Bumping into your childhood bully - AIBU?

[becomecomfortablynumb]

I was horrendously bullied in secondary school, for no reason other than I am ND and struggle to fit in. I was left terrified of going near school, and for years refused to socialise. Even now I find my peers a bit scary. The worst thing was that they laughed at my name - which is a perfectly ordinary name, and the one my mam chose - but I hated being called my name for a very long time. They’d sing songs at me, throw food at me. I had to hide at lunch behind a wall.

That was nearly 20 years ago, we’re all now in our 30s. I now live 300 miles away from the miserable cesspit I grew up in. I very rarely go ‘home’.

I went ‘home’ this week to see relatives, and had to nip into the local shop I went to as a teenager.

One of the worst of the group still works there, countless years later. She looks 15 years older than me, she looked tired and miserable, clearly smokes 30 a day, and to be blunt, she’s the same size as I am.

Meanwhile I have a senior professional role. I have a good group of friends. I’m respected at my job and in my personal life. I’ve got two degrees, and I’m happy. Not happy all day every day, but mostly, I’m content.

I saw the woman who made my life hell, and walked straight past her. Everything she and her friends did to me, I’m now the one who’s laughing. AIBU to feel a bit smug?

Perhaps she’s happy and comfortable in her job and I think I should wish her all the best - I highly doubt she remembers anything about me now - not worth wasting my time thinking about it, perhaps.

Success is the best revenge.

I like how my mother put it when I told her I felt a bit satisifed after seeing someone who had been awful to me after a couple of decades, and sorry if that made me a bad person. They had completely white hair, looked old and clearly weren't aging very well. I'm the same age with only about three grey hairs and not a single wrinkle, very smooth skin. As my mother said, "It doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you very human."

I would have no time for my school bullies. I don't care if they have changed. Maybe with a heartfelt, full apology I'll consider giving them the time of day.

Sadly, you're right. All of these gleeful posts about karma catching up with these awful people make me resentful, because life doesn't always work like that.

I was a very shy child, and bullied mercilessly for it by two boys at school. They're now both in very well paid city jobs, have gorgeous wives and kids, and multiple holidays abroad each year. I never left the village we grew up in. Their lives are substantially more successful than mine, to be frank.

🩷

She might have also liked the look of your husband and assumed she could get in by pretending you were friends. Well done you!

Please, please don’t do this. This is horrendous advice. She may well have children/ dependents who don’t deserve to suffer should she get the sack.

God, seriously awful advice.

Take the high road - take satisfaction and solace in the fact you’ve made a great success of your life despite what they did to you. And we’ll done for doing that x

Agree...a lot of bullies are traumatised themselves.

A middle class woman admitted to being a bully at her school, when her parents were going through a painful divorce.

No one happy and well adjusted becomes a bully.

You deserve to feel smug @becomecomfortablynumb be proud of yourself!

I was horrendously bullied. I was a very plain 13 year old. By the time I was 18 men were literally dropping books to run after me. I have never connected with my old bullies because life is short. I have genuinely managed to forget some of their names. I have been very successful - being a really plain child meant I had very few distractions from studying and, frankly, no career challenge has ever been as nasty as those teenagers were. I earn a lot, have a beautiful and large house, no financial worries, an adoring husband and grown children and have regular luxury holidays abroad. I am pretty sure that my former tormentors are not similarly blessed. Really, living well is the best revenge rather than seeking revenge on those pitiful creatures. You don't want to descend to their level.

She had a great life, good parents, I knew her parents as I was friends with her brother, he was lovely and said what an entitled stuck up little bitch she was, loved the drama and laughed at people she didn't think were worthy of her airspace - his words, not mine - she hasn't changed, I had her on facebook for a while, the last post I seen before blocking her was that people who don't earn a lot of money should not buy designer clothes/bags because they don't work hard enough for it, she then posted a pic of her new RR and Gucci handbag, and her daughter with designer clothes on.

I'm the same and I have an amazing career now, I'm very aware though that life can take drastic turns and one day I might need to take a job in a shop or supermarket so I often keep the thoughts to myself. I regularly think about what I'd say to them though and it would probably be something like "hold on I'll go and cry in one of my 5 bedrooms" 😂

I think the smug feeling is understandable. I know that my bullies are not in great places in life and I have experienced the same thoughts.

