Did you suffer bullying?

¿?.

Yes. Nearly all of my school years except for the last year I went.

CapturedDoll said:

Yes. Nearly all of my school years except for the last year I went.

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Ohh. Bullying is horrible.

As a smart, geeky guy in HS, yeh, especially my last 2 years after moving to PA from CA. Specifically by a member of the football team - always said we needed to fight. I'd come back with - you've got a game tonite, if I hurt you, we might lose the game. (then again, he may have been joking with me all along...) I had more concerns when in CA.... but, I survived.

rdhd said:

As a smart, geeky guy in HS, yeh, especially my last 2 years after moving to PA from CA. Specifically by a member of the football team - always said we needed to fight. I'd come back with - you've got a game tonite, if I hurt you, we might lose the game. (then again, he may have been joking with me all along...) I had more concerns when in CA.... but, I survived.

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Yes bullying is important in the personal development. It is like eating vitamins you make stronger. I suffered as well in high school.

Yes bullying is important in the personal development. It is like eating vitamins you make stronger. I suffered as well in high school.

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Wrong. That is like saying pedophilia is good for a child because it helps you become a man (which is a disgusting way to excuse a horrific atrocity). Almost all bullying that takes place in school are children trying to vent their frustration and pain by dishing it out to others. No child should have to deal with that or be the victim of that. I was bullied constantly in day care, preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school and my sister was bullied even more for being lesbian. When I was older I finally learned the situations that the bullies were living in (almost all of them came from physically abusive households and were now being housed in multiple foster care homes). While that doesn't excuse the pain and suffering I was dealt, it does make me feel my community failed me and the bullies themselves by allowing things to get so bad.

Things were pretty good for me through fourth grade, then we moved across country. From 5th grade on it was HELL. A lot of the neuroses I have come from this and especially the girls who went out of their way to be cruel to me.

Not much in school. All my bullying happened at home.

chicago said:

Not much in school. All my bullying happened at home.

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aww, sweetie. *hugs*

ehhh, no. i was liked in school; very much a class clown. i looked rather 'geeky' in grade-school...but i still wasnt bullied. Then my appearance went like 180 degrees in junior high, and my girl friends would get mad that i was *competing* with them for the guys they liked...even though i had no interest in them at all. It was still perceived. And that would get pretty nasty at times. but overall..not really bullied.

And, to all who have been bullyed - guess it's what was done, how often, etc. Not something to make fun of, or ignore - it happens. I had to come down on some of my daughter's friends one night. Sometimes we have to to be a bigger bull than they think they are.

Mmmmyep. I was a weird kid growing up--I cried a lot, was socially awkward, had a funny walk, was into the "wrong" things... So I got picked on in elementary school, which escalated to merciless bullying in middle school. I've basically blocked seventh and eighth grade out of my memory because of the hell those little fuckers made my life. Fortunately, the bullying stopped in high school; I went to school with some cool people, there.

mariowuitomari said:

Yes bullying is important in the personal development. It is like eating vitamins you make stronger. I suffered as well in high school.

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Fuck that. I'm fucked up because I was bullied.

arachnid95 said:

Mmmmyep. I was a weird kid growing up--I cried a lot, was socially awkward, had a funny walk, was into the "wrong" things... So I got picked on in elementary school, which escalated to merciless bullying in middle school. I've basically blocked seventh and eighth grade out of my memory because of the hell those little fuckers made my life. Fortunately, the bullying stopped in high school; I went to school with some cool people, there.

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And look at you now! You are gloriously riding a goddamn giant spider to victory! If that is not called success, I don't know what is More power to you, friend!

Most of the bullying I had came earlier in school. Say, up until about my second year of HS.

I was the "class clown" type back then.

From the second year of HS forward, the authority figures in school got it through my brain to change my behavior.

I became much more quiet.

Even though I was by no means "popular"

I had my small group of friends, and those who used to bully me would just leave me alone.

