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Post by cnu5000 on May 2, 2011 6:44:52 GMT -5
I feel I have moved on from being bullied as a child. However, people are talking about it so much more it comes out as an issue including what I went through as a child. Really, until very recently I thought some of these experiences were unique to me where now I have the feeling that in every classroom and every school park there is a bully and a bully victim.
There are many adult bullies. They get me mad but I feel I have I had support from them as an adult than as a child.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 2, 2011 16:44:54 GMT -5
I have never really gotten over being bullied as a child. It's had an effect on every facet of my life. I was even dx'd with PTSD as a result of the trauma I experienced. Up until recently, I had no idea of how widespread bullying really is.
I have experienced some isolated incidences of adult bullying but none have been too terrible or long-lasting other than the horrible experience with the neighbors from hell.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 2, 2011 20:08:25 GMT -5
cnu5000--Re your blog post of May 2
I had the same unfortunate experience but mine was in middle school.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 4, 2011 10:35:08 GMT -5
My high school was big so I think I was more able to avoid bullying in high school though I was terrified of it and it made me afraid to get involved with people. I am hearing from other people I went to school with there were alot of bullying problems in my elementary school. As a child I felt so alone with it. I have been bullied by bosses at work as an adult but when I felt most alone with bullying I was a child.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 4, 2011 15:31:32 GMT -5
I wasn't bullied that much in elementary school. What there was, was primarily centered around my complete lack of athletic ability, although there some bullying about my appearance. I had the misfortune of wearing both glasses and braces. And I did have friends so I had a support system. Middle school was the worst, but high school wasn't much better. Middle school bullying was primarily about what I looked like and my complete lack of athletic ability. In high school it was about exclusion, lies spread about me, and my stuff being stolen/vandalized on a regular basis. I went through both middle and high school having almost no friends, so I had no support system.
The bullying I've experienced as an adult has been done mostly by coworkers.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 5, 2011 7:39:01 GMT -5
Bullying in my adult life has been done by bosses. My childhood bullying was the hardest. I have connected with several people I grew up with as adults who went to my elementary school. Two people transferred out of my fifth grade class to other schools because they were bullied. One woman who got in contact with me via FB last week said she thought the principal of the school encouraged bullying. She said she had a younger brother who was handicapped and needed to use crutches. Some kids took his crutches away and he had to crawl to get them-and the principal said these kids showed some spunk.
This is also in response to your topic on forgiveness. I think women/girls are under alot more pressure than men to be "nice" and "agreeable" to everyone.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 5, 2011 10:45:10 GMT -5
I don't doubt it for a minute that the principal you mention encouraged the bullies. I saw the same thing in the schools I attended. I remember one physical education teacher I had who bullied her students. Her favorite thing to do was to pick someone out to humiliate in front of the rest of the class. It was always the same few people she picked on. Fortunately she only taught at that school for one year, and then she was gone.
I agree with you that females in this society are expected to be nice and agreeable and to NOT stand up for themselves. In other words, they are encouraged to be doormats. I think this is finally changing, though.
Have you ever read "Odd Girl Out"? It's about female psychological/emotional bullying. It read like a recap of my middle/high school years.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 6, 2011 5:50:14 GMT -5
No-I have not. I will have to try it. I think in elementary school in about 1970 I wish discouraged from fighting back.
In the office I have to watch it because I still think open expressions of anger are much less tolerated in women then men.
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Post by preraph on May 6, 2011 7:55:13 GMT -5
Female bulling in my middle and high school was done in the upper echelons, in other words, the popular girls. I guess that's where all the competition was perceived or something. Anyway, because it involved what we called the society girls (though no one from my little suburb could truthfully be considered anything except lower middle class), the admin wouldn't do anything about it. One of them was the local politician's daughter.
