Have you ever felt bullied?

Post Reply New Topic

Have you ever felt bullied? If so do you believe it's because you come across as different? That others don't truly understand who you are as a person? Or is it more like the low self esteemed bully finds a target to hone in on and is just ruthless?

Hi Jennie, welcome to WP!
This is on oft discussed topic (to say the very least).
If you search you can find other threads (but I'm sure people will answer you too.)

As for me, I suspect it's because I'm different and also because I'm not aligned with any group. Picking off the straggler so to speak.

Welcome, Jennie. Is this happening now, or just wanting to know more?

I suspect they think I'm an easy target because I'm genuine and trust people too much.
Bullies take me by surprise because I think they are nice and then find out they are creepy.
I don't understand bullies and I don't know how to defend myself against them.

Some of it may be because we are visibly 'different,' but I think we ping the bullies radar because they can sense that we are less likely than most people to be equipped to fight back. Our brains tend to process more slowly under pressure, so we can't come up with verbal responses when we're stressed, and physically we tend to be rather clumsy and ungraceful, so defending ourselves with our fists is only likely to result in starting a confrontation we can't finish.

Shutting down, going nonverbal and avoiding eye contact are all signals of weakness and submission to a dominant personality and only encourages them to press the attack. The more certain they become that you aren't going to retaliate, the more abusive they get, because it feeds the temporary sense of power that they need to compensate for their own feelings of inferiority and self loathing.

Yes. I was bullied. At school it was direct bullying, but I have experienced indirect bullying that's not so obvious.

At school I struggled to communicate and often responded with a shy tone. Bullies are in most classes at school, and when they'd talk to me I'd clam up. When they said something hurtful I didn't know how to respond and would often laugh. Not laughing at them, but a weak sort of laugh as if to go along with their joke. But I knew they were not joking, except it's the only way I knew how to respond.

I left school at 14 because of bullies. It took about 6 months for anyone to notice because I'd go in, get my mark, and jump over the fence. Climb up my bedroom window and hide under my bed all day. When my Dad went to the gym I'd come out from under the bed and get some food and then go and hide again. I done that for 6 months without nobody knowing because I was so scared to go to school. And yet my Dad still doesn't even know I did that to this day.

It's awful. I didn't find a solution except to remove myself from school. Going to the teachers made it worse.

And sadly this is how it's been throughout life. Except the only time I wasn't bullied was when I went to prison, but that's only because people thought my crime was so fascinating they befriended me (computer hacker). That was an awful experience. Thankfully I got to have my own cell in prison and spent most of my time reading books away from everyone.

I really don't have any advice because I struggled. I done everything I probably shouldn't have done but it's the only way I know how.

Yes I felt bullied. I even wonder how much of the comments kids made to me were just honesty than them trying to be mean because you know how honest kids are due to lack of social filter. Their brains are not that far developed. But still I felt like they were making fun of me and being mean. Same as not wanting to play with me or want me around. I also wonder how much of the teasing was actually bullying but I will never know. My mom told me I took it all literal when kids would tell me to do something and then say I am mean when I would refuse and then they would be nice to be again and I would get confused and they did it to each other too not just me. I can remember being chased on my bike and I thought they were being mean to me and my mom told me they are just playing and they are doing that to everyone but I refused to believe it then. But I was also truly bullied too. It was because I "talked funny" stuttered, they thought I was stupid or ret*d, some just thought I was rude or mean and kids also thought I was weird. Some of them knew I had problems but they didn't care because I looked normal. Then when I got to junior high, I thought I was being picked on so I would defend myself and try and make kids be afraid of me so they would leave me alone. It didn't help when I was being treated as the bad guy because it just looked like to me they were siding with bullies and it was so wrong for me to stand up for myself. Then I ended up with an aid and I felt safer because it made kids leave me alone so it didn't bother me I had one. In high school I wouldn't say I was bullied because I am not going to take someone occasionally throwing something at me as bullying or hiding my Harry Potter book one time or telling me to pull the fire alarm or to beat someone up for them or just getting mad at me for socializing or accusing me of being uncaring when they had told me to just mind my own business so I did and then I get that accusation which made no sense. To me bullying means harassment and constant teasing and never being left alone and I was left alone. We also lived in a small town so that was why I didn't get bullied and I think kids were just nicer.

Now today I don't get bullied nor do I ever feel bullied unless it's online. Strangers leave me alone, so do people at work and neighbors, everyone. As a kid, it was only kids at school or on the bus or in my neighborhood that were mean to me. I never had any random kids pick on me out in public except that one time I can remember when I was nine when these three boys decided to throw rocks at me because they thought I was stupid and they all looked to be 3, 5, and 6 while I was in a park at my brothers t ball game and I wandered off. I have another memory of older kids being mean to me at a park when I was 3 on a playground and I vaguely remember what they were doing. They just didn't want me playing on it and I refused to leave so they were grabbing me and literally pushing me around until my parents pulled me off the playground equipment. It could be because I was different or I kept getting in their way and it made them mad. I even had some marks on my body for it too. I never seemed to run to my parents if random kids were being mean to me so I stayed put where it was happening as if I was strong because I didn't walk away. I only remember one time being at McDonalds and some random boy threw a few balls at me and I got upset and went running to my mother and complaining about it and she said she isn't going to talk to someone else's child and then another woman asked me which kid threw them at me and I pointed and she started screaming at him and made him apologize.

It was nothing to do with how I felt; I was bullied.

I was bullied because I stood out due to vastly social differences, inability to assert myself and being someone of significantly larger weight. I remember being bullied for my youthful appearances being very late with puberty and lack of any sexual inclination.

Can't say I felt bullied as it took years to realise after it was pointed by a psychologist that I was being bullied and isolated.

Forever. physical, and mental. Growing up, when i was in school, after i was done, at work, at the bar,at the beach. Wherever. Condescending banter too, as of recently.

I've been bullied many times, and it was not a figment of my imagination.

I was bullied growing up too.

I've felt bullied by many different people throughout my life. I knew I was bullied. I was bullied from Kindergarten until just a couple of years ago. My mum was the last person that I felt bullied by. To expect and demand that somebody be the way that they just can't be is a form of bullying. I was bullied by many people in many ways.

I was bullied until the end of high school, which I think is a common place in these forums

School, work, and home is the worst, because you need it, and you cannot leave. My older brother bullied me all the time, until I got old enough, and pushed him into a wall. Literally. after that, he didn't really like me very much. I think it was mostly because he got bullied in school, and he took it out on me. There is a chain of events that takes place sometimes. Abuse makes abusers. The workplace is the second worst for me. Horrible. It drove me to do my own thing.

I was verbally bullied pretty much all of my childhood and teenage years. I was only physically bullied on one occasion when my head got smacked 20 times into a bench in the playground at primary school. I was nine years old at the time-nobody intervened, not even the staff. I wouldn't exactly call it bullying but I used to get a lot of emotional abuse from certain family members as well. I was made to believe on numerous occasions that I was worthless and a waste of space.

I also believe I may have been bullied by a work colleague over a six month period last year. People have told me that it's just because she doesn't understand Aspergers that well but my thought on it is that, if you've worked with people on the spectrum for over five years, you should have a basic understanding of the right way to treat someone-eg, not forcing eye contact when they genuinely can't handle it. There was lots of other unpleasant stuff that happened too but I don't want to go into it too much.