School bully online styling herself as a 'hoilistic coach and yoga teacher'

[warofthemonstertrucks]

I've just happened on a long Facebook post from her about self reflection, being kind to yourself, finding inner peace, being kind and a lot more about how she has everything she always wanted ' 3 kids, a quiet life and a country home'....

This woman terrorised me and alot of other girls in our year, one to the point of suicide attempt.
She was high as a kite half the time. Inner peace and nature! Mate!

I know I would be really, but would I be being Unreasonable to reply to her post and ask her what advice she would give someone whose self esteem had been so decimated my bullies that it blighted the rest of their life until they got decent therapy?

I get that People can change and everyone has to make a living but the smug/preachy tone of her post has made me so cross!!

I was bullied in primary. My bully was exceptionally rich and pretty but had an awful home life. When I found out she was working a dead end job and didn't look happy I wasn't glad about it. I feel for her.

I bullied someone in secondary and got other people involved. I apologised deeply and sincerely about 10 years later.

Def write that message!

I take it she's never apologised?

My bully's sister who enticed her to bully died last week. Not saying you reap what you sow, but....

I'd not to get in contact with the bully. Walk on by. You’ll get your revenge by being better than her. I’m better and have done better than those who have bullied me. Do these people care - probably not. Don't waste your time on her.

I was bullied relentlessly in secondary school by the entire class.

When Facebook became popular in the 2000s, a lot of them sent me Facebook friends requests. I accepted their requests, but in hindsight I shouldn't have. I guess deep inside I hoped for some healing, I hoped they would apologise to me. Out of everyone, only one person sent me a message and apologised. But this guy wasn't even the worst one!
I realised they only added me to Facebook, because they were nosy how my life turned out. They didn't see my humanity then and they still don't see it now.

One of my old school bullies actually has just like your old bully a very "happy clappy", Zen Instagram profile where she posts wise posts about life and pictures of her family. I would normally think "what a beautiful instagram profile", but I can't think that, because I remember how god awful she was to me. When I complained to a teacher about her behaviour, the teacher called a meeting and my bully gaslighted me in the meeting, saying how it was all just "fun" and that I misunderstood everything.

I wouldn't send a message to your former bully on social media, OP. Chances are she will send a dismissive message, defend herself somehow and add to your trauma. Our school bullies don't care about us, most likely they will only vaguely remember bullying us, because it wasn't traumatising for them.

We have to find closure within ourselves and heal ourselves, we can't expect our former abusers to heal us.

I prefer the term "abusers" to "bullies". People don't take bullying very serious and say we should get over it, that is why I prefer the word "abuse", because that is what it is at the end of the day and some kids have to go through it for years.

Yes, they might have changed or they might not. At the end of the day it's irrelevant - they aren't part of our lives anymore and we shouldn't care about them.

We have to focus on the positive in our lives and the people that love us. I have a lovely husband, beautiful children and a good job. I know I am blessed.

I am invited to a class reunion next year and I will definitely not go!!

What do you hope to achieve OP?

Will it make you feel better? No
Will it teach her a lesson? No
Will she ever understand the impact of her behaviour upon you? No
Will she ever apologise? No

I'm a great believer in karma. Let that deal with her...

I can only see it working if you can guarantee the script of how it will turn out plays out the way you want?

Do you really see that happening?

@PinotPony - it already did. She's a life coach

See, I don't believe in karma. A lot of bad things happen to otherwise good people. A lot of bad people are able to get away with doing bad stuff.

Sometimes bad stuff happens to bad people. I don't think that's karma though, just coincidence.

@supernova1234

You are right. It is peer on peer abuse. I am happy for you, you sound like you’ve gained strength and peace now in adulthood. You did not deserve that.

I agree. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. I dislike the implied idea that good people having bad things happen to them somehow deserve it in some cosmic way.

I also agree that they should be called abusers rather than bullies. They don't care about the effect of their behaviour. They'd never admit that they are bad people but I know, and that's enough for me.

Yes, obviously that’s exactly what I was suggesting. Took the words right out my mouth there.

That’s true.

It’s by our by our acts and omissions that such people are allowed to bully cause untold damage and not be called to account - in all walks of life - pl write/send post 👍🏿☘️

It's tempting to get in touch with her on Facebook and say that, or drop a hint , that you rember her from and rember what's she was like,

Don't expect a apology, she will just feel embarrassed a bit or just ignore you

I’d block her and move on. Who knows what’s really going on in her life anyway? Most of what’s on social media is fake/exaggerated/for show, and social media bragging kind of screams insecurity. You don’t like or respect her - just ignore/unfriend/block and leave her in the past. Engaging with her might not go the way you want and probably won’t lead to any kind of closure.

Hi Op
You could say to her Facebook.

