Bullying

[Raven22]

A topic that i am sure a lot of people have come across at some stage in their lives.
Either as the new kid in kindergarten,School,College or Uni,the office or work place,or at home,and in our modern society,even on the internet.
Bullies,generally,need to try and act all macho to prove they are better than someone else,and to make them feel powerful,when in fact they are just scared of someone they see as a threat.
Bullie's are cowards.
Bullie's get the "courage" from the friend's that back them up.

Were you bullied,and how did you deal with them?

 

[Triple Bogey]

A topic that i am sure a lot of people have come across at some stage in their lives.
Either as the new kid in kindergarten,School,College or Uni,the office or work place,or at home,and in our modern society,even on the internet.
Bullies,generally,need to try and act all macho to prove they are better than someone else,and to make them feel powerful,when in fact they are just scared of someone they see as a threat.
Bullie's are cowards.
Bullie's get the "courage" from the friend's that back them up.

Were you bullied,and how did you deal with them?

The worst bullying I encountered was something I mentioned on here a few weeks ago. I worked evenings at this shop. Gangs of kids would shout abuse at me, call me names and generally make my life a misery. There was nothing I could do. If I stood up for myself and shouted things back it would make things worse. There was no security, no cameras. I was getting maybe £15 more than my dole money as well.

The company moved me to another shop in the area for a week to keep me out of the way. But of course I had to go back. And then I started to get abuse outside of work, people laughing at me, shouting abuse. I couldn't go anyway. I had to disguise myself, wear a cap and shades just to go to the shops. I went to another city to see my brother to get out of the way.

One night I got punched in the face. I went outside the shop to have a go back and a group of kids attacked me, kicking me while I crouched in this doorway trying to protect myself. I should have quit but I stuck it out and the shop closed a few months later. I was glad. I was out of work for nearly 2 years. I then got a job in the shop that I went to for a week. It was a busier shop and that's where I am now, 18 years later. I've had stuff happen, abuse, somebody spitting in my face but I don't work evenings anymore so it's okay.

I really horrible time of my life !

 

[PenDragon]

Few times in mylife and those too when I was in school when I was a kid. They try to scare me and well, they got best out of me, physically I mean. I don't tolerate bullies, never had and never will. I might not look strong enough but once I get up to defend myself then that's different stories. I thought it was end of it but later in life I found out Cyber bullies too, yeah I had few encounter of them and again the same result but this time with words no hand or legs involved.

I don't like bullies, disgusting. What they think is fun not a fun for the victim. And that's the lamest excuse I hear when they say "they were having fun" but there were few who were honest in that statement.

 

[Tiina63]

I was bullied in several workplaces and found it very difficult to cope with. It was worse than the bullying I faced at school, as you would expect adults to know better. Have never understood why some people like to make other people's lives a misery. When it comes to dealing with it, I don't know what to advise as despite all the times I have been bullied, I have never learned how to ward it off.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Bullies,generally,need to try and act all macho to prove they are better than someone else,and to make them feel powerful,when in fact they are just scared of someone they see as a threat.
Bullie's are cowards.
Bullie's get the "courage" from the friend's that back them up.

Were you bullied,and how did you deal with them?

I mostly agree with this. I don't necessarily think that the bullies are scared of someone they see as a threat though. I think it's more the first thing - they want to feel like they are the "toughest" , the "baddest", the "coolest". They want to feel powerful, they want to feel like they are better than someone. In my experience, the bullies were people who were quite capable of knowing right from wrong, good from bad yet chose to be jerks anyway because they thought it was "cool".

I do agree that bullies are cowards though, and get courage from ganging up in groups. The bullies who bothered me always did so as a group - never alone. None of them ever faced me one-on-one. They were cowards.

I went through a little bit of it as a kid. Looking back, it wasn't nearly as severe or as frequent others had it. I was never beaten, just excluded and verbally abused. In retrospect, I could have and should have done more to stop it but I didn't because I didn't want to get in trouble for telling the bullies off or for fighting. I certainly wanted to swing a fist several times, but like I said, since they were in groups and since I wasn't confident in my strength, I didn't think I could win a fight and I knew losing would only make me angrier. Nowadays, I think that I should have fought because the bullies weren't as tough as they talked and I would at least have felt better if I tried.

