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!

It's absolutely unbelievable that adults do things like this.

I remember watching something on TV about dwarfism, I can't remember exactly what it was called. One lady was describing how two adults were walking along in her direction and one dared the other to "go and kick that midget in the head" and he did it. I was horrified.

Another said how a young girl had been shouting horrible names at her, I think she might have got pyjisical too, I can't remember. The mum was told and her reply was something like "yeh, but you're a freak, so she can do what she likes to you" my jaw hit the floor that an adult would say this.

Even Simon Harris, the "man behaving dadly" guy on Facebook had a teenager send him a disgusting abusive message. He forwarded it to the mum, who simply agreed with her son.

Adults are often, very often, the real problem.

This behaviour is not only shocking it’s vile

Not a bully but I did have to toughen up. I went from a primary where I hung around with boys to an all-girls grammar and I got the shock of my life. Girls were bitchy, and is never encountered this before. I realised I was going to have to toughen up and be a bit bitchy myself to get by. I never targeted anyone, but me and my friends would have a giggle at someone’s expense behind their back. Never allowed them to see or hear though (too cowardly!) and we wouldn’t have said anything to their faces.

I left that school a much tougher person than I started, but I probably needed to be as I was very innocent before that and would have been eaten alive in life.

If I had bullied someone and my mum had found out, my life wouldn’t have been worth living!

That last line is so important. Adults need to make sure their kids know how wrong it is.

I am not a strict parent at all really, but my kids both know full well that if I hear of them bullying anyone, even low level shit, even just being a bystander, they will wish they had never been born. I absolutely will not tolerate it.
Even little comments are nipped in the bud here. DS once commented with a little laugh that a bloke in a theme park looked like Hitler and was firmly told never ever to make negative comments about someone's appearance ever again.

Well done to your mum

You’re assuming that people are incapable of growth or change though, and that is so far from the truth! Especially when we’re talking about teenagers.

If somebody bullies other aged 45, I’m more inclined to agree with you. The chances of a leopard changing their spots at that age are slim. But at 13,14,15… they’re not even close to fully mature! I’m sure you don’t still think or behave the way you did when you were that age, in fact if you do I’d be worried!
How young are you willing to go, for the bullying label to stick? Are eight year olds bullies for life? What about six year olds?We have to give children some grace and space to grow.

Agree with this.

That last line is so important. Adults need to make sure their kids know how wrong it is.

I am not a strict parent at all really, but my kids both know full well that if I hear of them bullying anyone, even low level shit, even just being a bystander, they will wish they had never been born. I absolutely will not tolerate it.
Even little comments are nipped in the bud here. DS once commented with a little laugh that a bloke in a theme park looked like Hitler and was firmly told never ever to make negative comments about someone's appearance ever again.

Well done to your mum!

Yep. If there’s any redemption to come from being a bully, it’s not through having your victim forgive you and reassure you that all was fine really (because it fucking never is). It’s by educating the next generation and making sure they never, ever repeat your awful behaviour. That your children become the friends that those on the receiving end of bullying wish they had had.

Whilst I don’t condone what they did! The way you treated that poor girl is beyond words! You were vile, cruel, nasty, evil and some children have even ended their lives due to bullying. And you did this all for entertainment.

I do love a good ‘bully got their karma’ story.
Its a difficult one because whilst what they did was also very wrong, the girl’s mum had done the whole trying to sort it out the ‘proper way’ and you went home and laughed about it. I imagine that poor girl and her mum were at the end of their tether and only went down this route as a last resort.

Im glad you finally learned from your mistakes, however, I’m not so sure you would have done had that not happened to you. It was a typical case of picking on the wrong person.

I suffered very similar bullying to the way you described how you bullied this girl. The mental implications and scars still live with me to this day almost 30 years on! And I had no hard tough friends or relatives to sort the bullies out so the bullying just continued and continued until I finally left school and was free of them.

As a parent now myself, I’m so lucky that my own children have so far not experienced any bullying. However, I would go mental if anyone ever did bully them. I hope they never have the misfortune of experiencing people like you.

Kind of ironic isn’t it, Tiger, that your posts on this thread are not the kindest. You don’t know these posters do you? They haven’t hurt you have they? Yet you clearly get some sort of satisfaction from calling them nasty and wrong in the head. You want to shame them, to hurt them. Maybe you feel justified? Maybe you’re angry? Maybe it’s because you were hurt once? Because you feel they deserve it and this is your way of getting your own back? Of dishing out rough justice? Kind of sounds familiar…

Day nurseries are the same

I've worked in a few and the bullying was awful

It would be decided on my first day that my face didn't fit (a theme that's ran through my life) and the snide comments would start

Then the cold shoulders and nasty behaviour such as 'accidentally' saying nasty things so I could hear them,refusing to allow me my lunch break/breaks or a trip to the loo or telling me outright to piss off

They wouldn't pass on important information and id get into trouble for 'forgetting' even though I'd known nothing about it in the first place or telling me the wrong information and sniggering at me when I got it 'wrong'

I walked out of one once,I was only 16 and my mother made my aunt take me back to the building

The bullying manager ripped me a whole new one and told me all my 'faults' while laughing at how useless i was

Aunt (who is my mother's flying monkey) wrote it all down and my narcissistic mother tore me another one and brought it up every week until I went nc with her in my 30's

All for a job working 40+ hours a week for £34.50 (cash in hand-id been forced to take the job by my mother who knew the owner,out of this money I had to fully support myself)

I wasn't useless-i was bullied,unsupported and underpaid by all in my life

I normally enjoyed childcare and was very good at it when I was a nanny

I think, though, when people say it's a sadness in the bully, they are NOT meaning that as an excuse: they are meaning sort yourself out and don't make your problems those of innocent people.