The big mistake made by admins and teachers is they punish both the victim and the bully as if they were both bullies instead of only punishing the bully. This is cowardly and lazy. It was done in my time before teachers/admin had no power and stupid parents were threatening to sue and bullying the school system. Now it's even worse. That's the problem. They probably need to set up a random school jury and judge to deal with it, honestly, though that wouldn't always work out either.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 6, 2011 10:35:00 GMT -5
No-I have not. I will have to try it. I think in elementary school in about 1970 I wish discouraged from fighting back. In the office I have to watch it because I still think open expressions of anger are much less tolerated in women then men. What stopped me from fighting back was the fact that I was much smaller than my classmates and had no support system. I feared that I wouldn't be able to physically defend myself, especially if a bunch of them had ganged up on me. And I think that would have been a likely scenario. Then there was my spineless mother's advice to "ignore it". Yeah, as if that was going to help.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 6, 2011 10:46:26 GMT -5
Female bulling in my middle and high school was done in the upper echelons, in other words, the popular girls. I guess that's where all the competition was perceived or something. Anyway, because it involved what we called the society girls (though no one from my little suburb could truthfully be considered anything except lower middle class), the admin wouldn't do anything about it. One of them was the local politician's daughter. The big mistake made by admins and teachers is they punish both the victim and the bully as if they were both bullies instead of only punishing the bully. This is cowardly and lazy. It was done in my time before teachers/admin had no power and stupid parents were threatening to sue and bullying the school system. Now it's even worse. That's the problem. They probably need to set up a random school jury and judge to deal with it, honestly, though that wouldn't always work out either. It was the same in my middle and high school. It was the popular kids who did the bullying. And the other stupid kids would go along with them because they wanted to be in the popular kids' good graces. I don't remember anybody ever getting punished for bullying, but when it was even acknowleged, there was very definite a "blame the victim" mentality among school administration. Even my own mother blamed me for the bullying I was getting. According to her it wouldn't have happened if I'd been more "outgoing". She hated my introverted personality. The bullying I experienced was of the emotional/psychological type rather than physical so there was no way for me prove it was happening. And of course the POS bullies always did it under the radar so it was my word against theirs.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 9, 2011 6:06:24 GMT -5
The sad thing is also the some of the popular ones that wonderful. Someone just looked me me up from FB who left my elementary school because of bullying(I know someone else did also who I kept up with as an adult). We were talking about one mean girl. She lived in a Mansion and was related to Nieman-Marcus.
I went to a big high school and became part of the "smart" group of kids. That helped me a lot but I was very shy in high school.
Boys would hit me in elemantary school.
I am also a small person. I think I felt like a cornered mouse. You might as well fight back-you have nothing to loose.
I also remember the bully and the victim being punished.
Me and several other people remember being told by our psychologists who were supposed to be helping us that we had personalities that attracted bullies.
That made me want to stay away from people-that there was something so bad about me that it attracted bullies.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 9, 2011 16:24:48 GMT -5
I realize now that the bullies probably targeted me as a victim at least partially because of my lack of confidence and abysmally low self-esteem, and because I had no support system. Bullies pick up on weakness like sharks pick up on blood in the water. And of course it becomes a vicious circle--when someone is bullied repeatedly it erodes any confidence and self-esteem they do have--which provokes even more bullying. And the cycle goes on. I think another possible reason for the bullying was because I never fit in anywhere. Even as a child and teen, I was very much like an adult and didn't fit in with my peers.
I realize now that I should have fought back--I had nothing to lose. But I was STUPID and I listened to my spineless mother's worthless "advice" to ignore it--which only made matters worse.
As for adult bullying, I think most of that has been a result of the bullies extreme envy towards me. Not that there really was anything enviable about me, but in their toxic little minds they thought there was. That and the fact that I didn't fit in with them. They were miserable so they wanted to make me as miserable as they were. Misery loves company, yanno?
When people don't understand something or someone, their reaction is often to hate it or fear it.
