Tales of Bullying - Were you a bully? Were you bullied? Or were you both?

[AnOminous]

Cyberbully. It's such a funny word.

Still. Almost everyone has bullied someone. Almost everyone has been bullied.

But this is a site of notorious cyberbully terrorist monsters.

How did you get your start? Were you bullied yourself? Or did you bully others?

Or are you normal, and you actually bullied other people sometimes just for fun, while at other times getting bullied yourself?

Or did you ever have the odd situation where either you later became friends with someone you had bullied, or someone who had bullied you later apologized and made friends with you?

I have some ideas about this, and they involve bullying just being part of the normal socialization process, and that it isn't even really a bad thing until it goes to extremes.

 

[The Fool]

In general I'm just a naturally horrible person, wasn't really set off by anything other than growing up as a white sheltered suburban kid

Although I think what really got me going was my old friend I had for years who was a giant asspie and started to really irritate me. After years of putting up with him I really couldn't even pity him anymore and told him to find me another friend (so I could replace him). He managed to do that and then I stopped associating with him. What was really funny was at the end of it all he was talking to my new friend like "hey Fool is really impressionable and stuff please stop talking to him so he will keep being my friend" and after she leaked that to me I just told him he's a massive retard and never spoke to him again. And then his replacement became my girlfriend. Which was especially funny because he was just about gay for me.
So all in all I definitely consider myself a bully. It's probably how I cope with being weak and pathetic and having little control in my life. I'm just not happy unless I can peg everyone down to my level.

 

[AnOminous]

I sent one of those apologetic messages to someone I thought I'd bullied (in one of those Facebook friend requests Dobbo acted like a total dick in) and the response was basically lol I don't even remember that we're okay brah. I also got one of those messages (again in a Facebook friend request) and similarly, it was we're totally cool dude. That guy had actually punched me once, but I kind of had it coming.

 

[Muttnik]

I got bullied a lot in junior high, often to where things got scary and I'd have to make a run for it. I went to a shitty ghetto school so there was all kinds of violence going around in that hell-heap, especially for quiet bookish types like yours truly. But hey, life is life. I have hopes that maybe some of the culprits have changed or have sobered up as adults. I'm an optimist like that. What matters is that I survived it all and made it through to the other side.

 

[Ido]

I was "bullied" but I was also such a bitch back then that I think it all evened out in the end. I also used to have this thing where if some poor guy told me he liked me I'd flat out reject him even if I liked him back, and I was downright cruel about it. I regret that nope

Also my current bff was an ex I used bully excessively.

 

[Sylvie Paula Paula]

I was bullied pretty heavily throughout my school life because I've never had social abilities and trying to fit in somehow made it worse.
Lots of powerleveling below, be warned. I don't know if this would be considered "extreme" bullying or just a teacher taking advantage of her position of power. A lot of the memories are very fuzzy, and part of these are gathered from old Tumblr posts. There's a lot of detail because it's extremely difficult to explain without much context (It's really embarrassing to post about, too).

Spoiler: MAJOR Powerlevel: Sylvie's Second Semester of Freshman Year

In my freshman year of Catholic high school, I had one specific teacher whose name I can't remember. We had four classes a day, and I had two of them with her - she was a biology and physical education/health teacher (weird combo, I know). She noticed I was (and still am) a shy kid and she was like "hey I can get you to come out of your shell" and I told her about some of my autism which could lead to me having mental breakdowns (at the time, my mental health was garbage), so we struck up some sort of weird deal; I could wear my headphones in class as long as they weren't plugged into the school computers. I agreed for some stupid reason, not knowing this would actually be a terrible idea.

After that (at the earliest about two weeks later), she would usually blame me whenever I had noise-related panic attacks and would single me out if I did something "out of line" (ie. doing something unrelated to the work). If other kids tried making me think I was having auditory hallucations and I tried to tell her, she'd think I was making it up and then proceed to get mad if I actually did act out. I remember one very specific time where I had my headphones plugged in because I had forgot to unplug them when walking to her class, and she stopped the class just to call me out on it. I think she yelled, which is a "trigger" (I don't like the term but it's all I've got to describe the reaction) for me, and then I started crying and she just got angrier. It was a cycle that would occur at least once a day for six months - go to class, have a panic attack, angry teacher, repeat. I also remember one time I tried explaining why I was upset to her and she just said "I don't CARE about your problems".

Because of her, the guidance counselor and dean of students (both of whom knew about the situation) made me buy earplugs to wear in her classes. I don't know if the school thought this was any kind of problem, but I know other kids thought it was fucked up. As it turns out, she thought I was a brat who didn't have any sort of psychological problems, and just threw temper tantrums whenever I didn't get my way. I think she actually ended up quitting because of me, or was fired or something, lmao. She was a coach for my sophomore year and I don't know what happened after that, because something slightly similar ended up happening and I ended up being too much of a sperg for Catholic school to handle. Keep in mind, kids didn't get expelled from this school - the principal didn't believe in that. I don't even know if he was involved in the decision for my "leave" (which is what all the adults called it).

Most of those who dealt with Sylvie the Sperg actually ended up retiring, quitting, moving schools or being fired. I think it would depend on who you ask.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Even though it didn't happen often and they're rather mild examples in hindsight, I was verbally harassed simply for being one of the smallest kids in my class, but those all taken care of with a sharp/witty(?) remark to their faces (after some weeks of pent up frustration/annoyance from it). In high school, it was taken a step further with some brief sexual harassment, which stopped after smartmouthing them, and then the schedules were different enough that I didn't run into those guys much for the rest of high school. (Not sure if this counts as bullying, but some angry Hispanic kid in my freshman science class kicked my rolling backpack against the wall and broke it.)

