Poll: My Experience with Bullying

[HMSHood]

Being bullied made us who we are, sympathetic to the victims. IMO many of the bullies grew up to be the criminals and they are not interested in sleuthing.

Well said. That is how Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, and Osama bin Laden started as. Guess what? They killed many people because of their inferiority complex, which bullies have.

 

[Sha]

I can remember being bullied when I was in 3rd grade. I remember her full name and I can remember exactly what she looked like. She was very tall and because of her height, she bullied everyone. She would chase certain kids around the playground during recess or wait for them after school and "beat them up" along with the name-calling. Being that young, I was really afraid of her. Fast forward to high school, she didn't bully anymore and quickly became a social outcast.

Bullying has dramatically escalated since I was young. I just can't imagine being a young kid today.. to be picked on, bullied, kicked, punched and possibly stabbed/shot, left for dead. It's a different world today then when I was young.

My 3 siblings and I were bullied for about 8 years because our dad refused to spend his hard-earned money on clothes for us and we were forced to wear the same thing day after day. Our closets were literally empty. We had body odor and terrible pit stains. We had 2 outfits each, which we tried to mix up by wearing one on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other kids always knew which outfit we would be showing up in on any given day! That's why I believe in uniforms. School isn't supposed to be a fashion show.

I can just picture half the kids at recess pummeling the other half, while the adults are standing around talking and not paying attention, or worse, watching and doing nothing. I blame the adults!

 

[HMSHood]

I can remember being bullied when I was in 3rd grade. I remember her full name and I can remember exactly what she looked like. She was very tall and because of her height, she bullied everyone. She would chase certain kids around the playground during recess or wait for them after school and "beat them up" along with the name-calling. Being that young, I was really afraid of her. Fast forward to high school, she didn't bully anymore and quickly became a social outcast.

Bullying has dramatically escalated since I was young. I just can't imagine being a young kid today.. to be picked on, bullied, kicked, punched and possibly stabbed/shot, left for dead. It's a different world today then when I was young.

Just curious, how did she turn out? Studies have shown that bullying is strongly correlated with criminal behavior.

Bullying
http://www.ncpc.org/topics/bullying

Bullying Prevention is Crime Prevention
http://www.pluk.org/Pubs/Bullying2.pdf

 

[runsdeep]

Being bullied made us who we are, sympathetic to the victims. IMO many of the bullies grew up to be the criminals and they are not interested in sleuthing.

beautiful pic in your icon. would be a great jigsaw puzzle.

 

[runsdeep]

bullying tugs at my heart. i want to read thread from start before i answer poll.

 

[runsdeep]

was married to a bully.

 

[deelytful1]

Honestly, I don't think bullies even realize they're bullying (sadly) When I confronted my bully of many years she told me she thought I was bullying her??? WTF? sigh.. so even my confrontation was lost and satisfaction negated....

 

[Alix]

I got the ever-lasting crap kicked out of me throughout junior high. Anything from being tripped in the cafeteria to being beaten up, glasses broken(while still on my face), on and on.

While there were times I prayed in Mass that the offender would die screaming of cancer, I never once thought of murder, though. I still don't understand the kids who murder other kids and claim it was because they were bullied.

I think getting my kicked taught me how to accept people for who they are, whether they are fat, or have three arms or whatever. (I do admit a terrible fear of leaving the house, but I don't think that was because of bullying. I was like that before I started school, so I think the shyness just tempted the bullies)

 

[deelytful1]

From around 5th grade to 8th grade, which was elementary school back then, I was bullied by a gang of girls. It was a small town school.

The leader (whose mother was a teacher at the same school), kept a calendar, which I was shown on one occassion, probably as another tool of intimidation. It was very detailed in that it listed the days a certain girl was "marked" to be outcast and shunned. The shunning term would be approximately 1 week, during which time, that person would be subjected to humiliation.

Because I was one of those students who was never "in" and always reviled, it was during that 1 week time frame that I had someone to play with at recess, because the outcast child would be kind to me.

After the 1 week was up, however, the outcast was accepted back into the group and any friendship that had been offered to me was retracted and denied. Afterward, if I attempted to continue the friendship, more hostility would be leveled at me.

This is seriously horrible :hug: Thank U for sharing this...I'm sure it happens to others as we speak.

 

[davehead21]

Honestly, I don't think bullies even realize they're bullying (sadly) When I confronted my bully of many years she told me she thought I was bullying her??? WTF? sigh.. so even my confrontation was lost and satisfaction negated....

I think this is true in some cases but definitely not all.

I went to Catholic school from PreK-12. In either the 6th or 7th grade, we got a new girl in our class, AM. AM was tall and lanky, she had horrible skin, she dressed in kind of strange manner. Her parents were older parents, so she was kind of an "old soul." There was one girl in our class, K, who was especially cruel to AM. I won't even go into all of the mean things K did to AM but she was mean both to AM's face and behind her back.

When we were sophomores in college, AM was unfortunately killed in a car accident. I will never, as long as I live, forget going to the funeral home for AM's visitation and hearing K tell people that she was the only person who was nice to AM in grade school. It was just shocking to hear her say that because she was the MOST cruel person of all.

ETA-- Thank you to everyone who has shared in this thread.

 

[Oriah]

This is somewhat of a fascinating thread to me, mostly because I believe strongly that social/childhood dynamics shape who we become as adults.

I have a brother who was bullied horribly in middle and high school (came home crying, scared, and angry everyday- for good reason.)

I have another brother who was a bully, and picked on the easy targets that were just like our other brother who was being tormented daily at school.
I've a lot of brothers, lol.

I never knew at the time how to deal with either. It is one confusing place for a sibling to be in.

 

[LinasK]

This is somewhat of a fascinating thread to me, mostly because I believe strongly that social/childhood dynamics shape who we become as adults.

I 've been thinking about this lately because of a certain person, and I think you're right to a certain extent. She was bullied as a child and as an adult has become a back-stabber. Did it to me personally about 3 weeks ago, all while smiling to my face and texting about me. I will never trust this woman again! I, on the other hand was also bullied as a child, and would never act like that!!!