Due to my past experiences I am very careful about who I get involved with.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 10, 2011 7:06:17 GMT -5
I think there is some truth to that because alot of children that were bullied in my school turned out to be smart. I also think children want to "fit in" more than adults so kids that are "different" get picked on.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 10, 2011 16:44:40 GMT -5
I think that for a child/adolescent, fitting in with peers is everything. And quite often it was the kids who were "different" or lacking in some way who were bullied the most and the worst. I can remember the Special Education students being horribly bullied, as well as those who were overweight, those didn't have the "right" clothes, those who were lacking in athletic ability, etc.
What was particularly disturbing was how the kids who weren't actively involved in bullying on their own would "go along" with the bullies. Since it was primarily the popular kids who were the bullies, I think the hangers-on who went along with it did so because they wanted to be part of the "in" crowd and/or because they wanted to stay on the bullies' good side and not become victims themselves. Stupid herd mentality.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 11, 2011 6:43:48 GMT -5
Looking back, on my elementary school I think this was true. I think the bullies were in the minority but they dominated things. While, I am have not reconnected with the acutal bullies some of the "neutral" people seem quite friendly and they probably were just being quiet about things. It also seems to bad that the bully victims could not "unionize" against the bullies. However, I remember feeling this way-If you wanted to be "cool" you associated with the "popular" kids. Also if I saw someone else being bullied, I would feel somewhat relieved that this was not me.
I also fault the adults for condoning it. If the adults don't take action what do people expected from the children?
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 11, 2011 16:25:45 GMT -5
Not only did the adults condone it, there was very much a "blame the victim" mentality. When I complained to school administration about being bullied I was asked what I had done to deserve what I was getting and told that I needed to learn to "get along" with others.
When I told my mother what was happening, I was told it was because I wasn't "outgoing" enough.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 12, 2011 6:10:34 GMT -5
I don't understand why your neigbhor acted that way. When strangers bully each other on the internet, on some emotional level they don't think they are dealing with people.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on May 12, 2011 16:55:59 GMT -5
We don't know why these neighbors targeted us. We have never had anything to do with them. We are clean and quiet, rarely have anyone over, and keep to ourselves.
I think what it amounted to is that they just plain didn't like us and did everything possible to force us from the neighborhood. I know it sounds very bizarre, but it's the truth. They are a bunch of stupid breeders with unruly brats, and we are nothing like them, and don't fit in here, so they hate us for it. Plus they have their evil neighborhood clique and they basically all ganged up on us. When we moved here it was primarily older people with no kids who lived here. Everyone kept to themselves and nobody bothered anyone. Those people moved out and the breeders and their brats moved in and formed a clique. IME, anytime there is a clique, whether in school, the workplace, or a neighborhood, there ends up being trouble. It never fails.
I will say that when the ringleader who orchestrated all of this moved into the neighborhood, I took an immediate violent dislike to him. It was the kind of feeling where the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Just a really bad feeling, and one that has turned out to be valid. I couldn't stand his fat breeder sow of a wife either. Everytime she'd see me she'd look down her nose at me and give me dirty looks--and this person didn't know me or ever even speak to me. Just a case of immediate bad blood all the way around.
Who knows why these things happen? It's just like when I was in school and bullied for no reason other than the fact that I was there.
If that wasn't enough, my brother turned on me after my father passed. I thought we had always had a good relationship but as soon as my father passed it was like somebody flipped a switch. I've had to deal with his hostility for the past year. I am still fighting to get my inheritance so we can move away from here. I have been repeatedly bullied and threatened by him. He kept things that had belonged to my mom that I really wanted--things he has no use for. Once I get my inheritance I plan to cut all ties with him, and the other brother who is just as bad. I hate them both.
I just got a new attorney so I'll see what happens.
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Post by cnu5000 on May 12, 2011 17:13:17 GMT -5
I am sorry about that. I often hear of siblings have problems when parents die.
Here even people with children don't have much to do with their neighbors-sometime property owners get hysterical about their property rates.
I have this memory-I am not proud of it-of seeing other children being bullied and just being glad it was not me. However, I have the other memory of feeling like I was the only one being bullied.
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