Was anyone else bullied at school?

[theamazonstar]

Sorry for such a miserable topic on a Friday night but I have to get this off my chest.

I had a miserable time at high school. I was horribly bullied and ended up with bulimia and severe depression. I contemplated suicide too. As soon as I could I left for uni and I was much happier there but still very slow to trust people. I've recently moved back to my home town for family and work reasons, and I've run into a few of my classmates. I can't talk to them, even of they didn't bully me. I start shivering and gibbering and I bloody hate it- I'm not the person I was back then but seeing someone brings it all back. Is this normal?

Help :(

[candytuft63]

Also, I think attitudes to schooling have changed .
In my day(I am 48) parents NEVER went near school, unless for parents evening.
If parents turned up at school it meant that YOU were in trouble.
I hope we are more aware, now and that bullying is being now being dealt with in schools.
Or an I being naive ?

[candytuft63]

now being

[theamazonstar]

Oh, don't get upset, candytuft! I think things have changed in schools now. I hope you're okay ((hugs))

[candytuft63]

Been bottled up for so long, Tis all.
A very sad, but supportive thread, theamazon.
Thankyou for this.

[WandrinStar]

It used to make me feel so terrible when I complained about what was going on at school and then someidiotone would say "Enjoy it, school days are the best days of your life." I would think "Christ, if this is as good as it gets, then what the F is the point of carrying on at all??" Things have got exponentially better ever since the day I left, but when I was 14 and desperately miserable I really believed my life was going to be a bleak grey hell forever.

In a way I can undertand kids bullying other kids A BIT - they were young, they didn't understand what they were doing and they got carried away, it's a herd mentality, they don't know how to regulate their behaviour like adults can (although I also believe they relish the misery they cause and the sense of power it gives them, or else they wouldn't keep doing it). But what the hell were the staff thinking of??

The teachers should know better, I'm probably angrier with them, looking back.

[CapuccinoCannoliLover]

TheAmazonStar - no thank you for being brave and starting this thread, it is therapeutic. . I can tell how everyone's posts have affected me, I have just made a batch of butterfly buns to try and calm myself. See, I just get angry about bullies now. I really hope things are better for victims at schools now, don't know if anyone on here can answer that?

[theamazonstar]

This thread has really helped me too. It's unbelievable.

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

Yes, and it has a profound effect.
The first incidents were when I was 6 and a boy in the class above me took me around the back of the school to repeatedly punch me in the stomach over a period of time.
His reason was he just didn't like me.

I was verbally and physically bullied all through to the sixth form on and off, and after yet again being told that it was my own fault by teachers and form heads, I stood up and walked out of that bastard fucking school and have only ever been near the place once. I am now 42.

Have also a history of abuse and damaging relationships with men who made me feel worthless. Although it was often girls that bullied me.

I finally found an amazing counsellor who, after nearly 3 years has helped rebuild my self esteem.
I will never be massively confident and have issues with certain groups, but I have more choice over how things define my life rather than being led through history ingrained fears.

I also took 2 overdoses as a teen/young woman and self harmed, but SH as an adult as I realised what a complete mess I was.

My contempt for those teachers at that school and their determination to be classed as 'bully free' by brushing it under the carpet is immeasurable. You take young lives and have the potential to really teach them to fly and in many cases, clip their wings irreparably.

I am so sorry for anyone who has endured it and if I could give as a gift the healing my counsellor gave to me, I would do so gladly. x

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

When I had a 'breakdown' after finally leaving, I went to the doctors, and my doctor offered to stand up in court and state that in his professional opinion I had been mentally 'raped', because although at that point it was predominantly verbal, it was of such an obscene, graphic and relentless nature that it made him cry.
I could not speak about it, but had written a testimonial.

[candytuft63]

I often wonder what I would say or do if I ever met one of my bullies now.
The ringleader is a chief Inspector of Police.
Makes my blood run cold.

[theamazonstar]

Oh KisMitzAteAllThePies how awful. Thank you for sharing. I am glad you managed to overcome what happened to you.

