:11

Marmalade for me, the job the person does is completely irrelevant. The situation in these stories is that the bullies were put in the position of having to be pleasant to and serve the poster in a shop/restaurant, whereas previously they treated the poster terribly.

Most of these posters seem happy with their lives as they are now thankfully, and I would hope that the bullies would recognise this and see the posters have happy lives and have moved on as far as possible.

Some people on this thread have mentioned the possibility of the bullies having difficult lives as a reason for their actions. This is a fair point.

I was bullied terribly at high school by a girl who I subsequently found out was being mistreated by a family member. I am sure this was a major factor in her actions. However, whilst her life was a crock of shit, so was mine. I was bullied at school and came home to a dying mother.

I bear her no ill will and know for a fact she has a good life now. I am glad. However, at what point do her rights override mine and we say that her bad life excuses her actions, and that her treatment of me can be excused? She made the most miserable time of my life even worse.

dysfunctionallynormal · 05/09/2013 21:16

JoInScotland - "Karma is indeed a bitch, but only if you are" Love it! I'm pinching that! :-D

MarmaladeTwatkins · 05/09/2013 21:17

Doc Martens? Who would ridicule Doc Martens?!

Celador, I'm so sorry to hear that. :(

dysfunctionallynormal · 05/09/2013 21:19

those of you who don't understand where we're coming from or don't agree with us - guess what? WE DON'T CARE! WE know what we mean and we're nowhere anything like those nasty pieces of work.

Go away and shut the door behind you.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 05/09/2013 21:21

Dysfunctionally, welcome to the internet, where people are allowed different opinions to yours.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 05/09/2013 21:23

Dysfunctionallynormal, Marmelade, LeGavrOrf and heartisaspade - you have all brought a tear to my eye with your kindness. Thank you for caring. ThanksWineCake

dysfunctionallynormal · 05/09/2013 21:24

some people forget that these bullies were old enough to tell the difference between right and wrong. they KNEW what they were doing when they were bullying us and the ENJOYED it. you can't excuse their behavior on the basis that they MIGHT have been having a shit time of it themselves - i'm sure plenty of us were having a shit time at home too (i know i was) but we didn't resort to that kind of behavior.