In middle school there was this one big dumb kid who I didn't even know that kept getting in my face for no discernible reason. I found out later that a bunch of little assholes were telling him that I'd insulted him and his family when I'd done no such thing. Apparently he just believed them. Idiot. I never believe anything anyone tells me.
Anyway, I don't think I recall a single grade-school incident where one or both parties didn't have it coming. Pretty lucky I guess.
The only thing I remember about high school was the fact that seniors got to leave class early for lunch. A bullshit policy to begin with, but what infuriated me most was seeing those motherfuckers show up late to the cafeteria anyway and then cut in line. And fuckers whoring up unused chairs "for their friends" when there weren't enough seats to go around in the first place. Ohh I got in lots of fights over that shit. Then the teachers come down on me for instigating violence when they're clearly not doing anything about the line-cutters and seat whores. I'll be god damned if I'm gonna live off vending machine food for the rest of the school year...
The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
I had the shit bullied out of me my entire life, to the extent where I considered anyone being nice to me a bizarre "aligning of the planets" event rather than just some basic talk between two kids
I realized so much of it was because I was loudmouthed and just had terrible social skills, the other kids would throw jokes at almost everyone but I took it terribly and it would build from there, I can see how it happened now. Some of it was very unfair and directed but I can look back on it now with a fairer view.
Some of them are still cunts though, and I ignore them, but many of the others were just being kids, they weren't that bad and they're OK now, even if they do have a kid and a dumb fiancee at 22.
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TonkkaSome one in the club tonightHas stolen my ideas.Registered Userregular
The only people I have ever really bullied are the blatant idiots that frequent my bar.
In middle school there was this one big dumb kid who I didn't even know that kept getting in my face for no discernible reason. I found out later that a bunch of little assholes were telling him that I'd insulted him and his family when I'd done no such thing. Apparently he just believed them. Idiot. I never believe anything anyone tells me.
Anyway, I don't think I recall a single grade-school incident where one or both parties didn't have it coming. Pretty lucky I guess.
The only thing I remember about high school was the fact that seniors got to leave class early for lunch. A bullshit policy to begin with, but what infuriated me most was seeing those motherfuckers show up late to the cafeteria anyway and then cut in line. And fuckers whoring up unused chairs "for their friends" when there weren't enough seats to go around in the first place. Ohh I got in lots of fights over that shit. Then the teachers come down on me for instigating violence when they're clearly not doing anything about the line-cutters and seat whores. I'll be god damned if I'm gonna live off vending machine food for the rest of the school year...
...what were we talking about again?
The last couple lines made this turn into a Whomp comic in my mind.
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
I think my best bullying comeuppance story is from my bus ride home around 9th grade
there was a pair of 8th graders on there who were huge, they were tall and really athletic and they were absolute assholes.
I was getting off at my stop, along with two of my friends and one of their little brothers, as we were walking down teh aisle the guys started really getting into my friend about his mum. My friend was fairly big too but didn't respond, he walked past.
His little brother however smacked one of those dicks right in the nose, just smeared it across his face, blood started pouring everywhere. We walk off the bus and he apologizes to the bus driver for the mess and we walk right on home.
He got in a lot of trouble for that later, this big kid was a complete mommies boy so they cooked up some bullshit to get the little brother in trouble, but everyone who got wind of it was like "Nope, R--- is a complete dickhead, deserves more" so the punishment was only a 2 day suspension
I bullied, was bullied and am now stuck with a "friend" who has somehow become a dictator of sorts over my close group of friends. Just recently he blew up and yelled n' cussed out a friend for asking for a ride back to his car on the other side of the parking lot we parked in. After he dropped him off, he had to tell me and my other pal not to be so silent, he wasn't angry at us. Ha ha ha!
In middle school there was this one big dumb kid who I didn't even know that kept getting in my face for no discernible reason. I found out later that a bunch of little assholes were telling him that I'd insulted him and his family when I'd done no such thing. Apparently he just believed them. Idiot. I never believe anything anyone tells me.
The sky is blue, water is wet, fire is hot!
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TonkkaSome one in the club tonightHas stolen my ideas.Registered Userregular
Oh yeah, I guess one guy in middle school wanted to meet me at the north stairs to fight me for reasons unknown.
