Have you ever been a bully? Why?

[Sophiehoney]

This thread, if there's any interest, might get dark so this is just a trigger warning.

The recent thread about someone being contacted by her school bully was really long and I noticed a few people sympathising with the bully and at least one person admitting that they were bullies.

I suspect there probably were a few more people that bullied people but didn't admit it.

Name change if you must but I am just genuinely interested - if you were a bully, why did you do it?

Or if you're not a bully, feel free to give your reasons why you think they do it!

Never a bully but was low levelled bullied towards the end of primary school, over the fact I had started wearing a bra. So, I think jealousy as at that age many of the girls were keen to be grown up.

In secondary school there was an extremely pretty, sporty and generally nice girl a year above. Another girl in her year kept attacking her. I watched one day, the corridor was heaving. The pretty girl was a few steps ahead of the girl who attacked her. The look on the bully’s face as she looked at the pretty girl in front of her. Her face curled up with jealousy. She reached out and grabbed the girl by the back of her shirt. The bully wasn’t objectively pretty in the least. She was absolutely dripping with jealousy.

I believe I was, yes. And I am deeply ashamed.
I was in a clique of 6 girls for the first 3 years of secondary school. We mostly picked on the lads in our year but were mean to girls too.
We used to make fun of people and in general I think we were quite intimidating. More of a ‘mean girls’ vibe and typical weak little bitches who were nice to people 1:1 but when the group were together, we would egg each other on and make fun of people. There was some pushing and shoving in corridors but for the most part we were disruptive in class and enjoyed making fun of people. I know of 1 girl who would likely say that I isolated her also.
I had a guy I went to school with approached me a few years ago and basically said that I was an absolute ass hole. He said he forgave me, kind of laughed it off and we had a drink together. I was mortified.
It all fills me with such shame and regret. I haven’t seen the rest of the group in years. I wish the school had separated us.
Home life for me was shite during those years. I was acting out, looking for attention.
I would love to go back and do things differently.

I think I was a bit for a short period when I was about 13. It's horrible to admit and I sometimes think about it with deep shame. It was pretty low level but all the same it was not nice. I had a difficult home life at the time, although that's not an excuse.

I admit I have been part of low level bullying. A girl in our friendship group in the last 2 years of secondary school was very manly & not academic and a group of around 5 of us would take the piss out of her. Not every day, but periodi. It was meant in good humour but I can see that she might not have appreciated being the butt of our jokes. The worst thing we did was, we used to play cards at lunchtime & if you lost the game you had to be rapped on the knuckles with the cards. One particular time she lost & we showed no mercy on her. She left the room & looked like she was going to cry. The strange thing is, we actually liked her & we were happy to have her in our group. I think we were a bunch of bitches who must have got a kick out of making her feel small. I, and a couple of others I'm in touch with, feel really bad about our behaviour. I'd be livid if my dds were ever treated like this. I've witnessed lots of adult bullying & I make an effort to include everyone at work if they might be feeling a bit secluded

I'm not sure I was really a bully and I never physically attacked anyone or played pranks etc but I was very mean ages 11-16 sometimes. I was being bullied quite badly myself from the ages of 9/10, got beaten up by some girls around 10, and I needed to defend myself, against my own bullies and other potential ones.

I basically saw everyone as a potential bully, not a friend.

I had tried to ask for help from parents and teachers and everyone told me to toughen up. So I did.

Looking back I missed out on friendships with some nice kids and I generally don't have nice memories of school at all, which I find quite shameful.

I and a couple of friends briefly bullied a slightly younger new girl in primary school. I don’t actually know or remember why I did it, I think it made us feel big/superior, and if I had to guess I would say there was maybe some suppressed envy in there also as she was pretty, had nice clothes, had travelled a lot more than we had. But I had a perfectly nice life and lovely parents so there’s no excuse there, not that there’s ever an excuse anyway. I’d been picked on myself by older kids earlier in primary school, so maybe there was a subconscious thing of wanting to be in the reverse position.

