To tell my high school bully to jog on?!

[whattheheckkk]

Name changed for this one. Really random.

In high school (over 15 years ago) I was subjected to the most atrocious bullying by the same girl. I was pretty well liked overall, never really had a problem with anyone. I wasn't popular, had a little quiet friendship group.
Except this one girl. I did nothing to her, but when we were about 12 she decided she hated me, and she made my life hell. She was racist towards me, she called me fat, she poured a can of Coke into my school bag during PE. She put chewing gum in my hair. She spat on my lunch whilst I was eating it. She stole my blazer and trashed it. Told me to kill myself. She even flicked boiling hot metal from a soldering onto my hands during electronics class. Much more but you get the jist. She had a little possy of friends who all laughed.

My friends always told me to ignore her, but we were all kind of too quiet to say anything to her- she was scary tbh. I never let on to anyone, but she gave me the worst anxiety. I would rush to the toilet to vomit if she looked at me a certain way in the hallways. I'd cry myself to sleep about it. She never had a reason to hate me. I never told my parents or teachers. I don't know why, I don't really have an answer to that.

Anyway. Fast forward. She messaged me 3 days ago. Saying something along the lines of:

Hi. I know this is a really strange thing to do and I know you probably never wanted to hear from me again. But then went on to explain that she'd had a child a number of years ago and physically cannot get past the way she treated me. How she looks at her child and feels sick because of how scared and upset I must have been of her etc.. and she's terrified of someone treating her child the same way.

She then proceeded to tell me she had been in a really bad depressive pit and has sought professional therapy, where the topic of me came up. Her therapist told her reaching out to me may be a way to close a door. Which I get, kind of- but holy fucking shit- she literally nearly killed me as a teen.

There was a lot more to the message, she gave reasons for the way she treated me( bad home life apparently, which I do sympathise with) but then went on to say that of course it was no excuse. She couldn't make me forgive her and I didn't have to but it would 'help her close a chapter' 🙃 if I did. I haven't replied. To be honest I've been spiralling a bit since the message. I don't know why, I'm a grown woman, married, my own house and career, my own children.

I did speak to my sister (who knew of the abuse as I'd told her years later). She basically told me not to reply and that she could bugger off. Part of me feels sorry for her, but I'm a huge empath. Anyway. This is a massive muddle of a message. What would you do?

I’d have two words for her, and the second one would be ‘off’

I kid you not...Someone on the reunion WhatsApp has just left a message to the group about her terrible time at school and how she's had a "lovely message" from the bully.

Good grief. She's making the rounds.

You are not responsible for making her feel better or giving her closure. If she wants to forgive herself that’s up to her. If it were me I don’t think I could forgive her, but I would want to reply and could honestly say that I was glad she now realised the awfulness of what she’d done and was sorry for it, and I hoped her child would never suffer the way she made me suffer.

I would also want to say, for my own self-respect, that thankfully I had now recovered from the awful experience, had a happy life now and would prefer not to hear from her again.

I don’t see that you owe her any more than that. TBH I’m a bit sceptical that someone who did such vile things over an extended period of time could have changed completely.

By the way, just a thought, isn’t this something that Alcoholics Anonymous gets its members to do, reach out to people they’ve hurt, or have imagined that?

ETA I haven’t imagined it. It’s an AA thing. Could she be on the Programme?

Funnily enough I received a friend request today from a si called friend who pretty much blanked me 30 years ago and treated me very poorly. When my Dad suddenly died (I was in my late teens) she told me to shut up talking about him because it was really boring!! I hadn't talked about him much actually, but it was an extremely difficult time for me, not least because at his funeral we discovered that he'd been living another life, inc had another home with someone not much older than me. My mother was drinking heavily, we lost the house and everything was up in the air. She repeatedly treated me like shit at a time when i was feeling so low. Basically she was extremely insecure and dating a guy and was petrified of him bumping into us and preferring me for some reason (despite me having not met him, him not sounding at all like my type and me having a lovely boyfriend. She said that i looked tarty, that my trousers were too tight, that i looked fat (I definitely wasn't), that i was an embarrassment. I was so low that i just took her unpleasantness.
There was a great part of a stand up show by Sarah Millican where she very swifty and succinctly dealt with a bulky who subsequently got in touch with her. I gained some satisfaction today from simply deleting her request. I honestly have so little interest in wasting another moment on her. I would do the same. Either don't reply or say something along the lines of 'There is little that you can say or do to change what you did to me. However, perhaps you could instead focus on volunteering at an anti bullying charity and channel your experience into something more positive".