I just left through the south stairs like every day and went home.
The next he asked me why I didn't show up to fight him. I replied that I didn't want to fight him because up until that popint I thought that we were friends.
He was totally cool after that, seems that someone else put him up to it.
Oh speaking comeuppance stories, there is a family that lives in my mom's neighborhood. They're still there, far as I know, and they're just a horrible group of people. Snobby, obnoxious, and the sort who don't really care about what bad crap their kids did to others, but god help you if they caught anyone else's parents giving their kids shit.
Their oldest was this huge kid, Chris. He had some kind of disorder and couldn't talk right. He sounded just Andre the giant, now that I think about it. Chris was a nasty piece of work sometimes, and would often hit me and throw shit at me whenever he thought he could get away with it. One time one of our nicer neighbors, patty, saw Chris about to whack me over the head with some toy, and she grabbed him by the arm.
A moment later, Lisa (Chris's mom), grabs HER by the arm and yanks her so hard it throws her back out. I guess she didn't like anyone stopping her son from attacking other kids, I guess.
Well, I don't remember the details of this one well, I was probably around 6-8, and heard this bit from my mom. One day I came BOLTING through the front door. I mean, like a rabid dog was after me, I flew into the house.
Moments later, Lisa comes hurrying up to the door, holding Chris by the arm. And Chris has a very bloody nose. :winky:
Lisa gave my mom shit about it, and all she has to say is "Well, if your son wasn't bullying Daniel all the time, this wouldn't have happened."
Also, after I moved out of my Dad's and back in with my Mom, after high school, I saw Chris again and he looked exactly the same as when I was little. It was unreal.
I think he has some kind of growth hormone disorder or something.
My first name is Loren. I'm named after my grandfather who is one of the most admirable people anyone could ever meet, and i barely knew the guy. I didnt even learn much about him until i was much older because my dad doesnt talk a lot about his home life.
Well a male person my name was found unacceptable by my elementary/middle school classmates. The first day of school and any day with a substitute was hell for me. Even when i take level 1000 courses i still get the "HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE UR NAME IS LOREN!?" but it doesnt bug me anymore because i understand where the name came from and i fucking own that shit.
Also i had long hair from grade 3 to 6 and in 6th grade this dude, names Martin, used to fuck with me literally every single day. "Did your parents actually want a girl?" "You know you look like a girl right?"
I searched for him on facebook the other day but i didnt find him.. but man, dumb vivid memories from 13 years ago. Especially thinking back and knowing i had probably 25 pounds on the guy.
Shit like that still fucks with my confidence, although very much less now and its more "man tugga why were you such a pussy?" etc
Oh yeah, I guess one guy in middle school wanted to meet me at the north stairs to fight me for reasons unknown.
I just left through the south stairs like every day and went home.
The next he asked me why I didn't show up to fight him. I replied that I didn't want to fight him because up until that popint I thought that we were friends.
He was totally cool after that, seems that someone else put him up to it.
I was a lanky red head growing up, awkward and matured late. So I always felt like I was the butt of every joke, when I wasnt ACTUALLY the butt of the joke. I got called faggot so many times and from so many different kinds of people, popular kids with sexy and smart girlfriends, smart kids, everyone. I mean it sucks when theres one bully, but when multiple people say the same thing, people you dont know, as a kid you think 'they have no reason to lie, i must be an ugly faggot'. I remember going to a school disco for the first time and a girl telling me to 'fuck off' when I talked to her. Lots of other shit like that.
Eventually I grew into my frame (kickboxing and weights also helped!) and my hair turned a kind of strawberry-blonde/auburn colour and I matured, the senior years of high school were filled with people who wanted to be there (in Australia you can leave in year 10, so year 11 and 12 are normally just people who actually want to learn), so it all worked out.
