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 teased a bit at secondary school because I was thought posh (I’m not!) and used to work hard, but never bullied, probably because I had a group of friends. A bit left out a primary school at some stages which I thought was worse.

There were certainly kids that would bully others but I don’t know what became of any of them, or how they’d feel now.

One girl who was a “queen bee” is now a body builder, but I’m not sure if that tells you anything!

Oh - it was mostly boys who used to call me posh if that makes a difference!

I know one who whined endlessly to me about her DD being bullied, and what bitches they were. I think she forgot I was in her class at school.

I think it depends on the person. Some might regret what they did when they develop more emotional maturity and empathy. But others don't. Thinking of some people I know:

A man in his early thirties who used to reminisce about how he'd harassed a woman at work. No regrets, he thought it was fun then and still did when he was telling the story.

A man in his thirties, who had a nasty temper and was still a bully. He got an email from someone he'd picked on at school - I don't know what was in the mail but apparently it had a tone of 'I'm doing alright now in spite of what you did'. His attitude was 'we were 13, it was ages ago, he should get over it, how pathetic'.

Someone on a Facebook group for former pupils of my school. She was laughing about the time she phoned someone's mother saying her daughter had died in an accident. This was a woman in her thirties who still thought what she'd done as a teenager was funny.

The fact is people who are bullied can carry the scars for the rest of their lives, but the bullies don't want to know - for obvious reasons.

I wasn't a nice child at school I was distributive and not nice to some kids. No excuse for it, all I can think was it was to make myself look cool

Years later I seen a girl from school in a nightclub I walked up and said hello

She said don't dare talk to me you made my life hell at school . I wanted to the ground to eat me. Honestly I'd didn't even remember I'd not been nice to her. Or that my behaviour had a impact but it clearly did

I look back now and feel guilty

If I'm honest looking back I had a lot of issues as a child and I think if I was a child now I would of diagnosed with adhd

I don't know why I was horrible, but if my behaviour hurt others I definitely feel ashamed of it. I hope my kids don't turn out like I did.

As it happens I genuinely am I nice kind person now and have been for many many years since leaving school - well I try to be and hope I am

Some of the experiences on here are absolutely harrowing. I wish I could do something- anything to take away even a minute of the pain some of you suffered. (If Karma works then surely positive wishes do too?)

Just jumping on to say I have experienced only slight bullying, I remember feeling petrified to see a particular girl when we were in year 8...oddly we’d been best friends years before. She was much smaller/less ‘popular’ than I was at that time but the venom with which she spoke to me during that period was terrifying.

I only add this to encourage anyone reading to educate their children what bullying is/The forms it takes/where it comes from/to talk it through with someone. I know that I certainly wouldn’t have told anyone at that time as I was just so scared and downright embarrassed that someone was doing this to me, had I ever been explained that the girl themselves may have had her own issues etc and it wasn’t About me in any way, it might have saved me over analysing my every movement?

Regardless in my experience it served me well as I would never ever want another person to feel the way I did for that short period - So thanks NATALIE. The world has a nicer person 👍🏻

The girl who bullied me at secondary school had an emotionally neglectful home life, parents who were at each other’s throats (I know because we were friends at primary school and I’d been to her house) and was deeply unhappy about her weight - but she knew exactly what she was doing. The girls who “took her side” did so because they just didn’t want her to turn on them. She knew how to find the perfect insult for everyone - a skill she learnt from her own mum. Looking back, who knows what insults her own mum levelled at her growing up.

But although I understand all of these things now, as an adult, it made for a difficult 18 months for me back then - until I managed to make some new friends. I’m incredibly proud of myself for staying at the school and being able to finish Y11 on a good note with some nice friends.

I immediately left them all behind when I moved on to 6th form college and then Uni. They all still live in our shitty home town. I saw one of her friends in York once, she looked very embarrassed, put her head down and hurried away. I also saw her mum once at the theatre - I was there with my Mum & Nan, I don’t know who she was with but the bully was nowhere to be seen. Again, she gave a sort of embarrassed smile and didn’t say anything.

I blocked the bully and her cronies the day I got Facebook back in 2006/2007, I didn’t want to risk getting any horrible messages, but it popped up on Facebook that she runs a few “fitness classes” now. If you read her Facebook page she’s just found a new group of women to try and be Queen Bee with. I toyed with the idea of turning up to a class, just to see what she’d say, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in such a rough town now

My bullies were all beautiful alpha girls who went on to have wealthy and successful careers. I did not and still lack confidence. But I am also happy enough in a quiet kind of way.

I was bullied relentlessly. It didn’t help it was legitimised by several teachers. It broke me. If I could time travel I really would go back and rescue myself.

I don’t buy this that bullies bully because of a difficult home life. I didn’t have the easiest home life. I didn’t see fit to take this out on others.

And bullies who go out of their way to apologise to their victims are full of shite as well. It is self indulgent and still self absorbed making it all about them again! I can honestly say if one of my bullies (including the disgusting teachers who thought it was sensible to terrify an 11 year old) crossed the road in front of my car, I can’t guarantee I’d brake.

I think at a low level it is still very much normalised in schools.
Think of the Horrid Henry series, where the hero constantly calls his brother names, physically attacks him, invades his room, damages his property, and tricks him (often out of money). This is all seen as funny, excusable and totally normal, and definitely much better than being "perfect" but less dominant - the word "horrid" is used to describe the behaviour but with no real negative connotation or meaningful consequence.

