If you were a school bully

This happened to me too, Sallywally1 and I've still not recovered fully at age of 60. I don't understand why schools can't be sued for allowing bullying when they are in loco parentis and responsible for the well-being of kids who usually have no choice but to be there. I'd sue the a**e off the schools I went to if I could.

I was bullied both at work and at school. Sadly one of the school bullies got a top job at the same place as me. He never recognised me, but I was so angry that he had reached such a high position when he had been such a vile person. I was also bullied at work. Bullying at work can take 2 forms. It can take sniping and continually finding fault or leaving someone out of conversations, social occasions. I had both. Bullies never seem to get their payback

Doodle, I agree with you, bullying doesn’t always make you strong, it does knock your confidence and ruins your life, that’s why I’ve never had the confidence to stand up to people and speak my mind because of me been bullied at school. Whenever I have spoke my mind which is very seldom, maybe 3 times in my life, the other person has gone off in a huff, but it’s alright for them to tell me what they think and rule me.

I was bullied at school because I was very thin and do not have many happy memories of being there. It did affect me in later life but now I am stronger and will not let anyone have a go at me, not even my DH who was controlling in our early years, I now stand up to him but it took me a few years.

I hate to admit to this but I feel like I have been bullied all of my life. My mam was the boss of the house. At school I had a horrible bully for about 1.5 years until I flipped and smacked her back. She did stop after that but I never wanted to go to school all of that time and those years were ruined. Then I met and married a wife beater. I still have nightmares from those YEARS! I eventually got away and quickly met another person who was all full of mind games. I did manage to get away from him and spent some fabulous years on my own with my youngest child. DH is ok now but I find that I wont tolerate even the slightest thing. Sadly I don’t think I will ever be the person that I should be because of my history. Bullies do win in the end despite what others say as we carry it within our heads forever.

I was bullied on and off throughout most of my school life. I loved learning but bullying ruined everything. I hated going to school. It was like a prison sentence. I wasn't the only one who suffered. There were several gangs at my senior school who made life hell for lots of us. The interesting thing is that I now know that after we finished school several of the bullies ended up having thoroughly miserable lives. Strange that.

Bullies always pick on someone who for whatever reason they perceive to be easy prey. I grew up with family problems so that while I excelled academically I was extremely timid.
There were some minor instances of other girls bullying me but nothing sustained. As a young married woman newly-moved in to our first home I began to notice that our next door neighbour could have quite a nasty turn of phrase when speaking to us but as I'd been brought up to respect my elders I never rose to the bait.
However I remember distinctly one day through my kitchen window I could see him hoeing the weeds growing in his garden under the railing dividing our gardens and pushing them into our garden. As we had not long rotovated our entire garden & sown a new lawn I was really maddened. I remember standing in the kitchen saying to myself 'you are nearly 30 years of age- when are you going to start speaking up for yourself?'
Without delay I walked slowly out to my neighbour & said ' Mr Johnson, I'd prefer if when you are weeding your garden you wouldn't push the weeds into ours
He was really surprised & said ' Oh would you? And what about your weeds?'
I somehow kept calm & said ' you look after your weeds & I'll look after mine ' & walked back indoors. As ours was a newly sown lawn I was out there every day pulling up any odd weed that dared show it's face so that was not an issue.
I realised that he probably spoke that way to everybody & got away with it.
From that day til he passed on many years later he was never anything less than polite to me & actually fussed over my children when they came along.
The important thing for me was that I had learnt to assert myself and while I wouldn't say it's second nature to me it's become easier over the years for me to stand up for myself if I need to.
Bullies are individuals with unresolved issues & many of them stay like that throughout their whole lives, marrying partners who haven't yet learnt to assert themselves.
The sooner their behaviour is called to account the sooner they pull in their horns & just maybe they think twice & realise they need to learn respect & a different way of dealing with others.
It's never too late to find our inner strength- as mothers & grandmother's we not only owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our parents who gave so much of themselves to us and we definitely owe it to the next generations, our children & grandchildren

|Schools are supposed to have a policy on bullying, but how effective are they? Any parent whose child is starting at a new school should get a copy, and discuss it with the child in advance.

Like lemongrove, I attended several schools, both mixed and single-sex. I never encountered bullying either to myself or to anyone else.

My lovely middle daughter was so badly bullied at 13, that she tried to end her life! The girls who bullied her were vile creatures! and it took many years of therapy and hard work for her to be able to get back on her feet. She has done very well and is now also an excellent mother to one of my lovely DGD.
I think she would get PTSD symptoms were she to come across the bullies even now and I would be tempted to fly at them ?

Same here Poppyred.
I don`t think bullies give a damn how the bullied feel even as adults.

Sadly, I find it's we shy, quiet types who attract these vile specimens - they can get one over on us and it makes them feel powerful.
I felt bullied at home by a very domineering father which did nothing for my self-esteem, very fearful at school and then bullied in a few jobs. If only I knew then what I know now I'd have given it back to them with bells on! I'm sure it would have stopped it but I never had the courage.
It affected me for decades really and it's only in recent years that I've become braver. In fact, I think I've actually become harsher.

Hetty58

I wasn't a bully or bullied - except by my mother!

That's so sad Hetty58. My mother put me straight when I told her that I hated a boy at school. This would have been in the second year of infants when I was about five, maybe six.

