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 :(

This thread is so sad.

It should be put together as a book, and made compulsory reading for all teaching staff, local and central government staff involved in education.

I hated school. I wasn't bullied exactly, but I was isolated and excluded all the way through secondary school, just because I was a bit different due to my home life being difficult.

My ds was badly bullied in primary school. It was made much worse because the HT denied that there was ANY bullying in her school, and the staff actually colluded with the bullying. I was able to remove him to a different school, but it was a desperate time for him and for me.

A dear friend of mine was bullied out of her career (civil service). It seems that bullying is rife and yet the victim is made to feel it is their fault. So many lives ruined.

My god- it was so hard to read this thread, mainly because I was a bully.
Reading some of your experiences makes me dread to think what the girls I bullied went though (or rather what I put them though)
I'm most definatly not that person anymore (and that side of my teenself makes me so ashamed)
I know it doesn't make it better or anything but I'm sorry, truely sorry.

Ripeberry, It's unfortunate that you think people are responsible for being bullies, rather than bullies are vile people who are responsible for their own actions, but I must disagree that fighting back will stop bullying.

I once hit someone with a science stool.

I also once threw a jug of water at someone.

I smuggled a knife into school. I was going to stab the worst of them.

fighting back did not stop the bullying.

Fighting back started a new game of let's see if we can torture hecate into doing something again.

That's what fighting back did.

After school - after release from the mhu, I should say - yes, I got really hard. You know what that did? That just made me a nasty person, trying to get the first 'punch' in, being convinced that if I didn't put everyone in their place, or 'win' all the time, that they'd start on me.

So I was aggressive, I was obsessed with winning everything, I was angry with every imagined slight - including people who cut up a car in which I was a passenger. My, the gobful they'd get! I had to WIN, I had to hear "you're right" and "I'm sorry". People had to know that they couldn't take the piss. Everyone had to know that I would take no shit.

It was not nice being that person. That angry person who saw horrible people everywhere, just waiting to hurt me, and feeling like I had to show them that I was in charge, so they wouldn't even try

I'm happier being me now. I am older and wiser and can tell people, nicely, when i am unhappy with their behaviour. I won't be bullied, but understand the difference between assertive and aggressive.

Most importantly, I understand that the fault in bullying lies with the bully. It is no more the bullied person's fault that they are bullied than it is the black person's fault that they are racially abused, or the woman's fault that she is raped...

Behaviour that hurts others is ALWAYS the fault of the person doing it and NEVER the fault of their victim.

responsible for being bullied, that should read!!

God this is bringing back some memories! I got bullied at school, mainly from the age of 9-13, but I still got some trouble until I left school at 16.

I think it started off because I was quiet and shy, and my mum had no money and I think it showed with my clothes, shoes, bag, pencil case etc.

I don't know why I didn't/couldn't stick up for myself, I just felt paralysed and shut down. I don't know why people say to ignore bullies, they don't get bored, they don't move on and they can see it's affecting you which is why they carry on.

Apart from the emotional bullying which I think was worse, I was followed home by groups of kids, spat on, had eggs thrown at me, and I had my PE kit stolen twice and my coat cut open with scissors. The emotional bullying was worse, they said I was fat, ugly and took the piss out of my ears, they also started up a rumour that I was abused at home. The people that weren't bullies were too scared to talk to me and so I didn't have any friends.

I also wanted to go to bed one night and not wake up in the morning. I used to plan what would be the best way to kill myself, I never went through with it as I didn't want my mum and brother feeling bad. I used to feel sick and cry my eyes out on the first day back at school after any holidays, I rarely used to go to school on the first day back even though I'd get dressed and have my bag packed ready to go.

I still struggle to fit in and I feel the same as other posters when I hear people laughing too loudly or see a group of girls. One thing that did help me was volunteering at a girl guides group as these girls were the same age I was when I was being bullied and actually they were all lovely girls and not evil monsters!

Just read the post by Ripeberry - WOW! Can I ask you how you meant that to come accross?

I don't think it's at all helpful on this thread.....

Underthevalley, it might be valuable to is to understand WHY you bullied people, what traits did your victims have that made you confident you could bully them? What, if anything, would have stopped you bullying. I'd be interested in all of those answers so I can try and protect my DD, who is very sensitive (as I was). She's already admitted she is scared to out her hand up in class as she's embarrassed to get the answer wrong....so I know she has a strong fear of what others think, which IMO makes her vulnerable.

Also, perhaps you could contact the people you bullied and tell them you are sorry? I think it would go some way to making me feel better if the bitches who ruined my young sense of wellbeing were genuinely sorry and could explain why they did what they did.

That's the part I find hardest to understand, I could never ever kick the living daylights out of someone who had done nothing to warrant it...especially someone who had actually wet themselves in fear of the beating that was to come. I mean how does ANYONE do that? Let alone children?

I consider myself to be fully recovered now. I am happy, confident. Can walk into a room full pf people I don't know with my head held high and a strong sense of who I am. But I still feel completely unable to protect my children from what I went though, and that fear keeps me awake at night.

scottishmummy thank you for that.

My experience was began in the late 70s and I like to think it wouldn't be tolerated today.

was

So sad reading all of your stories.

I was bullied at two different schools, I left my private school to go to the local as I thought I'd made friends who went there and I didn't like the pressure of the private school, I felt like I'd get more freedom at the local. As soon as I got there all of the girls in my year and the year above decided I was a 'threat' they tried to hurt me, tried to flush my head down the toilet, told everyone I slept around (I was 13 and never even kissed a boy), that i'd said I would sleep with their boyfriends, had snowballs thrown at my head and one girl told a teacher I was a slag, the teacher just laughed!?!? The friends I thought I had just stood back and distanced themselves. I pretended I was ill for weeks to avoid going to school until my parents found out and they moved me to an all girls private school.

