Did your former bullies ever contact you in adulthod?

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King Kat 1
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05 Aug 2025, 12:42 pm

I saw a couple when I was going to community college in my early 20s, otherwise no and I hope to God I never do. I got over them for the most part but if I ever hear about one coming down with an incurable disease or being hurt in an accident, I won't lie, I would take great pleasure in it. One of the ones who I got a few beatings from in JR high is long dead.

One person who started out as a friend but turned into a bully in the workplace, met with an unfortunate end last year, he flipped his car in a deep ditch of water, which was about 3ft deep. Drowned. I didn't exactly celebrate but it was a tremendous relief to know I would never have to worry about ever seeing or running into him ever again.


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starfox
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05 Aug 2025, 5:26 pm

I contacted former bullies in my early 20s but they have never reached out to me


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julie1013
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05 Aug 2025, 8:12 pm

starfox wrote:
I contacted former bullies in my early 20s but they have never reached out to me


How did it go? Did they apologize?



babybird
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06 Aug 2025, 2:33 am

I push back
So my former bullies have never contacted me

I'm not very forgiving towards these kinds of people so even if they did try and contact me, I would have very little interest in them


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SocOfAutism
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06 Aug 2025, 12:25 pm

I grew up really poor in a bad situation. I have a completely normal middle class life now, living about an hour away from where I grew up. Rarely, I will run across a person who knew me when I was a child, or who knew my family. They are surprised to find me normal and doing alright. I can tell that they have imagined me living an Oliver Twist type life this entire time.



starfox
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31 Jan 2026, 3:42 am

julie1013 wrote:
starfox wrote:
I contacted former bullies in my early 20s but they have never reached out to me


How did it go? Did they apologize?


Yes they did actually. I kinda got a bit mad over the phone and I said what if it was your kid who got bullied for having a disability, something they have no control over and like I went on to say how it still affected my life (in my 20s) and I think it must of hit a nerve because they called me back and seemed to sincerely apologise.


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Fishyfisherton
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31 Jan 2026, 6:35 am

No, I would be surprised if they did. But I've apologised to someone myself.
In junior school (later half of primary) there was a girl in my year with learning disabilities and she did very strange things that I found off-putting. I was insecure about being bottom if the food chain and wanted to emulate cool kids so I once tried to bully that girl by pushing her and saying mean stuff, I forget what. If popular kids pick on me, then that must be how you get status? My heart wasn't really in it, I was literally just copying other kids. Her best friends gathered round her and told me off for being mean.
I definitely saw other kids act like she had cooties now and then, but her friends were protective. I think I overstepped the bounds of my own rank, too.
Anyway, I felt awful about that for the rest of my life. It plagues me. In my 20s I happened to see her facebook and saw that she's active on there. So I messaged her to say we went to school together and I was really sorry for being an a***hole that time. She replied that she doesn't even remember it so it's fine.

When I started year 7, for maybe a couple of weeks, I tried to do a tough guy act again and pester these 2 boys. But it never landed, they just thought I was insane. I promptly gave up because I'm not a meangirl and it doesn't come naturally to act like one, nice is my default. These were decent boys I didn't dislike. But I was so desperate to be like "real people" (and I got my real people tips from kids tv shows lmao).
I ended up befriending one of the boys and forming a crush on him, he was a diagnosed aspie funnily enough. And the other boy far-outranked me anyway so I made myself look a fool by "bullying" him and he treated me like I had cooties for the rest of school.
I haven't apologised to them. I want to apologise to the one I befriended because when I fancied him I was really creepy about it and had poor sense of boundaries. Used to talk about him all the time like I would a favourite film, and he knew about it. Throughout school we drifted apart and he hung out with the theatre kids and was more popular than me. I'm so deeply ashamed of myself that I can't even reach out because I feel like I'd look creepy for trying!


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GammaGeek
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31 Jan 2026, 9:09 am

I ran into a young lady who had given me a lot of grief in middle school. She did apologize and we became FB friends with loose plans to maybe hang out. Honestly though, I still find her pretty intimidating, but she's been through a lot and I'm not about to hold a grudge over some crap that happened a million years ago while we were both f****d up little kids.

She got diagnosed with autism too apparently.


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MellowSnake
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31 Jan 2026, 1:23 pm

No, but I imagine they think I've died, since every time I see someone from my school days that is almost always the first thing they say.


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exec
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31 Jan 2026, 6:53 pm

No they haven't and I'm glad I've not even bumped into them because I'm far too timid and would fake kindness when they don't deserve it.


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cyberdora
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31 Jan 2026, 7:22 pm

Several of my former bullies now hold positions of high responsibility. One even is a psychiatrist and served as head of mental health for an entire state for a period. Another is a diplomat, another heads up a news media company and another is a high court judge. Social media allows one to track our former tormentors.

the judge (ironically) kind of reminds me of US supreme court judge Brett Kavanaugh who in his frat boy days attacked a female student, an incident that came back to haunt him when his appointment was announced.

Many of the "pillars" of our society were bullies, sociopaths and psychopaths. In the case of the psychiatrist I mentioned, in addition to bullying, he took pleasure in torturing and killing animals. I often imagine running into this monster in front of his wife and kids (or colleagues) in a restaurant and sharing stories which I am 100% sure he would hope was buried after he left school.

Point is, some of these scumbags have good reason not to contact us. But if we do are we able to forgive and move on?



Aprilviolets
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31 Jan 2026, 8:03 pm

I wouldn't want to run into any of my school bullies, thankfully I haven't yet.



krbark
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02 Feb 2026, 5:26 am

Tamaya wrote:
While I like to forgive and forget, I couldn't with a bully I had. She started off with being my friend at 17, then at 19 she began bullying me quite viciously. I had to get my phone number changed and was afraid to go out for a while.
I hadn't seen or heard from her until I was 21, when I bumped into her in town and she asked if she could have my phone number. Then she sent me a request on Facebook. I think she was maybe putting the past behind her, and maybe I should have just forgiven her, but I felt I couldn't really trust her again and didn't want to become involved again, so I subtly turned her away. Maybe I should find her on Facebook again and see if we can be friends again, as we're both in our 30s now so I'm sure she's grown up a lot.


This is pretty traumatizing. It's one thing to be rejected/bullied by someone you have no relationship with, and another thing to have someone you have entrusted (which doesn't come easily for us) to swing the other way and become your abuser. Sorry that happened to you.



krbark
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02 Feb 2026, 5:37 am

I have had deep depressive episodes in adulthood over the bullying I went through, mainly in high school. There was one big dude who would hunt me down like a shark, sit next to me, turn towards me, then humiliate me by touching my earlobes (weird, right?), stealing my food, talking about how small and cute I was (I was a late bloomer and pretty short at the time). The worst part, he would do it almost daily because I didn't know how to respond/defend myself.

If he were to magically find me and apologize for his behavior, I would do my best to forgive. But I would also make it clear how his behavior effected my life. People of all ages are mean, animalistic, and survivalist. Especially younger people, in my opinion, as most haven't had the life experience yet (generally) of true suffering and hardship. They can't foresee the impact their behavior has.

So, while it would be hard, I think forgiveness is key if you want to move on. At the same time I can see that being extremely difficult if the abuse was particularly severe.



pcgoblin
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05 Feb 2026, 7:17 pm

No
I doubt they remember me, and if they did, they would not be able to find me.


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15 Feb 2026, 12:01 pm

I found a teacher who bullied me to the point of wanting to self delete in third grade on Facebook and chewed her out on what she did to me.


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