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.

One of the school bullies messaged a few of us prior to the reunion for our 65th.

Most of us were polite but distant. One girl sent her a message telling her that she hoped she’d had a miserable life.

Another bully heard that I was going and called off sick. (Unfortunately, we had a group of them. They targeted small, timid girls and the more academic girls - I was talk, but in the latter group.)

I’m a retired PTC/Scottish Faculty Head. She’s a Pupil Support Assistant in another high school. I’m guessing that she didn’t want her colleagues knowing that she’d surrounded me with a gang of her thugs and had broken my nose when we were 13/14.

@CoffeeCantata that really is a worry on so many levels! Sometimes - and I'll don my tin hat for this - I wish teaching was done by AI. And doctoring. And interviewing.

Nobody from my school years but there must be at least four people from my adult life from work and my personal life that I detest and can never forgive for what they did. The anger has burnt out but I still marvel at the crurelty of the things these people did. I don't harbour grudges but were I ever to see any of them I would just walk away. I would not engage at all. I have heard that two of them are leading less than fulfilled lives these days and while I feel no satisfaction at this I do not feel any empathy which is unusual for me.

Like PPs, I wouldn't recognise someone from primary school if I tripped over them in the street. Mind you the chances are slim, most of them are probably dead now!

If I did recognise a bully from my childhood, I might be tempted to just ask "Are you still an arsehole?" and laugh.

So did you do bad things to her in primary?

This doesn’t ring true. If it were, why would she have such a strong reaction to you?

Are you downplaying your behaviour? You must have done something that had a big impact on her, even if you didn’t intend it to.

Yes, of course. I still can't stand some people from Primary School, and I left there in 1978.

I got bullied quite a lot at school.

I dont hold a grudge. Ive had a really success happy life, they were kids, I'd like to hope they've grown up and don't treat people like that now. I try to focus on inclusion and making sure my own kids don't treat others that way.

Live beef
Hilarious !!!!!

Its perfectly possible for people to behave badly and it not be something you've triggered.

A girl was very unkind to me at school. My mother much later on got friendly with her mother through a hobby (not initially realising who it was). They ended up discussing kids one day and the other mum openly said she knew we'd been at school together & hadn't got along, and told my mum her daughter had been rather jealous of a musical hobby I excelled at and my generally doing well in school, & hadnt been coping well at that age.

I had had no idea she was remotely interested in the hobby, it was something i did out of school but was in a lot if school concerts with.

I was pleased to hear that she "found her thing" later on and became a happy veterinary nurse.

I've just realised I still hold a grudge from when I was 10! Wow, that was deeply buried 🤣

Yes. I didn't have an issue with bullies particularly in primary, but I still hate my y7 to y9 secondary school bullies with a visceral hatred. I am facebook "friends" with a couple of them, and it still makes me angry when they share something positive about their lives, when they made mine miserable for so many years. I developed anxiety, OCD, and disordered eating because of them. Even now I struggle to trust women, and have deep-seated self-esteem issues stemming from these particular people.

So yes, I would absolutely avoid them in a shop, and be thrown back into my anxious teenage self by the sight of them.

I wouldn’t recognise the majority of them, truly. I’m only 33 so we’re talking 22 years since I was at primary, slightly less for secondary. People change a lot, don’t they? I just don’t think I’d even register many of them.

Having said that, I don’t live in my home town and haven’t for some time. A few years ago I was back there visiting family and I popped into a supermarket. A woman came rushing over to me very over enthusiastically greeting me and asking how I was doing. She seemed to know lots about me but I had absolutely ZERO clue who she was. I obviously had to nod along and play the part but still to this day don’t know who she was. People are more memorable than others I guess and you don’t know whether you still exist in other peoples minds or not which is a weird thought.

I think some of those who did the bullying don’t quite get the impact it has on people, and somehow want absolving for it. Bottom line, if you’re a teenager and you’re bullying someone, you know it’s wrong, you know (or should know) the impact, and fundamentally it’s because you’re a shit of a person.

Do you think the ex-classmate was behaving badly by walking out?? To me it sounds like she had an unpleasant surprise, seeing the OP.

yup "Recollections may vary"

I still hold a grudge against the girl who sat next to me at school when I was 6, AND the class teacher. The girl copied my work. The teacher, working her way around the class to check it, reached her first, then me, and assumed I'd cheated.

I can remember the teacher's name, but not the girl's name .I still hold that grudge though.

There is only one person I’d recognise, I think: we were at primary and secondary together. I wouldn’t give the weaselly little bastard the pleasure of seeing how much I still despise him, 55 years after I last saw him, but obviously, yes, I bear a grudge.

Well said.

Oh definitely - there was a girl at my primary who was just seriously nasty to everyone. Looking back it was just bizarre why she was so horrible! A few people from primary are still in touch (our parents are friends still) and not one person will speak to her now. And that's going back 30 odd years!
In fact, I had a panic that I saw her a few weeks ago and was very relieved when it wasn't her!

Yes. I was bullied at school at the age of 9, due to my mum dying of cancer. Yes, really ! I can still recall the exact classroom and who made the comments. 30+ years later, I still give the back of the guy the evil eye when he is stacking shelves at Asda, when I am in there doing the food shop.

Did you bully her?

Being badly bullied? Hell yeah.. and I'm in my 60s.
I live very far away from the town I grew up in and often wonder what I would do if I bumped into them.
At the school reunion over 20 years ago I wasn't rude but I avoided them after the initial (very) short conversation..
It was very cathartic..

I'm not sure about holding a grudge as such against an adult for the child they used to be. However I do know that early negative experiences of bullying, teasing, isolation can have a profound effect on confidence and self esteem that can carry forward into adult life.
Obviously the 'right thing' to do as an adult in this case is to work through it. However, I can understand why for some people that would involve avoiding the trigger of a person they associate with it.

On the face of it no ,,but it depends on how you made her feel it may have had a profound impact on her and her self esteem what you see as squabbles she may have saw as bullying.