But those early experiences gave me huge confidence and self-esteem issues, took me into my early 20s to get over, even though by then I hadnt been bullied in years. I never really hated any bullies, since it just felt like everyone, like i never blamed the bullies, I blamed myself, because it was my fault I was so stupid and constantly embarressing myself. I think thats the subtle thing about bullying, often the bullies dont have to do much, it depends on what they say, if they get to you, you start to do most of the bullying yourself, you fill in the blanks and become your own bully. I think this is especially true with girls. And my god it saddens me so much thinking about what girls have to go through with social media, girls at that age are such social creatures and they cant exactly just 'sock their bully on the nose' (even though that rarely works even with guys) or turn off facebook (this would work, but its the equivilent of saying 'dont have a life', and often it just means the bullies keep talking online 'behind their back') to make it stop.
Lashing out physically at your bullies, boys or girls, often makes you look like a crazy creep, even if you win the fight, you just end up looking like that weird crazy kid who has emotional problems. (I mean in respect to emotional bullying, if bullies are physically attacking you, you can fight back, but my bullies were smart enough never to do that, which im kinda thankful for, because it sounds awful, but at the same time it painted me as the aggressor whenever I lashed out)
Also im about to become a high school teacher! So im kind of interested in this thread, a lot of people have said some great things (i mean in terms of advice and analysis of bullying, not in terms of the incidents themselves).
When I think back I am so thankful to have had such a great family, it makes me feel guilty thinking of people like goatman who didnt have that to fall back on (i mean in reference to your dad, the rest of your family seems awesome)
I guess besides some.pretty overt racists I was pretty lucky on the hilly front on high school.
Oh except the kid three years younger than me who I could in no way retaliate against because I am Giant human thing.
I didn't sit in the back of the bus due to the aforementioned racists and I guess he thought I was an easy target. the school did nothing to stop this. My exact words to my principal were " I will not be held responsible if I throw this kid out of a moving vehicle. " Apparently he didn't think I was serious.
So eventually I just walked home everyday.
I hate my high school is what I'm saying.
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
i used to catch shit for my cleft lip/fucked up nose and fake eye throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school. seemed like one year would be fine and i would have a bunch of friends and then the next year i would end up with a bunch of douchebags in my classes and get made fun of. back then, i didn't really know how to deal with it. never liked fighting much to begin with, but there were a few cases when kids would fuck with me and we would end up in a scuffle.
i never really understood how you could be made fun of for a birth defect. like, not my fault, right? now, i realize bullying people for shit that "is their fault" for whatever is horseshit, but you know, it's not like i had any control over my shit.
eventually i learned, if somebody started making fun of me, i'd just roll with it and drop some self-deprecating humor that was funnier than whatever they were saying. after that, if they kept it up, i would just tear into them (verbally) where they couldn't really keep up. this didn't stop everybody, because it seemed like somebody else would try and have a go at some point or another, but once i started owning up to my faults and using them for humor myself, other people's insults fell short.
now, it doesn't really bother me. so they made fun of me. so what? yeah, it made me tend to be more of a loner/small group kind of person and shy and very aware of my appearance, but in general i had a pretty good home life, probably better than most of the kids that made fun of me. but i had been through more physical pain than they ever had and still accomplished more shit than they had despite that (it was a goal of mine to play football throughout, and most of the time to correct my cleft lip/palate i would have my surgeries in the summer, and barely have enough time to recuperate to get ready for football). Towards the end of high school, i would still get made fun of for being a cyclops or what have you, but it was generally accepted that i was pretty fucking tough on the field and that helped put a stop to most of it. and at that point in time most of the shit i caught was from teammates or friends that we all ripped on each other, so it was accepted. but from random douchebags? it was never a problem after that.
my biggest regret was not stopping the other football players from fucking with other kids at school, because while i never bullied any of them, i saw them do plenty of it and knew how the kids on the receiving end of it felt. and i think that's what i mean when i said "is their fault" earlier, because they dressed weird, or acted weird, but that isn't their fault just because they were fucking different. honestly, i was just glad for once it wasn't me. i don't know if i could've made a difference, but i was always nice to everybody at school. of course, my reasoning was more "if they go columbine, i want them to see me and say 'oh that's DL, the guy that was nice to me. he gets to live' ". except for one dude, who often got in a lot of trouble throughout high school in his efforts to show off and when he would come home drunk he would tell his parents that he'd been hanging out with me (we hardly ever hung out). after high school i apologized to him for my behavior and told him i really felt bad about some of the shit i said to him, but he blew me off, and then later i found out all the shit he used to blame on me, so fuck him anyway.
i definitely didn't have it as bad as some or even most of the folks who have posted in here, but i felt like for all the shit i took, getting bullied over some birth defects was pretty low. and getting over it, was just that. getting over it and making fun of myself to stop people from carrying on with their insults. never had anybody try to physically bully me after middle school. some guy tried to take me down from behind in the 8th grade locker room and i choked him out against the locker and told him not to fuck with me anymore. he ended up failing 8th grade and sophomore year of high school, so i always thought that was hilarious.
