To wonder how school bullies feel as adults?

[NeonIcedcoffee]

I'm just thinking about how people who were bullies at school feel about it as adults. I went to a really crappy comp which served a number of socially deprived areas. Bullying was absolutely rife. This included physical violence. There was also lots of general intimidation and taking of things from people.
I experience a bit of bullying but it was for a relatively short time. So I'm less thinking about personal experience or wanting closure for myself if that makes sense.

I left secondary school in 2003 for context. I'm not sure if bullying is less tolerated now?

Anyway somone who was really vile and an awful bully popped up on my people you may know on Facebook. She just looked normal now. It made me think do people who behave like this know they were bullies? Do they feel bad?

I'm not talking about the normal politics of friendships in teenage years. That obviously goes on all the time. We probably all behaved selfishly or unkindly as teenagers! I'm thinking of proper bullies here.

I don't think many of them even remember or realise what they did. When I was 13 I had a year of being told every day that I was so disgusting I should kill myself. I saw one of the girls when I was a young adult and she had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to ask her why. Whether she actually didn't remember or didn't want to I'm not sure. But I still remember it years later, and it's shaped what I believe of myself.

I think bullies are such vile people, that they never see their wrongdoings. To regret bullying, you’ve got to admit to being the bully.

The people who were vile bullies when I was a teenager, are just as horrible as adults.

It is something I have thought about too, @NeonIcedcoffee. I was bullied from the age of 10 until I left secondary school at 16, and went to Sixth Form college - and it caused depression, anxiety and low self esteem that have blighted my entire life.

My therapist once said something interesting - that, in my mind, the bullies are forever locked in their school years - just as a part of me is trapped there too, by the trauma of the bullying.

I wonder whether it would help me if I knew they had grown up and now regretted what they did - and I have tried to contact some of them, but with no response.

I think I have to accept I may never know.

I don't think they realise mostly. Also often they're being bullied too. I think there's no end of nastiness and jostling for position between teenage peers all rammed together in an unnatural and not particularly well managed environment. So almost everyone is on the receiving end of bullying at one time or another and that's what they remember the most.

I dated an ex bully, he was aware he had been one but he couldn't really understand why. Still is a really nice lovely intellectual guy, reader I should have married him

I left school in the 1980’s and was bullied by a pair of ‘mean girls’. Nothing major, just sly comments that gave me low self esteem.

Now as an adult one of them is best friends with my cousin. Unfortunately my cousin’s son has been the victim of bullies at school and this woman who used to bully me has been very vocal on FB about how awful bullying is and that bullies should be strung up etc. She obviously doesn’t look back to her own school days and realise what she did to me ☹️

I have never bothered to say anything as I don’t see her in real life.

I always wonder if they were aware, or have become aware, that they were bullies. Especially the ones who bully in more subtle ways. I'd like to think so, but at the same time there's a lot of adult bullies.

I think those that bully (mostly) have a really shitty home life. I don't think they realise what they've done. My best mate was mercilessly bullied, it's affected her whole adult life.

I dont think they even realise some of them.

I used to be friends with everyone from school on facebook, as was the way back then, I remember a girl who was a terrible bully to every girl who wasn't in her clique complaining that her daughter was being bullied and how disgusting bullies are.

I don't know. You could ask a tv / radio presenter down in the south west. She had a lot of front. She'd probably find a way to further her career out of it. I've been contacted by her since school, as far as I could tell it was to glorify her involvement with a charity as all her own brilliance. I'm glad she found a job that gives her the attemtion she craves. I hope she has No one junior to her. I doubt she's ever reflected on things. Cold as ice.

I spotted one of the worst bullies in my school year on Friends Reunited. There was a quiz, and one of the questions was 'If you could go back to your school days what would you change?' and he had answered that he would like to have been nicer to everyone. I have no idea what he is like as an adult but I hope that was a sign he felt bad about how he treated so many of his peers.

I was bullied horribly at school.

