The Bullying thread - stories and opinions -

[Monika H.]

Hallo, hallo.
Tonight my wife, an assistant teacher, came home four hours late because at the school where she works they held a special meeting regarding a female student who got bullied for two months by a couple of fellow students and today almost got thrown off a window by said students. They are planning to expel both of them and if the bullied girl's parents have the intention to call the authorities, to mount a legal case against the bullies.
My wife especially, having been a bullying victim in her teens, is pushing alongside some colleagues to have the two girls banned from the entire scholastic prefecture, or at least put them on a two-years ban.

This made me think. Although I have had the extreme luck to never get any real bullying in my scholastic experience, I routinely hear/read cases from news, blogs and school-related newsletters.
It's sad to witness the fact that school authorities seldom intervene - in the case of today, they intervened because it almost ended in tragedy - and sweep those problems under the rug; or when they do intervene, it's either too late or the bullies' parents minimize or even justify their kid's abhorrent behavior.

- Kiwis, what are the opinions on this phenomenon?
- Have you witnessed cases of bullying or have been victims yourself?
- Have you been the bullies yourselves (no, laughing or a-logging to internet crazies it's not bullying) and have grew out of it?
- What could be useful preventive measures/solutions?

Let's talk about it.

 

[8777BB5]

My belief on bullying is that I think Columbine taught the schools the wrong lessons when it comes to bullying. Powerlevel When I was in school I got punched by another kid and we both wound up getting In-School Suspension because of the school's zero tolerance policy (The Vice Principal's response to my parents outrage was it takes two fight). When you have zero tolerance policies you wind up with students not wanting to go to the teacher because they're worried they'll get punished too and as such you get stuff escalated to where you have a kid nearly thrown off a window because they're too scared to do anything. While it would be nice to go back to the days when you fought back/got your older brother to fight back I don't think that's going to happen.

 

[RG 448]

Parents have a duty to teach their kids to defend themselves, both verbally and physically if necesarry. You’re always gonna run into anti-social people, so there’s always a need to be prepared.

 

[TheImportantFart]

I got bullied throughout my school life and I'd be lying if I said it didn't seriously damage my self-confidence for several years.

I can't claim to be entirely innocent as I did engage in bullying myself. Hell, some might say I'm still doing it now by being on this website.

To be honest, it's a problem that's never going to go away and it doesn't stop in school either. It continues into offices and workplaces and other adult social situations.

Solutions? Honestly, bullying is such a diverse thing that there's no one-size fits all solution. The advice I was always given was to try and develop a thicker skin against psychological bullying. That obviously won't work in every situation, but I only begun to appreciate relatively recently what good advice that was.

 

[The Shadow]

My own experiences with bullying come in two phases. In Elementary school it was more a function of being a nerd (everyone played video games, but it was like if you went further than MK or whatever the flavor of the month was you were "obsessed" and a nerd). One guy talked to me once and I found some common ground because we both played Shinobi. I talked to the same guy a couple of days later and asked if he'd played another game, he decided I was obsessed and spread that to the whole class.

Another thing was, I brought my lunch in a grocery bag to save money. So everyone decided I was poor (I wasn't- it was just a thing we did because grocery bags are reusable).

It got pretty vicious in middle school though. I was fat and got pretty mercilessly mocked for it. One guy would always slap my stomach while I was changing for gym class. The worst part of this was, my friends were usually present and never stood up for me- they even joined in on it sometimes. Gave me a pretty shitty self image that I'm still working on.

In high school I got a bit better- constructing a veneer of "cool" and joining a garage band helps with that a bit.

I was on the other side of it a few times- there were people lower on the totem pole than me. I feel pretty guilty about it now. I can only speculate I was trying to feel better about my own shortcomings.

 

[User names must be unique]

I'm not sure the people I thought of as my bullies realised how stressed and upset their taunting made me until I punched one in the face, after that they all backed off, a few dirty looks and snide comments but I made my own right back and it eventually became good natured bants.

I didn't realise another kid I had bants with was seriously upset until he broke a badminton racket on my arm trying to hit me in the head, it was only then I realised I was a bully. I apologised and we were friends for the rest of high school.

If either the kids that bullied me or I continued what we were doing after realising the stress we caused our 'victims' we'd be totally irredeemable pieces of shit that should be expelled, but we weren't we were kids learning what boundaries are. It's part of growing up I think all of us are better people because of it, had a teacher tried to set those boundaries for us I don't think we'd of truly learned anything (if we'd acknowledged those boundaries which I doubt).

In the cases of People who get physical or steal, they aren't bullies imo they're seriously fucked in the head because physical pain is unmistakable. They should be separated from regular kids and sent to psychotherapists. (The one kid in my school or was like that ended totally fucked physically and mentally after he nearly electrocuted himself to death stealing live electrical cables for scrap.)

