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.

I remember, I would have been about six... a group of kids from my class were bounding around another boy shouting and I thought they were all laughing, so I laughed too and walked on. A little while later I saw the boy who had been in the middle crying, so I asked what was wrong but he seemed angry and shouted at me to go away, so I did. Later he told a teacher and it seemed they had been bullying him and he hadn't been laughing, but I truly didn't realise that. The teacher spoke to me about it and I told the truth, that I had thought they were all laughing and I would have told a teacher if I had realised what was happening. She believed me (I wasn't a bully and was an honest child) but he didn't and I really couldn't convince him.

Nathan, I really am sorry... I honestly thought you were laughing.

100%. My childhood and school years haunt me some days, to the point I dream of those hideous girls. I feel hot and embarrassed when I remember those dreadful times."We were only pretending to be your friend" was a big one for me. Left me with ongoing feeling of inadequacy and probably the reason i've spent most of my life doing what I thought other people wanted me to do, and striving to be liked. Only in my 30s did I realise i'd missed a lot of opportunities to live my own best life because I was marred by that trauma. I am currently 18 weeks pregnant with my second, and part of me wants a DD to go with DS but the other is terrified of having my own little girl who has to navigate these trying times.

Not from primary, but from secondary and I’m 54. I can think of a couple of people I would more than likely punch in the face if they walked in a room.

I can hold a grudge for ever.

Yes. I was bullied in the first year of seniors and can still, on the rare occasion, fantasise about wishing I’d laced her lunch with a strong laxative, and this was 1974!

I would never forgive her even if she gave me £10million as a sorry (I would accept the money though 😁).

This. I was waiting for a bus in college when someone who bullied me at school came over. He apologised and went on about how sorry he was and what he was doing now blah blah blah. The hold he still had over me was awful.

He might have walked away feeling better but he made me feel 100× worse doing that than I felt at school because he still had the power after all those years. He wanted to talk and I still didnt have the strength to tell him to piss off.

40 years later I am still angry with him for having audacity to do that and I'm angry with myself for letting him do that.

So yes, if he walked into a shop I was in, I would walk out.

You will prise my grudges out of my cold dead hands.

Oh do fuck off.

lol mine too

and I see the OP has not returned......

Yep....I think its more unusual not to care if you bump into a bully.

No, to act like that as a mature adult because of what some 8year old did to you 30yrs ago...is wierd imo.

Easily. I wont storm out tho.

Yes.

Oh, don’t start me about school reunions…. I have no idea why I went to a secondary school one but despite all the rejections flooding back I was horrified that one of my year who, on chatting to her, I discovered was now a Senior Consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital and spent 2 months each year doing voluntary work in hospitals in her (African) homeland was being ignored but another ‘Old Girl’ who was part of a production team on a TV soap was mentioned in speeches. Because ‘we all watch xyz, don’t we?’. 🙄

One of my best friends occasionally brings up rows & fallings out we had when we were 14 or 15. We’re mid 50’s now. She’s always deadly serious when she talks about it, and the expectation is that I’ll apologise, every time. Unfortunately our recollections of events vary, fortunately she’s fairly easy to redirect each time, so so far no rows about it, but yes-she still holds a grudge 😁

There are some feelings that you remember for life.
I can certainly relate to this topic.
I remember girls in secondary school who were supposed to be my friends but turned nasty if I got better scores than them in tests or was moved to a higher group.

Being called names or made to feel all alone isn't a nice feeling. These are girls I don't want to think about or meet, again.
Just because we are adults now doesn't excuse the behaviour of secondary age school girls who bullied other students because it made them feel in control or powerful. That is mean behaviour.

It is normally the act of one cruel person who turns the other girls against you. Its not easy to forget that.

It definitely doesn't feel like silly girls stuff when you are at the receiving end of it and also it is done deliberately at the time.
Your childhood is an important part of your life and because we are adults now, doesn't mean its easy to forget what happened years ago.
Unforgivable behaviour cannot be forgiven.

I still hold one from the same age towards the girl who told me that I only got to play Mary in the nativity because I had the longest hair and it should've been her role because she was much, much prettier than me.

Having said that I wouldn't storm out of a shop if I saw her but I might start humming Little Donkey. Loudly.

I was bullied at primary by classmates and teachers alike

A lot of it was jealousy because my parents owned their house rather than renting their council houses and we where neglected (my parents had money,they just didnt see why they should spend it on us) so we had secind/third hand clothes or not enough school equipment

My father had big motorbikes and that was another cause of jealousy

Their parents spent money in the pub/on new partners/themselves

The teachers always favoured the pretty,faces that fitted blonde girls and the sporty boys

I had shitty,cut very short dark hair shabby/shit clothes and am dyslexic (which they refused to take into account and bullied me for being thick)

They made my life hell

I will always hold a grudge-those teachers not only didnt stop the bullying,they encouraged it and joined in

One of the teachers made it her mission to befriend my narcissistic mother (who was fully aware about this bitch) and would use my home life against me at school

One of the bullies rewrote history and tried to be my bestie when we gave birth in the same year

When I told her to stuff it,she made a beeline for one of my lifetime friends and pushed me out

I moved away from my home town and if I ever go back and see one,I will slay them

Premenopause is a wonderful thing-i will never be fake nice to them and they will get it with both barrels

Stormed out, or just left the shop because she wasn't up for a meeting?

Sometimes people change, but I honestly believe that who we are in essence rarely does. I think you can usually tell from childhood behaviour fairly accurately how someone will behave as an adult, in broad terms of 'nice' or 'not'. We all did things as children that we later look back on with regret and could have handled better, but someone who was consistently nasty to me when I was 9 is probably still not someone I want to be friends with.

That said, as an adult, with two or three decades between then and now, I'd at least put on a show of politeness unless they started being nasty to me again.

While I didn't hold a grudge I did raise eyebrows when one of the few physically violent bullies from secondary towards me - it was mostly not phycial - also a known supporter and liar even to police for a boy who attacked our older sibling putting them in A& E (that boy did eventually end up in prison for other crimes) - was employed as a childminder for both kids of Dsis - and everyone including my parents were fine with it.

I didn't say anything and I'm sure they were great at their job but did have a relived sigh we were far away from the entire area.

I remember girls that were mean at secondary school, not really from primary school. But if I think of the secondary school mean girls…… I believe they are mean, I don’t think they’ve grown out of it. So if I were to see them now I wouldn't trust them or share much. Because, most girls weren’t mean, most girls were nice. So I believe what I see, and if I see meanness, I believe it. I don’t think that’s holding a grudge. It’s learning to avoid what’s bad for you.

Primary or senior 98% of them bullied me and treated me like shit so I would not talk to them even now

I wouldn’t storm out but I surprised myself how strongly I felt at seeing an old school classmate on Friends Reunited (20+ years ago I suspect). She was talking about having a young son and I thought “I hope no one ever makes him feel about himself the way you made me feel” I wouldn’t be interested in a conversation with her so would probably pretend I hadn’t seen her if our paths crossed - which is beyond unlikely 40 years after I left school

To be honest when people have OTT and disproportionate reactions like that over drama from school I just assume they haven’t had much going on in their lives and still live in the past.