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I got bullied for being gay not that I was out then. Now I try not to focus on all the bad parts.
When I think back to school I think back to the people who were nice and stood up for me. I can remember their names and I hope they're all doing well. I don't know if they even realized how their actions stopped me from killing myself.
Outside of two people, I can't even remember the assholes' names. And I only know one name because he was in the news for murdering a 9-month-old. Class act that one.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
but kids being driven to suicide and the persistent horrible way this stuff seems to manifest itself nowadays makes me think maybe kids are dealing with an entirely different permutation of harassment then we did as kids
and that sux
yeah I mean I got bullied what I thought was quite a bit when I was growing up
I never got beat up or anything (even though I probably deserved it; I had a big mouth. pretty sure the only reason I never got the shit kicked out of me was because I was best friends with the biggest, craziest dude in school) but I was basically really isolated
I thought that, in spectrum of school experience, mine was one of the worst
and now I read about kids who go to school and basically every one of their classmates tells them to kill themself every day
I changed schools between 7th and 8th grade. Starting there I was bullied all through high school. Shit fucked me up enough that even over 15 years later I am not over it and I am in therapy now to finally move past it.
I am not hating anyone specific from back then, but I won't go to high school reunions either because of it.
I'm 27, but I remember multiple people telling me and others to kill themselves constantly. Even stuff like "just leave me out of the suicide note" *high five douchebag friend*.
I'm just glad we didn't have Facebook and no one really used cell phones beyond phone calls. I can only imagine how bad it would have been not even having peace online.
The physical bullies I dealt with were never that strong or crazy so if they fought me I could fight back and once they learned that they usually only "bullied" me through stand offs where it was about who would blink first when puffing our chests against each other or they'd wait in groups and I'd trick them into not beating me up until I could find a way to escape for example by telling them stories until the sun came up and turned them into stone (this might not be an accurate example)
so for me it's all about the psychological bullies. Being taught deep shame and insecurities. Like many have said before I can't imagine how much worse that much be now that it echoes through the internet like an eternal whisper and giggle
I thought I had it pretty bad, but a lot of the stories in here are making me realize that it was mostly my own temper that made it so bad. I totally flew off the handle from... 4th to 8th grade at the slightest provocation. Looking back I'm pretty sure those reactions were the reason why I was constantly given so much shit, but I only got into one fight over it-- gave one of the guys who regularly tormented me a shiner that lasted a week. Not one of my better ideas since he and his three closest friends proceeded to kick the crap out of me. If I'd been bullied like that in high school, on top of all the other stuff going on at home at the time, I doubt I'd be here.
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MachwingIt looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it?Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered Userregular
I was in the second grade when I found out that I needed glasses. As every seven year old thinks their dad the coolest human being ever, I obviously wanted the same pair he had, right? Little did I know, a pair of 60s-era large-framed tortiseshell bifocals is an excellent way to make a second-grader look like a doofus. I got a lot of shit for those. I didn't have a whole lot of friends through elementary school.
My brother was a year older than me, and we were in the boyscouts, so I'd always go camping and hang out with him and his friends, rather than with the kids in my grade. He hated his little brother, so he made his friends ignore me, but he was the second coolest human being ever, so I didn't mind.
It was around the 7th grade that I finally wised up and got a pair that didn't take up half of my face. I was still made fun of for having glasses (I went to a REALLY shitty middle school), but it bothered me less by then.
