Since it's come up a lot lately, were you ever bullied in school?

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Moving every year in elementary school helped me develop a thicker (skin? shell?), and being smart and a voracious reader with a very fast mouth deflected a lot of the teasing. My high school friends were all interesting individualists, like me, and, like Step, I had a reputation that was unwarranted, but since it was just insignificant cheerleaders talking, it was a big so what.

I went to our ten-year HS reunion, and was bored out of my mind. Swore I'd NEVER EVER go to another one...and then Hubby and I reconnected. So, several weeks after we got married, I went to our twentieth. Last summer, we attended the thirtieth.

Miss KT was picked on a lot until I taught her to fight back, using both words and fists. As long as she didn't throw the first punch, she wasn't in trouble with me. Then I just had to fight with the school...

Hubby was an almost constant target all through school...a skinny, geeky, electronics nut, with bad acne and awful hair. Funny, that's not how I remember him...he was a nice guy who was really shy.
 

ThreeShadows

Quid me anxia?
We moved every two years. No sooner than I developed a good friendship than I had to move again. I was always the ONLY AMERICAN in each French school. Our country was hated at the time. I think the word TORTURE could describe what I endured. I was bullied by teachers who resented us. I don't know if you remember the scene in Jane Eyre, where she was made to stand on a chair while her classmates had to mock her. By the time I had lost my American accent I had to prove that I was not french. This made for a lot of conflict.

It never occurred to me that any adult would be willing to understand. I'm grateful things have changed.
 

muttmeister

Well-Known Member
I wasn't bullied in grade school because if anybody was mean to me I kicked the snot out of them - I went to a one room country school and we all knew each other all of our lives and our parents knew each other well and I don't remember anybody being bullied.

But when I got to high school it was a whole different group of kids. I went from 20 kids in the whole grade school to 103 kids in my high school class. I was a little shy and had big boobs and all of the kids called me "Boobs" and it was devastating. Probably one of the reasons I had breast reduction surgery 40 years later. A lot of those people I would not walk across the street to pee on them if they were on fire.

However, I have gone to my class reunions lately (just had number 45 last year). What I've found out is that almost everybody (even the ones we thought were the popular kids)remembers high school as being he!! We have all grown up and become different people. I'm not really willing to forget but I guess at this point I can forgive. LIfe is too short to hold a grudge against people who don't matter to me anyway.

I think in some ways things are better because most schools are at least trying to recognize the problem. If I or my parents were to go to the administration with that problem now, they would have to at least acknowledge the complaint. Back then I would have been told that sticks and stones might break my bones but words could never hurt me and I should suck it up and ignore it. Some of the teachers would even have probably thought it was funny. But, having taught myself for over 30 years I realize what a hard problem it is to deal with. First, kids are sneaky and they are usually smart enough not to bully somebody if they know there is a teacher around. Second, there are some kids who are super sensitive and whiny who do need to suck it up and learn to deal with the world. Third, there are those kids who try to play the system and claim they are being bullied to get somebody else in trouble. Plus, reporting the bullying can lead to its getting worse instead of better as the perpetrators try to get even after having been turned in. And with all of the electronic systems at their command to bully others, it is often hard to get a handle on things. There are teachers and school systems who ignore the problem and they need to be called on the carpet but in most cases people are doing the best they can. They want to help kids who are being bullied but they are often required to find illusive proof or face a lawsuit. Counselors try to help but they are stretched too thin to really be very effective. I think we still have a problem. Methods of bullying have probably changed over the years and we have tried to adapt our reactions to it but it is still a problem.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I remember school as a happy time until I was in 5th grade. I was smart and enjoyed learning and all of us knew each other and were happy together. I had gone to a small parochial school and in 5th grade our school had grown so small that we had to merge with another parochial school and everything doubled except we crammed us all into one classroom. And we lost all of the teachers we knew. At the same time my Muscular Dystrophy came on, but none of us knew we had it until years later. The first part of my particular MD is a loss of facial muscles. So I couldn't smile, but I didn't know I couldn't smile because who looks at their own face? Everyone else knew I couldn't smile. As a grown woman, if I keep quiet, I'm thought of as being "stoic" in the face of adversity. If only they knew that I just keep my mouth shut because if you see my face and hear what I have to say you'll probably think I'm over reacting when in reality I'm saying what anyone else would say but with a sad face.

