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 :(

[theamazonstar]

And mrsweatherwax.

[FreudianSlipper]

yes i was in primary and in my high school, not in my middle school which i loved and did really well with my school work

primary was not too bad but high school was terrible, i went to an all girls school and one bully decided to pick on me. i was very small and she was a big girl and used to physically intimidate me. i would hide in the toilets so i did not have to go to assembly as she would always sit behind me and say things. it had a big impact on my school work and my confidence and even now i struggle to believe that i am liked by fellow work colleagues or students. i can only go on what other say to believe that i am liked but i find it hard to sometimes truly believe. this has been shaped by other things in my life (i think that has had a bigger impact on close relationships) but i can not deny what a big impact this bully had on me

and why the fuck did she and her bully friends think i would want to be a friend on facebook i doubt they have changed from others i have heard they are still the same and have moved on very little from when they were at school.

i am also terrified that ds will be bullied i try to make myself believe that he won?t and push it out of my mind but its there because of my experience (and i know his dad was) but he is a very popular little boy and confident

[MamaMaiasaura]

theamazonstar he has some friends too and doesn't want to change schools as he said it'll happen again. Can't help but think he's right as I changed school at 13 and it actually was worse. I have one good friend from school. That's it.

[theamazonstar]

Your poor boy :( it is good that he has friends though. I hope it calms down for him.

Thank you freudianslipper.

[RhubarbCrumbled]

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if I repeat anything, but I was bullied through secondary school to the point I couldn't walk to and from school and had to be escorted through school in case I was beaten up again. There was no apparent reason for this and the ring leader was at one time my friend! I spent years panicking at hearing shouts in the street and not trusting people, avoiding going t my home town in case saw people and shaking when i did see them, and just wanting t spend a lot of miserable time alone. I ended up with depression and agreed to counselling which is where it all eventually came out. After that it all got a lot better, to the point where I feel like a completely different person. I even faced down the bully last time I saw her! Unbelievably when I do see her the bully is still trying to bully me! We left school 15 years ago. But I know I can face her now and not have to run away to cry and shake.

[ChickenLickn]

My secondary school was good at dealing with bullying, any problems there were quickly resolved.

But I was horribly bullied by my PhD supervisor. The school didn't do anything about it at all, they supported him, one person told me I should be nicer to him (?!), and when I talked to the head of school they made me spend more time with him . I had to do 6 months of extra work and then he prevented me from taking the exams.

The effects of bullying were the same as those you describe OP.

[HandMadeTail]

Wow, Tapir, that has made me cry, because my parents are very religious, and I knew I couldn't tell them, because I would be told to feel "glad when men revile you and persecute you......"

Perhaps I was wrong, but I always felt that my parents could not be relied on to help me because of their own religious agenda, so I never told them about it.

[Empusa]

I remember one time, the school had planned a trip to France to do group activities. A few days before it my group of "friends" decided to start giving me the silent treatment. I ended up, on the morning of the trip, having to go up to them and grovel and apologise (I'd done nothing wrong) so that they would let me do the group activities with them.

I had no one else to group up with. :(

[TapirBackRider]

Handmade I agree - the whole "persecution" thing was huge as I was growing up, and a blind eye was turned to all sorts of vile behaviour towards me because of it. Victim blaming is always wrong.

Bullies do it because they like the feeling of power, and because it fixes something wrong inside them.

[groovejet]

Was bullied from primary school upwards, mainly verbal but can remember an incident at primary when the new rule of a game was that the person who lost had to walk up by the wall whilst the rest of the girls kicked them. A rule that strangely only applied when it was my turn.

Being bullied affected my confidence hugely when I left school I put myself in dangerous situations with men as I was desperate to seek approval of my looks.

I am mostly over it now, most of the things that I was bullied about are positives looking young for my age as an example. However I do worry far too much about other peoples opinions of me, I don't like hairdressers as I hate looking in the mirror for a long period of time and I still seek positive approval from others. Hmmm clearly not as over it as I had thought typing that out.