I saw one of them years later when I was back from Uni visiting my folks and she actually came over to me while mum and I were out shopping and apologised. I hadn't seen her in years. She said she was haunted by what she had done, she just wanted to say she was so sorry and had thought about me a lot in the years since. Her mum had died while we were at school and she was full of rage, that said she offered no excuses and said she hoped I could forgive her some day.

I think she's possibly the exception to the rule but maybe that can give us hope that some of them don't come out unscathed either.

@Thorinfling I bet loads of people would love for their childhood bully to come and apologise to them!

I feel like they must not count it as bullying - eg there's an episode of the big bang theory where Penny describes bullying a girl at school as "just joking around" etc.

This won't be a popular view but in my experience as a teacher they often join the police or the armed forces.

I remember some actor (can't remember who, not important) saying the secret to playing a bad guy was to remember that no one ever thinks they're a villain themselves. It's an interesting statement. I'm sure many ex-bullies have little recollection of their actions because they just weren't that important to them, and if they do, probably just saw it as banter, larking around, having a laugh. To acknowledge that what they did could have had life-long consequences for their victims wouldn't fit in with the narrative that they're a good person.

I bumped into one of my bullies in a local park. I didn't recognise him, he recognised me, was very friendly. He probably couldn't understand why I was a bit cool.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer

This won't be a popular view but in my experience as a teacher they often join the police or the armed forces.

It's probably very true and makes sense. They just don't care and the forces like that attitude.

I found one of our school bullies on Facebook last night by coincidence, his page was full of positive posts and how he hopes his children are as kind as he was.
Made me laugh because he was truly awful to everyone.
My secondary school bully now has children with my brother. She’s still a bully.

I met the pair who bullied me some time later. By then, I had a good career, and was happy with the man who is now my husband. Because they had always been lazy as well as being bullies, they were drifting from dead-end job to dead-end job and from one failed relationship to the next. We had one of those rather false social conversations when we told each other what we were doing these days: they were a bit evasive but I told them what I'd heard about them from our contemporaries. Then I smiled brightly and moved on. They had always done their best to convince me that I was destined for total failure both in terms of career and relationships, they were clearly NOT happy. I've never had a better demonstration of the fact that the best revenge is living well.

@helloxhristmas I disagree that all bullies have a bad home life. Teen girls in particular often bully to try and work their way up the social pecking order, to look cool, and because they enjoy feeling powerful and inflicting pain (whether physical or emotional). These people either rationalise what they did, or just conveniently forget how cruel they were. Or they carry on being bullies in more or less subtle ways.

I wish there was a way of outing them, and making them apologise and repent. But there isn't.

Most completely forget what they did or minimize it by saying 'I was just joking', 'It was a bit of teasing' etc.

When I was at school bullying was tolerated and no teacher did a thing. It was seen as 'you are too sensitive', 'it was teasing', 'it will do you good as you need as thicker skin' etc. Being kicked and punched when your back turned is not someone being sensitive!

I’ve met a couple of people as adults who I never knew as kids.
But I can bet my life on the theory that they were school bullies because of the way that they conduct themselves as adults.
I have been bullied in the workplace, those people were probably school bullies too.
Nope, I don’t believe that they have remorse, and yes, they know EXACTLY what they are doing.

I think most bullies don't change. They just start bullying people at work. There was a girl at work who was really nasty (especially to female new starters) and talking to people she went to school with she was the same then.
Others perhaps don't realise how bad they were. A girl who bullied me the whole way through school tried to friend me on fb. I didn't respond funnily enough.

I unfortunately probably fell into the category of bully. Whilst it seemed to me and my friends that it was funny or a laugh, as an adult, in fact at the age of 17 I realised it was all wrong and most probably hurt their feelings. Really regret it, and in fact sought whichever person I may have ‘bullied’, sent a long apologetic message and they responded positively! So I still feel guilty to this day and wouldn’t want anybody to feel that badly because of bullying, but I am happy its off my conscience that I have asked for their forgiveness and it has been granted to me.

You could ask Priti Patel