High-school wasn't so bad, except that my family moved to a new city when I started it, so I didn't know anybody. The first group I hung out with was the skateboarders. I wasn't one, but they were the first guys I talked to when school started. At one point, I realized that they'd kept me around for as the comedic relief; there were few lunches that went by where they wouldn't slap my food out of my hands, make me attempt skateboard tricks and make fun of me when I failed, ditch me for some other area of the school to sit at, etc. But they were my friends, right? I didn't mind.
And then I learned that my definition of friends was seriously fucked up. Somebody is not their friend just because they let you hang out with them.
I came into my own during junior and senior year, when I met a bunch of cool people in my english classes and fucked right the hell off from the skaters.
While I lacked the integrity to put a stop to my mates bullying people while it was happening, I alway made sure I'd catch up with the guy after the fact and have a chat. Usually it was just to apologise for my friends' actions and some ham fisted attempts at telling them they were good people. I'll never forget one poor bastard who was bullied really badly wrote in my yearbook 'If wasn't for you, I wouldn't be alive' and that moved me pretty profoundly. I'm not sure if he actually would have gone off the deep end but I guess you just never know
MachwingIt looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it?Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered Userregular
edited October 2012
Oh yeah: during gym class in high school, we'd occasionally play this lame lacrosse-football hybrid if the weather was weird or whatever. The gym teacher would go wander off and do whatever-it-is gym teachers do, while the students would gather together in their little cliques and socialize.
One day, the local druggie fuck-up took a running swing at my back with his lacrosse stick. My legs went numb and I fell to the ground, screaming out in pain. The gym teacher comes running over after about two minutes; I'm laying there on the ground, crying out, my legs and stomach burning and numb.
After four minutes or so, the feeling returns to my legs and I can stand up. He sends the druggie and I to the principal's office. We were both suspended for a week.
Yeah I have one of those stories as well. We played basketball, the ball hit the floor. I went for it to pick it up - another kid kicked it. Only he didn't kick the ball, but my hand that was on the ball. And I got yelled at for crying out in pain. Didn't get suspended because our schools don't do that but it made me go "WTF teacher? Stop ogling the girls and pay attention, fucker".
because punishing everyone involved takes less effort than actually finding out what happened
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MachwingIt looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it?Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered Userregular
Because high school administrators are fuckheads who sweep the victims under the rug with the aggressors for the sake of ease. These were the same kinds of administrators who would expel poorly performing students to raise their performance numbers.
Kinda like no tolerance policy's where anybody involved in a fight got in the same amount of trouble.
Didn't matter if you went up to someone pushed them into a corner and started beating the living crap out of that person or were the person being beaten you were all equally to blame.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Having never really been bullied I hesitate to judge people who have been really affected by bullying, but my basic feeling is that at some point you need to get over it, or at the very least try to deal it somehow
But I dunno if you wanna be bitter about middle school and let it ruin your life then more power to you
Bullying just kinda getting a pass from teachers and other students is super shitty and I applaud any effort made to crack down on that sort of thing
This is not how this works. At all.
If you're a 14 year old kid who knows he is gay, KNOWS IT, and everyone picks on you for it, then how the hell is that on the kid?
There's no way that is a kid's responsibility if his parents, family, school, etc are all saying "Gays are evil" etc... which is exactly the message sent in a lot of places.
And since I grew up in rural South Carolina, I'm speaking from experience.
I guess I wasn't very specific, but I didn't mean to say the 14 year old gay kid should just walk it off but rather what druhim and tef said
It would be (and is) incredibly fucked up for somebody to act like a child should have the knowledge and self awareness to just "get over it"
But I don't think it is unreasonable to think an adult should act like an adult (which to be clear, is not saying that people who experience abuse as adults should just walk it off right away either, but at some point something needs to be done)
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Hugs, bro. All the damn hugs.
I thought you were gong to bel air us for a second.
Satans..... hints.....
Anyway, I don't think I recall a single grade-school incident where one or both parties didn't have it coming. Pretty lucky I guess.
The only thing I remember about high school was the fact that seniors got to leave class early for lunch. A bullshit policy to begin with, but what infuriated me most was seeing those motherfuckers show up late to the cafeteria anyway and then cut in line. And fuckers whoring up unused chairs "for their friends" when there weren't enough seats to go around in the first place. Ohh I got in lots of fights over that shit. Then the teachers come down on me for instigating violence when they're clearly not doing anything about the line-cutters and seat whores. I'll be god damned if I'm gonna live off vending machine food for the rest of the school year...