I do worry about my dd's they are in early primary stages and have yet to face any bullying but they both have things about them that they can not change and could lead to being bullied, dd1 especially lacks confidence so I fear for her. I can only hope that if anything happens that she can approach me & DH about it as I never told my parents and maybe things would have been different if I had.

[HecateTrivia]

I'm sure they do, Kis - but it's the teachers who choose them. They don't decide to be monitors/prefects themselves. It is the school who decides that.

so schools decide to make bullies monitors. Known bullies. It's that that I don't understand. Being vile makes you a good monitor? Being a bully means you deserve a position of some (supposed) authority?

What message does that give everyone?

[jenfraggle]

Thanks for the kind words. While it is horrible that anyone has to go through this experience, it's nice to know I'm not the only one IYSWIM.

I'm in Cornwall for those that asked

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Yes, in secondary school, by a group of boys. The science teacher used to join in, because she knew that if they weren't picking on me, they would certainly pick on her. I snapped one day and pushed the ringleader down the stairs, kicking him in the nuts. I had to be pulled off him. I ran out of school, and refused to come back until something was done about it. It got marginally better, but not much. I put it in a short story I wrote, where the bully died a slow and painful death much later in his life, and knew he was going to die. It was very cathartic (if a little warped).

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

Agun some things are completely beyond credibility. Even though hey are true IYSWIM. Just how could so many children NOT have stopped for a split second and thought.. 'just a minute?'. And it is not just the incident in itself is it? It is to have to go on then attending a school with that memory and the impact it has had, every day of your school life. very for you.

Mama, for your boy, and whilst there is no 'scale' for what is worse, I think the awful thing about that kind of insidious bullying is the very fact that it is so subtle. So on being challenged, the kids haven't 'done' anything... how they learn to be so capable of that kind of psychological cruelty is beyond me..

[groovejet]

I think the promoting of bullies stems from the thought that every bully must have issues themselves and need support.

I am sure some do, but a good proportion in my experience, were just vile people who got a kick out of being in control of somebody.

[KisMittzAteALLThePies]

Yes, you are right Hecate. i see your point. And I don't know.

Certainly the teachers who blamed me for my own bullying, one of whom was a deputy head, and another a head of year, were disparaging about my lack of confidence and the fact that I was introspective. So perhaps had an 'admiration' for the leader types...

It is the victim blaming culture isn't it?

[Dawndonna]

Beaten up, spat at, called awful, awful names on a regular basis. I'd never go to a school reunion. School was absolute hell for me. I was a geek and spent more time in the library than anywhere else, it was a safe place.
I still feel physically sick when I think about high school. I went in the seventies and it was a case of well, she should do more to mix, or more to be like them.

[Swatchdog]

theamazonstar thank you for posting this thread. And thanks to everyone who has posted on it. I've just seen other people explaining reasons for their struggles in adult life, which I also have, which I hadn't joined the dots on.

I was bullied from when I was about 10, when I moved from boarding school back into the state sector. It was initially about my voice and different manners, then was because I was square and completely uncool. I had very different interests from my peers and was bullied mercilessly. It got worse when I moved to secondary school, where I was ostracised by the whole school for something I said in history regarding ww1. Very bad times. It has left me with a complete lack of trust in anyone's motives. I don't really have many friends now, and am scared of being involved with groups of people due to what I consider the "pack mentality". I have also been bullied as an adult, and wonder whether my formative years have left me with a big fat target on my forehead.

One thing I truly struggle with was that I was made to face these girls every day, to go back to school or the after school club I was bullied at, with my mother's "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" ringing in my ears. Words do fucking hurt. They still hurt 20 years later, when I can exactly remember the abuse that was hurled at me.

