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!

I’m uncomfortable with the content and the quiet sense of pride in @saltandvineger’s post. Actually, I’m really, really disgusted.

I don’t think I ever will contact anyone I feel I was unkind to. I wouldn’t want to bring up any potential bad memories for them.

I did bump into a guy from school a couple of years ago. He told me I had been an asshole. He was nice about it. Said he forgave me and we had a drink together. I didn’t feel any better afterwards, I was mortified but glad he got it off his chest.

If I did cross paths with anyone else that I had been unkind to, I wouldn’t dream of expressing my own shame or guilt but I would like to somehow convey that I am truly sorry.

I was bullied horribly at home by one of my sisters in particular and bullied at primary school. At primary school they took the puss out if my 2nd hand(4th hand ! I was 4th daughter) clothes - worn and dated. I didn’t bully but I sure learned to physically and verbally fight for myself when I was picked on.

Not a bully but used to get in trouble a lot for punching others. Usually bullies or kids that didn't know when to stop. Was excluded from mainstream school for a while due to that and my ADHD.

Not me but my son bullied a child once at primary school with 4 other boys.
They picked on a child who had a horrible home life. I got called into school with the other mums and I was absolutely mortified, one of the other mums told me she thought school had overreacted as "boys will be boys". I absolutely did not agree with her.
The headteacher had decided they would not be allowed to play out for a week and to apologise to the boy. Fine with me and I grounded him for 2 weeks. When I asked ds why he'd done it, he didn't know apparently he just joined in and hadn't done anything to stop it.
He got the message from me I wouldn't be tolerating that behaviour and he never did it again. The boy whose mum didn't give a shit told me he thought the punishment was a bit harsh and I told him it wasn't harsh enough.
I felt terrible for the boy as he didn't come back to school i think social services had been involved with him which made what they'd done even worse. My ds has told me he regrets it.

Couldn’t agree more. And to be fair, if a past bully contacted me I’d absolutely rip them to shreds!
They would see a different person to the low self esteem, lack of confidence and too weak to stand up for myself teenager I once was. I can sure as hell give as good as I get nowadays… with both barrels.
All the bully will do is make themselves look stupid and desperate by contacting someone who they used to bully. We seriously don’t give a shit about the bullies anymore. I couldn’t give a monkeys what they’re doing in life now, whether or not they’re married or whether or not they feel guilty. I honestly don’t care.

Well I was bullied all my life and I can guarantee you 100% if a past bully ever contacted me, they’d regret it! And they’d feel stupid!
I’m in my mid 40s now and was bullied the whole way through school by various bullies, both male and female, however the teenage years were far worse than anything I’d experienced at primary school. And still to this day, the emotional scars and awful memories are still raw. Bullying really does have a life long impact on the victim!
I mean, your argument might stand up if it was just a bit of childish name calling in the play ground but nothing too severe. But nobody and I mean nobody is going to forgive bullying on a more severe level such as being beaten up for no reason, randomly punched, large stones thrown at them, spat at, kicked, inciting the whole class to join in, constant laughing, whispering, ostracising, breaking your property and back stabbing, threatening to set your hair on fire, threatening to kill your pets and plotting to do bad things to you behind your back and making your life so miserable it’s unbearable.

Nothing pisses me off more than bullies who think they have the absolute god given right to contact me after what they did.
I’ve had quite a few boys who bullied me as a teenager try to ask me out years later and oh boy did I make them feel stupid!!

Is this why past bullies sometimes randomly walk up to you in the street and say “Hey how’s it going long time no see? Not seen you since school. What are you up to nowadays?”
and generally pretend they used to be Bessie mates with you at school and act like they’d done nothing wrong lol.
It always baffles me why they do that. But I never thought it might be because they wouldn’t want to drag past memories up again.

I saw my bully at a wedding once. She was nice as nine pence and apologised for her behaviour. And I accepted it meekly and thanked her for saying sorry. Because I was still a bit intimidated by her. And I’ve been annoyed at myself for it ever since tbh. I wish I’d told her that what she did still wasn’t ok really.

Yes probably. Cocky enough to think they can just smooth things over by asking how you are.
Some of them probably don’t even think they’ve done anything wrong. As I said, I was in a clique of 6 and I know that some of the girls see absolutely nothing wrong in what they/we did. They thought it was just a bit of a laugh.
I remember them brazenly inserting themselves into some of the other cliques/groups in school in our last couple of years when our toxic clique disbanded. One of them went out with one of the guys we were unkind to in school for a number of years. One is now a teacher, one is a nurse…. And I doubt they see it as any way hypocritical.
I have declined social media friend requests and declined invitation to a school reunion I felt didn’t have the right to go or reconnect with anyone.

No it isn’t. Saltandvinegar’s concern about her youthful bullying career ( which was extreme by any standards) is self-interested. It’s dawned on her that her own child might suffer at the hands of bullies.

That’s the only reason she’s having qualms - not through guilt about the pain she inflicted.

I sensed a distinct lack of guilt too. It almost emanated the ‘be intimidated by me’ vibes that she probably tried to give off at school.

She deserved what happened to her. Unlike her victims.

Ugh…not surprised at their career choices having had experience of very nasty members of both those professions.

I do wonder why so many bullies go into nursing or being a carer, teacher, TA or whatever as these are the complete opposite roles to the type of person they once were.

