Opportunity to confront my school bully

[ManCubsMama]

I never considered myself bullied as I just thought certain scenarios where just part of growing up/I happened to encounter some unpleasant kids. But when I look back on it I can see I was targeted, taunted and treated very nastily ie I was spat on, once I was slapped round the face. This was all by a group of girls, sometimes boys, older than me.

I might soon have the opportunity to confront on of them group that bullied me, around 15 years later. We’re all grown up now, her parents have moved down the road to my parents and they Mix socially ie drink in the same pub (before lockdown), attend BBQs/garden drinks together. My parents have no knowledge of how this girl acted when we were at school and on meeting her a few times think she’s nice enough and that her 5yo daughter is very sweet.

Eventually I’ll cross paths with this girl when I’m with my parents in the pub or I see her on their road or something. Question is.. how do I play it? I am envisioning calling her out point blank in front of her own family with a simple “you werent very nice to me in school” and seeing her reaction. I’m half tempted to go one further and say to her daughter “your mummy was a bully at school, you won’t be a bully will you”

My other approach is to embarrass her by calling her the unfortunate nickname she had at school (on reflection, despite being popular she got a fair bit of stick at school and I wonder if that’s why she became a bully herself). This would put me in a position of power of her by mortifying her and giving her a taste of how it feels. As an aside, she is not the most fortunate looking person, whereas I consider myself good looking, slim and unlike her I am successful - good job, nice house, nice car, attractive husband etc. So I really feel like I should bloody go in there and hold my head high and how her that I made something of myself whereas she hasn’t.

The main thing is that we both now have children, and the thought of anyone treating my child how I was at school gives me the worst anxiety. I also do bloody think she deserves to look me in the eye, know what she did was wrong and yeah - shamefully, look at me and feel bad about herself.

WWYD?

*no

Absolutely agree it’s not but when she/they called me nasty names related to my appearance, you can damn well bet it feels great that I’ve grown up to be a looker & she definitely hasn’t!
Yup, clearly over it.

They were stupid fucking children / teenagers. You’re an actual adult apparently. We grow, we learn, we look back and are able to see how shitty some of our actions were and learn from that.

Unless she’s still bullying people you’re being ridiculous, and have a huge chip on your shoulder.

Well, the good news is it didn’t affect your ego!

I was bullied at school and 30 years later it still affects me
I think you SHOULD feel smug about how much better your life is that hers, tell her daughter her Mum was a bully and tell the rotten cow how much you hate her
BUT I think you should do all that in your head and if you see her just smile serenely and pretend you hardly remember her.

I believe that bullying is mostly a reflection of how the person feels about themselves and their experience at home. Happy, confident, self assured people don't bully. I think most bullies have probably deep insecurities, maybe an unstable abusive home life, poor role models at home etc etc
This x 1000.
The main little DC around here who bully are street reared that have very little, they bully from a place of jealousy or anger.

I promise you unless this ex bully is a psychopath she’s has good idea how unhappy she made people and already feels bad about her bullying so say nothing and be nice, it makes you the better person.

On the other hand I tried being friends with an old bully who constantly called me “ugly”, I assumed she was over it. Oh no, she carried on calling me ugly, one day I told her to bugger off, it felt good. I had a look he Facebook page and it was full of racist rants, she seems like a very angry person who lives in a world where she imagines she’s the biggest victim on earth , sad.

I think that most people who bully dont recognise that what they did was bullying.

This. There were two boys in my secondary school class who subjected me to continuous verbal taunting and abuse because of my looks. I’ve bumped into one of them twice over the years. He was really friendly. I don’t think I’d have achieved anything by mentioning the bullying, I was just civil on both occasions.

OP this level of anger isn't healthy, you need therapy.

This thread has also reminded me of an episode of The Bill where someone was conducting a vendetta against his old school bully. When bully and victim eventually came face to face the bully couldn’t even remember the bullying.