I wouldn’t reply, she’s looking for you to make her feel better over a campaign on bullying against you. Some of the thing you listed are really vile, I’m so sorry you went through this and mostly alone too. Be proud of where you are and let her deal with her own feelings on her own behaviour while you deal with her stirring all this up for you because she wants to “close a chapter”

Like others have said on the thread IF a qualified therapist gave her that advice that if pretty terrible. OP you were a victim to this girl for years and she tortured you. I don’t get how any therapist would think that a bully getting in touch with the victim years later wouldn’t be incredibly triggering - how do they know if you’ve got over it or not and aren’t still impacted by it? Your bully does not have the right to emotionally offload on you OP or be forgiven and let off the hook.
i would block and delete the bully on Facebook - she doesn’t deserve another second of your time.

You owe this person nothing, she didn’t care about how she was maybe making you feel at the time, so I wouldn’t feel obliged to reply and settle her conscience if it was me personally. I’d block, delete and move on, please don’t let it eat away at you. Also don’t know if I buy the whole therapist thing, I think a therapist advising their client to be contacting their bully victim years later would not be sound advice to be giving, I can’t see a reputable therapist doing this sort of thing 🥴 I feel it’s perhaps a manipulation tactic to play on your mind and appeal to your good nature x

When I was about 21 (very long time ago lol) I worked with a large group of women of all ages, slightly unconventional non-office job. It was great. I was good friends with a lady (I'll call Wendy) in her mid fifties. One day, three trainees were introduced and Wendy was horrified to see one (Lynn) was the girl who'd made her daughter's first three years at upper school a nightmare with her vicious bullying. We all tried to reassure Wendy that Lynn would have grown up, changed, we all do daft things etc etc. Wendy was adamant that she was right and Lynn was just nasty.

A few months on when Lynn was trained and confident in the work situation, we started to realise she was sneakily tormenting a lady (Gill) in her thirties who suffered badly with adult acne. She'd previously coped at work as we were all friends and never commented, uninvited, about her skin. Although we tried to protect her, and spoke to management, it went on for weeks until Gill left unexpectedly, no notice given. A colleague managed to get her on the phone and she admitted she was going home in floods of tears every night and couldn't take any more. It gave Wendy no pleasure to be proven right.

Yeah I'm not believing that the therapist told her to do this either.

If it was me, I would message back something along the following lines "Thank you for reaching out with your apology. I appreciate you acknowledging what happened and the way you treated me without justification. I want you to know that while I’m working on forgiveness, I can’t forget the impact it had on me. It shaped parts of my life in ways I’m still unpacking. I’m not saying this to punish you, but to be honest about the weight of those experiences. I hope you’ll take that to heart, not with guilt, but with understanding. That’s the most meaningful part of healing—for both of us."

This is the best response in my opinion. You tell her to fuck off without telling her to fuck off.

It should, in theory, make her feel worse.

I would probably not reply but I would also kinda want to.
if I did reply I would explain that being bullied ruined your teenage years and that she’s only reaching out now due to wanting to make herself feel better. Then would end it to say that you hope her children don’t experience the same level of bullying you did. I wouldn’t accept her apology and I would also make that clear. You’ve moved on with your life but you don’t accept the apology as there was no excuse for her behaviour towards you, no matter what she went through.

have only read OPs posts but.

