Recovering from bullying

Hey

When I was in 10-15 my brother and I were bullied by a lot of people at my school. Not just classmates.
Later when we turned 13 and moved to a new place some of them would have the same way home since they lived in our neighbourhood.

Those experiences lead to depression, self harm, social anxiety and a few suicide attempts.
My self worth was totaly ****ed.

I'm 22 now and believed to be over it since I don't feel anything when I think about those times.
But I still feel helpless in social situations. I still smile and laugh it off when someone is being an asshole to me. Everytime someone gets angry I just get startled, laugh and say something to avoid the situation.
I get nervous when a group of people is talking loudly on the bus.
With 19 I was bullied out of my part time job by a few coworkers.
Stayed in a toxic friendship with someone who would ridicule his friends in front of everyone, insult them and putting them down.
So somehow I still behave like I did before which means that I am not over it and still have this "was bullied" mark on me.

I already went to therapy for a long time but I never really did behavioral therapy. And can't until april/mai nexr year for insurance policy reasons.

So I want to know from you guys, how do I get better? How do I lose this target on my back?

Good morning Whereto52.

Hopefully you can find some answers here.
I grew up with very low self-esteem. I was the oldest of 5 children.
I remember never feeling like I was good enough, not good enough for my dad, not good enough for the girls I wanted to date, just not good enough.
As a result, I spend most of my time trying to become what I though other people wanted me to be.
The problem was, everyone wanted me to be something different.
Fast forward till today, after three failed marriages, etc. etc.
As I look back, I realize I spent most of my life trying to prove I was good enough.
I found a wonderful counselor several years ago who helped me tremendously.
She finally got through to me and showed me that it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of us.
The only thing that matters is what we think of ourselves. Happiness and joy come from within.
If we can get to a point where we like ourselves, we can start to find that internal happiness and joy.
Today, I have grown to the point where I like me. I really don't care what other people think.
Life isn't perfect, I'm still not really good at relationships, but I'm comfortable just being me.

Not sure if this will help or not, but I felt the need to share.

BOM

This was actually very helpful! It gave me a bit of hope.I should probably start searching for a professional to work with me on my self-esteem.
Thanks for sharing!

I have the trauma of bullying as well, except my experience occurred last year in the form of cyberbullying. One that lasted three months, and another that lasted several months. One by an ex-friend, another by an ex romantic partner. They both did a smear campaign against me and destroyed my reputation and had people attacking me left and right when I had never done what they were telling people I had done. But more importantly, their gaslighting got into my head. This experience was so traumatic and severe I considered self-harm when it was occurring. I still need to do trauma therapy to heal from it.

I am still waiting to get treatment but I will share some things I have learned in my own research and some things that help me cope:

Write down a list of things you know, like, and value about yourself that come from your perspective and not other people's perspectives.
Learning how to do positive self-talk (it takes practice)
Write love notes to yourself and stick them in places you see daily to remind yourself you are loved.
Read books about healing. I'm currently reading a good one about healing trauma through yoga.
As it was already said, learn to love and accept yourself. And respect yourself. Be authentic.
Learning about boundaries and how to stand up for myself.
Doing positive affirmations has been helpful too.

I think everyone will probably find their own techniques and methodologies and it's important to figure out what works for you personally. Just remember that, no matter what anyone has done to you, you are still a lovable person. And it's possible to move beyond the wounds of being bullied.

I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through all that!
But I am glad that you found methods that are helping you heal.
When it comes to finding things that I could like about myself I end up empty handed.
If someone were to ask me about my strenghts I would not know what to say.

I will look for books again! Already have a few abour self-esteem but I haven't really gotten anywhere with them.

Thanks for sharing and thanks for the advice

Hey, it's no problem! It's really, really hard to experience any kind of abuse or bullying, and it does damage your self-esteem. Whether it happens in childhood or as an adult.

It can be hard at first to change your perception of yourself. Another technique I read about is making a list of achievements. I understand you are younger than me, but you still have achieved things in your life. I wrote out my list and put it on my wall to remind myself I'm not always a failure, I HAVE achieved things. My list surprised me, it has 11 things on it. I had no idea I had accomplished so much because I always told myself I was a failure. I realize this doesn't have much to do with bullying, but it does relate to self-esteem.

I am adopting the habit of writing down three things I did well every day at the end of the day. It's just small things like this that build self-esteem and make you realize you are more than you think you are. It's about changing the narrative others have told you about yourself. You can have your own narrative. and tell those negative bullies off. Even if just in your mind.

I hope you enjoy those books, and if you can share the titles I'd love to look them up myself.

@Whereto52 Thank you for bringing this up, Whereto52. I'm sorry for what you've gone through, and I think it takes a lot of strength to write about it and ask these questions. You're going in the right direction.