It didn’t last long. She was confident and unimpressed, told her mum who went to the headteacher and the headteacher called us three in and absolutely ripped us to shreds. I was very ashamed and embarrassed (rightly so). We all went and apologised to her and became good friends with her afterwards.

I however went on to have an absolutely vile time at secondary school and was bullied for years in a way that has affected me for life really. No-one from school has ever contacted me to apologise but if they did I would tell them to fuck off. As posters said on the thread you’re mentioning, whatever is going on in your life, bullying someone is always a choice, and you always could have chosen differently. Lots of people go through hard things in life without becoming bullies.

I wouldn’t say I was a consistent bully, but there was a time when I was 13/14 when I could be a bit mean. As can many girls, and I was certainly on the receiving end, too. I think we need to acknowledge that bullies aren’t a different species of person, rather bullying is a behaviour. A very poor behaviour, certainly one to be ashamed of, but not one you need to be defined by.

The two people I was sometimes unkind to were my little sister, and one of my friends.

In the case of my sister, it was because I felt unpopular and powerless in school and didn’t like myself much. Being sisters, we were quite alike, so she reminded me of a lot of things I didn't like about myself, and my way of distancing myself from that was by criticising her.

With my friend, it was just that I was desperate to fit in, and she was the weak link, so if she was the one being left out, it meant that I was ‘in’. Dog eat dog.

I have a great relationship with both of them now, I am well and truly forgiven, but my conscience still prickles sometimes when I remember.

I’ve been mean when I felt threatened or feel someone is trying to bully me. So I’ve been mean back but I’ve never gone out of my way to target someone and especially for a prolonged period of time. This is what bullies do and there’s no excuse. I think they have anti social tendencies to say the least.

Never a bully, and only very mildly picked on a secondary school for talking posh (apparently 🙄) and having a slight stutter. That was only by 2 girls, though. I had a great group of friends and was moderately popular but never cool (thank God).

But my lovely daughter who is the kindest, gentlest, sweetest person you could meet was bullied relentlessly throughout her school life. She has had continuing MH problems as a result and at age 30 I still worry about her self-esteem. She ha been diagnosed with ASD and takes antidepressants. It absolutely breaks my heart.

I loathe bullies with all my heart. I cannot fathom why or how people could get pleasure out of inflicting pain and watching someone suffer and be mentally crushed every single day. They are vile, whatever their excuse.

if someone I had met and liked told me they had once been a bully I would not continue a friendship with them. I’d never trust them.

The problem is that using the word Bully as a noun does nothing to understand the complexity of the behaviour. It divides the world into offenders and victims, when in reality the truth is much more nuanced. Many people perform actions which would be perceived as bullying, often when they're experiencing actions perceived as bullying. It's normal for aggression to be expressed in a power hierarchy, so those with some power perform bullying actions to those with less (perceived) power than them and so on, down the hierarchy.

The Bully-as-a-noun label is extremely dangerous, as it doesn't give people space to improve their behaviour or recognise their needs in the hierarchy.

It divides the world into offenders and victims, when in reality the truth is much more nuanced.

It doesn’t feel particularly nuanced when you’re the one being bullied.

I was when I was 13 or so. My mother moved in her partner with his (older than me) son in our small place (1 bed apartment). No one cared about my complains- I had to give up my space and share with a boy; I had only known the partner (and disliked) for a short time; it felt it all happened overnight.
so I started bullying the boy with the hope they’ll move out. Not proud of it at all and in hindsight the adults didn’t care or handled the situation well at all.

But have you ever been a bully?

Have you ever been bullied?

I don’t like theorising which tries to suggest that we can all be bullies. No we can’t. Some people are cruel and are either indifferent to or actively enjoy the suffering of others.

I’m interested to read on here past bullies explaining why they did what they did.

I think personal experiences are interesting and revealing. I don’t find abstract theorising of any use whatsoever.