We all have sadness and disappointment, it's just some of us can deal with it appropriately and some can't.

YES!!!
It's actually is so funny you wrote this because I had an extremely similar experience.

I worked for a year as a childcare apprentice, and it's was such an incredibly unpleasant environment. Everyone was so bitchy to each other and behind each other's backs. Grown women acting like teenagers. And with me as the apprentice, I just got treated like dirt. Constantly berated, constantly treated like a skivvy. If a child spilt a bit of water, I was always sent tp get the mop. If something went wrong me or another girl would always get the blame. I was doing an NVQ Level 3 and so was one other girl and another girl was doing an NVQ L2.
Weirdly, the other NVQ level 3 girl was the golden girl, got all the best jobs to do, got to join in planning sessions with the room leaders, was spoken to and treated much nicer but me and the NVQ L2 girl were treated horribly.
When we had the OFSTED inspection, the other NVQ girl was told to pretend all of my key children were her key children and a SEN boy that I had been 1-1 with and had a good relationship with, was suddenly put with her for the inspection, causing upset to the boy and me wondering why the fuck she was considered so much better.
I also found out that the nursery were paying her minimum wage while I got just £75pw for 9-5, Monday-Friday, and the NVQ2 girl got just £50.

Absolutely horrible, toxic environment. Put me off childcare for life.

Edit: Oh and my worst bully in that place is now some huge advocate for the disabled and is heading a campaign to stop a local learning disability centre being shut down. She was even mentioned in a post by our local MP, praising her selflessness.
When I worked with her she used to say she hated working with the SEN kids.

No it’s not ironic at all. No need to be kind to nasty bullies. If you want to entertain them, feel free to indulge.

A beautiful illustration of the bullying cascade described by PP earlier. 😊

I don’t know.

But to me, far more important than the bully, is the fact that they may have ruined another person’s childhood and damaged them to the extent that their whole lives are affected. Nothing they can do in later life can put that right.

This is what I think should be the main concern - not whether we’re being fair to a person who chooses to bully someone else over a sustained period.

@Sophiehoney
Oh wow - that sounds horrendous. I agree that some working environments just are toxic. You get few nasty dominant characters with a bit of power and it can really make you question yourself as to why you’re being treated so unfairly.

Very sad to hear of this in a childcare setting too.

Hierarchy rings true to my experience.

i was in the middle.

i bullied and was bullied

@KhakiTigeryou are projecting here. Sorry if it happened to you.
We were asked a question and gave our honest answers.
OP asked why we did it. I did it for attention and to fit in. Because I wasn’t getting any attention elsewhere. I was separated from my friends after primary school and felt like all of the other girls in my year were better than me. I didn’t feel like I was good enough or worthy enough to be friends with them as they all seemed to have nice families and homes and appeared to be loved and cared for. There was a clique of 5 little bitches and I felt they were my only option. I felt more on their level. I didn’t even particularly like them but went along with the bullying style behaviour. I felt so crap about myself that I thought that was my place, my only place. I felt I belonged in the shit heap section of the world.
None of my basic needs were being met at home and I felt worthless due to violence and neglect. Older siblings then took their frustration out on me. I felt trapped, stressed and lonely throughout my teen years.

I did other things that I’m not proud of such as shoplifting. I stole sweets, sanitary towels and shampoo frequently. I treated boyfriends badly due to my insecurities…

If my home life had been better then I am certain that I would have been a better person for it. I wasn’t born nasty. I became nasty for a period of time but I was in a hopeless sad place.
It’s not an excuse. I was aged 12-15 ish when I was unkind to people. We were taught about bullying in primary school, I should have known better.
We aren’t all fundamentally bad people and we can change.
I AM deeply sorry and ashamed. This has haunted me for over 25 years. I so wish I could turn back time.

No it’s not. No one who has witnessed or experienced the life destroying impact of actual bullying is obliged to show kindness to bullies.

I happen to believe that some people are capable of remorse and change and some people just aren’t. Khakitiger is entitled to her view.

Anyone that feels genuine remorse for their behaviour should be willing to accept that it is unforgivable.

Have you ever tired to contact those who you bullied to apologise? It might make all the difference to them and you

It’s fairly irrelevant because if someone has been a bully at any age, who is going to trust them (if they know their history) ever again? I wouldn’t.

This is the worst advice ever

Please don't ever contact victims-it's not fair to us to have the person who put us through hell,to contact us to off-load the guilt they feel

Frankly their guilt isn't my burden

Make a huge donation to an anti bullying charity or even better,volunteer and pay your dues that way

Do NOT contact your victim and say sorry as it won't be appreciated

I cannot stand bullies and it's not for the victims to take the emotional load to make bully feel better about how they behaved and sod how the victim feels at the bully crashing into their lives,squealing that they feel 'awful' and 'guilty'

Quite frankly-good,I hope they do

@enwarall nailed it. Bullies are not a homogenous group, and bully for lots of different reasons, some people learn empathy more quickly and easily than others and what you do as children may indicate what you are like in later life or it may not. Once you get into adulthood, behaviours are more likely to indicate set behaviour patterns.

There is always the possibility of change. If people want it enough. @saltandvineger is a good example of this.

With respect you may feel like this and it’s understandable but others may not