Bullying

I've seen a few threads that mention bullying but nothing specific. Just wondering how many of you have been bullied and how it made you feel. I'll go into specific incidents later, but they all made me feel like I didn't have a right to exist.

Hey HalfSwede,

Is it Bullying in general or Bullying due to your Depression?

Bullying is just another term for verbal abuse.......The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans saved my life, and I think it should be read by everyone on the planet. Until we are educated, this nightmare will continue. 1 in 3 women are abused and every 9 seconds a woman is assaulted. It all begins with bullying/verbal abuse.

Kids are bullied in school and sometimes commit suicide. We need a program in every school to teach children respect....if we respect someone we will not bully or abuse them.

Yeah seconding this book. Just a really good read.

At the time I was insecure, overly defensive, bitter and constantly angry. I also cried too much, I avoided going to school as much as possible and felt that everything I did or said was stupid and that I was inadequate. Eventually when it got too much I felt suicidal.

My advice to anyone who is bullied is to record the verbal abuse on a voice recorder on your mobile phone. Helps an awful lot when it comes to complaining.

Hi HalfSwede.
i was "that kid". You know, the one that all the kids made fun of. From 4th grade through high school I was tormented by different people, including teachers. I got made fun of for my name, my glasses, my braces, for nothing.
in high school, I had the misfortune of being befriended by a vicious girl who spread rumors abut me throughout the school that I called another girl a "slut". This was a girl I'd never met. I had girls chasing me through the hallways. that girl bullied me through 3 years of high school to the point that I was cutting a class so I didn't have to pass her in the hallways. I ate lunch in the bathroom.

It's over 20 years later and I still cry everytime I see something about bullying on TV.
For some reason I was an easy mark. I was shy as a child and no confidence at all. I wasn't athletic or pretty.

I'm trying hard to remember how it made me feel. It made me feel like I didn't want to exist, like the world was better off without me, and what did I do to deserve that kind of treatment.

I'm not sure which came first, the bullying or the depression. I'll just start by recounting three incidents from elementary school, all involving the same person, who I would so much love to name.

In one incident, this guy, probably the strongest kid in the school, kicked a soccer ball essentially from one end of the field to the other, and then told me to go get it.

In another, he pushed me into a puddle.

In a third, he knocked my books out of my hand, and then turned to the other kids standing there and gave them a cue. In unison, they all chanted "Cry, J., Cry! Cry J., Cry." I don't know how long that went on.

The effect it had, with 40 years' hindsight, was to make me think, "My weaknesses, physical and otherwise, will be punished. I can no longer enjoy this playground, or any other part of this school." It filled me with sadness and rage. Just that feeling of being physically overpowered. I mean, I was really broken.

To this day, I have a hard seeing any kind of conflict or disagreement as anything other than a threat to my very existence. So I am trying to rewire my brain, to think, "Yes, I have my weaknesses, but that does not mean I don't have the right to exist." Or something like that. It's a work in progress.

So I guess bullying to me is anytime anyone uses their powers to hurt you, whether it's verbal or physical or something else, or all of those things. It's abuse, definitely.

Time to let someone else talk now.

Jesus, that's awful, jaded.

All right, I'm checking that book out.

I started feeling suicidal in 7th grade. My nephew is getting cyberbullied right now, and I just don't know what to do about it.

Really you should tell your nephew to keep everything that's sent to him via email, text etc. print it out and show it to the headmaster of his school. And make sure the bully's parents are brought in. Cyber bullying is really horrible but also very foolish. Because everything that's sent is kept on record which is just ready made evidence. And I think it's really wimpy to hide behind a screen and send someone abuse... poor fellow... I'm so sorry your nephew's going through that...

Awe ok HalfSwede,

I was bullied in Primary School as I had "Learning Difficulties" I was 1st bullied when I was 7 and that bullying lasted until I was 11 years old. I was taunted in my last year at Primary School because of my "Learning Difficulties". Funnily enough I wasn't bullied in High School ages 12-18 weird huh!!

Been "victimased" in work at the moment for having Bipolar. This has been started off by 2 colleagues who no longer work there and then my so called manager. I am being made to feel bad for being off for Depression and coping and going on with work and being well again and then re-building my life through the BP

I was bullied, too, probably from the 7th through 10th grades by this jock girl who always called me a priss. She made my life a living hell, and looking back 30 years afterward the old feeling still arise. My parents were alcholics and very self-absorbed, so I had nobody to talk to.

Both of my daughters got embroiled in potential cyberbullying incidents this year, one via Facebook and one via cell phone. In both cases my husband and I cracked down, hard, fortunately with the cooperation of school officials, and luckily no retaliation has occurred.

I get so worried, as the mom of two tweens, about the effects of these social media outlets on their mental health. (My husband let my daughters set up their Facebook pages against my arguments.) It all seems to be a big popularity contest. Facebook is great for adults, IMO, but I don't think middle-schoolers should be on it. They're not mature enough. Again, that's just my opinion, don't want to offend any young people here who may indeed be mature enough to handle it.

