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Questions:
• Were you bullied as a child? Yes, but I did my share of it, too.
• Can you think why this may have occurred? I was "overly outgoing" and a hyper, rather obnoxious child at times. I could be over-bearing, and I liked to torment the boys. The real hurt from bullying occurred in junior high when I went through an awkward phase (unattractive).
• How do you feel this affected your life subsequently?
The junior high years shaped a permanent need to keep people at arm's length. I was no longer the overly anxious child wanting to be friends with everyone. But I did not grow up harboring resentment over it either. Life moved on and I grew up to be a big girl. If I was going to let my life get affected by every little dent from every kid that hurt my feelings in childhood then I'd say that I have a problem. My attitude on it all, is that I brought some things on myself and I take responsibility for it. I just grew a pair and moved on.
I will admit something, though. In high school I became quite attractive, and the taunting boys from a few years prior changed their tunes. But I wouldn't have gone out with a single one of them for all the money in the world. It was my personal revenge.
Yes i was and I was a loner. It just caused me to develop anger issues...I mean, I'm not nothered by the bullying of my school time...I'm bothered by the bullying into adulthood. Yes it still happens as an adult.
I was bullied as a child and think that such an experience makes you either more empathetic or causes you to become an abusive person yourself.
Questions:
• Were you bullied as a child?
• Can you think why this may have occurred?
• How do you feel this affected your life subsequently?
I was bullied as a child but I learned to fight back and no I don't have anger problems nor am I over empathic about it. I got over it guess it really depends on one's generation too these days everyone tends to have delicate sensibilities and feels the needs for meds and or talk to a shrink about it.
I came to US when I was 14 and I was bullied mercilessly throughout high school. I came from a different culture, was probably the only girl in school with no make and big hair (80s) and initially didn't speak any English. Not only I was trying to get used living in the U.S. but also had to deal with these jerks in the school. It was an issue I never faced before because I came from a culture where school bullying was never really problem in schools. But what I was more horrified was how some teachers encouraged this behavior. I remember there was another girl who got bullied on daily basis. One day in an English class, she asked for a permission to go to bathroom. As she was leaving, someone stuck a 'kick me' note on her back. She must have found the note while in the bathroom. She came back, threw the note on floor, picked up her stuff and stormed out. I remember kids laughing and making fun of her. But what really shocked and horrified me was our 60+ year old English teacher simply joined in with kids laughing at her. She was a mean old witch and not the only teacher who protected these worthless jerks (which most of them turned out to be losers). As you can probably tell, 30 years later, I am still angry. Yes, it made me stronger but it also caused me untold pain that at one point I seriously thought of suicide. My parents, as first generation immigrants, had no idea how to protect me. So now, I am extremely sensitive to this issue. Thankfully, my 12 year old seems to be a popular kid and his teachers have more than once complemented us on how kind and helpful he is because I make a deliberate effort to raise a respectful and a kind child.
I was bullied because of my weight. I bullied other kids because I thought they were nerds or sissies in an attempt to make myself look cool, hip, or tough, depending on the circumstance.
• How do you feel this affected your life subsequently?
See above - I carry a tremendous amount of guilt for bullying other kids, especially my younger sister. She and I have made peace about it, but every now and then something will make the past pop up and we'll both wince a little at the memory.
Otherwise, I developed defense mechanisms such as nonchalance, aloofness, and sarcasm. I'm still reluctant to speak out or speak up, worried what other people will think. When there's conflict in the family or in the workplace, I try to come up with compromises to ensure everyone gets along.
I came to US when I was 14 and I was bullied mercilessly throughout high school. I came from a different culture, was probably the only girl in school with no make and big hair (80s) and initially didn't speak any English. Not only I was trying to get used living in the U.S. but also had to deal with these jerks in the school. It was an issue I never faced before because I came from a culture where school bullying was never really problem in schools. But what I was more horrified was how some teachers encouraged this behavior.
I agree with you that people in leadership positions need to come from a place of moral integrity. Clearly she did not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stardust05
I remember there was another girl who got bullied on daily basis. One day in an English class, she asked for a permission to go to bathroom. As she was leaving, someone stuck a 'kick me' note on her back. She must have found the note while in the bathroom. She came back, threw the note on floor, picked up her stuff and stormed out. I remember kids laughing and making fun of her. But what really shocked and horrified me was our 60+ year old English teacher simply joined in with kids laughing at her. She was a mean old witch and not the only teacher who protected these worthless jerks (which most of them turned out to be losers). As you can probably tell, 30 years later, I am still angry.
In second through ninth grade I was picked on by other kids with varying intensity, but also some exceptions. In Ninth Grade English I typically earned high grades despite my teacher's siding with the "bullies." (I prefer a milder term but I digress). She refused to give me the perfect attendance supplement to my grade because my family needed me to leave a day early on winter break in February 1972. Fast forward about 11 months, to January 3 or 4, 1973. I wasn't being picked on but my father was in terminal stages of cancer. I had an appointment with another teacher whose office was next to hers. She said "Jim" I see you're having problems again." I said, "well, my father's about to die any day now." She said "that's a real problem" and closed the door. I would not describe my emotions as anger, more disappointment that despite her age she wasn't really an adult.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stardust05
Yes, it made me stronger but it also caused me untold pain that at one point I seriously thought of suicide. My parents, as first generation immigrants, had no idea how to protect me. So now, I am extremely sensitive to this issue. Thankfully, my 12 year old seems to be a popular kid and his teachers have more than once complemented us on how kind and helpful he is because I make a deliberate effort to raise a respectful and a kind child.
Yours may be one of the few cases where the victim is totally helpless through no fault of their own.