 

[Black Waltz]

I was probably made fun of a lot in school and was too dense to realize it.

 

[Al Gulud]

I thought we all love bullying. Bullying is great its why I am on this site.

 

[Doc Cassidy]

I was never a bully or anything but there was this autistic kid I used to fuck with back in high school. Nothing major, just some shoving or telling him I'd kill his mom, stuff like that. Teenage shit.

He had this ugly mangy kitten that he used to carry around and talk to all the time. I was having a bad day because my girlfriend was being a bitch so I asked him if I could hold it. He was pretty reluctant but since I'm good with tards (I work with them irl) I managed to convince him by telling him we were going to play a game called "haircut".

In order to play haircut I had him dig a small hole and we put the cat in it then we buried the ugly thing up to its neck so that it's head was sticking out. Then I grabbed my dad's push mower and gave it a haircut. For any autists out there, that means I ran over its head with a lawnmower. When I threw the shredded remains of his cat's head and brains in his face he started screaming and hitting himself. I shouted at him "Mark, why did you kill your cat? That was your cat and you killed her!" and he started literally rolling on the ground. It was funny at first but eventually it got on my nerves so I started kicking him as hard as I could until he was too busy vomiting to scream and cry. It was pretty fun and made my day a little better.

Like I said, just typical teenager shit.

 

[chunkygoth]

For the most part, I wasn't really bullied, so much as ignored by most of my peers for most of middle school. So unpopular but tolerated and definitely not the weakest link. I was weird and fat but I had weird, fat friends.

Then in my freshman year of high school, a group of OTHER unpopular girls started putting gum in my hair, throwing my bookbag in the trash, and talking about me where I could hear them, very petty stuff. It really made me dread school. I left that school and went to another where I was nervous and quiet the whole time, back to the "tolerated weird kid". I made friends but only thought I had a few.

I lost a LOT of weight the summer before college and had a great time. Over the years, as I went back home, I found out from various high school acquaintances that people had in general been fond of me and that I had gotten considerable votes in "Best Personality" superlative. For years, I just assumed no one liked me except my close friends, when actually people I didn't know thought I was sweet. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't have to be a shrinking violet and that people actually enjoyed my company. In retrospect, I should have stuck it out at the original school but my life has turned out fine despite it and I don't regret leaving.
EDIT:
Looking back, a lot of the problems with perceived lack of friends and loneliness were caused by myself. I didn't really speak to a stranger unless I was spoken to and made no effort to be friendly if I decided in advance that the person wasn't going to like me. It was a form of being stuck-up. I got over it quickly in college. Had I realized it when I was fat, I might have had a better time.

 

[Gordon Cole]

I don't wanna get too into specifics considering that this is a @Heinrich Himmler thread, but middle school got really rough at points for me, and my attitude at the time as well as an incompetent staff wasn't making it go away.

Eventually I just learned to ignore it more as well as general mellowing with age, and the closest thing I have to bullies now are also some of the biggest morons I've ever met and stopped talking to me once they realized they only shot themselves in the feet by acting the way they did.

And while I'd be perfectly okay with never seeing anyone from middle/high school ever again, I did almost run into my biggest bully while getting lunch over the summer, no idea if he grew up too.

 

[Basketball Jones]

Talking about this shit makes me feel like a such a faggot because it’s so middle school. But I’ll bite.

Spoiler

- Kiwis, what are the opinions on this phenomenon?

Bullying is a weird part of childhood development because the bully is usually from an unstable and unbalanced home life and all those emotions aren’t dealt with properly during the stages of individuation. The child is seeking to become their own person but also thrive in a social environment. Their actions can be looked at as projecting their own issues into someone weaker than them. They can be simply trying to climb the social hierarchy and establishing their place in the stronger pack. They could also just be little sociopaths because a lot of kids are.

It’s honestly hard to generalize because no two bullies are the same. I’ve heard of some students that have stabbed classmates and others that bullied people as a way to get attention. But because of this, I don’t think intervention and more rules should be established unless it’s an EXTREME situation that jeopardizes students safety.

Yeah it sucks being on the receiving end, but people can learn and grow from the hurt. Parents need to teach kids to stand up for themselves and school boards need to stop being PC and bring down the hammer on repeat offenders that they keep letting off for asinine reasons like district quotas and muh oppressed minorities.

- Have you witnessed cases of bullying or have been victims yourself?

Yes. In middle school. It was mostly verbal, and one kid started it up in 4th grade on the bus. It went on through 8th grade. And it was relentless. Everyday he would pick apart everything about my appearance, call me a boy, say I wasn’t pretty and no one would ever date me, and general name calling at recess. Other boys in the grade gave me shit too and middle school was hell because it was every day, every class, on the bus, on AIM, it never ended.