Though, in some likelihood, she perhaps was an unhappy child, as well as an unhappy adult. And children will act out in horrendous ways when they don’t have a supportive, healthy home. And then, often, there’s no chance for them if nothing changes, usually because their self worth and self belief is on the floor.

I can see it a bit more plainly now I have kids myself. The children at my kids’ school who have issues bullying all have significant troubles at home. One’s father abused both mother and the little from birth to 5yrs old, another’s father is in prison and the mother has agoraphobia, another is a refugee. I look at them and feel so awful they have such insurmountable challenges to overcome when so little and that they likely will grow into really dysfunctional adults.

This.

I was bullied badly at primary school for a number of years. To my eternal shame the other child who was badly bullied, a boy, tried to be kind to me in front of the bullies and I turned on him. I know I did it because I was frightened his support would make the bullying even worse but I can to this day see the look on his face and if I could go back and act differently or tell him now how sorry I still am I would.

I had a similar experience- An older girl of about 14 used to bully me on the school bus when I was about 11. She didn't progress through the full school and left after GCSEs. I saw her years later when I was about 30, when I went back to that area for a visit. She was still working a minimum wage job in a tatty corner shop. I'd been to a fancy university and had started an interesting career in a vibrant city. She'd become pasty, fat and rough-looking. I looked well.
I would be lying to say I didn't feel totally smug, however there was enough of the adult in me to have some pity for her. I wonder if she's still there.

The girl who bullied me relentlessly and before that pretended to be my friend so I went on a sleep over and we took some really stupid pictures (silly faces with face masks on etc) she then set up a website called 'we hate phdpeppa.com' and filled it full of photos she took off my social media and the photos we took then wrote all the things they hated about me, and all the secrets I told them about boys I liked and how my dad died, it was horrendous and we had to get the police involved. We were 12.

She came into my husband's law firm last week because he does legal aid for the local area, it's his law firm. I was there dropping off something for him when she came in. She's got 15k of rent arrears and is being evicted. She's had her kids removed from her by social services and I was so sorely tempted to take DH up on his offer of referring her to shelter rather than have him help her but her life is shit enough.

She knew who I was

I hope the class bully from my secondary is dead.

My daughter self harmed because she was bullied. She was suicidal at one point. I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. It's changed her permanently. And it will affect ger forever. There's a special place in hell for people who can make another person feel so shit that they don't want to be here anymore.
So you feel as smug as you can- even if you had the worse job in the world, you will never be as bad as her.

That’s horrible. I had bullies in school who made fun of my breasts - I started growing breasts at 9 and by 12 I looked like a grown woman - they hadn’t gone through puberty yet and tortured me daily until I was 16.

I like to add them to Facebook and call them C*NT’s in the comments of their photos …. But I would never mess with their jobs.

You know why - because the kids and partners and family that rely on them would suffer and I won’t harm people who have never harmed me.

Your comments is so nasty and thoughtless.

Don’t worry. I myself have loads of these kinds of regrets ❤️

I feel a tad proud of you let alone you!

You were dignified. You have made another step in your recovery. You were able to go about your business - of course not totally unaffected but you did it

Now try and give her no more headspace. She doesn't deserve it

Oh wow. This is so vindictive.

Be better than this OP. And I say that as someone who has been in the exact same position as you.

I also dont agree with trying to get "revenge"- why waste precious time and energy on some twat when you could spend that time on something enjoyable and worthwhile making YOUR life better?

However, you ARE perfectly entitled to feel smug and thats a great feeling. Similar happened to me when I bumped into my bully.

I realised I was parked next to her in our local supermarket and as she got into her battered old car that looked like it had just been taken from the wreckers yard she also looked decades older and I got into my shiny convertible. She made my life hell at school to the point I self harmed and told me I wouldnt amount to anything. I think she recognised me and gave me a weak smile and I just looked at her and smiled smugly to myself. No need for me to say a word. It was incredibly satisfying 😜

This. It's not okay to bully and it's so sad so many people have been and that their lives are still affected... but

My daughter is being bullied at the minute. It turns out he has been removed from his home because his mum has been abusing him. He's had to go and live with his dad who he barely knows.

Doesn't make it okay that he's bullying my daughter, but it does give me insight into his life and how difficult things must be for him.

Going against the grain YABU. What she did was appalling but feeling that you are in someway better than someone because you look slimmer, younger or have a better job is never justified.