...what were we talking about again?
so I went outside less and got chubby and then I got bullied for being chubby
so I went outside even less and sometimes I wonder who I'd be if all that didn't go down
it's a miracle you survived your childhood
Adversity made you the man you are today!
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Yeah well.
I was hungry.
and my feet hurt.
...shut up.
I realized so much of it was because I was loudmouthed and just had terrible social skills, the other kids would throw jokes at almost everyone but I took it terribly and it would build from there, I can see how it happened now. Some of it was very unfair and directed but I can look back on it now with a fairer view.
Some of them are still cunts though, and I ignore them, but many of the others were just being kids, they weren't that bad and they're OK now, even if they do have a kid and a dumb fiancee at 22.
They pay me for it, and they keep coming back.
The last couple lines made this turn into a Whomp comic in my mind.
there was a pair of 8th graders on there who were huge, they were tall and really athletic and they were absolute assholes.
I was getting off at my stop, along with two of my friends and one of their little brothers, as we were walking down teh aisle the guys started really getting into my friend about his mum. My friend was fairly big too but didn't respond, he walked past.
His little brother however smacked one of those dicks right in the nose, just smeared it across his face, blood started pouring everywhere. We walk off the bus and he apologizes to the bus driver for the mess and we walk right on home.
He got in a lot of trouble for that later, this big kid was a complete mommies boy so they cooked up some bullshit to get the little brother in trouble, but everyone who got wind of it was like "Nope, R--- is a complete dickhead, deserves more" so the punishment was only a 2 day suspension
The sky is blue, water is wet, fire is hot!
I just left through the south stairs like every day and went home.
The next he asked me why I didn't show up to fight him. I replied that I didn't want to fight him because up until that popint I thought that we were friends.
He was totally cool after that, seems that someone else put him up to it.
Their oldest was this huge kid, Chris. He had some kind of disorder and couldn't talk right. He sounded just Andre the giant, now that I think about it. Chris was a nasty piece of work sometimes, and would often hit me and throw shit at me whenever he thought he could get away with it. One time one of our nicer neighbors, patty, saw Chris about to whack me over the head with some toy, and she grabbed him by the arm.
A moment later, Lisa (Chris's mom), grabs HER by the arm and yanks her so hard it throws her back out. I guess she didn't like anyone stopping her son from attacking other kids, I guess.
Well, I don't remember the details of this one well, I was probably around 6-8, and heard this bit from my mom. One day I came BOLTING through the front door. I mean, like a rabid dog was after me, I flew into the house.
Moments later, Lisa comes hurrying up to the door, holding Chris by the arm. And Chris has a very bloody nose. :winky:
Lisa gave my mom shit about it, and all she has to say is "Well, if your son wasn't bullying Daniel all the time, this wouldn't have happened."
My mom is awesome.
I think he has some kind of growth hormone disorder or something.
Well a male person my name was found unacceptable by my elementary/middle school classmates. The first day of school and any day with a substitute was hell for me. Even when i take level 1000 courses i still get the "HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE UR NAME IS LOREN!?" but it doesnt bug me anymore because i understand where the name came from and i fucking own that shit.
Also i had long hair from grade 3 to 6 and in 6th grade this dude, names Martin, used to fuck with me literally every single day. "Did your parents actually want a girl?" "You know you look like a girl right?"
I searched for him on facebook the other day but i didnt find him.. but man, dumb vivid memories from 13 years ago. Especially thinking back and knowing i had probably 25 pounds on the guy.
Shit like that still fucks with my confidence, although very much less now and its more "man tugga why were you such a pussy?" etc
STEAM!
STEAM!
This is pretty sad.
Way to be boss tonks.
Satans..... hints.....
I was a lanky red head growing up, awkward and matured late. So I always felt like I was the butt of every joke, when I wasnt ACTUALLY the butt of the joke. I got called faggot so many times and from so many different kinds of people, popular kids with sexy and smart girlfriends, smart kids, everyone. I mean it sucks when theres one bully, but when multiple people say the same thing, people you dont know, as a kid you think 'they have no reason to lie, i must be an ugly faggot'. I remember going to a school disco for the first time and a girl telling me to 'fuck off' when I talked to her. Lots of other shit like that.