She explained that not all children have a happy home life, many get smacked by their parents for the most trivial things. That can make them think that smacking is a way of getting their own way.

It made me think, I still didn't like the boy, but I did have a different perspective of why he was like he was. Years later I found out that his father liked a drink and came home three sheets to the wind, lashing out on the boy, his siblings and their mother.

At the grammar school there was a large thug of a lad who used his size to bully all and sundry. The day I dived at him, wrapping my arms around his knees and hearing the groan as he hit the floor, is one that I've always treasured. And I have never lost my love for the game of Rugby either.

Those experiences put me in good stead for the work place. My firm had asked me to run their Birmingham distribution centre while they recruited a permanent manager. One morning my department managers were talking about getting help from a subcontractor about a couple of extra deliveries. Looking at where they were to go, I asked why "D" couldn't do them on his round. "D" was a former shop steward at British Leyland, he terrorised everyone.

My office door flew open, "D" stormed in, I ignored him. "I don't do this area," he shouted, I ignored him. He ranted and ranted. When he finally ran out of steam I said: "Have you shut up, or have I gone deaf?" He was about to reply when I pointed to the door. "Go back outside, knock on the door and wait until I say come in." Off he went into another tirade and again I ignored him. "If you want my response "D" you know what to do."

He did it, none of the staff could believe it. He knocked, I looked up as though nothing previously had happened, said: "Come in." and he did. After a more diluted protest he told me that he didn't do that area. "You don't, or you won't?" I replied, fixing a strong eye contact with him. "I don't know where it is?" He said, "But you will know when you come back this evening," I said, adding, "Off you go."

That evening there's was a knock on my door, looking up I saw "D." "Come in, "D" " I said. He rather sheepishly said that he would like to apologise for his rude behaviour that morning. "Gone and forgotten," I told him, then explained that the cost of subcontractors has to come from somewhere, if we keep using them what's going to be in the kitty when pay increases come around. "Point taken," he agreed. We shook hands and both acknowledged that we have jobs to do, his being as important as mine, but the manager has to manage.

what about bullying by the staff, or some of them, in schools.

I was bullied at school, but only on 2 or 3 occasions and by different children. I can remember the incidents as clear as day - one was when I was 5 or 6, the other when I was 9 or 10. My dad went into the school playground to have a word with the boy who bullied me when I was 9 or 10. That sorted it! Of course, my dad wouldn’t have been allowed into the school playground today because of safeguarding. I’m mid 60’s now and have such clear memories of these incidents, but I suppose I was lucky that it only happened rarely and it wasn’t sustained. But I was extremely frightened at the time, especially as I was a very timid child and hated school, particularly when I was very young. I wanted to be at home with my mum!

I thought she just didn’t like me. I now realise she verbally bullied and sneered at me from 11 to 18. She became head girl and went to Oxbridge. About 40 years later some of us started having lunch together every few months. Very pleasant. Then I heard she was coming to the next lunch. I decided not to go. I was told she was now a distinguished head teacher and was ‘life and soul’ of the lunch party. She also had cancer and died soon after, apparently her funeral eulogies were wonderful.
Maybe I should have gone to that lunch and faced up to my fear of seeing her. Someone said she suffered from her father favouring her brother and never giving her credit for her academic and social achievements. I still wonder that the school staff chose her to be head girl. I don’t know why she picked on me, we weren’t even in the same form.
I also taught for several years in a primary school where several people were bullied, sneered at and marginalised by a pair of senior staff. You were either ‘in’ or out’ with them and they bootlicked 3 successive head teachers into thinking they were wonderful. One of the HTs was also a bully and a liar. Most parents thought she was wonderful...

I was too inconspicuous to be bullied, however, I do vividly remember a friend who was constantly bullied because she was overweight. We would walk home together from school and the bullies would follow us calling out names and insults to her. I spent endless hours trying to comfort her but she never recovered and although she was a good friend and a great mother she died feeling she was worthless - all because of the bullies.

There are some very sad posts on here. to all of you who were bullied and especially to those still suffering from it all these years later. And kudos to those brave enough to admit bullying in the past and feeling remorse now.

Here here, Maggiemaybe! (Should that be hear, hear?!!)

I may be the first person to actually answer the OP’s question. I was a bully at school from age 12 through to 16. I was awful to a group of boys and I am ashamed that I ever did that. I am such a mild kind person now and if there is an excuse it was they I was badly abused and bullied at home and thought that is what you do if someone is different. I don’t like to use excuses as now I cannot abhor bullying in any shape. I did write to the three boys I bullied when I was about 20 and apologise but i think that would not have helped them really. I suppose that was to make me feel better, I don’t know. I don’t need anyone to come on here and tell me how they suffered at the hands of a bully, and that is my fault, I know, I just think that there are sometimes reasons why people are like they are. I truly did not know any better as a youngster, I figured that is how you got a laugh as my dad would do nasty things to me so his friends laughed. I learned how to be a proper human at nursing college and have truly learned how to be a nice person from my DH who showed me how to be kind. I honestly am a really nice person now, I do not have contact with most of my family as I realised they are horrible many years ago and would sooner stay away. Sorry to anyone that is offended by my post, I really am❤️

I hate bullies with a vengeance and feel that I could be really violent towards them to teach them a lesson. It just makes my blood boil that they know who to pick on.