Could you still hold a grudge against someone from primary school?

[BeardofHagrid]

Just silly girls’ politics during primary school, falling out with each other, accusations of best friends being stolen etc, could you still hold a grudge against someone for that now?

The context is that I saw a woman I was at primary school with recently in a shop and she stormed out when she saw me. I hadn’t seen her for 30 years.

You cannot tell other people what they feel, or what you think they should feel.

Newsflash: not everyone feels the same about things.

Depends on the 9 year-old!

Bullying affected my youngest son so badly that he became too anxious to attend school. The bullying extended to cyber bullying and bullying outside home. The children were young (11/12) but it was not managed well by the school, and I was not able to distinguish genuine friendship (one of the boys seemed to be so nice) from quite sophisticated bullying.

If I saw the young men concerned now (they would be mid-twenties), I would wonder what was going on in their lives to make them pick on such a vulnerable peer. I don't think my son carries a 'grudge' against the bullies, but I am sure his ability to trust others has been severely affected. by the experience.

My sister was bullied badly at our primary school and we both still talk about it after all these years.
The woman lives locally I believe and if I ever saw her I would really let rip.

I had one message me privately on facebook messenger around Christmas time some years ago. He was apologising for some incident and saying how it had “haunted “ him for years. It was genuinely bizarre as although there were many incidents of bullying towards me by many, including him, I honestly had no recollection of the particular incident he was discussing. He then went on to say he wasn’t really into Facebook and would probably delete his account soon, and generally came across as a depressed and confused loner. I still wish he hadn’t bothered, as I am not there to assuage his guilt, and I simply didn’t want to relive those school days.

You must have been awful to her!

What sort of 9 year old would you hold a grudge against then?

This and other similar threads make me realise how lucky I am to have got past the bullying I endured at school (I got an apology from one of the bullies too and - unlike others on this thread - I found the apology helped). Id hate to spend my entire life being affected by it.

Some people are permanently affected by bullying. They deal with it in their own way and that's valid - it's not for you to tell them not to bear a grudge. That's so arrogant and dismissive.

I wasn't bullied but my daughter was and is still affected by it today. She doesn't hold grudges against her bullies but I do. It's much easier to forgive crimes against yourself than it is against those you love.

As I said earlier - it doesn't enter my mind normally. But OP's post asked this question, so I thought about it and answered honestly. Isn't that what MN is about? The people I thought of are simply personae non gratae to me - I don't plot revenge, or seethe, or even think about them in the normal way of things - as I said above. I just don't like them, and that's that.

I do remember a horrible 10 year old boy from my childhood who said some awful, cruel things about my poor mum who had given him a lift to school one day. I will never forgive him - although, until your silly question, I hadn't thought of him. Yes - I bear him a grudge to this day, and I'm proud to do so. It would be disloyal not to.

I saw my childhood bully last year. She made my life hell calling me fat and ugly. She is now very very fat and looks rough. I looked her up on Facebook and she’s been married and divorced three times.

I’m not proud of how much I smiled.

You obviously weren’t on the receiving end of the stick. Yes, if someone was bullied they could hold on to the feeling.

I wouldn’t call it a grudge but there is someone I wouldn’t want to welcome back into my life. I don’t ill wish the bitch her now but I very much value having the freedom to avoid people like her now.

I am of the opinion that the adult twats I know, were teenage twats and kid twats before that. Radical and controversial to some, but a hill I will die on.
Those two are rotten to the core. Stomping on their heads would´ve been a great punishment.

Ah okay.. what about relentless physical and verbal bullying? Hair being cut? Whispering behind your back? Getting all the other kids to turn their backs to you? Telling everyone you'd had sex with most of the boys in the class?
Unless you had suffered this then I gently suggest you have no idea why someone would still hold a grudge..

Not from primary school! Thats ridiculous 😆, later years of high school possibly but still children. College is could understand maybe!

Absolutely. The girl who bullied me in y7 came to work at the same place as me. I was her bosses boss. Still hated her and as it turned out, she was still a bully.

Not for myself but someone was mean to my Sister at primary and, although my Sister has forgotten all about it, I haven’t. She owns a local cafe and I never go in, despite it being in a good location and having a good reputation. If the cafe ever crops up in conversation I always mention the owner was mean to my Sister 🤣

Probably but I have a lot of emotional baggage from primary school.

Rachelle told on me for hitting Zoe on the back in reception but actually she had coughed and I thought she was choking so was trying to save her life and I ended up getting told off!!

Samantha had for some reason athletes foot cream in school and put some on my face in year 1. That upset me a lot.

Cassandra argued with me so much in year 2 as she said she was older than me but her birthday was the twenty something of the month and mine was the fourteenth but she said hers was a bigger number so she was actually older. I scratched her and then her mum was allowed to come into the class at the end of the day to tell me off !

Priya scribbled in my dinky diary when I was in year 3. That was my best thing ever she took one of the stickers too.

Im not sure how exactly I’d react if I saw any of them (except Cassandra as apart from that one incident I really loved her and was devastated when she moved schools
!)

Holding a grudge, I don't think so, though some people might call it that.

I was bullied for being the poor one in the class and the attitudes expressed by kids that age were quite disgusting. I'm sure they got it from their parents. So if you're snobby about the kind of home my parents had, the car they drove, the clothes I wore, I really think it likely those values and attitudes are still there for most of them. I don't want anything to do with that.

You can clearly tell the people who have never been badly bullied on this thread.

Not a grudge, but believing them when they showed you who they were.

Absolutely not … why would I allow a child (and these were all children at the time), any sort of power over how I think, feel or behave?

I was bullied, but I’m now an adult, and the only people whose opinions matter to me are the people who love me. I don’t live in the past I live in the present.

As an adult I know that children do shitty things (often because they are in a bad situation themselves), I know I have a choice in whether I allow my feelings over these things to take up any space in me head, and I choose not to allow that to happen.

I agree. People don't like to hear this opinion - and bullies in particular don't like to hear it!!

You are your truest self as a child and don't fundamentally change. Yes, you learn better behaviour, you reflect sometimes and mend your ways perhaps, or start to feel a bit guilty, but you are THAT person. You might mix with good people who have a good influence - all kinds of things, but I don't believe that everyone could be a bully. No, they couldn't - I couldn't - I just couldn't enjoy inflicting misery, even as a small child.

Bullies comfort themselves with 2 ideas: that they've completely changed and that everyone is really the same and has been, or could have been, a bully.

It's not about 'space in your head' - I don't give the nasty people in my past headspace. I only thought about them when OP asked! Hadn't thought of them for years.

But my opinion of them hasn't changed. I don't like them and I don't forgive them - but these feelings don't impinge on my consciousness normally.

My primary school bully died by suicide when we were in our early 20s. He must have had a sad childhood himself and hurt others because of it.

This absolutely.