Eventually I grew into my frame (kickboxing and weights also helped!) and my hair turned a kind of strawberry-blonde/auburn colour and I matured, the senior years of high school were filled with people who wanted to be there (in Australia you can leave in year 10, so year 11 and 12 are normally just people who actually want to learn), so it all worked out.
But those early experiences gave me huge confidence and self-esteem issues, took me into my early 20s to get over, even though by then I hadnt been bullied in years. I never really hated any bullies, since it just felt like everyone, like i never blamed the bullies, I blamed myself, because it was my fault I was so stupid and constantly embarressing myself. I think thats the subtle thing about bullying, often the bullies dont have to do much, it depends on what they say, if they get to you, you start to do most of the bullying yourself, you fill in the blanks and become your own bully. I think this is especially true with girls. And my god it saddens me so much thinking about what girls have to go through with social media, girls at that age are such social creatures and they cant exactly just 'sock their bully on the nose' (even though that rarely works even with guys) or turn off facebook (this would work, but its the equivilent of saying 'dont have a life', and often it just means the bullies keep talking online 'behind their back') to make it stop.
Lashing out physically at your bullies, boys or girls, often makes you look like a crazy creep, even if you win the fight, you just end up looking like that weird crazy kid who has emotional problems. (I mean in respect to emotional bullying, if bullies are physically attacking you, you can fight back, but my bullies were smart enough never to do that, which im kinda thankful for, because it sounds awful, but at the same time it painted me as the aggressor whenever I lashed out)
Also im about to become a high school teacher! So im kind of interested in this thread, a lot of people have said some great things (i mean in terms of advice and analysis of bullying, not in terms of the incidents themselves).
When I think back I am so thankful to have had such a great family, it makes me feel guilty thinking of people like goatman who didnt have that to fall back on (i mean in reference to your dad, the rest of your family seems awesome)
Oh except the kid three years younger than me who I could in no way retaliate against because I am Giant human thing.
I didn't sit in the back of the bus due to the aforementioned racists and I guess he thought I was an easy target. the school did nothing to stop this. My exact words to my principal were " I will not be held responsible if I throw this kid out of a moving vehicle. " Apparently he didn't think I was serious.
So eventually I just walked home everyday.
I hate my high school is what I'm saying.
i never really understood how you could be made fun of for a birth defect. like, not my fault, right? now, i realize bullying people for shit that "is their fault" for whatever is horseshit, but you know, it's not like i had any control over my shit.
eventually i learned, if somebody started making fun of me, i'd just roll with it and drop some self-deprecating humor that was funnier than whatever they were saying. after that, if they kept it up, i would just tear into them (verbally) where they couldn't really keep up. this didn't stop everybody, because it seemed like somebody else would try and have a go at some point or another, but once i started owning up to my faults and using them for humor myself, other people's insults fell short.
now, it doesn't really bother me. so they made fun of me. so what? yeah, it made me tend to be more of a loner/small group kind of person and shy and very aware of my appearance, but in general i had a pretty good home life, probably better than most of the kids that made fun of me. but i had been through more physical pain than they ever had and still accomplished more shit than they had despite that (it was a goal of mine to play football throughout, and most of the time to correct my cleft lip/palate i would have my surgeries in the summer, and barely have enough time to recuperate to get ready for football). Towards the end of high school, i would still get made fun of for being a cyclops or what have you, but it was generally accepted that i was pretty fucking tough on the field and that helped put a stop to most of it. and at that point in time most of the shit i caught was from teammates or friends that we all ripped on each other, so it was accepted. but from random douchebags? it was never a problem after that.
