Have you been a victim of bullying?

Have you been a bully yourself? What can be done to prevent bullying?

Comments

[mandy forbes]

i was bullied all through school and now at 34 i lost my job due to being intimadated by staff in nursing home it can have devestating affects on you

[3_years_have_passed]

Hello, I was a victim of extreme bullying in my 8th grade year.

A nasty rumor was started about me and spread throughout my all-girls school (which has about 900 girls in it). T

he rumor, by the way, was that I was gay and dating my best friend, which wasn't true. (and I have no issue with gay people or lesbian people by the way, most of my friends are at least bi)

This rumor caused everyone, including most of my friends (all except one), to exclude me completely. Before this rumor I had been pretty well liked, but when this rumor spread that changed.-

No one said a word to me and everyone laughed and spoke behind my back. It got so bad that people would come up to me in the hallways asking if the rumor was true and when I told them it wasn't they would laugh and walk away.

The rumor also caused people to trip me in the hallways and shove me down stairs. I even got punched in the face.
People would scream at me from across the front of our school asking me how my relationship with my friend was going.

A couple of younger students went to the Principle and told her that they had seen me making out with my best friend (which I had never done, much less at school) and that they were so disturbed that they had to call their mothers to pick them up early. This caused the principle to publicly call me into her office and talk to me about why what I had supposedly done was wrong, while also preaching that she was "tolerant" of gay people. Being hypocritical and completely ridiculous in my opinion, she banned me from touching anyone on campus with the threat of a detention if she saw me touching anyone.

I got so upset because of all of this I stopped sleeping, I resorted to self mutilation, contemplated suicide, got sick, and became manically depressed.

One of my friends asked me why I had not told them I was going out with my best friend and I told her it wasn't true and she laughed at me and said "whatever." My friends completely abandoned me and blamed me for everything that had happened, saying that if I wanted it to change I should try to change it and so on.

My teachers began to notice a change in my personality, one so dramatic they would pull me after class to ask what was going on. Eventually enough of them recommended that I talk to the school counselor that I had to meet with her. She got me out of the rest of my study halls for the year so she could talk to me.

All around this time, my best friend had started self mutilation for the 3rd time. Also my great grandfather and my grandfather along with one of my friends died within the span of 2 months.

Even now, three years after the fact, I get asked about it. While things are better now (people seem to have forgotten about it for the most part) some people still make jokes every now and then.

While I realize this isn't as bad as some bully stories, I felt like I should tell my story.

[Stacey]

I was a victim of bullying threw my whole time at highschool,i got the emotional and verbal bullying.I would always sit at the back of the class as it felt more safer there.When having to answer questions in class i would say i didnt know the answer because saying the wrong one i'd feel that i was stupid to the rest of the people in the class.My friends withdrew from being with me as they thought themselves would get bullied to so everyday after school it would be just myself walking home.I found myself not wanting to go to school and faked illness.My mother told the school but they never did one thing about it.When i started college i found to be questioning myself who am i really as at highschool i could never be myself at all.

[emo gurl 4 lyf xxx]

i wz a victim of bullying and ended up havin 2 move skools because of it, i wz constantly gettin in fights cuz of the skool sayin i had 2 stick up 4 myself. i wz left hurt both physicaly nd emotionaly and my self esteem wz very low, i now go 2 a different skool and have been goin thr 4 about 2 yrs nw i atend regulary nd hav a lot of m8s i am on medication because of my confidence wz so low. thx 4 readin

[Selina Bruce]

I suffered a lot of verbal bullying as a child – I was seen as a goody two-shoes and was teased about everything from my haircut to my lack of a 'boyfriend', and I was only ten years old. Kids can be cruel, but when teenagers are bullied, things can get much more serious. Schools should have a no-tolerance approach to bullying as every youngster has the right to an education without living in fear.

[vicky roebuck]

I too was bullied. It started really in infant school. I'd always been seen as different because of a birthmark I hold over my right yey which has caused almost 100% blindness in that eye. Since then, the bullying got worse and worse. In junior school I found my best friend who stuck up for me as I had become something of a mouse in the school. She showed me that at least one person liked me for who I was and not what I looked like.

To cope with the bullying I'd comfort eat which was a big mistake but I never got as low as to self harm. Getting bigger, the bullies found more to tease me about.

Because it was only verbal abuse I found a way of just blocking it out and ignoring it, their puns were the same day after day so it eventually got old.