This 100% and with knobs on.

Which is why adults should step in appropriately. And in my experience, they didn't. It's easier to label kids as bullies, mean, and also shy or weak, than to step in and resolve what is happening. And those labels really stay with you.

My son is not school age yet but I pray teachers and parents are a bit wiser about these things today than they were 25 years ago.

I wasn’t someone’s bully but I remember an incident on the school bus where I bullied a child a year younger than myself when I was 7. This girl had made it known and was very open about having a crush on the same boy I was crushing on. I sang “roses are red, violets are blue….” on the bus and the song incorporated the boy’s name. The girl cried. I was jealous looking back. I know it came from a mean place.

Still feel terrible! I remember apologising when she became visibly upset but I know a part of it was just the fear of getting into trouble. Which I did! They hauled my arse out in front of everyone.

I class it as bullying as this girl had a famous stepfather father and the mum said her children were always bullied at school. I felt awful reading that article in Grazia as a young woman years later.

I’m 99% nice, honest!

No. But, if you work in education you see it all the time. The child who is physically and emotionally abused at home, for example, comes to school hungry, angry, hurting, and without the communication or emotional skills to deal with their situation. They act out what they know.
Humans are animals, at the end of the day, and our instinct is survival of the fittest.
Teenage brains are still developing and they develop differently to each other and at different rates. Empathy is an alien concept to those who have never encountered it.
Not excusing bullying, and this isn’t true for all instances of bullying, just giving an example of what PP was saying.

Your perspective is interesting, I personally disagree, but it’s a matter for debate. Did you listen to the 2024 Reith lectures by Gwen Adshead on BBC Radio 4? She’s a forensic psychologist and discusses whether there is such a thing as an ‘evil’ person, or if we are all capable of evil. The last episode includes audience questions from prisoners, including murderers. It’s on BBC Sounds and I think you would find it interesting. Highly recommend it to all on this thread actually!

I completely agree.

I'm interested in people explaining what thry did and why. Each individual case will be different.

This poster's theory about heiracrchy is far too general

The problem with this is that some of those kids with a difficult home life are coming to school hungry, scared, hurting, maybe dirty and smelly, and the other kids pick up on their perceived weakness and they become the victims.
So while you've got kids bullying because of their crap home life, you've also got some kids being bullied because of their crap home life.
At least the bullies are getting some relief from being treated like crap.

I honestly think they only way to prevent bullying is constant vigilence from adults involved in kids' lives. Which is never going to happen :(

No I was never a bully have many faults but cruelty is not one. Also I was “posh” and studious in a rural comp so mastered keeping my head down.

I witnessed the horrific bullying of a small lad in our year 7 class. One of the other boys stood up and said “this is wrong I’m reporting it” and he did to the head of year. Sweetest loveliest boy ever. His parents should have been so proud of him.

And some children who are pretty, clever, popular, talented and have lovely parents and homes are also bullies. It amuses them and impresses some of their peers.

I was a teacher and I’ve been a parent of a bullied child and I absolutely do not buy this trite theorising that bullies are unfortunate children who are victims themselves.

The ones I saw were most definitely not.

CoffeeCantata that's so sad about your daughter. It's often the sweetest, kindest people who are bullied. I've seen plenty of bullies in adulthood. One woman in my team at work bullied a friend of mine at work & she was the loveliest person you could wish to meet. She also wasn't a pushover either so I'm not sure why she chose to bully her. Jealous of her popularity maybe? My manager also bullied her PA. It happens so much between adults

Absolutely. It's even been said on this thread by someone who admits to bullying. She had nice parents and a good home life.

Some do just do it because they enjoy it or want to fit in and assert their dominance.

Wonderful!

If only we could inculcate this kind of attitude into teenagers - the idea that it’s cool and admirable to be courageous and stand up to bullies. I’m sure films etc aimed at teenagers already do this, yet so many still act out the mean-girl behaviour.