Strangely though, there were times when the boy that started it all would stick up for me and be kind. It almost felt like a weird game we both played. One of my friends dared me to ask him to dance at some middle school party and he agreed, albeit hesitantly. As shitty as he was, towards the end I felt like I understood why he was angry. I think he had his life mapped out for him by his parents, and that aggression came out at me. Why? I have no clue. But I was never afraid of him hurting me physically, and most of the time some of the shit he said made me laugh, despite it being at my expense. I’m a sucker for witty trashtalk and wordplay, what can I say? Lol

He actually wished me a happy birthday on Facebook recently. So, obviously there’s no bad blood after all these years.

- Have you been the bullies yourselves (no, laughing or a-logging to internet crazies it's not bullying) and have grew out of it?

So there was this baptist chick in community college that was so uneducated about sex and her lady bits that I convinced her women were born with teeth in their vaginas. I told her some parents got them removed at birth, but sometimes they were kept in without any health risk. I think I equated them to the appendix in terms of having no evolutionary use any longer. She believed me and called her doctor to schedule an appointment...but cancelled when someone spilled the beans. >:/

Ironically, the movie Teeth came out like a month later.

There’s a personal lolcow of mine that I troll whenever he streams. He used to work with me and my bf and he was the most insufferable autistic piece of smelly shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with. I got him fired by getting him to break the NDA on his stream. His boss was elated (just to show how unliked this guy was).

- What could be useful preventive measures/solutions?

For extreme cases I would say expulsion or suspension, and police if the situation calls for it.

For general schoolyard bullying and name-calling...like, I dunno...the victim has to stand up for themselves and take action. Kids have to learn shit the hard way sometimes. And usually I’ve found the kids that took some hard knocks as children come out tougher as adults.

I, personally, don’t hold anything against my bullies. And honestly, I don’t regret having experienced it. It sucked then, but I learned to fight back and not let the words hurt me.

But that’s just my opinion.

 

[Clop]

I have perpetually blackened, "tired" looking eyes, and it goes along great with me being pretty impulsively noisy when I get annoyed with trivial crap like malfunctioning software or hitting my face in the fan. Teachers and parents thought I took drugs and other kids thought I was creepy, which prompted my homeroom teacher to ask my parents, and I quote: "Does your child listen to death metal?" (to which my father replied "No. I do." - I listened mainly to pop songs and woke up Saturdays to yell at my dad to turn down the goddamned noise)

Even in my adulthood days it's still a constant issue of people being genuinely convinced that I am going to shoot up the place or injure someone, which makes me kinda grumpy, which makes people even more suspicious that I must be a psycho. Actual potheads and junkies tend to react to me more positively, although it's kinda tiresome when junkies ask if I have anything.

Does that count as bullying? I dunno. It is pretty funny though.

 

[Zaragoza]

I got bullied a lot in middle school more than I did in high school and looking back it helped me grow thicker skin in terms of just letting it slide right there and then, but it still pisses me off mentally thinking about it, I won't go into great lengths of retaliating back but rather just letting it slowly go away as time goes on.

Anyways, I think in this day and age, if you're being treated like shit, tell your teachers about it or bring up to a higher authority in school or in your workplace's HR depending on where you're at, but if you're just gonna be a pussy and not deal with it, then it's on you for getting bullied and not asking for help.

I was probably made fun of a lot in school and was too dense to realize it.

Yeah, and it would take hours for me to realize they were insulting me, lol. And I'm like "damn, those fucking bastards!".

 

[SubtleInvitation]

I was bullied pretty much everyday for 11 years, verbally and physically, as "the school's ugliest girl", as they called me.

My father wanted me to learn a martial art to be able to defend myself, but my mother was against that (she was also against me attending therapy, since she also claimed that I was somehow disturbed because I didn't like going to church and therefore it was the devil who caused my problems...), and the school itself never did anything, since it was a private school and the richest could pay enough for the school to pretend things never happened (and while I had the privilege of studying in an expensive school, it was all thanks to my father working extra hours and we barely making ends meet because my education was the most important thing for him, we were lower-middle-class otherwise).

During my last year there it got so bad, I seriously considered bringing my father's gun to school. I didn't because 1) I didn't want to risk hurting anyone who wasn't a bully; 2) I didn't want to disappoint my father; and 3) it was a revolver, and six bullets weren't enough.

But I constantly fantasized about killing every one of them. Whenever one of them was the last to leave class I considered crushing his skull with a desk, a chair, anything. But I liked the cleaning ladies, and it would be very rude to make them clean brains from the floor.

