were you ever a bully? why?

My heart goes out to you. Your story brought tears to my eyes. I too was bullied in school though nowhere near as bad as you were, and every time I complained I was told "Oh, they're just playing." I knew the truth though and it hurt. One day I was dragged into the student toilets and two girls held my head down the toilet while another one repeatedly flushed the toilet. When they'd done, they left me sobbing and soaking wet and wondering what I'd done to deserve such treatment. I honestly think you could use some counseling. What you see isn't necessarily what other people see. But the only way you can start to live again and regain a sense of pride is to talk things through with a counselor. Bullying scars. The scars last forever, but over time we begin to see that there was NOTHING wrong with us, and that we ARE worthy. The mental pain never goes away, but it does diminish to a point where we can focus and live our lives on a day to day basis. I hope you can get the help you need to begin to work through this. Hang in there hon. We're all here for you.

I understand what you went thru, some of it happened to me, but my mother would stand up for me with the staff &, frankly, I related better to adults so I was allowed some protection as a "pet." Then, I decided I didn't like myself & if I didn't change, I wasn't going to be able to live with myself. I decided to erase that "victem" off my forehead & stand up for myself, make myself seem tougher. One thing that helped was to do a "Spock" and show no reaction to their taunts. I changed schools for a few years & worked really hard to change me too. I changed so much, in fact, that it took the bullies a while to figure out who I was when I came back. I actually got one of them laughed at by his buddies. He finally figured out who I was & said something tough to me in front of his buddies & while not too many other people were around. I turned & said "At least I have the same friends I had 3 yrs ago, I see you don't." His new, redneck buddies laughed, because he used to be in the longhaired hippy crowd a couple of yrs before. He never confronted me again.

I never bullied anyone while in school as I was always the one being bullied around, especially before getting to high school. It was very painful for me to go to school because of all the teasing and pushing around that I received when I was younger. I tried to avoid everyone on the playground by hiding in the corner because it hurts so much. I think it is terrible what kids do and parents should educate their kids on not to do this. It can really have a harmful effect on other kids, whether short term or long term.

AAAGGGGGHHH I do want to respond becuase I was not only bullied at school but also at home, my kids were bullied horrible (which is a key reason why I pulled them out of the school system back in Canada) AND my nephew killed himself at 11 yrs old partly because of the horrible abuse he dealt with from the school bullies (sometimes extremely violent, like knocking his front teeth out with a baseball bat).....so i do want to jion the conversation....but I just woke up, coffee hasnt kicked in and thats too much reading at this moment but I WILL be back.... I will say this for now though....Bullies are like that due to (IMO) self loathing, major insecurity and believe it or not, jealousy! My ex was a bully not only to me (when we were still together) but also to our son in a terrible mindfking way and it caused some major damage.... I'll be back though...

I've been treated like this as well, and it's horrible. I was bullied beyond belief when I was younger, and there are some of the stories I still haven't told anyone because I don't believe they'll be believed. I can't imagine what could cause people to treat each other that way. I really wish I could explain why people are like this. Better yet I wish someone would come to explain it to both of us! Personally, I only once became the bully, and it made me feel so horrible that I could never do something like that again. I beat up a boy pretty badly because of something stupid we were arguing about, and when I realized what was going on I stopped. If there's anything in my whole life I wish I could change, that's it, more than ANY of the horrible things that have happened to me. I can't see how people could act like that everyday when just doing it once nearly killed me.

