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!

Yep. I've been a bully. I was really, really horrible too and I didn't even have some bullshit heartfelt excuse like mean parents or my rabbit had died. I was quite simply a horrible little bitch. You'll be pleased to hear I got my comeuppance though.

Why did I do it?
(Buckle in mumsnetters, this will sound awful, but it's the truth.)
It was never really about the person. I'm not saying that to be nice or make anyone feel better, it just genuinely wasn't. Some people just stood out as targets. They had weird glasses or a bad haircut or talked funny or smelt or anything little superficial thing insignificant thing that made them a target but a lot of the time, there wasn't even anything at all, you could just tell they weren't the type of person that was going to fight back. They were therefore below you in the pecking order and fair game.
We (yes, I was in a group of other nasty bitches) would just target people because it was a laugh and it bonded us all closer together, being bitches together, challenging each other to see who could push that bit further, trying to impress each other by being worse than each other, trying to fit in, to be the coolest, to assert dominance - not over the person we were bullying, that was already a given - but over each other. Who could be the meanest bitch and therefore the leader of the group? Who could make others laugh the most? who as the best? That person, who's life we could have easily ruined, was just a tool to us, just a form of entertainment.
I was the worst, I'm afraid, so was what you would probably call "the ringleader".

One girl's parents complained to the school, we all had to have a meeting in the deputy head's office with our mums there, where the DP lectured us about bullying and kindness etc. The girl's mum was going absolutely mental in the DP's office shouting and saying that this better get sorted out and she better not hear of me touching her daughter again or she would take matters into her own hands. My mum just sat there and didn't say anything and then shouted at me a bit when we got home and I wasn't allowed out that night I think, or some other low level punishment.

This whole episode was, to us, quite frankly hilarious. We fucking pissed ourselves laughing over this girl's mum freaking out and did lots of impressions of it in front of everyone. Most people laughed along with us and after that we behaved much worse towards the girl. She became our primary target and one night me and another girl followed her home. We didn't hit her but we did corner her and get right in her face and threaten her and tell her if she ever told any one ever again we'd beat the shit out of her. I remember her legs were shaking and the next day I told everyone about how I could see her legs shaking, and everyone laughed right in front of her.

Feeling like I'm the biggest bitch on the planet right now? well, you'll enjoy this next bit.

Turns out this girl has family or close family friends who were travellers I think, and notorious in the town and they were a fucking hard bunch of bastards. Like really, do not mess with us, been to prison several times, fight each other just for fun type. The girl's mum went and told them and asked for help and one night just before Christmas I was walking home late when two much older boys, probably about 17 or 18 (I was in year 9, so about 13 or 14) just came up behind me and grabbed by arms and held them behind my back. They started shouting all this stuff about how they were going to rape me and kill me and I was absolutely terrified, I was screaming my head off, I had no idea they were there for the girl, I thought I was just being attacked. They then shoved me face down into the mud of the track we were on, I can still taste the dirt in the mouth, and one of them got right up close to my ear and said "now you know how Sally* feels, you fucking little cunt, if you ever touch her again we will cut your throat, yours and your useless sket of a mother's" I remember the words clearly, because I'd never heard the word "sket" before. Then they emptied my school bag over me, took my school shoes, and ran off. I found the shoes on the way home, hanging on a bush by the laces.

I didn't tell anyone what happened but I went home that night and I sat on my bed and I cried and cried and cried.

I'd been bullying anyone I thought I could since year 6, I'd always got away with it, it was nothing but fun to me. And for some reason, I'd had simply never thought about the fact that my actions really hurt people, that these people had real feelings, not even when I saw the girls legs shaking. I literally saw them shaking and thought "omg I can't wait to tell people about that"

But it took me being terrified for my life by someone else for something to just click in my brain, like someone had flicked a switch. What I was doing was evil. Actually really fucking evil and I actually couldn't believe I hadn't given that fact a single thought before.
I can remember the actual moment like "omg, my actions have an effect on real people, and they are real people, not my toys, they have family and lives and people that care about them, not just crazy shouting mums" horrible, right? but I guess up until that moment, my empathy just wasn't there. It just hadn't developed in me, until someone came along and pretty much kicked it into me. You say violence isn't the answer? it fucking was for me.

I know it's going to sound unbelievable, like some sort of teenage drama perfect ending but I can honestly say I never bullied another person again. I faked a cold for a few days and didn't go back until after the Christmas Holidays. I didn't enjoy Christmas that year, and it wasn't just because I had been attacked, which was traumatic in itself, it was the horrible realisation, that should have been obvious to anyone else, that I was just an unbelievably shit person.

I went back and distanced myself from the other girls and the group fell apart. I made new friends and I don't think I ever spoke to the girl again. I was too ashamed and embarrassed. She never acted smug, as she had every right to, she just quietly ignored me and got on with her life.

Am I ashamed? Yes. Of course. But I have moved past it now and realised that yes, I was fucking horrendous, but I grew, I developed, and I'm not that person any more. It's a short chapter in my life I have firmly closed. I don't live in the area any more although my mum still does and I visit her occasionally, so I never bump into anyone and I haven't kept in touch with any old school friends. In fact, I never really made any proper close friends again.

I'm pregnant now with my first child, and nope, she won't be a bully and no, I won't let her be bullied.

So there you have it - the honest, ugly truth.

Fucking hell. Speechless.

I can't decide if you deserved what you got or not.

And I didn't think I'd ever have to think about whether or not a 13-14yo deserves to be physically attacked and threatened.

