[newtus]

i know this was brought up once before. 6/8/12.

i was moderately bullied on a consistant basis from kindergarten thru college.
mostly verbally but there a few physical ones.

i remember this one time this girl that said she was my friend when i was 16 or 17 got me on the ground on my back and sat on me and punched my chest until i got the wind knocked out of me.
i kept saying stop but she didnt.
it was in the middle of the classroom full of near 30 people. everyone saw it and the teacher too but didnt do anything.thats just one thing.

and numerous verbal assaults involving racial things but mostly about how i didnt have friends. and how i was a loser and weird mostly.
the verbal stuff was daily. in high school i was threatened a lot to get beat up.

i had tons of bullying from my mom.

a few times she would spray me with the garden hose and douse me with water and then laugh. like in the picture.
most of the time she would make me taste and drink her alcohol when i was between 8 and 12.
other times shed tell me how i was a mistake. when she was alone with me she would tell me my dad and her hated me and that they are gonna leave me and ill be homeless.
and even fully convinced me once that i was adopted. i believed it so much i told my teachers and then they asked my parents.

anyway im trying to say it really affected my mentality severely.

[newtus]

thats a clip from a movie about mental illness btw.

julien donkey-boy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192194/

[costello]

Originally Posted by newtus

i remember this one time this girl that said she was my friend when i was 16 or 17 got me on the ground on my back and sat on me and punched my chest until i got the wind knocked out of me.
i kept saying stop but she didnt.

That's not bullying. That's battery. It's a crime and should have been reported to the police.

[newtus]

Originally Posted by costello

That's not bullying. That's battery. It's a crime and should have been reported to the police.

thanks for informing me. i was extremely scared and naive ...still am a bit naive. i figured i should say nothing cause she considered me a friend. i see it differently now. idk what battery is btw. but know its a crime. the girl did have criminal stuff on her and was considered wild and crazy by everyone including her parents. i kept distancing myself from her cause i was scared of her. we didnt even know each other long. i didnt like her at all to be honest but being the loser i was i was desperate for anyone to say "your my friend" to me.

[faerie_moon_x]

I was severly bullied from at least 1st grade and then I can't actually say it's ever stopped, but just gotten less.

It was a lot of name calling. Being told I'm ugly. Not just ugly, like.... digsutingly monsterously deformed and gross. I was made fun of for my clothes. I didn't have any "cool" clothes. My mom graduated high school in 1956. So her idea of "cool" was penny loafers. So, yeah.... >.> I was told I'm stupid, worthless, trash. I was told the reason my mom got cancer is because she had to carry me in her womb, and her body couldn't fight me off like the disease I am. I was physically abused but only in junior high. That stopped when I got to the high school. I was pushed into locker, pushed down in the hallways. Kids would slip notes into my locker that I should kill myself. So, I stopped going to my locker and carried all my books in my backpack. So they would "bag check" me on the stairs or in the halls.

"Bag check" is like... someone grabs your backpack and lifts it up high so it's not on your shoulders, then they drop it so suddenly you get this full weight falling on you. I fell down the stairs a couple times, fell down in the hallway.

Once several boys attacked me with a baseball bat when I was walking home from school. I'm a girl. Boys are not supposed to attack girls that way. Oh, but they do.

I showed the principal the buises, but I was told I was trying to get attention. Even now when I tell the story, no one believes me. Because I"m a girl. Boys don't attack girls that way. Ha!

On the day I went back to school after my mom's funeral, the math teacher told the other kids in class that my mom had passed away. They all stood up and applauded. (Math class had some of the worst bullies. Robert and Stephanie were there names.)

People who I considered "friends" back then, would say things to me like "I don't want to be seen with you in public." Later in high school I had a crush on a boy and me and two girls went to see him at the mini golf where he worked. He later told my friend that he was so grossed out by the fact that they would bring me there to see him, and he got made fun of by his co-workers because of it. That boy later did apologize when I was in college, but I no longer considered him a friend or anything other than just another jerk.

But even in college it was made very clear to me that I was ugly and completely undesirable.

Also when people got to know me, that didn't help. People get sick of me. Talk over me. Don't want to spend time doing things with me. Don't enjoy my company. I always end up the odd one out, the one sitting alone in the corner, doing my own thing. Not just an only child, also always alone. And, when I try to share how I feel, it gets shut down as invalid. No one to share with. No best friend. No one to trust to be there to catch me if I fall over....

If you hear about these kids on the news who commit suicide because of bullies... the first time I put a gun to my head was because I was being bullied so bad I didn't want to live. I was begging my mom to home school me. She was a certified school teacher. But she was too sick, and couldn't do it. She said no. That was in 1992!!!! Only about 8 months before she died. I was only 12 years old.

It's taken 20 years for people to wake up and realize that "everyone gets teased" is not a solution and that bullies are a real problem! It's not because I couldn't take a bit of teasing.