Yonnie8
Well you are a CEO now and also a despicib!e person you should be ashamed of yourself.

@RWeatherwax

And bullies who go out of their way to apologise to their victims are full of shite as well. It is self indulgent and still self absorbed making it all about them again! I can honestly say if one of my bullies (including the disgusting teachers who thought it was sensible to terrify an 11 year old) crossed the road in front of my car, I can’t guarantee I’d brake.
A girl on my fb who went to my school (a year below me) was the queen B of her year and meant to be a horrible bully. Never bullied me but i knew who she was. She wrote a braggy status a few years ago about how she'd messaged one of her school victims apologising and how they'd forgiven her. I read it and thought it's still just all about you isn't it? Came across as very me me me.

@RWeatherwax sorry i meant to quote your comment. It hasn't for some reason. But I agree with you. It always about them.

A family member (not immediate family) was a bully who never grew out of it. She got subtler as she got older, verbal rather than physical - though probably only because she was more aware of potential consequences, but the satisfied sneer she would wear when she managed to cause someone pain or frighten them was a sight to behold. She died suddenly in her forties, and as someone who had born the brunt of her bullying for many years, I'm sad to say one of the main emotions I experienced was relief.

It really annoys me when bullies talk about “all the things they were going through”, so many people have it hard but don’t make life hell for others. My daughter was told to commit suicide daily for months, five years on and she has depression and anxiety. I hope the people that bullied her feel every bit of pain she did. I don’t believe they are all naive and don’t realise they’re doing it either, that’s just another excuse.

@Nymeriastark1 god that’s even worse that she put a boastful status about it! Almost like she’s proud... I just feel it’s unfair to push the onus of forgiving back onto the victim. Because then the bullies can turn round and say “well I apologised and she didn’t accept it. It’s up to her to get over it now.” They can Eff all the way off with that nonsense. They don’t have to live with the scars they cause.
I detest bullies. They are the worst kind of person.

(I realise all this makes me sound quite unhinged and vindictive. I’m still working on what was done to me but I honestly can’t say that I can ever forgive them)

@addler

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.

Sorry to hear that. At thirteen, I'd be surprised if she didn't remember. I suspect she just chose to cowardly minimise your experience by pretending she didn't know what you were talking about.

I'd love to meet the person thst physicslly and psychologically bullied me for years. Id tell her whst she did if she was incapable of remembering.
I'd just really lve to lnow how far its managed to get her in her life now. Ive done pretty well and I'd like to be able to sit there from ky adult position as a confident person knowing what im worth as a person and what i have achieved and ask her is she can say the same .
Its a juvenile thing i know, but its probably that child inside me from all those years ago that would like to do it!

I was bullied in year 7/8 and I also bullied a ‘friend’ for those years. I bumped into said girl when I was 18 years old. I apologised for how I treated her and admitted that it’s something that had lived with me since. She was a dick and I was a dick but she didn’t deserve how I treated her. Aka, she would torment me about self harm when I used to have an issue with eating disorder and self harm and vice versa. Basically, I could criticise my teenage bully self a lot but I’d have to remember why I had these issues in the first place.

When I was 17, a mutual friend told me that a girl who had bullied me at primary told him how awful she felt about what she'd done to me. I was aware that by then (aged 17) she was working through some things and going through a tough time.

The funny thing was that although objectively speaking she'd been awful to me, I don't remember it affecting me much. I remember that even as a young girl I could see that she was a deeply unhappy child who was angry at everyone and somewhat self-destructive. I didn't take it personally.

This isn't because I was particularly insightful or empathetic or resistant to bullying. There were other instances of bullying by different kids which did affect me significantly. But somehow I felt this girl's pain even when she was lashing out at me.

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.

Like becoming Home Secretary

Most of them are just horrible people. Of course they aren’t sorry, bad people never are. Assuming they might be sorry is assigning them a level of humanity that they simply don’t possess. They’re probably just as nasty now.

For two years (aged 9-11) I struggled to go to school because of one girl and her sister. They tormented me daily and managed successfully to get me ostracised by the rest of the (tiny) school. My father died during this time, I was asthmatic and unappealing, an easy, vulnerable target. I was so unhappy and hated going to school so much, because they made my life something to dread every day.

I looked her up a couple of years ago. I'd love to put her (unusual) name on here but I won't. It's almost funny to see she is now a highly-thought of lawyer, celebrated for her support of the 'most vulnerable people without a voice'. Well done you and I hope you remember sometimes how you tormented one rather vulnerable little girl and that you feel a bit of shame (unlikely).

@islockdownoveryet

Yes I agree with most bully's are despicable but as someone who was bullied as a child and also my dc was I feel it's not dealt with properly at schools etc . It should be instant suspension and if proven expelled depending on the level of bullying. It effects you for years and until authorities deal with bullies properly bullies will constantly think they are getting away with it and think it's the norm.

I agree with this. As I said upthread, I was a bully at school, and I don't think the school did anywhere near enough to deal with bullies. Definitely by the time a child gets to secondary school they need to know that bullying is wrong and won't be tolerated. And there needs to be a lot ore support for the people being bullied, too.

They jump on the "be kind" bandwagon in adulthood and remain blissfully ignorant.