School aged bullying.

[pepe le pew]

I was horribly bullied at school. Bullying was seen as a ’rite of passage’ back then. A sort of ‘harden yourself up because life is tough’ stance, was taken by my school. I often wonder who I would have turned out to be had I not had those 4 continuous years of attacks, it definitely destroyed my self esteem and confidence completely. Now for kids it is even worse. Because of social media and particular apps and websites, kids get bullied after school too. Online bullying. Luckily once the school bell went at the end of my school day, and I ran home, I got a respite.
When a very small bullying incident happened to my daughter a few years back, I completely overreacted to it. Attacking both the kid and parent involved. I was obviously still very triggered by my past.

What has been your experience of bullying, and the schools or police‘s efforts to prevent or stop it. And why are schools still not just knocking this on the head the minute it starts, immediate expulsions and so forth.

 

[witchofwestbyfleet]

Loads and loads of bullying as a teen including racist bullying, bullying because I was a twin, because we didn't have a lot of money, other things. In the summer holidays we often went to Hong Kong for a month or two to visit family, one year we got back and my mother found a ton of obscene messages about me and my sisters on her answerphone. She wouldn't tell us what they were about but she was so rattled by it she changed our phone number

 

[Rosie glow]

I was bullied throughout school by both pupils and some teachers at times nothing was ever done despite it being reported. I think back then early 80s to mid 90s bullying was largely ignored. I had a big group of friends and got through it, It definitely affected my confidence but didn't stop me doing what I wanted. These days if anyone crosses me they get both barrels I don't take no $#@! from anyone anymore. As already said when the school gate closed it was over now with social media its never over.

 

[Sibz]

I was never physically bullied, but I did experience psychological type of bullying - being excluded and ignored, ganged up on, talked about behind your back, nasty comments, dirty looks. It started when I'd just turned 13 and suddenly started getting attention from boys and wearing makeup, after being the plain quiet one nobody noticed before that, the girls I hung around with hated it. I didn't realise that at the time though, and just thought I was a terrible person that nobody liked, it effected my self esteem badly. It made me physically ill from anxiety, I kept being sick with nerves going into school. It got reported but with that kind of bullying there's not a lot teachers can do as it's just one word against the other, and when your self esteem is low you feel that you brought it on yourself and deserve it and don't have the motivation to pursue it further. I changed school at 14 and got on ok with new friends after that.

 

[Emba]

I was never physically bullied, but I did experience psychological type of bullying - being excluded and ignored, ganged up on, talked about behind your back, nasty comments, dirty looks. It started when I'd just turned 13 and suddenly started getting attention from boys and wearing makeup, after being the plain quiet one nobody noticed before that, the girls I hung around with hated it. I didn't realise that at the time though, and just thought I was a terrible person that nobody liked, it effected my self esteem badly. It made me physically ill from anxiety, I kept being sick with nerves going into school. It got reported but with that kind of bullying there's not a lot teachers can do as it's just one word against the other, and when your self esteem is low you feel that you brought it on yourself and deserve it and don't have the motivation to pursue it further. I changed school at 14 and got on ok with new friends after that.

This is very similar to what happened to me at school. It has caused so much anxiety, it was never addressed. I never moved schools ! Just had to find a different group of friends. It’s made me really wary of trusting people and such bad self esteem issues. Now, what’s even worse is that I think my heart 12 year old daughter is going through something very similar. She has one particular ‘friend’ who goes out of her way to leave my daughter out and I know for sure she has been speaking to others to make them see my daughter in a different light and right before my eyes everyone starts to leave her out when the ringleader is there. My daughter used to tell me when it happened and explained that people just start leaving her out. And begs me not to say or do anything about it. It breaks my heart !! I just needed to get it off my chest. I feel there is some kind of jealousy. I’m just not sure what else it would be, and also not sure how to deal with it

 

[pepe le pew]

