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 was only able to rebuild my mental health and self esteem by going no contact with people from my secondary school days. I don't get how a Facebook confrontation would be helpful. Was that person a real therapist or just a life coach?

I was bullied badly at school. Never been contacted by any of my bullies...personally I would like an apology. An acknowledgement of how they ruined my school life.

I don't wish them well in life.

Some of them grow up to be bullies as adults, like their parents (you can tell when parents think nothing of their kid bullying someone).

I was not bullied at school as such but stood up to the class bully at secondary and so was not popular with her and her clique. I was bullied at work though and it has taught me to be more inclusive and assertive, as a pp says. But at whatever age it happens, bullying leaves wounds and even as an adult it took me a while to regain my confidence.

@AngelDelightUK

When I was in therapy, my therapist told me to FB message the person who severely bullied me and left me with no self worth or confidence. She didn’t remember any of it, didn’t remember me and basically told me we were all adults now and get over it then blocked me.

There should be more done about bullies because it really does affect the rest of your life

That was terrible advice from your therapist.

I was bullied in the last couple of years of primary school. Nothing physical but plenty of threats. My bully contacted me through Friends Reunited and was reminiscing about good times we shared. I replied with my version of events and never heard back. I really do believe that some bullies are either oblivious to what they've done or just try and blank it from history.

I think the power of denial is very strong in some bullies and they re-write history in their heads, hence all the anti-bullying FB posts etc.

I'm not sure they realise. My DSis was bullied at school. She was never the same after that and despite leading an outwardly facing brilliant life she had bouts of depression that culminated in her committing suicide aged 35. I believe it all stemmed from that. I doubt any of the bullies have even considered this was the ultimate cause

@lastdaysofsummer funny that my DSis bully did exactly that

I have to say though on the other hand I was also bullied but not as bad as her. That just drove me into wanting to achieve something and make the most of every opportunity (maybe subconsciously to show them I was better than they were). And I have done very well for myself and they are very much aware of that (small town). That does give me an element of satisfaction it has to be said

I was bullied at primary school by a boy who would wait for me after school and hit me. I would try to hit back or avoid him but I eventually told my Mum who shouted at him and she also went to speak to his Mum who gave him a bollocking and probably a good wallop too. I was never bothered by him again and actually he’s turned out alright, pretty decent guy by all accounts. I never gave him a second thought.

At secondary school, one time a ‘pal’ was being a bit pesty and kept hitting me on my boobs, which were sore because I was in the throes of puberty. I warned her to stop or else. She didn’t so I shoved her roughly away and stood my ground. She never bothered me again, nor did anyone else after the gossip went round the school that ‘quiet, meek Woolly clobbered the girl’ I think Chinese whispers made the tale more dramatic but I was never bullied thereafter. As an adult I’ve been groped in a pub - the group of sniggering guys got an earful. A similar incident happened again by a letchy guy in a pub, he was similarly warned then got a smack in the face.

I’m a peace loving hippy the majority of the time unless someone does me a wrong.

The one time I could have been accused of bullying still makes me cringe. I’d been playing with a few kids at a holiday camp. They had to leave to visit some relation but returned a couple of days later. They came running up to me to play but I’d moved on to another group of kids and I ignored them. To this day I still feel ashamed. I was about 8 or 9. But it left a mark in me and I vowed I’d never be so shitty again. So perhaps not the worst case of bullying in the world but enough to make me aware of my moral compass for the rest of my life.

I'm actually friends with my former bully on Facebook. I think that's as far as I would go but she's admitted being vile at school. From an adult perspective she was a messed up kid and it showed. Forgiving her has actually given me a lot of peace, the bullying I suffered was something I looked at during counselling a few years ago and at that time I hadn't heard from any of them for years.

Not wanting to play with someone isn’t bullying though is it? Think we need to be careful not to water down what is a powerful word.

Exclusion can indeed be a very powerful form of bullying . . .

@MsTSwift yeah true but to put it in context they ran up delighted to see me shouting ‘hey remember us’ and I snubbed them and said no. So it was rude. Not bullying perhaps but snubbing and also lying because of course I knew them. I was trying to be a smart little cow who wanted to show off that I had other friends now and that they didn’t matter. The look on their faces showed they were crestfallen. It backfired on me because I knew immediately I’d been rude and regretted it.
So absolutely folk have a right to choose who they play with but as long as they are not so obviously unkind.

My son was accused of being a bully at primary school for not wanting to play with another boy. In that case he wasn’t unkind but he didn’t want to play because the other boy never played by the rules. But the other boy called him a bully. There are always two sides to a story.

My 12 year old had to give a statement today about a bullying incident - her and another girl reported it though not involved themselves at their school if you are a bystander who does nothing you get in trouble yourself.

I found my school bully on Fb and So wanted to send her a message how vile she was. I read some of her posts that cried of a hard childhood. I have no sympathy. I can see her denying anything she did. She absolutely ruined my school life until high school. I do not wish her well and hope she is haunted by what she did to me and in some form gets paid back.

If, as a previous poster has suggested, bullies are thick, I can think of a couple in public life for whom the cap fits.

The biggest bully from my primary and secondary is now in prison for murdering someone along with his dad. So I dont think he cares how he treated people at school, but he clearly had terrible parents so his home life must have been awful.

@MsTSwift

Not wanting to play with someone isn’t bullying though is it? Think we need to be careful not to water down what is a powerful word.

It depends I think. I don't think any child should be forced to play with kids they don't want to, but they absolutely also should not exclude people. So it's a very delicate balance but on the whole, exclusion is a pretty nasty form of bullying in itself.

Of course it depends I’m not daft but the example given of not being friendly to some other kids isn’t “bullying” in my book. Think most of us been frozen out of a friendship group then allowed back in. Know I have but I wouldn’t say I was bullied. When does the push and pull of friendship become actual bullying?

The definition of bullying is that it is an intentional action which is done with the intention of hurting another person. That can be emotional or physical and that's what I always consider when identifying bullying or not. It doesn't matter if you're intention is to hurt because you're hurt. If that's your aim, if you are trying to hurt another another person in some way in a prolonged or sustained way ( i.e. more than once or twice) then you are a bully. If you do something hurtful but this wasn't your intention then you aren't.

"they absolutely also should not exclude people. "

Really? Why is it diferent for adults then because there are absolutely people I would exclude from my friendship group because I can't stand them.
Imagine at work - organising a meeting with everyone in your team except one person would be 'exclusion' and bullying, but if you're having a party at home, it's totally up to you who you invite.

I was bullied by quite a few different people towards the end of primary/ start of secondary.

Years later, one of my old bullies came up to me to tell me how incredibly sorry he was about his actions and that he’d been thinking for years about how much of an arsehole he had been when he was a kid. We chatted for a while and he seemed genuinely happy to know that in spite of everything things had turned out reasonably ok for me.

It was a bit of a weird experience to be honest and it kind of left me feeling that he’d been affected much more by the guilt over his own actions, than I ever was by his bullying. He was just another bully to me 🤷‍♀️

@MsTSwift

My 12 year old had to give a statement today about a bullying incident - her and another girl reported it though not involved themselves at their school if you are a bystander who does nothing you get in trouble yourself.

That is the perfect rule. Not only for bullying, but for stopping all other power abuse, misconduct, corruption, and covered-up scandals of all kinds. Please can that head go and run the world, quickly?