You probably should ignore, delete and block. You don't have to help her out here, she can stew on it.

If you do answer, it could be something like: Why did you think bringing all that up now, just to make yourself feel better is in any way a good thing to do?

then delete all and block.

Perhaps I should add that I agree with many other posts, you owe her nothing, her apology is false and self-serving and it's highly unlikely that a therapist would advise her to contact you. I might be tempted to reply that you'll never forgive her, and hope her children suffer at the hands of a vicious bully. And then block her from all platforms.

That last line is such a good point.

It's always "they had a tough home life" as an excuse for the bullies.

I was bullied horrendously in school because I had a bad home life. I was dirt poor, clearly scruffy and dirty from severe neglect, quiet, meek, shy, scared (I'm not now!) a bit strange maybe from a lack of social interaction, and at one point after a hugely traumatic upheaval which saw me move 500 miles away, a completely different accent to everyone else which left me barely able to speak out of embrassment and fear of rejection.

Did the bullies give a fuck that I had an absolutely terrible home life? That school could have been my escape from that terrible life? No, they just made my life at school unbearable too, so that I literally had nowhere I could go without someone tormenting me, no release, no let up.

Fuck them. Why should we give a fuck about their difficult home life? At least they had some relief from theirs and had me to use as a bit of fun for them. Thanks to them, I never had that.

Fuck them all the way off.

My horrible ex rang me out of the blue once to apologise for how he had treated me and wanting my forgiveness. I was caught off guard and went into a right old rant about how I wasn't going to accept his apology to make him feel better, told him to own what he'd done and hung up. I still feel better for my response decades later, he deserved both barrels.

I misread. The other girl has stated that she has sent the bully "a lovely personal message". Hmmm. That might be why the bully has stopped posting.

To be honest, I would appreciate the apology. I think it shows humility.

I personally would probably reply. I'd just say "thankyou for the acknowledgement of your behaviour towards me. Although, I don't wish to hear anything more from you. We'll park it there "

That way you're acknowledging her gesture. You're not offering her up any information of power , i.e how it affected you or who you are now. And you're taking control by asserting you will not be starting a conversation with her. You're literally just acknowledging her apology.

I mean, kudos to her. But these people don't realise the devastating affect bullying has on their victim.

That’s not a bad idea, though I’d omit the ‘very interesting part’.
Im not sure ignoring or a harsh reply would suit the OPs character and might make her feel worse. Something like this which is positive without offering forgiveness and places an obligation on the bully to make some sort of amends may bring the OP more peace than the alternatives.

I was thinking I’d reply that I hoped she was teaching her daughter to be a better person that she’d been.

and then block, obviously.

I would say, “There is nothing you can say to me to ever make up for your vile behaviour. Do not contact me again.”

Rise above it? Naah. You’re not a frickin helium balloon.

Silence speaks volumes.
Instead of agonising over what to do or say (all in the aid of her feelings). Let her figure out her own thoughts and feelings for herself. I mean, isn’t that the point of therapy? She needs/wants to feel better about herself but that’s not your job. She’s taken enough from you.
Block then move on with your life ❤️

Hmm, what would I do?
I'd tell her to fuck right off. How fucking dare she crawl out of the woodwork, asking YOU to atone her guilt.
YOU? The person she directed racist abuse toward? The person she burned? The person she almost killed whilst you were a teen?
....now you're supposed to tell her its all alright, and you can forgive- and that certainly her child wouldn't suffer the same fate?

Nah the feelings she's plagued by are truly deserved...she's reaping what she's sewn!

It is an AA practice. A dreadful one .

It's a selfish self indulgent thing to do that only retraumatises the victim and does nothing but dump their guilt off.

It's not the AA members fault. It's the programme. Bloody load of indoctrinated religious witchcraft. Should be looked into and investigated that cult.

And I'm guessing that "lovely personal message" wasn't lovely at all, eh? 😉

I think silence is usually a very powerful response.

But she deserves, I hope you burn in hell.