I think the important thing to impress on our children regarding school and bullying in whatever form that is. Social isolation, shunning, physical attacks, sexual attacks, verbal attacks. That once they hit the age of 16, they won’t be in that ‘soup’ any more. By soup, I mean in a place with everyine your age, going through puberty and physical and mental changes. It’s the whole suicide thing. It’s like the light at the end of a tunnel isn’t liberation, new friends, a job, college, life beyond schooL. It breaks me every time I read about a bullied child. The schools seem tit hot about misgendering, religious tolerance, and trans and gay acceptance. They will even call social services to come and get you. But bullying, nope, nothing has changed.
I got bullied by boys. But girls are vile. Girls come at girls in ways boys could never conceive of. At 12, maybe some girls have their periods, others don’t. They brag about being sexually promiscuous and others don’t. They even on a daily basis, are friends with someone, the next day they are their mortal enemy. I had to shut down a Facebook page that targeted my daughter. And not a week later the girl who put the page up walked into my house like nothing had happened.
Just help your girl navigate the world. The people she is friends with now she will struggle to remember their names in ten years. They’re a whole load of people out there that she will meet. Not everyone will be her age, all levels of age. Make her understand that the attacks aren’t personal, they are fear led. Keep your eye on her. Maybe a new hobby?

 

[mochibean]

I was bullied all the way through secondary school. I was incredibly depressed at such a young age and I feel like the other kids saw this as a weakness. Thankfully social media wasn't massive back then just bebo, myspace so thankfully it was only at school. I got called names, rumours made up about me, and bullied for being sa'd by another kid in our year.

Drove me to binge drinking, self-harm and use drugs to cope. I was super quiet about it, I've always bottled up everything due to the invalidation I received at this age. It was hard, it was every day so I started skipping school. School did absolutely nothing about it, despite me not telling anyone they were definitely aware. Only one teacher helped me.

Left with no GCSEs because of the bullying. It has definitely affected me throughout my late teens and early twenties, I try not to think about it. I never imagined at 14 I'd still be here it's weird, I never envisioned a future because of it.

 

[Tangerine Cat]

I was never physically bullied, but I did experience psychological type of bullying - being excluded and ignored, ganged up on, talked about behind your back, nasty comments, dirty looks. It started when I'd just turned 13 and suddenly started getting attention from boys and wearing makeup, after being the plain quiet one nobody noticed before that, the girls I hung around with hated it. I didn't realise that at the time though, and just thought I was a terrible person that nobody liked, it effected my self esteem badly. It made me physically ill from anxiety, I kept being sick with nerves going into school. It got reported but with that kind of bullying there's not a lot teachers can do as it's just one word against the other, and when your self esteem is low you feel that you brought it on yourself and deserve it and don't have the motivation to pursue it further. I changed school at 14 and got on ok with new friends after that.

This was the sort of thing that went on when I was at school, I left in the mid 80’s and I would say started around the age of 13 too. I ended up living very near to the bitchiest girl in school and because I didn’t want her picking on me, made friends with her. She tried bullying me but I ignored her. She carried on being mean to others but I wouldn’t join in and always tried to smooth things over all the time with her and see what she was doing to others.

It was lovely to leave school, we moved soon after and I dropped her like a stone. She’s the typical mean girl even now though, you couldn’t trust her with your money, belongings, to keep a secret or even your husband. She appeared on tv years ago and there was a lot of bitching about her on Twitter, 30 years later I remember thinking it was karma.

sometimes I’m not sure it did me any favours by being her friend. I’ve met people since who said they didn’t like me at school because I went around with her, then others say I was the kindest girl in school.

I think it’s mean to judge people now. We’re only human and we're all trying to get by.

I was never the bravest child at school. I was a mummies girl and hated leaving my mum and going to school. My mum had a very poorly baby not long before I started infants school so I think my mum was torn between me settling in and the new baby and I always felt insecure. I’d see all these other kids leaving their mums and going off to play and I was dreading the bell going and being alone with all these other kids who I felt were stronger and braver than me. That feeling has never left me, even though I hide it well by being happy go lucky, I’m always worrying about something.

To any of you struggling still I saw a good exercise on tv once. Go and find a photo of yourself young and happy. Look at it and ask yourself if that little girl or boy deserves to grow up unhappy because someone was mean to them. You really don’t, and the older I get the more I see karma.
---

 

[shadowcat5]

Most of my life. Primary school was the usual stuff, being ignored, left out etc.

Had a group of 'friends' who were actually bullies.