(For some context, I am a straight white American woman in my early 50s. During my childhood in the 1970s and '80s, my family was lower middle class with no college education.)
Were you bullied as a child?
Yes, by my male and female peers starting in grammar school (1970s). This was mostly verbal (being told I was ugly, stupid, and should die, along with baseless malicious gossip), but it occasionally became physical toward me or my possessions. This was at its peak in middle school/junior high, but it continued to a lesser extent in high school and even college. (The issues in college were quite different, so I won't include them here.)
My brothers faced similar difficulties, but for them it was mostly fights, with some false and very serious rumors.
Can you think why this may have occurred?
I came to an insular New England factory town "from away." I was quiet, well-behaved, bookish, intelligent, and pursued education as a goal unto itself. My allergies, which were not as common in the 1970s as today, were a point of "interest" to the bullies, who at least refrained from weaponizing them except as another kind of verbal taunt.
I enjoyed some tomboyish activities. Not competition sports of any kind, but hiking, fishing, and birdwatching. When I was in junior high school, I even learned to shoot both guns and bows, though I've never owned a weapon. None of the girls I knew did any of these things, and I did well enough that some of the boys were jealous. I did not wear makeup or do my hair like the other girls, especially in high school (1980s), which was in a different slightly less blue-collar New England town with a completely different group of people.
I also hit puberty quite early for those days, sooner than other girls in my class did. This did NOT make me more popular with the boys, who were still in their "girls-have-cooties" stage when my breasts began to show. By the time their hormones kicked in, the other girls had caught up with me in that way.
How do you feel this affected your life subsequently?
I embraced my innate differences, but I paid a high price for living at the geek/nerd end of the social spectrum. I became afraid of people and perpetually nervous, plagued by nightmares (10s/20s). I became a perfectionist regarding my own work (but others') because I felt that I had to justify my existence. Because my existence had inspired such terrible behavior from my peers, to whom I'd never done anything wrong, the fact that I was alive seemed fundamentally wrong and pointless. (This was exacerbated by verbal and emotional abuse by my father.) Even now, although I am confident in some aspects of my life, I don't have a great deal of self-esteem and probably have something like body dysmorphic disorder (I believe that I am physically unattractive despite being told otherwise). Although I've never been formally diagnosed, I've certainly suffered depression (10s/20s/30s) and contemplated but did not attempt suicide during periods of specific stresses (10s/20s/30s/40s). Much of my life has been lived in solitude, with my good friends hundreds or thousands of miles away. I didn't date until my 40s, though part of that was due to sexual assaults in my 20s and 30s. I will probably never have another romantic relationship. Bullying may have contributed to various medical conditions related to tension and stress that I have experienced at one time or another from childhood until today.
Decades later, even in my home town, where I now have friends whom I visit on occasion, I feel like a bit of an outsider. I have grown mostly comfortable with this. Adapting to life in foreign countries or very different parts of the U.S. is easier for me because the feeling of not quite fitting in is so familiar.
Bullying probably intensified my basically introverted, shy, kindly, honest, and empathetic nature. It has given me throughout my life a compassionate understanding of members of social groups marginalized by "mainstream" American culture, including those to which I do not belong, such as LGBTQ, immigrants, and religious/racial minorities. I vote and donate accordingly. It has also, I think, made me more devoted to intellectual and artistic pursuits.
Despite the pain and losses that it caused me, and although I do not think about it much anymore, I have used the bullying of my childhood as fertilizer for the good works of my maturity.
In 7th grade, our parents sent my sister and I to a Christian School. My sister did ok, but there was a classmate of mine, and his friend, who tortured me daily making fun of my last name.
We weren't in their clique, didn't go to their churches, didn't live in their neighborhoods.
I was bullied in 7th grade, 8th grade, and the few months of 10th grade that I was there.
I made all F's in all of my classes, because it was horrible being there daily.
In 9th grade, my dad and mom allowed me to go to a country school, and live with my great aunt and uncle. That was the best year of my teens, as I had FRIENDS! Friends who didn't care about my name, didn't care about my glasses, or where I lived. I made all A's, without effort.
I agree with you that people in leadership positions need to come from a place of moral integrity. Clearly she did not.
In second through ninth grade I was picked on by other kids with varying intensity, but also some exceptions. In Ninth Grade English I typically earned high grades despite my teacher's siding with the "bullies." (I prefer a milder term but I digress). She refused to give me the perfect attendance supplement to my grade because my family needed me to leave a day early on winter break in February 1972. Fast forward about 11 months, to January 3 or 4, 1973. I wasn't being picked on but my father was in terminal stages of cancer. I had an appointment with another teacher whose office was next to hers. She said "Jim" I see you're having problems again." I said, "well, my father's about to die any day now." She said "that's a real problem" and closed the door. I would not describe my emotions as anger, more disappointment that despite her age she wasn't really an adult.
Yours may be one of the few cases where the victim is totally helpless through no fault of their own.
Thank you for your kind post. Once I was done with high school, things got so much better. I flourished in college and went on to go to law school. I did fulfill my idea of an American dream despite earlier difficulties. But it made me very sympathetic to people from different backgrounds. At the same time, I passionately dislike nasty people and refuse to deal with bullies as an adult. I should also add, I did have people who were incredibly kind to me. Football star of our school football team sat behind me in math class and would ask for a pencil at every class. He would also always ask how I was doing. That one little act of kindness would make my entire day. We never run on the same circles (obviously) but I always wondered if he ever realized how his simple kindness helped me. So now, I always tell my son to be active and take interest in people's lives. If you see a student sitting by himself/herself, go sit with that person and show some interest.
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