It is not just on this forum, but I have read and heard many times that bullying makes people stronger. You know, the idea that you can become a more confident, resilient person through bullying or hazing, that it somehow readies the victim for facing the hardships of life. I don't know how well accepted this idea is, but it is definitely there floating around, like the OP wrote in post #5

Well I respect all opinions of course, but I believe this one to be wrong, and even dangerous to a certain extent. I think bullying favors mob mentality to the detriment of free speech and individual initiative (two core values America has been built on), that it is a particularly vicious form of social control, and one that creates trauma which can have lasting effects years later. It generates stress, a distorted image of oneself, and can drive one to commit suicide.

Now before someone labels me a social justice warrior or a hopeless idealist, let me explain. I do NOT believe in avoiding conflict at all costs, and I also DO believe that a degree of violence is necessary in every form of society. I am sure all of us have experienced moments when we joke about friends, make fun of each other and it can go pretty far. I don't know if you have seen the masterpiece Hell or High Water that came out lately but there's a great example of that, with a character making jokes at the expense of another, while sharing a very close bond with him. There is mockery, but there is also a great deal of respect, I am sure most of us can relate to that. I also do believe that everyone has the right to express oneself, no matter how offensive one's opinion sounds to anyone else.

Bullying is different. In my understanding, bullying is the repeated abuse of a vulnerable person by a scumbag (or more often than not, a mob of scumbags, which makes the victim virtually unable do defend him/herself). There is no respect, no sense of friendship or even chivalrous rivalry at work there, only the physical and/or mental abuse of a person. It achieves nothing, but destroying said person. It is the triumph of cowardice over strength, nothing else. And as such, it is not beneficial to anyone: not the victim, not the bullies, not the onlookers (remember: the only thing that allows evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing), no one. It does NOT make someone stronger; in essence it weeds out the strong, colorful and talented people we need in society, and creates instead an amorphous "blob" of conformist people led by scumbags who rule by fear.

I know it is an exaggerated, and certainly partial point of view, but I have had enough hearing that bullying could actually benefit anyone. It does not, and even though I probably did not convince anyone, I hope I made my point clear. Contrary to the OP I have never been bullied, but I know quite a few people who have been, both kids as well as adults, and they all had an absolutely terrible time. Not one of them has ever claimed it made them a better person. I have no idea as to solutions, and I certainly would listen to contrary arguments. But until then, I will keep on considering it intolerable.

goddess_nemesis said:

I'm fucked up because I was bullied.

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Me too. And mine at the cruel hands of my peers came at about the worst possible time, just as I was entering puberty which science has shown is a particularly vulnerable and impressionable period psychologically. In my case, I think it just activated my dormant inherited genes for introversion and extreme shyness, leading to the creation of the fucked-up, socially crippled man I've always been.

Tenebrae said:

I think bullying favors mob mentality to the detriment of free speech and individual initiative (two core values America has been built on), that it is a particularly vicious form of social control, and one that creates trauma which can have lasting effects years later. It generates stress, a distorted image of oneself, and can drive one to commit suicide . . . . In my understanding, bullying is the repeated abuse of a vulnerable person by a scumbag (or more often than not, a mob of scumbags, which makes the victim virtually unable do defend him/herself).

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Your ideas, very well stated as usual, call to mind not only the other thought-provoking thread you started on this topic but a recent incident I just heard about in which a professional athlete, your prototypical man's man, was driven to tears through continual racist taunts from a crowd:


As the vid above shows at 13 seconds in (for those of you who can view it, apologies to the rest), the guy vainly tried to resist with a one-finger salute before eventually dissolving into the arms of his teammates. The cowardly sadism and cretinism of the mob mentality on full display.

mariowuitomari said:

Yes bullying is important in the personal development. It is like eating vitamins you make stronger. I suffered as well in high school.

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I have to echo other posters. That is the stupidest statement I have seen in a long time.