There was this one time where a bunch of them ganged up on me, and one of them charged up to throw a snowball in my face point-blank. This smug little honeysuckle thought he was so cool because his sister was, and still is, a fairly successful actress. Almost as a reflex, I grabbed him by his coat and threw him past me to the ground. He hit his head on the driveway and bled, then he lay there whining about it. I heard the next day he had a concussion. Maybe he didn't, maybe he did. I don't know. But that was one of my finer moments. I am glad to say that I drew their blood, but they never drew mine.

Eventually I graduated public school and moved on to college, and the bullies did as well. Then they moved away and I haven't really seen them since. It pretty much just faded away on its own.

Nowadays I have more of a "yeah, whatever" attitude about bullies, even though I don't have them anymore. The opinions of people like that are irrelevant, and I realized that they always were.

 

[Sometimes]

I didn't really get bullied, since I learned by my home life to become invisible, in order to stay safe. Invisibility is a good way to get a lonely life! However, my partner tells a story where in primary school, some kid decided he was a good mark because he was small, and started bullying him. One day it just went past the line of what he could deal with, and he snapped, and grabbed the kid's shirt front, lifted him off the ground up against a wall. My partner says he scared himself with what he realised he was capable of. But after that the kid left him alone.

My daughter was subject to verbal bullying by girls when we first moved to a new area, when she was 11. Her automatic response, which proved to be successful, was to answer them back completely factually and logically. They were stumped then, for a comeback. They learned that to keep up a verbal interaction of bullying with her was too much work, since it required actually thinking. The reason for the bullying was that she decided to be friends with the least popular girl, which ruined the bullying girls' plan to isolate and bully that other girl. This was a self-isolating move on my daughter's part, but she is very stubborn, and refused to be pushed.

 

[Solivagant]

Her automatic response, which proved to be successful, was to answer them back completely factually and logically. They were stumped then, for a comeback. They learned that to keep up a verbal interaction of bullying with her was too much work, since it required actually thinking. The reason for the bullying was that she decided to be friends with the least popular girl, which ruined the bullying girls' plan to isolate and bully that other girl. This was a self-isolating move on my daughter's part, but she is very stubborn, and refused to be pushed.

Wow, it's kind of weird to read that because that's exactly what I did in high school (and for the same reason).

I was bullied my whole life, some of my earliest memories being bullying and mistreatment. My very first experience in school was bullying (literally: attacked in the coatroom within minutes of walking into the school on my first day of Kindergarten). It was awful. I dealt with it in various ways. By high school I had learned to handle it better, and I was also in a much larger school where I was mostly invisible or ignored, so it didn't happen as often.

 

[VanillaCreme]

I was picked on, but I grew up with a mom that taught that I should stand up for myself. And that's what I did. Still do. I am outspoken when I need to be and I will point out honeysuckle that just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Raven22]

Thank you all for sharing.
What about online(Cyber) bulling? Anyone been the victim of that kind of bulling?

 

[Solivagant]

What about online(Cyber) bulling? Anyone been the victim of that kind of bulling?

I've been a frequent target for psychos, sadists, liars, and generally cruel and abusive people online, but that probably doesn't count as "bullying".

 

[Raven22]

I would call anything like that "Bullying", Solivagant.

 

[Solivagant]

I would call anything like that "Bullying", Solivagant.

Maybe... I guess the prototype of bullying I have in my mind looks more like an ongoing stream of attacks from a person or group, rather than an isolated incident or two from a person or group.

 

[Cavey]

The 'bullies are cowards' adage doesn't often hold true in my experience. I've known a great many bullies in my time and they're often found surrounded by people, but that's usually because others flock towards them rather than they themselves actively seeking it out.

Most of the bullies that I have known would have been more than happy to obliterate you on their own - although having someone there to witness their attack may have made it more likely to occur.

 

[Solivagant]

^ I agree.

 

[PenDragon]

What about online(Cyber) bulling? Anyone been the victim of that kind of bulling?

Forcing their idea on other people is Cyber bullying that I have experienced. Through manipulation or any other tactics that I have been through too. But yeah, same as "real physical" bullies "virtual bullies" were dealt with accordingly.

And about Bullies, there is one thing I have seen almost everytime, they work in group, I haven't seen "a solo bully" always in packs like they need protection or bunch of sorry asses admirers to praise their "great work".

 

[Despicable Me]

So I got this ridiculously insulting PM from a forum member here, today. I did absolutely nothing to this person and don't even know this person at all. The 'forward to a moderator' kind of stuff, which I'm probably going to do here in a moment.

So yeah, I've been "bullied" for most of my life. The reasons for it don't even really make much sense either.
What did I do about it? Some might say nothing, but I'd say I show them I am a mature person and that they don't really bother me.