In fifth grade, it was pretty bad by November. I muddled through. In sixth grade our class moved to the other building across town with the "upper classmen". We had to take the bus. Debbie D and Theresa S were in the 8th grade and they were at my bus-stop. Debbie's mom had been friends of my mom for 25 years, at least although we were never quite as upper crust as them. It was an hour ride, and it was he//. We'd wait for the bus and they'd call me ugly. They called me a dog. They said I was a pizza face. If ever I did anything that made myself feel better about myself like get a new hairstyle or new coat (we wore uniforms) they'd make sure I knew that nothing was ever going to make me likable because I was a piece of dirt. The Nuns joined in. We always played Prison Ball at recess and it became a torment. You could sit by yourself which was just admitting that you were worthless, or you could play and they'd all scream and taunt and absolutely assault me. It was awful. I was smoking and drinking and smoking pot within the year. My parents thought I was worthless because I never smiled, and I acted out. I was in foster care by the time I was 14, and on my own and dropped out of high school by the time I was 16.

Years later, Debbie D's brother S had a daughter who was killed by another teen who did it because he wanted was angry at the world and wanted to know what it would feel like to really hurt or kill someone. It was a horrible thing, and the kid got a juvenile sentence in a mental facility. He probably spent 9 years or so in the State Mental Hospital for kids. S milked that for about a decade. He was super right wing and got himself in front of the legislature ALL OF THE TIME to play the "You don't keep people in jail long enough" song over and over and over. He also beat his wife and had DUII's and was generally not a very nice person. But any time bullying came up, or someone was injured in a hate crime, S was on tv talking about how unfair it was and that his daughter had been killed by someone who "just wanted to kill someone for the thrill of it."

About the time that I joined this board and I was having so much trouble with M another distraught teen who was living in the same neighborhood that M was in shot a Deputy Sheriff in the face. Everyone knew the deputy because he was the County Sheriff spokesman. It was awful. husband and I thought it might have been M that did it for a few hours. The kid was convicted of murder as a juvenile and sent to the state juvenile mental health prison, and then the juvenile prison. Of course, up pops S D on every news channel for a week talking about how "no one can possibly understand the torment he went through because a mentally ill kid decided to kill his daughter" and this boy "should be tried as an adult and face adult jail" blah, blah, blah. I had had enough.

I sent S a letter saying what his sister Debbie and her friend Theresa had done to me and how it had affected my life and that they had done it "just because they could and just to see someone else be hurt." I told him I was sick and tired of hearing him P and M about how awful it was for him, he was making quite a good living at it. After all, he had started a charitable organization, and big money from out of state was paying him to testify in our state house and pass laws. But he needed to know that if I ever heard him tell that sob story on tv again I was going to go public with what his sister and her friend had done to me and I would be sure that everyone knew that they did it just because it made them feel good to hurt someone. There would be at least 50 kids who would say it was true. They'd also say I was a POS but they'd say that Debbie and Theresa made my life he// for it. I never saw him on tv or in the papers again.

Debbie is on Facebook now. She's single and has a cat who is her pride and joy. She was always an ugly girl, in the way that a mean person looks ugly. I like that she's single and all she has is a cat. Her friend Theresa is nowhere to be found on her FB page. I hope she is as miserable as she should be, too. Am I angry about it? Not unless I think about it. I couldn't really care less about those two girls. Only in that any bad news in their lives would make me happy.

This is one reason that I tried so hard to be sure that M didn't let his weakened facial muscles define who he was. It's an almost impossible lesson to learn, especially when the only other person you know who is like you (me) is picked upon by an ex and by family for being a sourpuss. Instead of seeing the potential in himself, he still sees only the sad face. I don't know that he'll ever figure it out. He's always had such a chip on his shoulder.
 

ThreeShadows

Quid me anxia?
I'm sorry, Witz, I had no idea! I don't know how to convey how sad that made me feel. Humans are so vicious toward each other. We are so blessed to be on this glorious planet. Why can't we be grateful and loving? I know I'm being naive again.
 

flutterby

Fly away!
In elementary school there were a couple of incidents, but they were fleeting and I was often defended. In the 7th grade, my group of friends very suddenly one day decided they didn't like me. They then gave me a list of 21 reasons why they didn't like me, including that I wear my pants tight so that boys will look at me. No, those were the only pants I had. I lived with my dad at the time and he wouldn't buy me anymore. He told me to stop eating so many resse cups. I was a growing kid. My mom came from NY (to Ohio) and took me shopping. The pants that I had were a 14X (girls). The size that I was, was a 5 Juniors. In high school, no one messed with me because I didn't back down. I found out in my senior year, though, that a lot of people thought I was a snob because I was so shy. But people just left me alone. Then I got pregnant and everyone wanted to touch my belly. I really don't like being touched. LOL

What bothers me the most is that there is a boy that I bullied. He rode our bus. I was in the first grade and really was following what the older kids did, namely my brother because I idolized him. Thing is, I felt bad for it at the time, but I still did it. And I still feel horrible about it now. It was ruthless. Nothing physical, but....I would give anything to go back in time and take it back. I've tried to find him on facebook to apologize, but then I thought...what if he has spent a lot of time trying to forget? Would I just open up old wounds? I really don't know what to do.