As for being a bully, I don't believe I ever bullied since I wasn't a spiteful kid (my friends would talk bad about some kids, so if anything, that's what I soaked in), but I had somewhat of a short fuse in elementary school and would get in trouble for my behavior. Off the top of my head, I once kicked sand in some kid's face (don't know why) and refused to apologize for it, and in sixth grade, I chucked a Pringles can filled with sand at someone who immediately came sulking on over right as the recess bell rang, so nothing more came out of that.

 

[Ariel]

I was "bullied" but I was also such a bitch back then that I think it all evened out in the end. I also used to have this thing where if some poor guy told me he liked me I'd flat out reject him even if I liked him back, and I was downright cruel about it. I regret that nope

Also my current bff was an ex I used bully excessively.

I remember when my best friend and I had an epiphany that we could be mean to our 'boyfriends' (the early-mid teens, 4 week long relationship kind) so they would stop liking us and break up with us.
The only time I was bullied was by a girl a few years above me who was a huge bitch and wouldn't leave me alone. IDK how fucked up you have to be to bully a 9 year old when you're almost a teenager.

 

[Yaks]

I was a charismatic weirdo I guess and never got bullied. I think I remember one or two minor incidents, but that was just regular kid shit I wouldn't really call bullying.

I did start a playground fight when I was about 7 or 8 though and cried when we got caught so only he got in trouble. Does that count as bullying?

 

[The Fool]

Speaking of dating it kind of reminds me of this one time this one fat chick that was friends with my sister wouldn't stop asking me to date her so I eventually said we were in a relationship (we weren't) and all I really did was called her sweaty and then said we weren't dating anymore a week later.

Or how my clingy girlfriend gets mad whenever I so much as acknowledge another person besides her and have to spend the next hour telling her how much of a useless selfish cunt she is.

Man I know I'm gay but I really need to actually stick to that, men are so much more tolerable.

 

[The Lawgiver]

I could go into a shit ton of detail explaining all of the strange shenanigans that went down throughout my time at the various schools I went to here, but lets just say I learned very quickly how counter-productive "anti-bullying" programs are.
That feeling when you're a scrawny kid and some gang who regularly beats the shit out of you also constantly report you as a bully to the staff because they're not the ones who's legs are almost fucking broken making them infinitely faster than you.

I've just kind of learned to deal with being treated like a subhuman by authority figures with vapid political agendas to grind as time has gone on.
The fact that there are people gleefully talking about how they're making the world a better place by marking people they disagree with as "bullies" who need to be silenced and somehow not getting the fact that what they're doing is just a more extreme form of bullying is absolutely hilarious to me.

 

[BadaBadaBoom]

I used to get misgendered a lot in school and accused of being an LGBT supporter.

It was a simpler time, really.

 

[DailyToastBoat]

I was a victim of bullying multiple times but didn't earn a thick skin from it it's actually the opposite; I grew to be hypersensitive.
Today I'm happy with what I got and do my best to ignore haters.

I used to ask my bullies why they hate me so much, most of the answers were related to my physical appearance and mental capability.

 

[Some JERK]

There was a kid who made fun of me all the time and beat me up once in 6th grade, who I later made fun of all the time and beat up a couple of times 8th grade. We were biology lab-partners in high-school, and would run into one another on the weekends. (We had a lot of mutual friends). We weren't best friends by any means, but we ended up having a lot of great times together.

I don't think either of us ever said "hey sorry about being a shithead to you when we were younger". I guess we both just figured that was old shit and we were kinda' even anyway, so why bring it up?

 

[Ntwadumela]

I was teased as a kid for being fairer skinned then most Kuwaitis in addition to being slightly less fluent in Arabic (I'm fluent now), but it wasn't much.

In high school, since I've always been one of the smart students, a couple of folks from a family that owned the school attempted to bully me but I beat them up multiple times on seperate occasions. Even other people who tried to do the same wound up like the mentioned-students above. I ended up getting a reputation among the students and teachers for fighting, even getting called "Rocky" by my English language teacher who happened to be Irish. To this day it was the only reason I ever got suspended from school.

 

[councilman les whinen]

I just think it's great to make fun of people who are different or those who can't defend themselves. One day I aspire to be like Michael Jordan of taunting but white, and maybe with more gold chains. That was one of Michael Jordan's problems: he didn't have enough gold chains.

 

[Meat_Puppet]

Growing up I wasn't much of either a bully or a victim. If some bitch was talking shit about me she would get elbowed straight into a locker. Or the time I found out my ex was cheating on me during lunch and I went and slashed his tires. And the time some cunt flicked a lit cigerette at me and I ended up beating her ass on her way home from school.

To be fair though they really hurt my feelings and how does that expression go? "Sometimes words can hurt more than physical pain."

 

[councilman les whinen]

Growing up I wasn't much of either a bully or a victim. If some bitch was talking shit about me she would get elbowed straight into a locker. Or the time I found out my ex was cheating on me during lunch and I went and slashed his tires. And the time some cunt flicked a lit cigerette at me and I ended up beating her ass on her way home from school.

To be fair though they really hurt my feelings and how does that expression go? "Sometimes words can hurt more than physical pain."

Wow that's totally the behavior of a well adjusted person and I can't imagine approaching any of those situations any differently.

 

[Ariel]

Wow that's totally the behavior of a well adjusted person and I can't imagine approaching any of those situations any differently.

Are you a lolcow that escaped your thread?

 

[councilman les whinen]

Are you a lolcow that escaped your thread?

No?