Former Victim of Bullying Says it's Like Enduring Non-Stop Psychological Warfare

• Wow, Mark, sad but cool story.

• Okay now this is just bad. "Go to YOUR OVER YOUY Immediate Supervisors Head." "Go over your Immediate Suervisors Head."

• Where is the teachers when kids are bullied? What wrong with these schools? Shouldnt we be teaching kids to respect others kids? Bullying is what lead to kids commiting suicide. Bullies end up like those 6 Florida girls who beatup this 16 year old cheerleader. I was picked on in school when I lived in stinken Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, but when I moved to Asheville, North Carolina I had a whole bunch of friends and the kids there were actually civilized. Why to go USA from running such great schools.

• I think that Bullying is far more commonplace than many might care to admit, if not downright universal. I myself was beat up every day from Kindergarten through graduation from High School. I don't mean that as an over-generalization either, but literally. Some days, especially if there was an After-School function, I would get beat up twice in the same day. I never understood why I was being targeted. I kept to myself, never caused any trouble, and entirely minded my own business. I was always polite, civil, and eagerly helpful to anyone who asked. Yet, I was still bullied repeatedly on a daily basis. However, when bullied, and when push came to shove, I wouldn't get out of the way even if I always chose never to fight back. I would use coy words and fierce jabs of my tongue to defend myself against flailing fists. It tore my father apart to see me get beat up every single day. Eventually, as I grew older, he started physically abusing me, in hopes that it would toughen me up and convince me to fight back or defend myself physically. Even he failed to get anything more out of me than my disdain and wistfully witty retorts. Sure, it made me sad and confused, especially once puberty came along and brought me to that age where depression already goes hand in hand with being a teenager. However, not once did it ever defeat my spirit. If anything, it made me all the more defiant to persist and not let it affect me. I discovered a kind of liberty that few ever get to know, being unswerving in purpose and drive, not being affected by any person, circumstance, or cause. Bullying became nothing more than something I learned to endure, becoming no more a nuisance in my daily routine than a pebble in my shoe, or getting stuck in traffic. Immediately after leaving High-School, I never experienced bullying again (although I still had to learn how to deal with manipulative people with Borderline Personality Disorder, but that's for another story). A decade later, I was approached by three of my most regular bullies who wanted to apologize and bury the proverbial hatchet. Although I still held for them the same disdain that I once did, even that many years emotionally removed from it, they were genuine and sincere in their apologies and at least gave me an explanation I had been longing for all those years. Their justification for the initial bullying was out of petty jealousy, something that was hard even then to confess. However, my refusal to fight, yet refusal to submit is what coaxed them to continue unabated day after day. It was then that the real reason for their apology became apparent... ...All those many years of being unable to break my defiant spirit had a profound toll upon each of my bullies! Their spirits had been broken in their own attempts to break mine, and they eagerly wanted to understand where my strength of will, spirit, and mind came from just as I had needed to understand why they had bullied me all those years! After their initial apology I casually got to know my bullies over the next decade. Every chance they could get they would express to me how I had become their personal hero who inspired them. All three continued to thank me for being who I was so that they could become better people by learning from my example and my strength. (Seriously, still to this day, it boggles my mind at the turn of events.) I guess the moral of this story is, just as the Buddha said, that Life is Suffering. If you aren't suffering, then you simply aren't living enough. There have been bullies in every culture, and in every epoch, since the dawn of time. They are not likely to ever go away, as it is an intrinsic part of Human Nature. We cannot hide behind arguments over who is liable for protecting our children from bullies, or who is responsible for raising bullies, or how we can shelter our children from bullies. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge that they are there, and that they will always be there, and learn not to let it affect us, and teach our children not to let the bullies affect them. The strength of your body is the strength of your mind, and a mind resolute in purpose, unaffected by the tribulations brought at the hands of those bullies of far weaker in will, will eventually triumph. If bullies are predators like lions, then be like the wind who can neither be harmed by the bullies, but yet can sting their eyes and take away their will to fight. And if you, or your child, who has undergone severe bullying is still in need of inspiration, may I suggest reading the memoirs of any survivor of a Concentration Camp in Nazi Germany. There are many epic tales of those who found strength and purpose in their life while enduring the greatest of atrocities at the hands of the greatest of all bullies. One who is bullied does not have to be a victim. It's merely a matter of what you choose to do with it. Do you let it scare you, intimidate you, and cause you ultimately to submit, or do you chose to find strength in the face of adversity? There really is nothing more complex to surviving bullying than choosing the later rather than the former.

