What causes people to become targets for bullying & sexual assault?

I never intentionally put myself in danger. I don’t want anything bad to happen to me. I thought I was being careful by doing certain things like watching my drink, not talking to any men, etc.

I just wanted to go out & have some fun As I said. at times I had no one to go out with.

Yep and not just women too, I’ve known young men be targeted/robbed and drink spiking is a big thing these days too.

It sounds like you’re more aware than ever of your safety and you’re going to take extra steps to stay safe.

I do hope you’re working on your self esteem too, how you feel about yourself inside, it’s a work in progress for many of us here but it can help.

I know, it’s scary. It’ll definitely help to not go out at night most of the time unless I’m with my husband or a trusted friend who won’t interact with weirdos somewhere then expect me to socialize with them too, lol.

It’s very difficult doing it his on my own. Therapy never did me any good. I wasted thousands of dollars,
, time & had a few bad experiences with some therapists too.

One of them even assaulted me.?I didn’t think to call the cops on them back then, ugh! I should’ve gotten his medical license taken away! I was you g & dumb then & didn’t think that anyone would take my word over a Drs. word back then.

My wrist was grabbed tightly in front of at least 3 clients who did nothing when I went back to get a prescription that the Dr. forgot to give me. He was a monster! I should’ve stopped seeing him sooner as he was cold & robotic.

I don’t understand why I attract people hese types even when I clearly wasn’t drinking! I obviously didn’t drink ar the Drs. office!

It’s hard to have a healthy self esteem when you’ve been treated like you’re nothing by everyone your whole life by everyone including family.

It’s like I’m just there to serve people & my feelings don’t matter at all.

low self esteem can be a magnet for bullies

I’m sorry you feel like you’re just here to serve people and your feelings don’t matter. No wonder you’ve been feeling low.

It sounds like you had a difficult upbringing and it didn’t encourage you to develop a healthy self compassion/esteem. It’s a shame that therapy didn’t help you out with that either.

How do you feel about checking out the self esteem forum here?

I know, and the true fault is on the person who did the assaulting, not you. The example of it being a club where sex is commonly part of that experience and alcohol, was a big part of the answer to your question about what causes someone to be a target. In this example it was partly being in a bad place that is conducive to that kind of behavior.

As for other places and situations where you get bullied or assaulted, there could be other reasons to think about. Still, it is always on the perpetrator and not the victim.

What causes it is the person is a bully and an abuser.

I was bullied in elementary school. It damaged my self esteem very much. I wasn’t the only one bullied by this group. There were a few other kids who got it much worse. It was really just this main girl who was popular with a group, and she was MEAN.

I think I got targeted because she knew she could get away with it. I wasn’t “popular” so was like just a girl with no one to have my back. I was smart, singled out for it, and maybe she was jealous of that. The biggest mistake I made was that my mother told me to tell her she is “just jealous”, and that escalated the bullying. Thanks Mom!

I had a big nose and was extremely sensitive about it. They used that as ammunition against me and tore me apart.

Thankfully, I moved away, and no one ever bullied me again. It was just this one rotten little girl lol. She must have had her own issues.

I saw other kids get bullied occasionally throughout my school years. Sadly, it seems like they were the kids who were awkwardly dressed, or they acted socially unacceptable, like they would purposely be obnoxious to get negative attention. The other kids were happy to give them that negative attention and say all kinds of mean things to insult them.

As an adult, I haven’t seen that kind of grade school name-calling bullying. Those bullies grow up and become mean bosses, I suppose.

It sure is.

Thanks. I’ve rebelled against that b.s for a long time. It started in my 20’s but I didn’t really put my foot down until my late 20’s. I really started to be more assertive in my 40’s. But not enough at times. Now it’s time for no more b.s!

I’ll check out the self esteem forum doon.

Thanks. It’s to bad that a few bullies & perverts have to ruin other peoples fun & endanger their safety.

Sorry to hear that. Ignoring bulllies doesn’t work. You need to stand up to them. Did you ever get upset & show her a reaction? If so, then that’s why they continued to bully you probably as they love seeing you get upset.

I know that now. I hope that her bad karma got her. I hate bullies. They suck. The obnoxious kids that were desperate for attention were asking to be bullied, sorry.

Thanks for asking. This got me remembering how I reacted. I think I kind of dissociated while she raged at me, shutting down, trying to hold back tears. I don’t think I responded in the moment. I didn’t get hysterical, crying then and there in the classroom. I waited until I got home then let it out. I remember going home, crying and telling my mother about it several times.

My mother didn’t contact the school or the girl’s parents, didn’t do anything. She told me to try to convert them into my friends. She suggested I start an after school club and invite them all over because that’s what she did when she was in school. I realize now what skewed advice that was because when she did that, she wasn’t bullied by the girls, and she was a teenager and the club was about …get this… being fans of the heartthrob boy in the class. That’s why the girls came, my mother must have promised them that the cute boys would be at her house! She did get the boys there, too. My mom was the “popular” beauty queen and this was the advice she was giving her ugly duckling, bullied, young daughter.

I’ve had an issue with emotional dysregulation that was brought out in me as an adult in my marriage by my husband’s extremely crazy-making, frustrating treatment of me. It’s interesting to me that I was able to contain my crying meltdown when I was bullied in the moment.

How did you react when you were bullied?