But then I went to college, and there people treated me nicely, nobody said I was ugly, unlovable or anything, quite the opposite, but it certainly damaged my self-esteem for a long time.

I honestly don't know how things could improve, except by letting the ones bullied know that it will get better eventually, and one day you'll have pleasure in seeing how fat and bald your bullies are now on Linkedin (I know I do).

 

[QB 290]

It's worth mentioning that most people who bully never see themselves as bullies, just having a laugh. Bullying is very subjective in this manner and people who mean to just poke fun a bit can be branded as horrible monsters while an actual evil kid can just be called a little troublemaker. Bullying is something that can't be removed from society, if we eliminate bullying as we define it then another definition of bullying will crop up in it's place. It's as much a part of human nature as making friends and relationships is.
I've been bullied in the past, as has everyone else who ever lived with contact to at least 1 other person. But you get over it, you ignore it or remove it. Once you find a way to live with it then you can start to get rid of it and there's no greater satisfaction in life then making your bullies life a living hell after you stop the bullying in your own special way. It's like collecting pokemon except making a worthless fat turd cry herself to sleep at night.
I guess being on the farms constitutes as bullying but then again, we're all aware of what we're doing and choose to keep doing it. Doesn't make us good people to admit it and generally, nothing will. If being on the farms and laughing at idiots online makes us bullies and evil then whatever, I'm a bully.

 

[PorcupineTree]

Girl on my swim team got thrown into a dumpster by older players once and she 100% deserved it for being a brat. I talked about the locker room rape thing in the school stories thread the other day too- obviously that is too far and shouldn’t have happened.

I bullied a few people when I was younger because I thought they were annoying, and then I grew out of it when I was a teenager. I don’t feel too bad about it because I made amends for the most part and I think that kind of mild conflict (teasing as a way of hinting at proper behavior to others) is part of a healthy development. I wasn’t the kind of bully that deliberately derived pleasure from it though. I was just annoyed. If you’re causing serious harm to someone, you have a problem and should probably see a therapist. I think the bullying issue would be alleviated if schools had the funding to do this.

I got “bullied” in the sense that I didn’t have much interest in other people and it annoyed my peers, but that didn’t really cause any emotional damage because I was indifferent.

 

[Zaragoza]

During my last year there it got so bad, I seriously considered bringing my father's gun to school. I didn't because 1) I didn't want to risk hurting anyone who wasn't a bully; 2) I didn't want to disappoint my father; and 3) it was a revolver, and six bullets weren't enough.

But I constantly fantasized about killing every one of them. Whenever one of them was the last to leave class I considered crushing his skull with a desk, a chair, anything. But I liked the cleaning ladies, and it would be very rude to make them clean brains from the floor.

I feel you that the fantasy part of hurting and killing them is what helps me alleviate the stress they caused and the shooting part, yeah I agree with you on that part of not wanting to hurt other people that didn't do anything to deserve it. The movie Elephant does a great job focusing on a girl whose getting bullied regularly and all throughout the movie, we never see her encounter or interact with the other main characters making her mostly a background character, at the end of the movie when the school shooting occurs, she's the first to get killed which leaves her problems and suffering never to be known about because of the arrogance of the main characters.

 

[heathercho]

Tonight my wife,

lol... faggots don't have wives.

 

[vanilla_pepsi_head]

I'll get the powerleveling out of the way first: I was the kid everyone shit on constantly and got viciously harassed to the point it permanently fucked me up physically and mentally. Once high school came around and the vicious stuff gave way to shunning and shitty comments, I could cope with that just fine. Any time I tried to put a stop to it via fighting or even insulting them I'd get suspended, which would result in a further ass kicking from my dad. When I tried to explain I was only fighting/swearing because I was being targeted constantly, the teachers would reply that I was the one in the wrong because Jesus let people beat, humiliate and crucify him without fighting back and we should all be like Jesus. The teachers got in on the bullying too at times. It was a fucked up situation.

That said I do think to an extent that kids giving each other shit helps to prepare for real life conflict and how to act like a proper human being. Someone who gets picked on for, say, being a smelly autist might learn to take showers and not dominate a conversation with shit no one cares about. Fucktarded zero tolerance policies, hugboxes and enforced pacifism help no one. I think authorities should step in with cases of prolonged, targeted harassment, but in general, kids should be given some space to solve problems themselves. Social hierarchies and dealing with bullshit is part of life, if kids don't learn to deal with it you end up with a bunch of snowflakes who can't handle the first instance of unfair bullshit they come across at work or in college. I guess I think there should be more emphasis on conflict resolution and knowing about the various legal ways to deal with harassment while still being realistic about what actually happens. If policies are tough but fair kids will learn pretty quickly how to determine if fighting back in each specific instance is worth it or not.