• Jennifer, you have got to take self-defense classes. Please go to a psychiatrist and talk it out. Do not take this shit off people any more. Outside of work No one but No one is allowed to lay a hand on you. If someone talks to you disrespectful in any way, just walk away from them If you can't walk away scream for help. If they so much as put their hands on you call the police. Now at work; Document everything. Do not react to any of the bullies crap. Walk away. When you have had enough Crap on them and it's documented, you'll know when the time is right to end the bulling. Go to YOUR OVER YOUY Immediate Supervisors Head to his/her Supervisor and give that Supervisor the hard copy that you documented the the harassment. I would get an attorney for hostel work environment. Stop playing the victim and take control of your life. One job that I had years ago, this women was as mean as hell to me. I was afraid of her. Her crap went on for a year, until one day she said all she was going to to me. I looked her square in the eyes not an inch from her nose and let out the most God offal scream you have ever heard. She told everyone that I was crazy, but she never opened her fat mouth again to me. Go for it Jennifer......START LIVING!

• I'm so sorry to hear your story, Jennifer. Do you have a brother or a male friend around who can bust some heads for you? It really, really sounds like some heads need to be busted. I wish you well.

• I was physically abused by my mum as a child. Thrown down the stairs on a number of occasions and locked out of the house after being forcefully pushed out. She used walking sticks and kitchen spatulas to beat me. She was really physicaly strong. My mum really knew how to hurt and abuse. For years I have been bullied at work. I also have the CHAVs from hell next door and they make my life hell - easy because I am on my own. I think I become a target quite easily because the abuse I had as a child has left me unable to stand up to bullies and people with loud, bombastic attitudes that come pushing me about. I learned that self protection was to say and do nothing in the face of the abuse. Answering back or defending myself only drew more violent attacks and got me chucked down the stairs quicker. Go Stumm and you have a chance they won't notice you and start the game of bullying. Bullying IS psychological warfare. I am living in fear every day because I have had the ability to mount a defence destroyed in me. I don't know how to handle bullies, and I have always been powerless to stand up to them in the heat of the moment when they come along and launch a psychological body-slam on me. If I don't have time to think things through, they just walk all over me and push me around. Then I get angry and eventually they then get a reaction, which is what they feed off - usually to try and discredit me by blaming me for the way I have begun to behave - as a direct result of their bullying. I don't know how to change. I give myself pep talks and then when I am again confronted by bullying, my brain goes into the mode of shut down, as I learned this and it is now embedded. Right now I have a very difficult colleague who has set me up at work, to push me out of my office and take it over. It has been set up by her and her allies while I have been working elsewhere. My manager wouldn't intervene so the bully now has the upper hand and I am out of the office.

• As the "new kid" in schoolat age 15, I was taunted by a group of girls for no reason. They would follow me around, call me "whore, slut" in the hallways, which I was totally stunned by (I was a virgin, nor, being new, had I dated anyone there, nor had I heard students speak like that before). They followed me one day to home room, but I had decided I had had enough. When the bell rang, I exited into the hallway, and waited for them. The first one to approach me, I slammed into the lockers, had my hands around her throat, choked her and kept slamming her head against the wall. She left me alone after that, but then her sister came after me. Another fight. It took a few months, but they finally left me alone. Bullies torment until you stand up to them and push back. You have to have the support of family, or others, to do that though. And the schools have a responsibility here to bear as well because many of the adults DO look the other way... their silence perpetuates and endorses the activity.

• i was always fat ugly and never had any friends till i was around 16 or so , hell iv never ever even had a first love , iv was always made fun of hell to this day im so anti social its scary , i left school cause i was to the point i was ready to kill , now its just to where i wanna mass killing spree but that wont do anything , so i just sit here rotting away waiting for a good day to just go nuts let the world no how with my thoughts behind me

• I can't quite feel what this poor woman went through, never really being bullied myself, but I can somewhat relate. My school can get pretty bad with the physical and mental torment, it's strange because, sense I live in such a small town, I guess a lot of people think that they have nothing better to do than just harass people, we're really getting a bad reputation this year. In fact, at least 6 or 7 people have gotten expelled for whatever reason in the past 2 years, and there have been too many suspencions to count. I used to respect the kids in our school system, but not anymore. It's like my school doesn't do anything but sit and watch, like her school did. They know what's going on, they just can't prove it so, why bother saying anything? I really hate my school sometimes. I'd say about 2/3 of the student population here have either done drugs, are doing drugs, or have tried to influence others to do drugs. No one stands up for themselves or even tells a teacher. They just take the drugs and do it. It's the same with sex. You can tell who has had sex (sadly most people it seems), who hasn't and doesn't plan to in the near future (the smart kids like mmyself), and who hasn't but wants to (the rest unfortunately). For example, we're talking about birth control and such in my health class, and there is one rather popular boy who gets picked on when we talk about abstinance. They make fun of him because he hasn't had sex yet. That's gross, why would they have to know that about his life? And he always seems upset about what they say, so I felt bad, until I figured out that he isn't trying to be abstinant, he just can't get a girl stupid enough to have sex with him. At this point, I have no more resect for this kid. He's 14, sex isn't recomended, it's just the social norm and he doesn't want to get picked on. Why is sex so important to teens these days? Is it so hard to keep it in your pants?