At the all girls school there were a bunch of girls who had one ringleader that was very opposite to me and she hated me. She told the rest of the girls never to speak to me so I went through school without a friend. I still see her and I now realise how jealous she was, her friends have admitted to me that is why she isolated me. At 16 my dad died and it put things into perspective, instead of being quiet and ignoring bullies I became quite angry and drank a lot, made lots of friends and went horribly off the rails but that's another story.

I remember my family saying I was too sensitive.

I feel pretty calm about it now but I have problems thinking my dh is unhappy with me, if he is quiet I feel like I've done something wrong and sometimes drive myself a bit mad that way. I am also petrified of sending dd to school, do I send her to a private school where she has so much pressure put on her or the local where it seems to either be bully or be bullied?

i would also like to know what makes people bully others, so i can try and protect my own children,.

sadly ds1 has high functioning autism which means he already, at 7, finds social situations and friendships very difficult, and people find him a bit weird.

i am dreading him going to secondary school, it makes me feel sick thinking about it.

he will be an easy target i think, unless he is lucky enough to quite quickly find a group of nice friends there.

starwberry the bit about your dad and gong off the rails is scarily similar. I was 16 when mine died and went very wild for
many years.

Just read your post roguepixie that is exactly what I do too, I want to make sure everyone is ok and will do anything to help anyone, I never say no and sometimes go ridiculously out of my way. It distresses me to think of anyone being upset or sad at all. I have also had gastric issues and wonder whether it is linked now.

Me. I find this a very painful topic. Overt bullying at primary. One very nasty incident of sexual bullying at secondary. Covert bullying/social exclusion was the main problem at secondary. Ironically it was the least popular girls at secondary who were main culprits. The alpha female types did to a degree stand up for me, strangely enough, and I did have a degree of friendship with 2 other slightly awkward girls, so in some ways I was lucky. I gave up talking for several years at school, as I was convinced nothing I could say would interest people. Unfortunately as I am v socially awkward, I struggle at times in my adult life, people still reject me as too intense/quirky. Fortunately I made some lovely friends at University, but motherhood and geography means I have very little contact with them a decade on .

I have recurring nightmares about my loneliness at school.

thisisyesterday - am in a v similar position re:my DS, except he doesn't have a full ASD DX, just of traits. Am also terrified about 2ndary.

I think it is a really tough ago to lose a dad, I found myself replacing my dad with a horrible horrible boyfriend who I transferred some sort of unconditional love to even though he took drugs and hit me. I also sometimes still feel like part of me is stuck at that age and emotionally there is a part of me that never matured. I managed to come through it and get my stability back at around 23 but I am ashamed of what my dad would have thought of me if he was alive.

How did you get through it mama?

*age

Reading this thread has been a real eyeopenenr for me actually, as there are names on here of posters that I have come across a lot over the years...it makes it hit home how huge an issue this was and is, and in a way how silent it is. I wonder why there are not more adult groups set up to support peole who were bullied.

IT makes me so sad to read about those who still feel unable to make friends or trust people. I still feel like that too, and although I have some good friends I will never be able to utterly trust them. it has been my DH who has been my saving grace, as he is the best friend I have ever had and never ever tries to hurt me verbally, even when we argue. Without him I think I would have been trapped nside myself and lonely forever.

I wish I could give each and every person on this thread a huge hug. you none of you deserved what you got, the bullies were the ones with something wrong with them, not us. You are all worthy of being loved, respected and looked after by true friends. I have huge respect for all of you for carrying on after these experiences, whichever stage of recovery you are at. Most of all I am so, so sorry that you, that we had to go through this. I wish there was a button i could press that would stop it ever happening To anyone ever again. X

But lequeen, doesn't that make you feel lonely? Ever? Don't you ever get sick of being strong and detached? I wish I had had the strength to be as self contained at school, but as an adult the people I AM close to I am bloody glad of iyswim?

You sound incredibly strong to me, and your post proves what someone else unthread said. That our parents telling us 'just ignore it and they will get bored' is baloney, because you DID ignore it, (or seemingly from the outside) and it still continued. So what iS the answer, ir is the horrible truth that there is none?

Also, how did you hide you were bothered? Hmmm, I need you to come and teach my DD, because she cries and flounces, which is a recipe for disaster!

I was mocked by a group of girls for pretty much all of secondary school. I came into my own at college when I embraced my inner nerd and became comfortable with being the way I am. I am now a teacher with a very, very low tolerance for "just joking around"...

There are threads like these occasionally, and one of the profoundest effects they have had on me is the understanding and realisation that the way bullying affected me through to adulthood was not an extension of me being the weird, abnormal freak that apparently caused her own bullying.

I blamed myself so much and thought that having panic attacks at the school gate simply because it was the school gate was just further proof of how pathetic a person I was.

That my inability to relate to men who use sexual innuendo and inappropriate behaviour to intimidate and control was just another thing I had to get over

In some ways, these threads have been as liberating as some of the counselling I have been through. Because as I read someone else's story and think 'how horrific, how did that person endure such cruelty? No wonder they have been impeded by it's effects'.........

.......I saw me and for the first time had compassion for myself. For what I endured and how it has marked and scarred me. I am not weak, or stupid, or foolish, I never deserved how I was treated. Being quiet doesn't mean people have the right to 'poke' me, it means I have the right to be left alone.
As we all do.

I ache for anyone who endured it.