@saltandvineger

I find it really hard to understand people who claim they didn’t understand the effect their bullying had on their victims. You say you didn’t understand until you experienced it yourself. I’m struggling to stay polite here!

How do you know your child won’t be a bully, or be bullied? How will you feel if she is bullied and what will you do? How will you know if she’s a bully, and what will you do?

Don’t worry - I don’t need answers to these questions - I just wanted to put them to you because you seem certain about things which aren’t in your control.

Your post is chilling.

To be fair saltandvinegar you were vile and in your case this is a perfect example of karma that it took for you to be attacked yourself for you to realise exactly what you were doing. I would think the girl you bullied was delighted that you experienced the same fear she did. I know I would have.

Kudos to you though for sharing your story.

One of our teachers used to say every bully hides a sadness within.

Grrrr…not more of this stuff, please. Did that teacher speak from painful personal experience or had they just been on a course?

Read the long post above and see what you think.

What, do you mean the one by @saltandvineger?

This is awful. Physical and mental torture. Unforgivable.

Yes. It’s really disturbing.

I don't agree with this at all. In a situation where a person is being relentlessly picked on, taunted, hurt, isolated, having their possessions trashed, living in fear of being ambushed - one or any of those things, they are a victim, and the perpetrator is a bully. They have to own up to this and recognise what they are. Then of course they can change.

Saying that using bully as a noun prevents change is like saying calling a waiter a waiter means they can never have another profession. They can if they make an effort to find another job. A bully can stop being a bully if they make an effort to become a compassionate person. Takes effort, just like changing jobs takes effort. But they have to understand that is what they are or were and that their actions led to them being perceived this way by the person on the receiving end of their shitty behaviour.

I think it's exactly as my teacher said.

A sadness within doesn't mean Granny died.

It means you feel so inadequate in yourself that you actually get a buzz out seeing the impact you can have on others by being cruel. I'd call that sad. That's how she made herself feel important, or vital. It's dripping from her post that she didn't really have a healthy self-respect.

I'm sorry, but while I know this is the case for lots of bullies, it just isn't true that bullies are all victims themselves or hide some sadness.

I wasn't sad. I was just a horrible little cunt. My mum was loving and affectionate. She was a single mother who worked her arse off in a good job to provide for me. We had a lovely house, and I was a spoilt brat too, she gave me whatever I wanted. I had the latest stuff, the most fashionable bag and shoes, I never had an embarrassing haircut or anything anyone could pick on me about.

Because she was out of the house a lot, working, I had a LOT of freedom to do what I wanted, I had friends over all the time, I had boys over, I had a happy, carefree life.

She was soft though, and mostly because she was exhausted from work, she was absolutely crap at discipline and saying no. I got away with murder all the time. As a result, I was the most self-centred, jumped up little princess imaginable.

That's the gist of it. No trauma, just no real guidance or life lessons in how to be a decent person.

OP asked if anyone had ever been a bully. I think it’s useful (if disturbing) and educative to hear from perpetrators and from victims here.

I don’t think platitudes from people who have never bullied or been on the receiving end are useful. It’s like me telling soldiers with PTSD that war isn’t really so bad.

You think you were a horrible little !"£% because you had no self-respect.

I'm not saying you were nice: you clearly weren't. But you weren't happy.

That's what I was thinking. I kind of assumed that no one would consider themselves to have bullied anyone. I guess maybe it's different when you're an adult and have reflected on your children behaviour rather than carried it on.

And you don't need trauma to be sad. You can be sad because you don't like what you are. And in your case I suspect that was, underneath, that you felt you let down your mother.

Anyway, at least you've realised.

With respect I think Saltandvinegar knows more about her childhood than you do

Actually sometimes we can't see the wood for the trees where our own behaviour is concerned.

I don't think anyone who is genuinely happy behaves like that.

100% this.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck etc…

I think these ideas are only put forward by people with no real experience of what OP has asked. There is simply no way on this planet that anyone who’d suffered some of the things described here would say ‘the bully-as-a-noun label is extremely dangerous’.

Jeez.

What changed you? You sound very aware now.

@saltandvineger

I hope your experience and reflection will enable you to raise your daughter to be a kinder person than you were and if so, something good will have come out of a very sad story.

Sorry - ignore my previous question - I hadn't realised you were the same poster as the long post about getting paid back for bullying.

@saltandvineger 's first post reinforces my belief that the only way to tackle bullies is by scaring the living daylights out of them or fighting back hard, as soon as you can. It's very unfashionable to say so but I think there is a world of difference between being the unprovoked attacker and being the provoked retaliator. One is morally wrong and the other is morally justifiable.

Agree. I wish someone would have beat the crap out of me or frightened in some way before I started secondary school.

My home/family life was awful at the time in which I feel I was a bully. I didn’t have the capacity to care about the impact of my actions but a good hiding from someone would have shocked me into gear and opened my eyes I think.

I think it probably was the only way for salt and vinegar. As she seems very self aware now, I'm sure she won't mind me saying this.

I mean, a telling off and a lecture from the deputy head just made her laugh. The girl's mother shouting at her just made her laugh, seeing how terrified she made the girl simply gave her ammo. The only thing that stopped her in the end was two older boys ambushing her, holding her arms, threatening to rape and kill her, throwing her to the floor, then saying they would murder both her and someone she loved. I mean, maybe it was extreme, a simple punch to the face may have done the same job, but she even says violence was the answer for her.

However, I don't think this is the case for all bullies, some of the other self-confessed bullies on here have said that they felt ashamed after a telling off or after seeing how upset they made the person. So I wouldn't jump straight to violence as the one size fits all answer.