I feel so bad for you. Taking in all that you wrote is like hearing a horror novel on the acts of humanity. I have been bullied but nothing compared to the story you tell. I feel so sad that you feel less than what you are by things that have been done to you. I dont think you are ugly and I really think that you have been dealt so much negativity that you have reflected it inward, your ego and emotional state has been severly bruised without a doubt. Out of all the things that have happened to you the worst thing I see is what you have done to yourself. You have allowed yourself to believe they were right. You need to take all that happened to you and lock it in a box for just one month dont think about any of it. You need to take everything that has happened at work home and lock it all in a box and you need to focus on the person that you should have been. I am not saying this will be easy it will be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life. You have to break the cycle of what you are doing to yourself. Take the person you were meant to be and let her out of the box and lock all those things that make you who you dont want to be in the box. For one month live without fear, live without sorrow, live without the constant regret you are carrying around. You will have to train your mind not to wonder it will want to slip back to your old thoughts without you even knowing it. You will have to keep it focused and always keep it in check. I sware to you if you do this for one month things will be different. The world around you will slowly change and you will change to that person who has so longed to get out of the box and live life. So please for one month just try what I am saying, I know you may think I am a total nut job but what do you have to lose. Remember to keep your mind focussed on that other person. Dont let your mind wander or stray if it does visualize clearly that person you let out even if soemone is being negative to you visualize that person and let her stand up for you.

Well, truefully, everyone bullied once. Don't lie. If you laugh at someone because of something thats bad about them, like they are fat or something, it is considered as bullying after a while.

no i am not a bully and i would never like to be a bully they are the worst bunch of people ever, it would be much better with out them in this world.

no i was never bully in my life.

it depends on how one views it but i realized i've been bullying one of my colleagues. nothing personal. and no, none of that hair-spitting, really really mean stunts. he's a slacker and asks all of us for help like all the time and at first we were all eager to help him out. soon we realized he was doing it on a daily basis. it's almost like we've been doing his job for him and he was just slacking off, totally depending on us to help him out. so i just bullied him everytime he tried to ask for help for something we all know a little common sense couldn't fix. if he asked stupid questions i'd ask the question right back at him and sometimes i do it really haughtily - which is unintentional - and surprisingly his mind starts to tick and function and he'd be able to solve his own problems. he just needed a little push. but being nice doesn't do it all the time. apparently not in his case. he's way better off at work after we did that to him so it all ended well. i don't push people around for no reason though. i'm not that type of a bully. i guess i bully slackers and those people who pretend to know everything. for those who pretend to know everything when they don't i pose really really difficult questions and really relish the moment they cringe and admit they don't know everything after all.

I'm really sorry to hear that.It was one of the most depressing stories ever.I was feeling totally guilty on reading this cuz i was once a bully too.I never realized that it'd have such an adverse impact on the victim. I wasn't the kinda bully you were speaking about though.I never used to bully my classmates.I used to bully my cousin brother.I don't know why i used to did but i did.I feel so stupid now when i think about those juvenile days. Its not like i hate my cousin or anything.I liked him a lot and he was the only cousin i was close to.Maybe that was one of the reasons i used to play the fool around with him or something.He used to literally cry when i used to tease and bully him.Honestly speaking i never meant any harm to him,i liked him a lot.I never gained anything out of it but just the wicked smile that could be seen on my face. He often used to complain to his dad about it. Nothing stopped me though.Now he's gone.He's moved over to Canada and i miss him badly.There's no more bullying,no more teasing, its all over.I miss you cous'.