my biggest regret was not stopping the other football players from fucking with other kids at school, because while i never bullied any of them, i saw them do plenty of it and knew how the kids on the receiving end of it felt. and i think that's what i mean when i said "is their fault" earlier, because they dressed weird, or acted weird, but that isn't their fault just because they were fucking different. honestly, i was just glad for once it wasn't me. i don't know if i could've made a difference, but i was always nice to everybody at school. of course, my reasoning was more "if they go columbine, i want them to see me and say 'oh that's DL, the guy that was nice to me. he gets to live' ". except for one dude, who often got in a lot of trouble throughout high school in his efforts to show off and when he would come home drunk he would tell his parents that he'd been hanging out with me (we hardly ever hung out). after high school i apologized to him for my behavior and told him i really felt bad about some of the shit i said to him, but he blew me off, and then later i found out all the shit he used to blame on me, so fuck him anyway.
i definitely didn't have it as bad as some or even most of the folks who have posted in here, but i felt like for all the shit i took, getting bullied over some birth defects was pretty low. and getting over it, was just that. getting over it and making fun of myself to stop people from carrying on with their insults. never had anybody try to physically bully me after middle school. some guy tried to take me down from behind in the 8th grade locker room and i choked him out against the locker and told him not to fuck with me anymore. he ended up failing 8th grade and sophomore year of high school, so i always thought that was hilarious.
When I think back to school I think back to the people who were nice and stood up for me. I can remember their names and I hope they're all doing well. I don't know if they even realized how their actions stopped me from killing myself.
Outside of two people, I can't even remember the assholes' names. And I only know one name because he was in the news for murdering a 9-month-old. Class act that one.
yeah I mean I got bullied what I thought was quite a bit when I was growing up
I never got beat up or anything (even though I probably deserved it; I had a big mouth. pretty sure the only reason I never got the shit kicked out of me was because I was best friends with the biggest, craziest dude in school) but I was basically really isolated
I thought that, in spectrum of school experience, mine was one of the worst
and now I read about kids who go to school and basically every one of their classmates tells them to kill themself every day
I just think, "good god did I ever have it easy"
I am not hating anyone specific from back then, but I won't go to high school reunions either because of it.
I'm just glad we didn't have Facebook and no one really used cell phones beyond phone calls. I can only imagine how bad it would have been not even having peace online.
so for me it's all about the psychological bullies. Being taught deep shame and insecurities. Like many have said before I can't imagine how much worse that much be now that it echoes through the internet like an eternal whisper and giggle
My brother was a year older than me, and we were in the boyscouts, so I'd always go camping and hang out with him and his friends, rather than with the kids in my grade. He hated his little brother, so he made his friends ignore me, but he was the second coolest human being ever, so I didn't mind.
It was around the 7th grade that I finally wised up and got a pair that didn't take up half of my face. I was still made fun of for having glasses (I went to a REALLY shitty middle school), but it bothered me less by then.
High-school wasn't so bad, except that my family moved to a new city when I started it, so I didn't know anybody. The first group I hung out with was the skateboarders. I wasn't one, but they were the first guys I talked to when school started. At one point, I realized that they'd kept me around for as the comedic relief; there were few lunches that went by where they wouldn't slap my food out of my hands, make me attempt skateboard tricks and make fun of me when I failed, ditch me for some other area of the school to sit at, etc. But they were my friends, right? I didn't mind.
And then I learned that my definition of friends was seriously fucked up. Somebody is not their friend just because they let you hang out with them.
I came into my own during junior and senior year, when I met a bunch of cool people in my english classes and fucked right the hell off from the skaters.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
One day, the local druggie fuck-up took a running swing at my back with his lacrosse stick. My legs went numb and I fell to the ground, screaming out in pain. The gym teacher comes running over after about two minutes; I'm laying there on the ground, crying out, my legs and stomach burning and numb.
After four minutes or so, the feeling returns to my legs and I can stand up. He sends the druggie and I to the principal's office. We were both suspended for a week.
Why did you get suspended for that
They did that. A lot.
Didn't matter if you went up to someone pushed them into a corner and started beating the living crap out of that person or were the person being beaten you were all equally to blame.
I guess I wasn't very specific, but I didn't mean to say the 14 year old gay kid should just walk it off but rather what druhim and tef said
It would be (and is) incredibly fucked up for somebody to act like a child should have the knowledge and self awareness to just "get over it"
But I don't think it is unreasonable to think an adult should act like an adult (which to be clear, is not saying that people who experience abuse as adults should just walk it off right away either, but at some point something needs to be done)