• I'm from England and have lived in a few different countries. When I was about 9 my family moved to Scotland. For those who dont know the Scotish arent the biggest fans of the English or anything they do. As you can probably guess I was effectively bullied by an entire school for the three years i lived there. I even changed schools (public and private) twice in an attempt to get away, but to no avail. When we finally left Scagland we moved to Holland and in a vow to never be bullied again I started kickboxing. Over the next 2 years I became fairly proficient at defending myself. Eventually we returned to Scotland to see parents friends. I made a trip to one of my old schools where all the grades were at one school. Needless to say I ran into some trouble and of all places in the toilet. One of my old bullies watched and followed me in and decided it a good idea to smack my head against the wall as i was urinating, this was not a good idea, I will spare the fine details as this is getting long but in the end he was laying in a standing urinal trough humiliated infront of a few other twats, while I nursed some bruised knuckles and knees and shins. It was the most satisfying feeling thus far.

• Bullies, yes I am well aware of them. I had my share of abuse throughout high school myself. Funny thing happened to me a few years ago though. I ran into the one girl who tormented me the most. She was a cashier at Kmart in my home town and seemed to be pleased to see me. She said, "do you remember me?" As if I should be happy to see her. I said, "yes and I am glad that I no longer know you." "I also see that I am doing much better in life than you." "Good luck and good riddance." She looked incredulous as if we were friends. It is funny to see how people have no idea what their actions mean to other people. I'm sure she thought I was such a b*tch because that sort of person doesn't want to remember or acknowledge what awful things they did earlier in life. I hope my children never have to deal with the bullies that I had to deal with daily.

• I cannot stand to hear how these perps have to pick on innocent people to make themselves feel better. I have a child who has endured abuse and being made fun of because he has a learning disability and ADHD. I taught my children that you are the same as everyone else and taught them to never make fun or humiliate others. I cannot believe that teachers, guidance counselors, hall monitors, cafeteria monitors, other students don't see this in the hall or in the cafeteria and report it. My son sat by himself everyday at lunch. Why didn't someone try to make him feel better and step in and help? It broke my heart to hear of his pain until I pulled him out. Noone should be singled out or to be made to feel inferior or unwanted. Also in gym class: can you tell me why the asshole gym teacher would let the students pick teams and only my son was the only child that was never picked and the last to go. How embarassing, what is wrong with these teachers????And to think they want raises!!!!!They don't deserve anything...

• I was exiting high school when they were putting in the bs zero tolerance policies... which unfortunately punishes the victim as much as the aggressor. My words of advice, throw punches first and take what comes. After the first few times people will stop verbally harrassing you because the immediate result is a physical confrontation on your part. People talk big but often have to talk themselves into a fight. If you are called a derogatory name by someone who constantly harrasses you, throw punches. Don't say anything, just start beating the shit out of them. People will learn not to fuck with you lightly after word gets out that you aren't going to take that shit without a fight. Take it from a social misfit, you will eventually get the respect and fear you need for people to give you your space. After all, most bullys do it for show to make themselves look better to the mob that is the student body... they don't want to have to actually walk the walk.

• I was bullied verbally all through high school, and it took me years to get over it. Everyone told me "Just ignore them" No teacher ever helped me. My parents were from a different generation and didn't comprehend the vicious tactics of the jungle that high school became. It needs to stop happening.

• Man, more of this "I got bullied" nonsense. How about this: When the world turns it back on you, YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON THE WORLD! Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze It means no worries for the rest of your days It's our problem-free philosophy! ...on a serious note. You should've beat his ass one day. Then you know what would've happened? You would've been suspended, taken an ass whoopin at home; and when you got back to school, you'll learn there's a thin line between being feared and respected, and usually you don't have to care which one people feel about you. That ofcourse being my unimportant opinion ;)

• Way too many folks look the other way on this stuff. Any wonder why folks go postal?

• I feel you. i was in the same boat my self. i tend to keep people away in fear of being hurt by them. bullying can screw a person up. there have been times for me where i wanted to jump one of my tormentors. but i didn't why? it wasn't because i was afraid of them. i was afraid of what i might do to them once i started. i could of ended up killing them. moral of the story is this. people get screwed up from bullying long after you leave high school.

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