To be fair, bullies develop their psyche from being unable to cope with social situations themselves. Often times they are the result of things like physical or emotional abuse from their parents, or other times they were the victims of bullies themselves. It is how they learn to cope with the world. Through distrust, feigning courage, and physical or emotional violence. To do this, for them, makes them appear strong when internally they are weak and fear being abused by others. They feel they must 'protect' themselves from others by being the dominant force towards other people. It is an adapted defense mechanism.

 

[PenDragon]

So I got this ridiculously insulting PM from a forum member here, today. I did absolutely nothing to this person and don't even know this person at all. The 'forward to a moderator' kind of stuff, which I'm probably going to do here in a moment.

So yeah, I've been "bullied" for most of my life. The reasons for it don't even really make much sense either.
What did I do about it? Some might say nothing, but I'd say I show them I am a mature person and that they don't really bother me.

To be fair, bullies develop their psyche from being unable to cope with social situations themselves. Often times they are the result of things like physical or emotional abuse from their parents, or other times they were the victims of bullies themselves. It is how they learn to cope with the world. Through distrust, feigning courage, and physical or emotional violence. To do this, for them, makes them appear strong when internally they are weak and fear being abused by others. They feel they must 'protect' themselves from others by being the dominant force towards other people. It is an adapted defense mechanism.

Hmm, So we got some Cyber Bullies here too. Need to get my hammer and glove, lol
But seriously, how the hell they got here? This place is supposed to be safe heaven for lonely people like us, hmm.

Totally agree to that, It starts as defence mechanism thing but later turns into something more disgusting, consumed in it until that become part of them, a habit, nature, inseparable. But I have seen few people who were bully earlier in life turned out way different later in life. So I guess there are few who actually regret over what they did back in the past.

 

[TheSkaFish]

The 'bullies are cowards' adage doesn't often hold true in my experience. I've known a great many bullies in my time and they're often found surrounded by people, but that's usually because others flock towards them rather than they themselves actively seeking it out.

Eh, I've found that people did tend to flock to the bullies and take their side of things, because they were "cool". But at the same time, the bullies I dealt with always acted in a group, never alone.

Plus I like to refer to them as cowards because, as "macho men", it would piss them off. The hell with bullies, man.

So I got this ridiculously insulting PM from a forum member here, today. I did absolutely nothing to this person and don't even know this person at all. The 'forward to a moderator' kind of stuff, which I'm probably going to do here in a moment.

What a jerk. I'm sorry that happened.

 

[Despicable Me]

Totally agree to that, It starts as defence mechanism thing but later turns into something more disgusting, consumed in it until that become part of them, a habit, nature, inseparable. But I have seen few people who were bully earlier in life turned out way different later in life. So I guess there are few who actually regret over what they did back in the past.

Absolutely.
Some people do change, and I give those people a lot of respect for that, even though it doesn't seem to matter to others. Many people in society feel that if you once were a bad person you're always going to be a bad person. But I simply can't accept that. Realization of wrongs done to people is a much, much stronger force than anything like morality or ethics ever could be alone. Society seems to refuse to accept change in people. They distrust it and don't believe it exists.

I can sympathize on both sides, actually. Once upon a time I wasn't very nice, myself. Society treated me like a monster so I became a monster. I wanted to hurt everyone else because everyone else hurt me. Then I realized that I might not be able to change the way society sees me but I can change the way I see myself.
On the other hand, I can understand why it's so hard to trust someone who has done wrongs before. How can you really know they have changed or not? It's so hard to trust people as it is, let alone people who have a 'history'. It is impossible to 'know' that they have changed, so like everyone else you mostly just have to take them at their word for it.

Sadly, though, most people probably never change like that. There are bullies who will bully until the end. Perhaps some don't know what they are really doing, but some might and still do it anyway. Either way I actually kind of pity those kind of people. They will always be shallow and ignorant. They will never have any real understanding of the world. They never have 'realization'. That is something that I find to be completely and absolutely irreplaceable. So I can do nothing but feel pity for them.

 

[VanillaCreme]

So I got this ridiculously insulting PM from a forum member here, today. I did absolutely nothing to this person and don't even know this person at all. The 'forward to a moderator' kind of stuff, which I'm probably going to do here in a moment.

What a jerk. I'm sorry that happened.

Please refrain from airing personal matters onto the forum publicly. Call them a jerk, yet you have no idea who it is or what they really said. It is a forum member after all.