Watch that movie bully. I watched it last night and it was hard for me. I cried the whole time. Because I was seeing my life. The story about the boy with the glasses. That one is the closest to how I was bullied, and the way the assistant principal with the blond hair talks to the parents of that boy, and to the other boy with black hair who won't shake hands with his bully. It's like.... PTSD.... watching that movie! But I watched it.

And they say stand up for yourself. But I don't know how to stand up for myself. I don't know how to stand up for anyone. I only know how to get beat down. How can I learn to stand up for myself when I had no example of how to do that????

[newtus]

i just bought that movie yesterday.

im scared to watch it cause i know ill see myself in it.

i tried to kill myself 2 times in high school. then a couple times recently. i remember i told everyone here i tried to jump off an overpass.

[costello]

I don't know if you all remember the video that was circulating a year or so ago of the woman being bullied by the kids on the school bus. She was hired to be some kind of attendent or something.

I showed it to my son, and he got so upset. He said that kind of thing happened to him all the time on the bus. He repeated the things the bully would say. It was awful.

[faerie_moon_x]

Yes, I remember that woman.

Everyone puts bullying into this "oh, it's not a real problem" catagory. Humans are made to live in small tribes. We are built to want to be part of a small group. So when we get treated like that by bullies it really messes us up! Because what tribe do I belong to?

Like elephants. If elephants do no receive proper love and care from the rest of the herd, they die. Baby elephants cannot live without love an care. Humans are just like elephants. We're supposed to live in little tribes and have love and care.

I am sorry, I can't really articulate really well right now.

[newtus]

i remember that video.

i luckily didnt have too much trouble on the bus because my route was unusual and there mostly mexican kids on it so they spoke little to no english. on a good day there was only 5 people on the bus. most didnt speak english.

[costello]

Originally Posted by dark_heart_x

Humans are made to live in small tribes. We are built to want to be part of a small group. So when we get treated like that by bullies it really messes us up! Because what tribe do I belong to?

It's a shame issue. That's the emotion at the heart of shunning and ostracism. Personally I think we live in a very shaming and shame-based society.

[faerie_moon_x]

I only rode the bus for a short time in high school, and only home. And then I gave up and walked. Otherwise, I lived close enough to walk.

When I was 14 I had my first "boyfriend." He was a friend of my toxic ex best friend's boyfriend. He looked like Butthead from Beavis and Butthead (except he wore glasses.) I'm not kidding you. Well, he was a crummy 14 year old boyfriend who wanted me to go all the way, and when I didn't he dumped me. So, whatever.

But, we all rode the bus together. And after that some boys were talking to him and he was telling them how disgusting and gross I was and that after being my boyfriend he needed to get vaccinated.... (Not sure of what...) Their stop was before mine, so as they got off they all passed me by making comments about what a disgusting thing I was, and I cried, and my ex best friend just sat there, of course, because she always told me I was fat and ugly. I was the 'ugly' friend who made her look 'hot.'

So, that was the last time I rode the bus. Oddly enough, she also stopped riding the bus and we used to walk home together, the whole 2nd semester. Unless shew as going to her boyfriend's house.

[costello]

We live in the country, so walking wasn't an option. I bought my son an old car for his 16th birthday. I didn't know at the time that it was removing him from a really awful situation.

[faerie_moon_x]

Yeah, having your own car is a blessing sometimes.

See, I live in a big city. And although it's a very spread out city, it was still close enough to walk.

I often told my parents what was happening. My mom's advice was if you ignore the bully they will go away. That's a lie. Also, that whole "they are jealous of you that's why they tease you" I think is wrong. They honestly think they are better than you. That you're less than them. Possibly not even a human being. It's much easier to kick something that you have 0 respect for.

I feel jealousy/envy a lot for people. I don't fo after them attacking them. I don't like them, but I don't bully them. I avoid them and feel my anger at a distance. Maybe wishing I could be more like them so I had what they had. And I feel attacked by them. I feel like I have to protect myself from them. I don't try to bring them down, although I feel a bit better when I hear something that makes them human instead of angelicly perfect. And I know that's terrible. But it's true.

So I don't believe the "she/he's mean because s/he's jealous." No, they are mean because they do not believe you are their equal and they can show their superiority by pushing you down the stairs. You are a target that can quickly build their social status among the other people they want to like them. If you want the King to notice you, and he dislikes this peasant, you will make sure the king sees you slapping that peasant for no reason, thus raising your status to the king.

I hope that makes sense???

[newtus]

Originally Posted by costello

We live in the country, so walking wasn't an option. I bought my son an old car for his 16th birthday. I didn't know at the time that it was removing him from a really awful situation.

this was before i lived in the country. when i moved out here i started college. my dad bought me a car for my 16th too. because my mom never wanted to take me to school plus id have to walk down alleys to get to the bus and men would whistle at me and follow me sometimes in cars.

[faerie_moon_x]

I don't like riding the city bus, either. All of those strangers standing so close together. It freaks me out.