[Solved] Were you bullied at school? Or were you the bully?

I was quite small and apparently got bullied a fair bit. Strange thing is that I don't remember it, but my mother does.

i got bullied a bit in primary school. this real ugly kid and his mate used to find me and swing me around and around at playtimes. he also used to try and follow me home or to school and intimidate me. i learnt to not show any fear and as i'd always had a big mouth and a way with words, i tried to be cleverer than them. i knew more swearwords than they did! they got bored of bullying me in the end as i wasn't afraid anymore.

i was a bully as well. i used to kick people in the shins and swore a lot in primary. even in secondary school i used to take the mick out of people i didn't take to. i used to have a bit of a following as well and i used to make others bully i guess. at 14 i guess i grew up and stopped all the childish behaviour.

i think i bullied because i had a tough home life and by me being a nasty piece of work, that made me feel better. i was a really angry kid, hated authority (i still do!) and being violent or foul-mouthed was the last thing people expected. i didn't bully all the time. i was a loyal friend and respected my teachers. it was a way of me saying "they're messing with me at home, but there's no way ANYONE is gonna mess with me at school".

Yes I've been bullied in girl boarding schools. But I took care of it on my own. It can work both ways, although I have to admit, I was only bullied once and it didn't end well for the bully. I bullied the bullies until I felt satisfied they understood the humiliation. And then I felt bad for being a bully. You will just get into trouble.

The otherthing about being a bully is you set yourself to be a target - and boy that is tough!!

Here are some articles on the site relating to these issues

My child is a bully

Bullying

The Scary Guy interview

Top tips on bullying

Gooner

i was bullied at school , due to the fact i was a English boy in a Scottish school, we moved up to Dundee from Coventry when i when i was 8 year old. i can to a new country , new town, and couldn't understand a single thing anyone said in a supposedly English speaking county ( Scottish dialect to a 8 year old is like listening to some of the Arab country speak, . gobbledy gook lol. well it started within the first month of me being in Dundee beofre a boy called Norman started telling me to f off back off back to England, then stealing from me , then him and a couple of his mates started hitting me , and chasing me down the road from school every night. this went on for about 4 years until i started high school. i never had the guts to stand up to him until suddenly i had enough in 2nd year or my backbone grew lol.in p.e we were playing hockey and he kept tripping me up with his hockey stick or hitting me in the back of the legs with it . i just snapped . threw down my hockey stick and belted him as hard as i could and as many times as i could, he ended up with a broken nose a black eye and bruising on his chest back and head. i got suspended from school for 2 weeks for that but it was worth it after all the years of being picked on by him. he left me alone after that. it was only then that i actually started to feel settled down on Dundee . the weird thing is now a days when ever ive seen him we have went for a pint and and had a natter and we get on well now , not buddy but occasional pub friends , and i was at his wedding a couple of years ago .
it taught me to stand up for my self and not let people get you down.

Hi everyone,
I was also bullied at school but it was not a problem for me either.
Thanks

I was never bullied at school but both my younger brother and wife were at their respective schools.

My wife still bares the mental scars today.

My brother was verbally bullied for quite a few years at school but has come out the other side without any side effects. He is a really confident together guy and a brilliant dad.

I was bullied both at school and at home and it has a lasting effect on me.

My brother is about 2 and a half years older then me and for a few years we went to the same schools. My brother is severely autistic and at that time very little was known about it and there was very little support. My brother was in all the remedial classes in secondary school and because of it everyone thought he was thick. they also started to tar me with the same brush so most of my secondary school life, i had to put up with people putting me down and calling me thick like my brother.

Also i had no support at home as my step-father was a mental bully and would very rarely spend time with either of me or my brother unless it was something he was interested in and he was better than us at it. My mother had all on trying to protect herself let alone protect us at times. this gave me very little self worth and made it difficult to forge friendships with people for any length of time.

also some of my so-called friends would make fun of me over anything they could find and it has taken me years to finally realise what sort of people they are but the damage has been done.

I have gone through most my adult life struggling to forge new lasting relationships either personally or at work because most of my childhood/young adolescant life i was made to feel worthless. I have very little self confidence and wont approach anything new unless i can gaurentee what the outcome will be for fear of embarrasment at doing something wrong. I find it very difficult to ask anyone for help if i have a problem with anything.

i can only say i was lucky to find one person that can see beyond my lack of social skills and love me for me.

I too was bullied to some degree. Of course i didn't like it, and did make me less confident. Now im an adult, these people cant touch me now, and i have a choice not to hang around them, which you cant really do in school. But one or two of them, today, in my opinion are a little instable and would still not go near them. It seems as much as it affects you, you may still feel a bit afraid, and a bully continues to get stronger. Thats just my thoughts.

My son, has also been affected by bullying, and i dont know how to help him, He doesn't like to mention it, because he thinks i will make it worse. I only heard of the incident, because i asked my son how was school, he said he didn't go, so i asked why, then he put his mum on the phone, and she told me sort of what happened, and said she dealt with it. My son said her didnt want to tell me.

He's knows his mum and i were bullied at school. So we both feel very strongly about the issue. So i rang him up regularly after, hoping that is a kind of emotional support.

Is there anything else constructive i can do?

I would speak to him to see if you can persuade him to agree for you to tell the school - if the school aren't aware of it, they can't stop it. They should have robust anti bullying policies and your son won't be the first case they've dealt with, so they'll know the dangers.

Hi Abbeyroad,

Check out these articles on the site for some practical advice :

Top tips on bullying
Bullying

Hope these are of some help.

Gooner