To ask, if you were a bully at school, why did you do it?

[Zippyzoppy]

When I was at school I was bullied, which was awful at the time. Now, as an adult, I often think back and wonder what was going on in the bullies’ lives to make them behave as they did, and whether they regret it now.

I was bullied for years and years by my 'best friend'. I had a terrible home life, so had no confidence anyway, and I really didn't want to be her friend, but she made me. In primary she would hide my pencil case, or shoes so I couldn't go home. She would destroy her own things and want to swap them for mine. We went on a school trip to London, and she sat chewing the paper crown we had made. I put my foot down and refused to swap her chewed crown for mine, so when her dad came to pick us up, she said I was getting a lift back with the school, and left me stranded at the royal Albert hall aged about 9! This was in the 80's. I had my photo in the local paper once and she brought her copy on the way to school and ripped it into pieces on our walk to school.
In secondary school she would nit pick about my personal appearance.
It absolutely affected my confidence in later life, and shaped my personality a lot.
She contacted me on Facebook once to apologise, but I just ignored her.

I'd never really thought of it as bullying, as such, but I guess it was.

Three girls making 'jokes' about my colour, constantly. I mean, ever time they saw me. The teachers were forever pulling them up about it.

I was a confident kid so it really was water off a ducks back..until one of them complained on Facebook that her mixed-race child was being bullied for her colour. I then thought about my time at school and briefly wondered if she did. I doubt it.

One them did apologise for 'being a twat', though.

I was socially excluded at secondary school. Yes, it affected me and prevented me developing any self confidence. And it had another effect on my life which has been even more severe - it deprived me of all those years of learning how to get on with people, all the "between the lines" communication that goes on. And the longer I was excluded, the bigger the gap became between their social skills and mine, and so the more I was excluded. My whole life is a series of car crashes of my saying totally inappropriate things, not because I am a nasty person, but because I just don't understand how to communicate and how to read people's responses.

One of the reasons I read MN is to try to understand how people react to things, and it has taught me quite a bit.

I won't say the social exclusion has ruined my life, because one can always learn (and I have learned a lot), but it meant I was starting a long way behind the starting line.

If I'd had the interpersonal skills of my DS when I started my career, I would have been more successful in my life and contributed a lot more to society.

I suppose trying to take control in some way, when your own life is less than ideal.

Some people do grow and change,some people do feel profound regret and are ashamed.

Do you watch much reality TV? Whenever I see anything where strangers are pushed into close proximity, I see the same dynamics that played out at school, at uni, in jobs etc. People size each other up, an unspoken hierarchy is formed and then an”enemy” is found. People bond when they are joined against a common enemy. The reason this person is chosen varies greatly. It can be that they’re horrible people, but often it’s a subconscious desire to please people and a lack of self confidence that really makes someone susceptible. This is something I’ve had to work on myself, and something I need to try and prevent in my own children, but I had a very troubled upbringing so I’m hoping they will have more confidence as a result of more stability at home.

That’s not to blame the victims at all, just recognising that this pattern of behaviour is sadly repeated wherever there are people really!

I was bullied badly at school, particularly by one girl who I later discovered had lost her mother to cancer. She also failed most of her exams, which was very sad.

I try to teach my DDs to be kind. DD2 can say unkind things about other children in her class, which I pull her up for.

I was bullied in high school, he was absolutely vile too me.

I'm 48 now and we had a school reunion for our 40th birthday year. He was there, he announced in front of everyone that he 'used to rip the shit out of me' and thought this was hilarious.

I felt like that scared 13 year old again and moved away from him. He followed me around trying to get people to join in mocking me, I was close to tears, so left.

He was and still is a complete arse and has clearly not changed. 😡

At secondary I was the target of the group of bullies. I was nerdy, ugly, very sheltered, and in all honesty a bit of a weird kid. So I can see why I was a target.

One of the girls left the school in year 8, but in 6th form we had a consortium with 2 local schools, so she was in a few of my classes. The first day of the first class she made a beeline for me and I was naturally terrified. She actually came up to apologise for the bullying years earlier and was really really nice. I forgave her and she eventually became a very close friend. With her, it was a reaction to her home life.

I'm ashamed to say I also took part in low level bullying. There were a few kids that were always the butt of everyone's jokes. If it was just us two of be really nice and friendly, but as soon as there was a group and someone was making fun, I'd laugh along. I don't know why, I guess it was pack mentality, and also a relief that I wasn't the target for once. I'm still sickened by myself and my utter two-faced bitchiness though.

My year group organised a 20 year reunion. Bizarrely given how they treated me I expressed interest in going. The idea was to register interest and then invites would be sent out. I never got mine. People who went said it was just like old times with the in crowd banding together and the nerds in the corner. I was viciously bullied at secondary school by exclusion, "teasing" ie mocking me and in some cases sexual stuff too. A boy used to try and touch me on the school bus. I was from a very sheltered and religious background and it terrified me.

there was sexual stuff in my bullying too. Being humped as i leant over type thing, pushing a rolling pin up against my bum, constant sexual references about me being a virgin and sexual comments about how noone would ever want me etc. It was absolutely hideous for 5 years

I had a breakdown over my ds1 starting secondary school and I can feel it coming on again sometimes about ds2.

I will not stand for it happening to my children. I will take them out if i need to

Bullied emotionally and physically from the age of 7 through to 15yrs. Several triggers - I think, but who really knows?! I won a swimming race which bully's friend was expected to win (aged 7). I was good at sport but never trained - because we were poor and could not afford clubs. Also, on reflection, I note that I was invited to play dates at other people's houses but no-one ever came to our council house on the rough estate. Basically, I was poor (never felt it) and so I was judged.
The bullying only stopped when after 8 yrs my Dad told me it was ok to fight back. I did, and it stopped, immediately. Not proud of hitting someone but it had to stop.