It's good you are into this kind of thing ,as if this sort of thing, can have such profound change in you, than the way you were back in your school days,
there must be a bit of hope still for rest of humanity,
Along those lines or similar.

It's passive -aggressive or maybe backhanded complement

I came across an old bully professionally who carved out a good career for herself and made a pitch to my business. Naturally we didn't acknowledge any wrongdoing in the past. I was rather pleased not to award her the contract. I did justice to my 12 year old self. Time is a great healer.

If you're reasonably sure she won't go full psycho and hunt you down.. if you can be pretty sure that whatever she does or doesn't do, you won't be too upset... Then yeah, why not. You could put something on your page and link it to her. Maybe publicly ask for an apology? Would her followers see that? Maybe tag the other people she hurt. She may not respond or may be abusive, but at least you can remove the post or stop responses, block people etc. It may help you to get closure.

FWIW I was bullied/ostracised in high school too ona daily basis for 5 years. The girls who did it were my only friends and prevented me from making any other friends at school. It ruined my life, and I'm not exaggerating. I missed every social milestone and it set me up for other abuse. However karma did intervene somewhat and after school the main bullies variously had heroin addictions, disappeared completely and one went on Jeremy Kyle and made an absolute fool of herself, so much so that she moved to another city. So I consider that my consolation prize, because I'm certain none of them would apologise or show regret. I have seen a more minor bully and she seemed as mean as ever. I think bullies are often narcissistic or have other serious mental health problems which mean empathy is impaired and they aren't able to understand accountability etc.

OP your bully is probably trying to be a lifestyle guru for the ego boost. That's the sort of thing narcissistic people do, they become leaders but don't usually have any real credentials, it's all just fake.

This is an interesting discussion. Peer bullying in childhood does, in my experience, get normalised as ‘just kids being kids’ and the victim can get labelled as ‘too sensitive’. The gas-lighting someone mentioned up-thread where the bully justified it as ‘fun’ really resonated for me. On the rare occasions teachers got involved, acting innocent and saying it was all fun and I was deranged for the way I reacted was exactly what happened. I have been forced to apologise to a bully in the past. Often the bullies were far from the obviously troubled kids, they were the ‘alphas’ and very popular. This would all be damaging enough in childhood, but I see a less physically violent and more psychologically subtle version playing out in every workplace. Those of us conditioned by severe childhood bullying, are liable to get re-traumatised in the workplace as adults. Those alpha kids and bullies can end up in positions of power.

Sadly, I have felt gas-lighted by a therapist about the bullying I experienced as a child: normalised, minimised. The therapist looked horrified when I said that it is abuse, albeit child on child. I should say I have also experienced acceptance of my experiences from most therapists!

Always makes me laugh when i see people with pasts of being bullies/unpleasant people who are pushing the #BeKind narrative 🤷🏻‍♀️

Always makes me laugh when i see people with pasts of being bullies/unpleasant people who are pushing the #BeKind narrative

They remind me of the people in the Goldenballs final who would go on at length about how heartbroken they would be if anybody could be so nasty and devious and hate somebody enough to consider actually stealing from them and how it was clearly the only acceptable, decent thing to do to share - and then would go straight to 'steal' themselves, as they'd obviously intended to do right from the very start, with a triumphant 'got you, sucker!' look on their faces.

They would always say "Hey, it's a game, and I'm just using strategy to win it" and I wonder how many of them would treat everyday life that same way. Incidentally, if there's a prize pot of £120K and sharing meant they would still have gone home with £60K each, that's hardly 'not winning' for anybody, is it?

Having said that, I remember one episode where they'd had numerous Killer balls and the jackpot ended up only being something like £3.50 - and one contestant still insisted on stealing, as it was clearly just naturally in her veins to live her life like that, centring herself and 'sticking it' to everybody else. Imagine showing your true colours and exposing yourself like that on national TV in order to gain £1.75.

Honestly these 'coaches' and 'experts' (as they've now labelled themselves) are often unsuccessful idiots who were involved in MLM of beauty or health products 2 years ago.

The VAST majority of people see right through the absolute rubbish, endless self obsessed posts. I was chatting to my work colleagues the other day and there is a type. We were all laughing at how predictable it is! Many also podcast as they clearly think they have something interesting to say!!!

Don't let it get to you, she'll be onto the next quick fix money scheme before you know it!

No, I think that’s very unreasonable. You have no idea if she’s changed or not, it’s been a very long time and she was a teen then. That doesn’t erase the trauma she caused you but that’s to deal with through therapy.

That doesn’t erase the trauma she caused you but that’s to deal with through therapy.

Therapy that the bully herself is now offering to provide for a fee?

That is a bit like an emergency glazier sending their kids around the neighbourhood with some stones and a catapult.

What did you decide to do OP?