I haven't read the other responses from my fellow posters yet, but here is my response / advice / insight from what I've gathered very recently: I have been bullied too. I have been bullied out of jobs, in school where I couldn't hide, and I also used to be friends with jerks. I don't know about you, but I am a very nice person in social situations. Probably too nice. I think this is probably a problem. Some people take advantage of nice people. It is not a personal thing. It is the way I'm coming to realize the world works. Some people are mean to nice people. Why? Because they can get away with it. We won't tell anyone, we won't call them on their ****. We're too scared to do anything. And that is the crux of it. People who bully, people who treat others poorly, can only count on us not doing anything about it. If someone does something hurtful to you, you need to tell them to go **** off. Or tell your boss. Avoidance can work, but it only goes so far. I know its scary to stand up for yourself. Find ways to learn how. There is a false belief that if you are nice to someone, they will respect you and treat you well. Unfortunately, in our world, this is a false belief and it is not true. It doesn't mean you should be a jerk yourself and treat people poorly. I don't think being nice is the issue. I think its more that we don't stand up for ourselves. I get a lot out of being kind to others. But that doesn't mean I should take others ****.

In the workplace, however, we need to be appropriate. Telling someone to **** off is not appropriate. Find ways to tell / show them they cannot treat you that way. It will help. I always cowered at my bullies. I pretended they weren't there. I ignored the problem. I tried to be nice. I tried to be friends with them. None of this helped because this is not how they work. Its not how the world works. I also think toxic environments are real. Put yourself in situations and with people who are nice to you. Who you feel good around. It will help to work on improving your self esteem as well.

It is hard and scary to stand up for yourself. I think it will be worth it. Experiment with it. You may not get it "right" on the first try. Keep going. Be patient with yourself. Practice. I'm right there learning with you and practicing, btw. You're not alone. We aren't alone either.

I hope I helped. Be well.

****** treatment is always your opportunity to say no and walk away.

hmm... some good replies. I was going to type an answer but deleted it. I hope things get better for you!

Basically... it is possible to be a ''good'' person who refuses to be disrespected. Bullies won't try too much **** usually with those who refuse to be disrespected. And some traumas make it harder to stand up to A holes who bully others. But it's possible (without making it ''worse'')

I was bullied a lot myself. I been publicly humiliated by a bully several times. I been a victim of being cyber bullied. It will get better. It just takes time to heal at the right time. :hug: :sadhug: :grouphug:

You are 22,very young.You have your entire life ahead of you.If you start working on yourself now,I am sure you will become a strong ,wonderful person.When dealing with jerks ,bullies and push overs I have figured out a way that works for me.I give that person 3 chances, I will be quiet to their negativity thinking they might be having a bad day.But if it happens again and again means they are just jerks.I simply dump them.How fast I dump depends on the closeness of the relationship. If I cannot dump,I put strict boundaries. Do not accept unreasonable behaviours from anyone.

I agree with what WovenGalaxy & Fuzzy Bear said. I’m sorry to hear about what you & everyone else on here have been through.

I was bullied since 6th grade up until Jr. High & a little bit in h.s. Then I was bullied a few times at college & at work all the wat into my 40’s, ugh!

One of my problems is that I’m shy, introverted, and I had no one to stick up for me, even when I had ‘friends’. One time in Jr. High this mean girl & her friends stiod behind me when I was with my large ‘friend’ group.

She said: ‘See, she just stands there & says nothing, she never talks, ugh!’. So the statement about nice people being seen as people who won’t stick up for themselves is true.

If someone did that to me today, I’d tell them off, lol. I stull struggle to stand up to so called friends to thus day at times since I’m afraid of loosing the few friends that I have even though they kind of suck at times.

By suck, they sometimes interrupt me, ignore me, rarely initiate plans, never ask how I am, etc..

Only one of them treats me respectfully usually. You need to let people know that it’s not OK to disrespect you. I think that a lot of bullies target people with no friends or ‘friends’ who won’t stuck up for other people.

People who surround themselves with a group who looks out for each other never seem to have a problem with bullies.

Bullies prey on people who are vulnerable, different, or weak in some way. It’s best to not show any ‘weakness’ in front of bullies.

My narc dad, my psycho sister & my histrionic mom all bullied me. My dad bullied them & myself & then they bullied me. There was no escape from my personal hell back then.

Even my husband bullied me when I was younger. I finally fought back & he stopped. He tries to still bully me at times, but I don’t let him get away with it anymore.

I’m ditching my so called ‘friends’ once I can find better ones. I’ve done it before & I’ll do it again. I now will confront people, especially men who bully me. I speak up when I’m mistreated at the store, etc.

I now ignore cyber bullies as they want a reaction. They think it’s funny to see you upset. Ignore them. Block them. I had to learn that the hard way. They can only feel ‘powerful’ & good about themselves when they can make you feel inferior to them.

I ignore my parents & my sister now & they finally left me alone! Especially my dad.

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been bullied too. I have also been bullied everywhere as well. Even at home.

You are right about what you said regarding nice people . I unfortunately didn’t learn about how the worleld really works until much later in life. I’m old now. No one really respects anyone who’s to nice. Not even other nice people.

Bullies do take advantage of nice people because nice people don’t stick up for themselves usually