Bullying in our SD is taken very seriously. Several years ago a 15 year old boy who was teased mercilessly threw himself in front of a train. They start in elementary school with programs, classes, and posters plastered across the school. They involve the parents. It goes all the way through high school. Their bullying program is so good that they get federal grants. They may suck at initiating and following IEP's but they have a wonderful bullying program. difficult child has been teased a lot because of her stutter, and it has been addressed every time.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
MWM,

I didn't have any friends in elementary school. I didn't have any in Middle school. I did manage to make a few friends in Jr. High, but started running track and field, cross country and sports was a godsend and I was very good at them. My parents kept us so busy 25-8 that we didn't have time to think about much, I just know that being adopted, not fitting in at school, not fitting in in our neighborhood, and then being called names, being picked on and always being put down by high school bullies, cliques and girls like HS reunion girl who did the whisper/giggle, and rumor I was pregnant when I remained a virgin, and always made fun of my clothes because they were from Kmart and never the 'mall', and just on and on relentlessly over every single little thing? Made my life very difficult. Trying to go to a place you HATE every day for nearly 12 years makes it MORE difficult to come home and be a happy child and add in hormones and lifes general struggles? And I just don't remember 11 years as being fun at all. I remember thinking if there was anything I could do to get out early? I would - so I took college prep classes, graduated at 16, and went into O.W.E, and got out at noon in 12th grade, but by then? I finally did fit in, was into boxing with my Dad - and found out who started the pregnancy rumors and when I did? It made the entire cafeteria go dead silent when I jacked her up against the wall and made her tell EVERYONE ----that it was impossible for a virgin to be pregnant and she was a liar. After that? Mostly everyone left me alone. I wasn't a jock - I wasn't a burn out - I was still nice to everyone and the nicest compliment I ever got was a few years out of HS - a girl I barely knew stopped me and my Mom while out shopping and asked me how I was and told me that if it hadn't been for me being nice to her in school she would have committed suicide - but that I was nice to everyone. It blew me away. So see? You never know HOW your behavior affects someones life - and I spent a lot of time in thearpy talking about how these people in school affected MY life and MY decisions and how they ground me into the dirt and how they made me feel. Even when I had this opportunity recently? I wasn't angry - I was just sad for her - because - twenty five years later she HAD an opportunity to say "I'm so sorry I didn't realize that's how I made you feel or I'm sorry I was that way as a teen, or I apologize for being like that but I have changed and nothing - not a word. Very sad - and no doubt she's raised a new generation of gossip girl in her own daughter - because it didn't affect her in the least when I mentioned her children and how they may feel. Just very sad. She said she grew up - and maybe physically - but not emotionally, not spiritually - and certainly not with compassion. That's why I said I'm glad she THOUGHT she grew up. So I'm not angry - I feel sorry for her. Shallow people have shallow minds. I have no regrets in my life - every thing you may percieve in my life as an obstacle? I see as a lesson in humility. And so it goes.

I know one thing - I'd rather be an underdogs champion than a bully and not know it.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Witz, the daughter of an old friend of ours was diagnosed MD (later identified as FSH MD) when she was 3 years old. At the time she was rapidly losing the ability to walk unaided and never smiled. Her parents fortunately worked out quickly why no smile. However, they worked hard with her, kept following her around with food (she was often too tired to eat a full meal) and held daily open house for the neighbourhood kids, so there was plenty of supervised socialisation. Over the years I have seen this girl grow to a lovely young woman with an interest in fashion design. And what do you know? When she was about 16, she began to be able to smile, just a little. She cut back on her wheelchair more and more. Last I heard she was studying in Europe and sent a message home telling her parents to sell the wheelchair, she didn't need it any more.

She is stick thin, often gets stared at by people who think she's a severe anorexia case, but she's got a very sharp tongue and can handle herself well. Her arms are especially thin so she designs clothes for herself that cover her arms. Personally, I don't think her arms look bad at all, but she is self-conscious about them.

She's one really tough kid, very capable and confident. I don't think she was ever bullied - nobody would dare. I remember her aunt was also someone nobody would dare bully, she could hold her own in the schoolyard by force of tongue alone.

Marg
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Star, did you really say all that, off the cuff? Good lord, well done! Who knows what seed of doubt or thought you may have planted in that lady's head...
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one here who has encouraged her kids to fight back, either physically, verbally, or by going to the office.
Don't ever instigate. But do not be a patsy. :)
 
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Marguerite

Active Member
The kid who was one of the worst bullies to difficult child 3, was himself bullied. When I went to complain to his mother, I raised that. I said, "I know you get bullied too, and it is not fair. But picking on difficult child 3 as a way to make yourself feel better, is not a good coping strategy. Beating him up is no glory. And he is no threat. Find a better way to deal with your own distress, maybe find a more productive way to make your own misery stop."