Bullies do ruin lives - I had a breakdown a few years ago and only now am coming out of a fog that has lasted most of my life. I had been so accustomed to being made to feel like shit that I thought that bumbling along not being happy was normal. Only with lots of therapy and huge support from DH do I see that it's not.

[mampam]

Yes I was bullied on and off because I am mixed race. I grew up and went to school in a very rural area where I really stood out in the crowd. I don't think the bullying was that bad but the loneliness I felt was awful.

My family are all white and I had no one who knew what it was like to be so different to everyone else, no one who could help me with my hair etc.

[AGunInMyPetticoat]

KisMitts this shocks me too - in hindsight. 10 year old me was not quite analytical enough and probably just a bit too busy being devastated to care.

I don't think I ever realised just how much my past has affected me until I saw my very sociable DH interact with people. He's one of those folks who enter a room alone and leave with two new friends and a business contact. At one point I asked him how he does this and he said he simply made small talk and sometimes offered to buy a person a drink. All I could think was "but what if they laugh at the notion that this weird guy wants to share a drink with them?" (And, no, DH is decidedly not weird - that bit was purely me projecting.)

[therugratref]

I was bullied on and off in primary school and then pretty relentlessly for the whole of secondary school. I also went off to school with my mothers voice saying sticks and stones ringing in my ear, along with just turn the other cheek and girls will be girls. I soon stopped bothering telling her.
I just got smaller and smaller and more and more miserable with each passing year. We moved between O and A levels and I had a brief flicker of hope, that was soon extinguished when I entered hell. Verbal, physical, isolation I went from a straight A student to a miserable failure.
My experiences meant that I went though my twenties and half of my thirties wearing clothes 2 sizes too big, no make up, cropped hair hoping that no one would notice me.
Those experiences have affected every single aspect of my life and when I found out my DS was being bullied I was in at that school daily until it stopped, that was the worst part of it all being let down by the woman who should have protected me.

[sensesworkingovertime]

Gosh I want to get my arms round all of you and give you a group hug! Yes I have been there myself and it has left me with a lot of 'damage' in the way I feel about myself. However having a lovely DH and DCs helps. I often think about one particular girl who shouted to me 'aren't you gorgeous?' when she was obviously sarcastically telling me I was ugly. Hopefully she is now an old hag with......no I won't say what I hope it sounds too bitter and horrible but you prob get my drift!

[AGunInMyPetticoat]

But you stuck up for your DS, therugratref - and he's lucky to have a mum who wouldn't take no for an answer. You should be so proud of yourself!

I never had the kind of sticks and stones speeches from my parents that others seem to have had. My mum was at a complete loss as to how to deal with my problem, so she mostly did nothing at all. My father would try to make me feel better about myself by attempting to convince me that all the other kids were simply jealous of me - what I actually thought was that my dad must be either stupid or completely insane.

[GotMyGoat]

yes yes yes.

So sorry that so many of you have had to go through with this too.

Am terrified of sending my DD to school. Thankfully it's a few years off yet.

[GotMyGoat]

You know, I'm so terrified of the word 'group work' I emailed the nct teacher to say I was really worried about antenatal classes and wanted to cancel, because i was sent a letter saying that sessions were casual and involved lots of group work? so glad I did go, because they were wonderful people.

I wonder how many of us ran into the arms of abusive partners because of our bullying? I know I jumped for the first person to take any notice of me... sadly an adult looking for a sexual relationship with a teenager probably wasn't the best idea - but he was the only one who seemed to like me, and the only person who offered me some security.

I am very bitter and angry at teachers and my parents because i was bullied every day of my life at primary, secondary and 2 colleges some days only verbally, others much more physical (I wouldn't hesitate to call the police if anyone treated dd like i was treated!). I am a bit of an oddity, but I am kind and conscientious and don't believe I deserved any of it.

You know i'm even nervous about how i am viewed on mumsnet - I hate the royalty idea because it reminds me of the Queen Bees at school and hope that people don't hate me.