[HecateTrivia]

How many of the bullies who you all dealt with were prefects/monitors? I could never understand why all the biggest bullies in my school all strutted round with monitor's badges It felt like they were being praised and rewarded for driving me to a breakdown

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

It does doesn't it candy
It often seems that the better someone looks 'on paper', the worse they can be as human beings.

amazonstar... I think having children had a profound effect for me. Because seeing them at different stages and really grasping what I had been through and how it would feel if it happened to them was sad. I had always thought that it was 'only me' and didn't matter.
But we all matter.

Like you said. it is sad and comforting when other people share, because the sense of isolation can compound what you go through.
Some things on here are appalling

One of the things that worked in a way through counselling was the analogy that people put 'post it notes' on you, saying 'you are too this, too that, too smart, too dumb, too pretty, not pretty enough', and we went through a process of 'taking them off'. That actually because someone hates you (me) because your hair was too long.. that is actually THEIR problem. And it takes time, but bit by bit I learned that it is possible to stop believing the labels people give you.

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

I guess often because the people who like the power trip of being a bully, also enjoy the power trip and notoriety of having a position of 'authority' Hecate; perhaps the two go hand in hand.

[TapirBackRider]

Yes, bullied badly at high school by former 'friends' because I lived with my aunt and was in a religious cult. Teachers didn't give a shiney shit, and my aunt told me to 'ignore it' and blamed me for encouraging it.

[theamazonstar]

I love the post it idea. A shell that other people make for you.

It actually wasn't the popular kids who bullied me, strangely enough. But I was so affected by it that I couldn't trust the one person (a very popular boy! I couldn't believe he knew who I was) who did try to talk to me, to include me in group work and things.

I like that lots of bullies haven't aged well

[MamaMaiasaura]

Yes I was and now my 12 year old ds is . Absolutely no clue how to deal with it as teachers don't seem to be able to curb it. Not physical in the main. Verbal and exclusion from group work. Ds is a fantastic kind boy.

[Hullygully]

[MamaMaiasaura]

Why do some many people bully/belittle others? Why don't teachers actively split up the gangs of kids who do this? Why do schools insist on some many group projects where inevitably a child is left out? What is it with society that is breeding generation after generation of kids who think its 'fun' to ridicule others? I sometimes fucking despair of the human race. I am so proud of my kids and that they arent shallow and money/appearance orientated. They have integrity and the friends they have are valued for their friendships not status.

[AGunInMyPetticoat]

Yes - all the way way, starting from the day we moved to a new town when I was 8. The one incident that I remember most vividly included me being pinned up against a wall by two older boys and all the other kids on the playground at the time (there must have been 30+) lining up to spit into my face - one after the other.

Like others have said: it still affects me in myriad ways. I find it incredibly hard to form friendships because a part of me always suspects that they're simply being nice in order to humiliate me later. I've literally spent years of my adult life without a single person whom I'd refer to as a friend for that reason. The friends I have made - as well as all my romantic partners - have without exception been the people who consistently pursued me and have made it abundantly clear that they are very interested in spending time with me.

I also have a near pathological fear of rejection that has manifested itself in such strange forms as me being unable to ask my personal tutor at uni for a meeting throughout my degree for the fear of him being annoyed by the request.

The one positive aspect of my experience has been that I am fiercely independent in my thinking. Seeing as approval was not forthcoming either way, I guess I concluded at one stage that I could just as well do things my way regardless of what everybody else thinks. This has definitely helped my career because I'm basically unafraid to take unpopular decisions if the evidence supports them - probably completely cancelled out by my inability to schmooze my higher ups, though.

[theamazonstar]

Oh MamaMaisaura I don't know what to say. Can you move him? It's bad enough when adults belittle on another, but children

Thank you hullygully. ((hugs back))

[MsWeatherwax]

I was. I developed social anxiety which counselling and therapy has helped me with. I was an extravert child but school made me introvert, I think. I am a person who is unafraid to be different from others because I know I can survive people's not liking me. However, I only feel like that because I now have some good reliable friends and a husband who make me feel loved and right. I am very nervous of rejection and although I now make acquaintances easily (working in customer service has improved my social confidence a lot) close friendships are harder.

I have no children yet, but I have been thinking of home education for the reasons others have. Couldn't put them through what I went through.

I was bullied as an adult, too, in more than one workplace. It does leave a legacy.

[MamaMaiasaura]

aguninmypetticoat that's fucking awful.

[theamazonstar]

Thank you aguninmypetticoat.