I had to cope with a lot of sexual bullying too. Sadly it was because of my abusive father, he attacked one of my friends on a sleepover. A girl at the school (it was a boarding school, I was a day pupil) made reference to him once. It was horrible to cope with that.

A couple of bullies at my school would throw used sanitary towels and tampons at me, I have yet to work out why on earth these very popular girls thought it necessary to do that. As a result I would never use the school toilets right through high school and spent most breaks finding somewhere to hide from them.

The worst bully I've ever met was an adult at work. Adult bullies in my experience are the worst. His behaviour involved calculated manipulation and I ended up leaving the company after becoming mentally ill. I know that's not what the thread is about but it made me think of him. If I ever met him now I would just look straight through him and keep walking. I still don't know why he behaved the way he did but I bet if I did confront him he would say that it was all in my head......

beesly I know the dynamic you're talking about but I think you need a ringleader to kick it off. What I find fascinating is that when I worked in science, I very very rarely came across that sort of person but when I worked in banking there was one in every sodding department.
Regarding the victims, I know the people pleasers get abuse but my hunch is that the cause of the bullying is the difficulties in the victim's background, and the people pleasing is just one way that kids like that go IYSWIM. I had an emotionally abusive mother and I went more withdrawn than people pleasing. There was a group of cool girls who would try to "befriend" me in order to drop me and all that shit and I eventually copped on and kept away from them. But I never had the strength to tell any of them to fuck right off, so I was always available for more bullying. I think I tried to like rise above it - the (useless) advice that I got from sympathetic teachers. Truth is I was too scared to get into trouble. There was nothing that kid could do to me that would be worse than getting into trouble with my mother.

There was a girl in my primary and now, in retrospect, I can see she had severe dyspraxia. I remember she could only go down stairs sideways and wasn’t really bad at our games which mostly involved balls, elastics or handstands. She was always so messy and slow. We weren’t inclusive and it does shame me now.

Thankfully she got on much better at high school and got good exam results and did very well for herself.

Group dynamics is one reason - its easy to bond and secure your place in the group by excluding someone. You see it over and over in mental health groupwork.

I remember being a bystander to bullying and I often think of it. I wouldn’t have been a target if I challenged it, but I didn’t.

At school my group of friends was the "unpopular one", although we weren't bullied, just considered "uncool". Later on a girl came to our year who was a bit annoying, and since she didn't make many other friends, she started hanging around with us.

The problem was she really didn't like us. She made it clear she thought she was a lot better than us, and that she really should be hanging with the cooler people.

I guess we didn't know how to handle this, and we were nice to her individually but a bit mean to her as a group and also behind her back. I feel really bad about it now.

My bully was also my ‘best friend’ so I got to see her home life, she was just a fundamentally terrible person. At home where I was meant to be safe, I was sexually abused, and emotionally abused by a narc mother, so this shitty little bastard terrorising and isolating me at school was the icing on the cake. Funnily enough, I’ve managed to not abuse anyone in my whole life. Her choice to abuse me has deeply effected me for life and I wish nothing but bad things for her.

I was bullied in primary school, I was very shy, insecure, lacked confidence, I had older Dsis and I kept it to myself.

I changed to being tough in Secondary, I got in a new clique. I had a two physical fights at school. There were lots of fights at the school. I never bullied anyone and often got into trouble for standing up to bullies for people who were not tough enough.

I was bullied in primary by a very rich girl with a miserable home life.

In secondary I was a ringleader bully about six of us against one girl. Personally I was completely cut off from all my emotions, compassion and empathy because I had formed no emotional relationship with my parents. In my life it was as if I was not conscious of anything I was doing. I was completely disassociated and detached, and the concept of 'choices' didn't mean anything to me - I didn't think before I acted. I just acted, out of impulse, I suppose.

I later apologised to her and sincerely meant it.

I do not bully now, I despise bullying, especially adult bullies.

For context, I don't think I 'woke up' until I was around 19 or 20. By that I mean before that point it was as if I was somehow asleep while awake, like part of my mind was somehow shut off. Like life was a dream. It's very difficult to explain. I am in no way trying to justify my previous behaviour in this.

I teach at a uni where we have one student in particular who was severely bullied throughout secondary school to the extent that she now suffers from psychosis. She’s an incredibly bright, able, and funny young woman who has worked really hard to overcome the effects of those seven years. She still needs regular counselling support and has struggled to develop friendships amongst her peer group. It’s a testimony to her perseverance and ability that she has achieved so much, but I wonder how much more she could have done, and where her abilities could have taken her had she not experienced what she experienced (her key worker described it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

She was in our clique and we made her the butt of all our jokes and deliberately left her out.bwewere mean and cruel.

That was me. I was bullied by my 'closest' friends. They hid my blazer in p.e and uses to tickle me en masse. It was horrible. I didn't know what I had done to be picked on.

Luckily I had a big sister who, when I actually confessed to what was happening, went up to every single one of them and told them if they didn't leave me alone, she would twat them.

They were all so apologetic after that, but I actually, bravely, moved away from them and made new friends who were my bezzies all through high school.

I saw some horrendous bullying at school, the victim was killed in an accident when we were I. Our 20s these same girls who bullied her reminisce about old school friend on fb but gloss over what they did to her. Makes me so angry