By the way, do not drag an innocent child into this, that’s horrible. Have you thought this woman may have seen the error of her ways and wants to be a good person now? Also 5 year olds don’t need to know some things and are easily hurt.

Your post sounds really nasty. If I were to see the person who bullied me, I would be polite and hold the high ground.

You sound absolutely awful.

it's really hard not to victim blame here but anything other than polite and you'll just show your parents up in front of their friends.

You're so beautiful, successful, popular, blah! I wonder if she feels you bullied her and she was just retaliating. Two sides to this story for sure.

I suspect (hope?) the OP was just thinking about what she'd like to do as opposed to actually doing it.

I'd never say anything to that person's child. That's not okay.

They were stupid fucking children / teenagers. You’re an actual adult apparently. We grow, we learn, we look back and are able to see how shitty some of our actions were and learn from that.

This.

You are a grown adult, and you are thinking of making a nasty comment to this woman's 5 yr old daughter? That's really unpleasant, and says a lot about you.

Bullies are rarely happy people, and you have no idea what her life was / is like. Move on and grow up.

Yes, SerenDipity I came on to say similar. I was accused of bullying when I was in my mid 20's by a girl I used to board with. When I asked what she meant she told me that back when we were about 9 myself and another friend had changed the words to a choir song and put her name in it and sung it on the way to dinner and back again. That was it. The night she told me was on a school reunion and she was drunk, but she honestly thought it had ruined her life and I only had a very very vague memory of it. Weirdly she didn't hold it against the other friend who was singing it with me . Of course I apologised and was genuinely sad that this had been something I wasn't aware had affected her for so long. However in honesty, I don't see how what I did was bullying any more than the countless times she told on me for being naughty and I got detentions (which went on for years all through senior, presumably as "revenge"!) The difference is I laughed at it and avoided telling her much.

Don't make yourself into someone nasty, just live in a way that makes happy with and that is revenge enough.

I’m half tempted to go one further and say to her daughter “your mummy was a bully at school, you won’t be a bully will you”

Wow. Just wow.
Guess you are a subscriber to ‘the sins of the fathers’! Wow.

Wow OP - your first post is erm, kind of scary!

I was badly bullied in secondary school. Thankfully my family moved away because of my Dad's work.

I saw my old bully nearly 14 years later in a yoga class of all places - afterwards she was very exuberant and excited to see me, as if we had been friends! I smiled and nodded, and thought how bizarre life is. What would be the point in having a go at her all these years later? I'm a fully grown woman with much bigger stuff going on.

I think you need to let this all go. Its v strange that you are hanging on to it like this.

Emotionally abusing children because you have history with their parents would be a whole new low.

you can damn well bet it feels great that I’ve grown up to be a looker & she definitely hasn’t!
Its a matter of taste though isn't it? I can think of a number of semi-celebritries who consider themselves lookers and play on it who I actually find very unattractive.

She might look at you and think the same you think of her!

No no no! Don't do this. It won't achieve anything and will come off looking awful. You sound as though you still have some growing up to do.

I was bullied horribly at school by a boy who chose me and my friend as his target. 15 years on, he bumped into the other girl and apologised to her.

I've run through in my head how I would respond if we were to cross paths and I have come to the conclusion that the only way to handle it is to say 'apology accepted' and leave it at that.

He was having an absolutely shite time at home. It doesn't excuse it but I really don't see what is to be gained by trying to humiliate or whatever a former school bully.

Ah! All the Bully Excusers!

She must have had a sad childhood
Her life hasn't worked out well.. her personal jurney is shit
You sound like a bully; the only bully I see is you
Grow up
It was years ago.. leave it
She was a child, you are an adult

All of that is 100% BOLLOCKS!

Like many badly bullied people OP is fantasising about what horrors she could inflict. How she could mirror her bullies actions, matbe even overleap them. She could really stick it to her.