The worst was a group of boys when I went to college. They were friends of my friend and I knew no one else. They would do things like tell me to kill myself, and when I started speaking they'd interrupt by telling me to shut up. The other times were crappy but that really affected my ability to communicate with boys/men. I still struggle now. My male work colleagues are all nice but I can't move past it.

 

[Emba]

I really appreciate all your replies. It’s so difficult for all. It’s great to get it off my chest and hear others perspectives.

 

[Emba]

So another layer in what my daughter has to deal with. At her dance school (which I thought there weren’t any issues) one of her friends is not inviting my daughter to her bday party. The friend is a year younger so inviting friends in her year group and their siblings. But this means there’s a huge crossover with lots of friends from dance going and not my daughter. She doesn’t know yet. I don’t know how to tell her. This isn’t the first time we’ve been in this situation. She has been left out of parties organised through school friends too. It’s just all so sad and unnecessary. I feel she is being excluded. If they were truly good friends then she would be invited.

 

[Melian]

My school did nothing. Actually their response was to move me into a different tutor group and change my timetable so I was in a different class. So basically punish me by removing me from my friends.

I once reported sexual harassment. I got laughed at.

 

[pepe le pew]

I’m sorr

I really appreciate all your replies. It’s so difficult for all. It’s great to get it off my chest and hear others perspectives.

y your kid is surrounded by c*nts at this point of life. When you are that age everything seems so important. Each party, each event, vital to our place in society. When all it seems to really be is vindictive little cowbags sharpening their teeth on people we love. A mean girl is a mean girl. Through history they remain the same.

 

[abelleza]

I was never really bullied as such, mainly because I always bit back as good as I got, but I was teased and talked about a lot behind my back in both primary and high school. It was mostly done by boys though, and I am a woman. Tbh I’m thankful I wasn’t bullied by girls as they are much more evil imo. I was always told I was fat and ugly, which I believed. Weird thing is I look back and whilst I wasn’t exactly pretty or skinny, I was also neither fat nor ugly. There were even much bigger girls who were popular.

I was once nearly asked out on a date as a ‘joke’ by a boy who pretended to fancy me, worse thing is I actually believed it until a group of girls in my class told me they’d overheard him and one of my ‘friends’ (female) plotting this ‘joke’. I was devastated and my ‘friend’ came up to me after school trying to smooth things over whilst smirking and he was watching on from a distance…I went home and bawled my eyes out for hours, believing I was so disgusting and unloveable that is was laughable to fancy me. The same girl also used to ring me up and find out who I fancied, I never told her cause tbh the one boy I liked wasn’t ‘popular’ or ‘hot’ and I was embarrassed. I once told her one of the popular guys I thought was handsome (but in no way fancied) to try and get her off my back, next day I went into and she’d told everyone I fancied this guy and his friends all teased me. He went from being civil to me to not even looking me in the eye.

I also once found my name and another girl in our years name, who was actually mercilessly bullied, on a guy who I had to sit next to in class’s folder, obviously as a joke. And another guy had a background of two very morbidly obese women in bikinis on his computer background and without realising I was in the room went ‘oh that’s abelleza and the the other girl’ - that was the same guy who asked me out as a ‘joke’. What annoys me is that he’s now very rich and semi-famous and successful. I do wish everyone who follows him on Twitter and hangs onto his every word knew what an absolute c*** he was to me and other girls in school.

There are many more examples of them treating me like less than human, lots of things on social media - eg a boy putting up a picture of Vicky Pollard from Little Britain on his bebo page and writing my name underneath it.


Because of this I’ve always had severely low self-esteem. I have never had a successful relationship as I don’t trust men, they’re all like those horrible boys in school to me. I put up walls and refuse to let them in. When I was in my early twenties if I ever got hit on in a club I would be looking around to see if the guys mates were laughing at him. I don’t trust anyone who likes me, I think there is either something wrong with them or they’re taking the piss. It makes me feel pathetic to still be hung up over stuff that happened at school and let it affect my life, but I am currently addressing it in counselling.

Sad thing is, the reason I was so spiky to people and ‘bit back’ was probably because I am actually an extremely sensitive person, so I put up this front to protect myself. But I suspect this is why those boys hated me so much, and if I was less like that they may have left me alone.