I mean, those who are TA’s or teachers, I wonder how they deal with bullies at the school they’re working at. I wonder if they look back and think “yeah I was an evil bitch like that”. I bet they have to have words with the bullies and tell them how wrong they are. I wonder if they squirm whilst doing so.

OP asked for first-hand experiences of bullies and bullying and there’ve been some heart-rending stories here. There has also been some generalised (and trite, in my opinion) pontificating about why children bully, and appeals for understanding for them.

I really hope that the people expressing these views will think hard about what’s been written here. I hope their eyes will be opened to the appalling nature of sustained bullying of youngsters and the deep anger that remains with the victim.

I wasn’t a bullying victim but my daughter was and her life has been irrevocably changed by it. I have to suppress my rage against the bullies every day (she’s 30 now) for torturing such a lovely, kind, gentle person.

So unless you, your child or very close relative have experienced severe bullying please don’t tell us to understand bullies or feel sorry for them. If your work involves dealing with this issue, please listen to the victims and have the humility to know that you will never understand what they’ve gone through. Please stop making excuses for bullies.

I was a teacher, so I’m not knocking all teachers! But oh gosh, I saw some bullying in the schools I worked in (not towards me, but it was rife).

Again, I have some lovely nurse friends so I’m not stupid enough to think all nurses are bullies, but when my mum was dying she spent many months in hospital and at one point my sister and I went to PALS in tears because the treatment she was receiving from some of the nurses could only be described as bullying. We’re not a family of natural complainers either! I’m afraid it was a smallis, non- teaching hospital and the staff weren’t of the highest standard. I’ve experienced many excellent hospitals and excellent nurses. Some of them did look scary.

Oh I’m so sorry this happened to your mum. That was very cruel. And yes I’ve also seen a lot of bullying being done to patients by nursing staff too.

Yes a lot of nurses and teachers are not bullies, however a lot of bullies do seem to go into teaching/ nursing/ caring etc. just generally jobs that you wouldn’t have been able to see them doing. It’s very surprising.

I fundamentally don’t believe that @saltandvinegerdidnt really realise that her victims were real people being impacted by her appalling behaviour, when she shares that one of them (for example) was physically shaking and struggling to stand through sheer terror during one of the bullying episodes.

It scares me that people like her go on to have children as I believe that they are wired in a way that is dangerous.

Some have praised her honesty and say she has changed but because she tried to claim that she didn’t really realise that her victims were real people being hurt, I don’t believe she has actually taken ownership of what she did. Same with the cocky ‘my child will never be bullied’ comment, as if she can prevent that happening.

People like her make children kill themselves. She’s lucky that she was warned off and wasn’t the cause of a child committing suicide. I hope her victims are safe and happy now.

It’s horrifying how people-led/caring professions attract bullies, or at least people who were nasty as kids.

A glance at the careers of people who bullied me (to the point where I basically became elective mute and am still very quiet and have low self esteem even now, in my mid 40s) - one’s a HR team leader and another is the head of a primary school in an extremely deprived area with children who face significant challenges in all aspects of their lives.

And there were a lot of really nasty, bullying people in the NHS organisation I worked for some time ago.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree then. After 25 years in mental health, I have met lots of people who have blind spots about how their behaviour affects other people. @saltandvineger gave one example of why this may happen - raised to be spoiled and self centred. There are others. Some people who bully as children are never going to grow out of it. Some will. It’s just not as simple as everyone doing it for exactly the same reason.

As for contact- in victim offender work nothing happens that is not initiated by the victim and I think that’s the best way. That’s why I am not a fan of the 12 step programs with the focus on amends. I think it’s probably well intentioned but in practice it is mostly done very selfishly.

As for contact/conversation/forgiveness- for some victims this is healing. If it’s not for you, fine. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in it.

Wtf

I thought the same tbh.

And there is still a residual pride in the way she discusses it.

One of the girls who made my life a living hell at school messaged me on FB. It was just like that, as though we'd been pals.

I wrote back giving her what for, and she came back with puzzlement, as if she'd no idea, and I think she genuinely didn't. It sort of helped me. She'd forgotten, it was so insignificant to her. Why was it so significant to me?

I let her live in my head for too long. Needless to say, I didn't accept her friend request.

I have a weird situation in that from the ages of 6 to16 I was constantly and relentlessly bullied in one form or another both physical - had a rock thrown at my head, I was picked up and dropped several times, people running away from me, barking, name calling, especially about my looks, stealing, hitting, spitting. Had it all and from several different groups. I felt like worthless trash, scum of the earth, unloved or loveable by anyone.

BUT I blew the gasket in year 8 and made some one-off nasty comments to some girls in my class and it wasn’t completely warranted. I don’t know what happened other than to say I started to fight back, but too hard? I internalised all of it, maybe like a pressure cooked. Couldn’t talk to my parents about it. I was just hurt and broken in hindsight and it was misguided.

Ha ha that’s hilarious!

I honestly doubt she had forgotten. She can remember you enough to contact you on facebook but not remember what she did to you? Oh she definitely remembers alright.

It’s a bit like a narcissist when they do or say something unkind and will then gaslight you by saying “I never said that… and if I did I can’t remember”. I can assure you she will remember.