That's the sad and truly fucked up child that remains inside every bullied person's head that is speaking. It never goes away, it is the shaky bedrock that our exterior confidence is built upon. Many of us acknowledge it and work hard to mitigate it, we know ourselves. We were forced to as bullied children. We know how abject and cowardly we can be. Our adult bravado is real, based on knowledge of ourselves, experience!

Every time someone says/posts "Oooh! You should let it go, think about why they acted like that, be the bigger person" are missing the point and adding to the conflict. All bullied kids are told to set aside their fear, their bruises, their abject misery and to 'be the bigger person'. Well sorry to break it to you, but the bigger person is beating the shit out of your kid, physically and emotionally! You have no idea the damage those words to do a developing child. How much that sticks with you as a defining personality trait! EVERYONE is more important than the bullied kid, as an adult that remains, be small, be forgiving, be supportive at any cost or we will castigate you.

Every time someone says/posts "Look who is being the bully now!" they are reinforcing the point that the bullied kids was/is responsible. Something in them caused the bullying / is now a bully. Why do that? Do you fear bullying so much that you silence the 'weaker' part of the equation so you feel safer?

OP IS LETTING IT GO... read what she says in her updates. She wouldn't but has given some thought to what is possible. That's not bad thing in itself. It is exorcising old demons in a safe space.

She says she is happily married, has a good job, looks good, feels good and measures up to her bully well. You all leap in to have a good snipe at her.

Fuck that! What OP has posted, how she has compared herself to her bully is what you all spout off about... it is the verbalisation of REVENGE IS A LIFE LIVED WELL! How the fuck else do you explain it? Or is it one of those things that is never to be spoken aloud because it makes the listener feel something uncomfortable?

So @ManCubsMama, as others have said Enjoy that smug feeling. Don't feel bad about what you are imagining, but leave it there, in your imagination. When you are ready imagine up some adult responses, like the superior smile, a quiet "funny how things turn out" comment and then ignore her.

Enjoy your life lived well, enjoy your life lived better too

However in honesty, I don't see how what I did was bullying any more than the countless times she told on me for being naughty and I got detentions
Sadly, this is also my experience of adult friends who've been talking about their supposed bullying experience as kids. My recollection was that they were just as bad and sometimes worse.

Sometimes it's hard to remember who started it.

So you want to bully her now, OP? And her daughter? Your first post is really unpleasant. You have some moving on to do.

[quote WhatWillSantaBring]@LadyofTheManners - wow, that's brilliant. I'm so pleased that you got your chance to give them your thoughts. I'm really sorry about what you went through and sincerely hope that you've been able to deal with it properly.

What gets me about bullying, is that even now, 20 years on, when I tell people about being bullied, I often get asked "oh, what did you do" or "why did they bully you" like it was somehow my fault. I even had one friend once say to me "Oh, i can see why you were so unpopular at school". So I think a lot of people just do not get it.[/quote]
Oh Ive had the same! " Why didn't you just stand up for yourself?" "Why did you not looks t what you could do to make you less vulnerable to bullies" (that last one was from a sodding counsellor who I ditched swiftly after that comment, had had a nervous breakdown in my early 30s so looked for help).
In my case, I did one time tell all these girls what I thought of them. It was year 9 (3rd year). Instead of them leaving me alone, they grassed me up to the same head of year who I begged for help. She called me in at the end of the day, and made me apologise to every one of them round a table. Not just a simple sorry, but full sorry of what I had done wrong and why it was wrong.
Of course after that they got even worse as they knew I couldn't stand up for myself. The school even wrote about it when I left on my record to me sixth form. A one off event.
My parents were useless, they never once stood up for me and when my mum was told about the above and that I was going to be made to apologise she agreed! She knew why I had done it but she was a cow.
I would be mortified if my children acted like that. But I would be absolutely behind them if they were treated like I was if they stuck up for themselves.

Well you sound an absolute delight 🙄.
The thing is by giving this headspace to be fair - you’re still “losing” (not that there are winners and losers here - but I get the feeling that you think so).