There were never any more problems with that kid. I also went out of my way to catch him out doing a good deed, and publicly praised him for it. At first he looked scared, he thought I was going to say something nasty. But after I saw him do something really generous on the sports field, I told him that I thought he was a really good sport and a very generous team player. I made it clear that I meant it, I described what I had seen and said it showed maturity and generosity of spirit.

That kid has since rescued difficult child 3, twice, from other kids hassling him.

Marg
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
I find that a great example of how love can change things for the good in a way that hatred never can. I find your own maturity and generosity in that incident moving.
 
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My family moved often when I was a child, so I was almost always "the new kid". My Dad would direct me to fight back if I was bullied, but to never bully. I'm ashamed to admit that I was a tough kid, and while kids would attempt to bully me - because the new kids always are challenged - the problem never lasted very long. I'm not really proud of those days, but adults were determined to let kids work it out on their own.

I never understood the depth of today's bullying problem until I observed my sons' problems with it; and I'm certain there was much that I didn't know about. I only stepped in once - and it was a big step in. One of difficult child's third grade classmates pulled me aside and told me that difficult child was routinely punched, knocked down, and kicked on the recess field when the teacher's back was turned. What a brave little girl she was! Words hurt - but a beating is completely unacceptable. We had difficult child transferred from this school, even though the other parents gave us a lot of grief over the transfer. (They viewed us as abandoning the school - we were heavily involved with fundraising, club sponsorship, room parenting, etc). It was the best choice we ever made in difficult child's schooling.

Valerie
 

keista

New Member
We had difficult child transferred from this school, even though the other parents gave us a lot of grief over the transfer. (They viewed us as abandoning the school - we were heavily involved with fundraising, club sponsorship, room parenting, etc).

So let me get this straight. They let their kids bully your kid, and then you're the "bad guy" for leaving?????????????? Well, "bully' them! Good for you for making the move!
 
Thanks Keista,

We endured a lot of social rejection over this issue - so it wasn't easy. Two different issues were going on though - our parental involvement in a very small school in a very small community - and difficult child's treatment by a child who really wasn't a child of one of the objecting parents. The other parents wanted us to "work it out" with the school, but you do what you have to do for your child. . . Know what I mean??

Valerie
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
"Work it out" with the school?!

OK, if the teacher's back was turned, I can see it not being noticed. It happens. But did NO ONE except this small child, say anything to the teacher at all? And why was there only one on the playground? Even when I was a child (YEARS AGO) there were aides at least during recess.
 

Mom2oddson

Active Member
Being an introvert by nature was the first strike against me, being a navy brat and having 8 different schools by 5th grade was my second strike. I became even more introverted and was bullied to the extreme. My 3rd grade nemisis even had her 1st grade sister and friends threatening me.

I didn't even realize that I could stand up for myself until I was pregnant with easy child and in an abusive marriage. It was one thing for me to be abused (I thought that was what I deserved) it was another for my Little One to be facing that. Mama bear found her growl.

Then came the difficult child's and my difficult child-mother in law. I finally became a true Leo and learned to GROWL and defend myself and my family. I am still painfully Introverted (even have a hard time being on the board some days) and I struggle with feeling my own self-worth, but I'm working on it.

As bad as bullies were when I was young, I think our youth has it so much worse. At the end of the day, I was able to go home and be alone. There were no cell phones and facebook. I can't even begin to imagine how bad my life would of been if my bullies could of followed me home, inside my house and room, and continued the days activies into the night!

Kids now days, don't have a chance to escape from anything. Add to it that they can get video taped being attacked via cellphone and then have it posted to the internet so that they can relive the event over and over and over... YUCK!!
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
Thanks, all. It is horrible that the world can be this kind of place, and I can't even imagine how difficult it must be in this age of electronics. I was watching something on tv the other day on the news where one girl said she was 14 and being bullied at school, and that her older sister had been bullied, too, before she went to college. Thy younger one said she was bullied because she was fat, but I didn't see that she was exceptionally fat. Not in this day and age. The older sister said the same thing, but she couldn't have been more than a size 10. The older sister says that she is a Sophomore in college and still getting hate emails and being stalked on her web page by people who threaten and harass her. I think it's nearly impossible for kids to get away from their bullies now. It breaks my heart. Parents and teachers have to be stronger advocates for kids who are picked upon. It's done in secret and everyone knows it's ugly, but too many adults find it easier to turn a blind eye when they see the signs instead of investigating further.

40 years later, and it still upsets me to think of what happened to me as a girl. But I spend very little time thinking of it. I'm a strong woman and enjoy my life. I try very hard to not let the unhappiness of the steal away my happiness of today.
 
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