Secondary school was worse however. One of the more agressive girls saw me out trick or treating with my best friend in our first year and got me by the throat. For the simple reason that I looked to see who she was. My friends father stopped her but we never told my parents. I was, for some reason ashamed.

My parents have never known about the bullying but I told the teachers. I found friends in most of them and confinded in them. They took sympathy and alerted the higer positioned teachers if I didn't dare.

Bullying is low. I'm scared for my younger brother who has just started his first year in secondary school. He's mentally slow and scared of people he has not met and finds it hard to mix. The bullying has just started for him and I'm scared. I don't want him to end up like the victims who have comited suicide. I wear my 'Beat bullying' wrist band all the time, though I think the cause is in vain, there is no way to stop bullying. Just the methods the victims need to take to prevent them from taking the wrong turn in coping.

Vicky, 17

[hazel]

i hate seein gpeople being bullied as i was a victim of bullying from when i was 8 up until i left college at 18. i was born on a british army camp in germany i held a british passport and have british parents but because i wasn't born in hull it made me different to them i had ten years of mental bullying anything ranging from i was a nazi b***h and to go back to my own country as i wasn't welcome here, to even my form tutuor telling me i had mental problems and needed help, like one of the case studies i didn't tell anyone i thought i could handle ti myself but it got worse i had my dinner money stolen my treasured football scarf pinched after a while i snapped its funny how the teachers never noticed the bullies picking on me but the one time when i did retaliate i was the one that got caught and got sent to isolation. what annoys me the most was the fact that the teachers made excuses for the bullies and told me to get on with it. luckily i am now a stronger person for it and am now serving in the royal navy for 5 years but i still have days when i think why me? its about time people stop making excuses for the bullies and to discipline them

[Ian W]

My 12 year old daughter has been bullied throughout her schooling. Even though she is bullied, to her credit she tries to enjoy school because she enjoys learning. Hopefully, she will attain good grades and beat the bullies in the end. During the last school year my wife went to the school about one particular bully 3 times, 3 times the bully avoided punishment. Last week my daughter finally retaliated, the bully reported her and they have both received the same punishment (Isolation). On one hand I accept this and have encouraged my daughter to accept the punishment as it takes two to have a fight. On the other hand I am quite disappointed with the school because they did not take into account the previous beatings my daughter had endured.
The punishment - ISOLATION requires my daughter to spend a full day in a room working from a book with no conversation, being escorted to lunch, limited to 3 toilet breaks, unable to even look up from her book, unable to move her chair. If she breaks any of the aforementioned rules she will be sent home and have to go back the next day, and the next day until she manages it. I have spoken to the NSPCC about this and they described it as 'archaic mental cruelty'.
As a result of this decision by the school my daughter has so much hatred for the other individual it is quite frightening. I am concerned that without our close supervision the school may have changed our daughters outlook on life for good.
My daughter believes that because she now has a behaviour record her credibility as an honest student may be tarnished and feels there is no point in school anymore. I firmly believe that the school believes it can do no wrong and that they are above all others - the tone of the letter which my wife & I received was extremely autocratic (I would not have minded so much if the english was correct, but a 12 year old could have written it better!). During the meeting which I had to attend (if I didn't my daughter would remain in isolation until I did) I mentioned the standard and tone of the letter to the teacher and her response was I don't actually see the letter. (despite having her signature block at the bottom). When I take into account the manner in which the school and it's staff take such an autocratic 'I AM' approach I can begin to realise where the bullies get their attitudes. I am not that old myself and can easily remember my school days, I do not recall there being so much bullying in those days. Yes there were fights and both parties were punished and that was the end of it, but then we respected our FAIR teachers in those days.
I feel I am now wondering who is the biggest bully? The school\teachers or the students? Then again why are there bullies? Is it the society that we live in, created by our highly educated governments governing our highly educated teachers? After all we can't blame the parents can we because our parental responsibilities were taken away by the highly educated do-gooders! The powers that be keep harping on about 'back to basics'. What is more basic regarding morality than - right & wrong or good & bad?
I suppose what it comes down to is I just hope we as parents can keep those we love and hold dear safe enough so that they in turn may help in providing a better future than the current highly educated meddlers have managed so far.
To the bullies and the government - WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND! An excellent film the Lion King says it all 'THE CIRCLE OF LIFE!'.