I've been on both sides of it. I never went through bullying as terrible as what you did, and I never did anything that bad to another person, but I cannot deny that I was very cruel. My family moved often when I was in grade school, and I made friends quickly at almost every school I went to. The only problem I had was when we moved for the last time, into the house my parents stayed in for over 10 years. I was in fifth grade and somehow immediately became singled out as the black sheep of not only my class but the whole grade. I've always sort of been a "theme" dresser, and that summer while shopping for back to school clothes I'd decided that my new persona would be ultra-neat and prim. Pleated skirts, long socks, semisheer blouses, etc. I still look at those pictures and think about how adorable those clothes were. If I could still fit in them, I'd probably wear them now, lol! Anyway, this "prep" style just helped reinforce the difference between my classmates and myself. They were all still stuck in the grunge phase (how 1993, i thought to myself, striding firmly in 1995) and gleefully started to pick me apart. They mocked my clothes, how I stood and sat (I used to have really great posture), how I talked, my grades (I've always been a good student), my family, my house, anything they could. I just played it off. My sister has always said to me "Fake it 'till you make it" so I would just pretend I was confident and didn't care. It worked for a while, and it seemed as though they'd all moved on to the kid at the back of the class who smeared boogers inside all the books. I made friends with some of the horrible girls who, months before, decried my very being. I never really trusted them, but desperate for social interaction, I took what I could get. It was sort of rewarding as well -- these girls who used to hate me now liked me. I felt somehow flattered, which to this day I still don't understand. The year ended and everyone got split up to different schools. The neighborhood I lived in wound up going to a school very far from my elementary and few of my classmates were included in the group. I remember being scared that middle school would just be a repeat of the previous year, but because the school I'd gone to for fourth grade "fed" into my new middle school, I knew almost 1/3 of my whole grade already. I made friends that year and had lots of fun. I guess I forgot about what it was like to be that one, isolated person living in fear of the unpredictability of every new day at school. A few years later, I bullied a classmate of mine. My girlfriends and I bet each other money to trick a very geeky boy in our class to thinking we all liked him. We manipulated him to entertain ourselves and we were just terrible. Somehow, being in a group of students, I wasn't really even thinking for myself. I just adopted this hunky-dory attitude and flipped a switch and was a total witch. We did it for a week or so, then we moved on to other delinquent behavior (like learning to smoke, talking about male conquests, discussing methods of sneaking out of the house), and I kind of forgot about that geeky kid. A few more years after that, I was in high school and my old friends were in other classes. I was the loud kid in the front of the honors classroom, in every academic club imaginable. They were in the cluster in the back of the classroom, discussing their life on the drill team. I needed a job so I started slinging pizza dough at the store down the street from my house. Very fetching look for a girl: just cover yourself in flour (they called it "dustinator" at my shop) and pizza sauce and stand in a room being heated constantly by a 500 F oven. I was sweaty and frantic at about 7 pm and the geeky kid walked in. He was my trainee for the night. I was so insanely embarassed I didn't even know what to say. He shook my hand and acted like he didn't really know me, and I took his lead. We worked for the rest of the night and after the store closed and we were smoking in the back, I told him how sorry I was. I really liked him at work! He was witty and smart, and I couldn't believe how much fun I'd had. He said something along the lines of "yeah, I thought you wouldn't to admit that happened" and I was shocked. I felt really dispicable, and base. I let him know what I was feeling, and he somehow forgave me. We just drifted apart after I moved for college, but we were friends before that. If I ever see him again, I'll be glad to, and I'd like to think that he would, too. But I still feel terrible about it. I think children from age 10 until probably around 20 have this really weird sense of egocentrism. They are constantly thinking about themselves, and about how other people are thinking about them as well. They think that everyone sees everything they do, and that is very stressful. This groupthink helps them escape their own feelings of awkwardness. They deflect all their own unhappiness, confusion, and anger to someone else. I don't think that is an excuse, but I think it kind of explains why kids do this. I also don't think that you should let what happened to you in your childhood set the stage for what your life is like now. Childhood is hell. Most people have some horrible skeletons in the closet in their childhood. You have to overcome that. I don't think you are unpleasant at all! I like your discussions, because you are clever. How else would I ever know what "waist training is"? Anyway, the point is, you are awesome! I don't want to hear anyone bashing Galena, even if it is Galena herself.

i am not in love with people either so forgive me in advance if i say the wrong thing.i want to say something that will help(maybe i should say nothing?!) 1)i feel you want to make a change even if it is only a mental shift 2)i feel that the child you is alive and well but maybe hybernating 3)you are perfect the way you are

I was never a bully although I was bullied once. I was in third grade and a kid would call me ugly for no reason. I've yet to find out why he did it. My mother said it was because he was older and had a crush on me. I think it was because I took his favorite seat in the cafeteria before he could get to it. It was myf avorite seat, too!

no i wasnt ever a bully

i am sorry to hear how you were treated in school, i never was a bully because i know i wouldnt want someone bullying me and i aint like that,the only wayu i was is if someone was saying stuff bout me say something back i should that i wasnt scared of no one i said i might get my butt beat but i proved to you that i aint scared of you so no one really messed with me.