The kids who antagonized which got themselves bullied, seemed to be in a vicious cycle where they probably got bullied first and then were likely doing the provoking behavior because they felt more in control in a sad, faulty thinking way. Like, “If I’m going to be bullied, I’ll be the intentional cause of it”.

When I grew up, I didn’t see any adults get involved and stop bullying. At least, with my kids, adults and the school intervened.

Have you still gotten bullied as an adult? What is adult bullying like?

P.s. IDK what happened to the bully girl. I’m sure she’s fabulously successful. I do know that one of the girls became a judge!

Sorry to hear that. Your mom had no clue how to deal with bullying obviously. Did you try talking to your dad or a teacher?

I reacted to bullying by getting upset & telling some of the guys to stop bothering me. They thought it was funny. One time this guy said watch, she’s going to say stop it :::insert bullies name here:: I responded exactly as he said I would & his friends cracked up.

I didn’t think, I just reacted even though he just saud that. Stupid. As for being bullied as an adult, I think the same things caused it to happen, I was an easy target with no one to stick up for me, they knew that I probably wouldn’t talk back for fear of being fired, not being taken seriously if I did complain, etc.

They knew that they could probably get away with their bad behavior. These people were nasty. A few if them tried to bully tougher people at work but they failed to do so as one tough coworker fought back & lashed out ar them.

They didn’t mess with them much after that. They often go after the easy targets. Maybe jealously had something to do with it too. I rarely ever got picked on to often by the pretty popular girls who were happy & naturally confident.

I hate to say this, but most of the time it was by the ugly popular girls or the fat ones. A few of the pretty ones said mean things to me a few times. but I was mostly ignored by them. None of the good looking guys picked on me either. Only one crush of mine would look at me in a mocking way at times as he obviously looked down on me. Jerk

Isn’t that interesting? I guess that those people were insecure. I’ve noticed that most if the bullies in my life seemed to be unhappy with their lives.

Omg, yes! The bully girl who picked me and others was not good looking, while the other girls in her group were all pretty.

Were the pretty girls bullies too or not?

They didn’t really say the most hurtful things like she did, but they didn’t stop her. They were all closely related to each other, cousins. So they definitely had her back. I remember boys fighting back and telling the bully girl she, herself, was ugly so she ought to stop saying it to them. This only made her rage more.

This thread got me thinking back on this more. I may have ran out of the classroom and went to cry in the bathroom. I didn’t remember having a crying meltdown in front of the other kids. But now I do vaguely have a memory of crying in the bathroom and feeling so ashamed to have to go back to class having obviously cried.

I had suppressed that memory because it was really traumatic for me.

No teachers said anything, and I didn’t have a relationship with my father where I would have talked about this to him. I have no memory of bringing this up with anyone besides my mother.

I’m surprised she did nothing because she would go to school to complain about other things. She was angry that my teacher kept me after school because my handwriting was so bad and he did it to punish me and make me practice. She fought with him about it and then he really hated me. I got stuck with that teacher who hated me for two years.

I really didn’t have good memories from my elementary school years. School experience and friends got better for me after that.

That bullying experience had really stuck with me. Since you pointed out that the girl was feeling low self esteem herself about her not being as pretty as the others, and taking it out on the rest of us, I am feeling much better about it.

I guess I was feeling there was something defective about me and that’s why I got picked on. No, I think I was just an easy target for a girl to use projection on.

How do you feel about your bullying experiences today?

Sorry to hear about what you went through. That girl was insecure & taking out her insecurities out on you it sounds like.

It sounds like no one knew how to handle the situation appropriately. You didn’t know how to respond to it since you were a kid obviously.

I didn’t either. Bullies suck. Anti bullying classes shoukd be taught in school. Mandatory empathy & communication classes should be taught at a young age.

“ Mandatory empathy & communication classes should be taught at a young age.”
^

I also agree

This was the thread I meant to reply to before (I was tired and posted in the other thread but not this one) (if I'd been more awake .... it was very late at night... I'd have replied in this thread too)

I don't think that anyone who is happy with their life is a bully. Bullies are extremely insecure (even if they think they ''hide it well'')

I could give examples from my life.....(one was a horrible ugly man, he had a vicious tongue. I was much younger, and on my own due to neglect by ''family''. I had nowhere to stay at the time. Not due to anything I had ''done'' or not done, but because ........... another time maybe).

The girls at school who bullied me were not pretty girls. Two of them were noticeably angry and miserable.

I saw one of them again in passing when I was in another city when I was 19. She still looked the same, ugly and miserable. I guess I ''should'' have felt sorry for her. She did not recognise me.

I think victimization is complex. I had a recent experience where I was legitimately getting red flags from a superintendent and when I approached my family they called me a liar, gaslit me and completely (and dishonestly) reframed the story to make it sound like I was lying.

I feel like the complex relationship I had with my family set me up to dismiss my own victimization. I think that certain personality types like to victim blame, and if they view others as scapegoats or “less than” they are quick to blame and retell reality to suit their just-world view.

I went no contact and am still kind of in shock but taking sober look at how their invalidation made me vulnerable.

I can relate...

I also think that certain personality types like to view others as scapegoats or ''less than'' and those types are very quick to blame and retell reality.

Yeah, bullies probably are miserable & angry people. And insecure as well.