I'm sorry you had those crappy childhood experiences, HalfSwede. I know the memories can really linger.

AvidReader: I totally agree with you about Facebook. When I was 16 I had an account on there and I completely screwed up my grades that year because you'd get addicted to it and you'd not pay the due attention to homework etc. Then there was an incident of cyber bullying on there too and I found a lot of friend requests I got were from people I'd never heard of (I think everyone gets them) but even so it creeped me out. But that's my personal experience. Since then it was my choice to delete the account because it was just silly. Plus I think it's a bit dangerous because a lot of information is revealed on FB that could be used against someone - comments, personal details and photographs.

Certainly by no means, as you said, does that apply to every teen. I know a lot of teens are mature enough even before 16 to handle FB properly but I don't think I was myself. Anyhoo... just be wary of stuff revealed on there by your kids.

ditto halfSwede, i felt the same; but i do exsit, it did not defeat me, i, "i" litte ole me won over being bullied. We are so strong inside when we chose to over come the odds. x sanada x

Yeah, I was girl-bullied a little bit in elementary school, my "friends" would talk about my clothes sometimes when they thought I wasn't around. Ouch. I'm just glad there weren't iphones or anything around back then or I probably would have had to nag my parents to buy me more stuff to keep up!

Oh yeah and junior high was junior hell for me. These two girls would always send me notes in social studies class; "u are a geek," "u are too tall like a man" and once "u ugly monster go home." !!!!

The takeaway message for the 1st thing is something that's still really important to me: not to try and compete with people to own things. That is a battle that nobody wins. And for the junior high thing, I've already decided that if I have kids (and that's an if) they are going to go to a school where all the kids are so focused on learning and achieving stuff they don't have time to step all over each other.

I was actually bullied by some girls on the playground one year for a few weeks. They would surround me and just sort of push me back and forth. That really sucked. I finally told the playground monitor about it, and one of them said, "But we just wanted to be friends!" Yeah, right.

oh yuck

my husband tells me he wishes he could go back to high school all the time - I wouldn't go back if you paid me!

High school was okay except for 10th grade, after which I transferred to a school where no one cared about sports. 7th and 8th grade were awful. The bullying had pretty much been replaced by being ignored. Elementary school was bad except for 6th grade.

Hi again HalfSwede, and everyone -- I read through this thread a bit too quickly before. I wanted to emphasize that Numpty is totally correct that, in regard to your nephew and cyberbullying, it is truly crucial that he not delete anything. Also, like Numpty said, cyberbullying is actually pretty stupid, because it does indeed leave a trail. That's how my husband and I were able to track down exactly who pulled the stupid Facebook prank on my older daughter a few months ago. The girls who were guilty flat-out lied, but we had the hard proof with printouts, time stamps, etc., which we showed the principal.

(Ironically, these girls attend a very small Catholic school that we suddenly had to pull my daughters out of last August. I was devastated that they'd be leaving what I thought was a safe, happy environment. Ha.)

It's been interesting to read different forum members' accounts of bullying. I've always thought girls can be particularly vicious.

oh yes i was bullied, in and out of school. Once in my hometown a group of 10 older boys surrounded me at the park, and they snorted phlem
Up and spat on me and spat on me.
Once on the bus kids spat chewed up food in my hair until i got off the bus and walked 5k home.
I had kids i didnt know from senior years say ''why dont you just kill yourself'' as i walked past. I had girls say''ew we dont want her in the photo , she will ruin it'' at school photo time. I had boys spread rumors that id perform sexual acts if you gave me $2
Once they told a local brain damaged man that i was a prostitue and gave him my number.
They called me a slut after i gave birth to my daughter, when i would go to the shops with her in her pram.
So many more things that i can hardly remember now.
At the time i was so depressed.
I did want to die.
Kids Need to be watched over.

I am so sorry that happened to you.
And you are right, kids need to be watched.

Yes, I was bullied in school. Nobody ever physically touched me (sometimes I wish they tried), but I was name called, emarginated, humiliated and treated like a beast on a regular base... my only fault was to be a shy, introverse guy.

Among the most episodes, I remember watching a movie in class, going back home and realizing somebody attacked me a chewing gum on my hair (they just launched it in my head from behind..)... later I discovered that two girls did it. That's not even the most painful one, but I always thought that the feminine gender was the most sensible one, and yet they were capable of such a cruelty...

All this stuff really marked me, maybe for life. All the schools in the world are just guilty... it seems they practicall don't have the slightest interest in resolve this mess.

That's true. When a guy wanted to fight me in fourth grade, I told my teacher, and she said I'd have to deal with it on my own. I went to meet the guy, and he ran away. So there was the chance I could have turned into a bully myself, all at her urging.