The Long Term Effects of Bullying - Depression Resources, Education About Depression and Unipolar Depression

	Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. Essays and Blogs Concerning Mental and Emotional Health
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An upset boy leaning against a graphittied wall

You know how jokes are often funny because they are based in an ugly truth? I had a new realization of that phenomena while watching Bill Maher's new stand-up comedy special "The Decider" on HBO the other night. Bill was talking about various recent sexual abuse scandals and was comparing the complaints made against Michael Jackson to complaints made against various Catholic priests with the aim of suggesting that what Michael allegedly did to his victims was gentle compared to the treatment received by victims of the priests. Seemingly out of nowhere, he started talking about a time when he was a child and was rather viciously beaten up during an incident of playground bullying. As part of his punchline, he commented that he would have gladly subjected himself to the worst abuse Michael has been accused of perpetrating rather than having to endure that single beating.

The comment resonated with me, probably because like Bill, I too was bullied as a kid, and also found the experience to be pretty ugly. I don't think I'd ever choose to subject myself to Michael's ministrations in order to have escaped my own bullying experiences (you gotta have standards in life), but I know I would have given a lot to have been able to stop them from happening.

The bullying I was subjected to did not occur on the playground, but rather on the school bus. I can vividly recall days when I would have to launch myself out of the school bus door and run as fast as I could up the hill to the shelter of my house. A group of older neighborhood boys would be after me for reasons that were never entirely clear. I was younger, more sensitive, certainly more vulnerable and not talented at fist fighting. Most days I'd make it home safely , but some days I'd end up belly up on the grass trying to fend off blows and kicks while a ring of kids jeered and cheered that day's aggressor. A blow to the head and you'd see stars like in the cartoons.

I'm 40 years old now; it's been something like 30 years since that sort of thing last happened. Still, the experience has not left me, it sucked so much. I don't think about it much these days, but I know that having lived through those experiences has shaped me as an adult, and not for the better.

The experience of getting your face smashed in by bullies (or taunted by them, or pushed, or shoved, or excluded, etc. ) has got to be an almost universal sort of thing; something that many others who have endured similar experiences can perhaps recognize and respond to. In this spirit, I offer my self-disclosure (and hijack Bill's) as seed for discussion.

There are lots of programs designed to help schools and other institutions prevent bullying. It's kind of a hot topic these days in a small sort of way. Hopefully the things that researchers have and will come up will help limit the scope of the problem in the future. However, I'm quite confident that it will never go away entirely. It seems to me that bullying is just one of those things that are just a part of human nature. Something that can be suppressed but not eliminated.

Where I want to go with this essay is not to talk about how to make bullying stop, but rather, to explore the sorts of damage bullies do to their victims, and to discuss a few paths through which some of that damage can be, at least in part, undone.

Here's a few statements to get us started: 1) Bullying is a form of abuse, and 2) Bullying is a narcissistic sort of act. In making the first statement here, I mean to say that both bullying and traditional forms of abuse are selfish and/or sadistic, destructive, and often violent acts perpetrated upon victims who do not in any way, shape or form deserve to be treated in that manner. In making the second statement I'm suggesting that ring-leader bullies (those who organize bullying) are behaving as though the emotional and physical health of their victims is not important or is at least less important than their own desire for the thrill of aggression and dominance. Narcissists treat other people as though they were objects either to be used, or discarded, and the bully both uses his victim (for purposes of self-gratification and aggrandizement) and then discards him.

Now, children are fairly narcissistic by their very nature. Children are not born appreciating that other people are actually just like they are with their own needs and independent rights. A long period of development must occur before children grasp that the other people around them have needs and interests just like they do and need to be accommodated and accorded respect. The golden rule of treating others as you would yourself like to be treated makes no sense to a young child who has not yet matured to the point where this basic appreciation of the individuality of every person has been grasped. Instead, children need to be held in line with what amount to incentives (and sometimes punishments) for acting as though other people matter. So by saying that bullying is a narcissistic action, I'm not at all saying that all bullies are narcissists. Adult bullies who have not outgrown their childhood narcissism probably do qualify, but little kids are just going to be that way. This is why I'm not terribly optimistic that we can solve the problem of bullying in our time.

The experience of being bullied can end up causing lasting damage to victims. This is both self-evident, and also supported by an increasing body of research. It is not necessary to be physically harmed in order to suffer lasting harm. Words and gestures are quite enough. In fact, the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me" is more or less exactly backwards. For the most part, physical damage sustained in a fist fight heals readily, especially damage that is sustained during the resilient childhood years. What is far more difficult to mend is the primary wound that bullying victims suffer which is damage to their self-concepts; to their identities. Bullying is an attempt to instill fear and self-loathing. Being the repetitive target of bullying damages your ability to view yourself as a desirable, capable and effective individual.

There are two ugly outcomes that stem from learning to view yourself as a less than desirable, incapable individual. The first ugly outcome is that it becomes more likely that you will become increasingly susceptible to becoming depressed and/or angry and/or bitter. Being bullied teaches you that you are undesirable, that you are not safe in the world, and (when it is dished out by forces that are physically superior to yourself) that you are relatively powerless to defend yourself. When you are forced, again and again, to contemplate your relative lack of control over the bullying process, you are being set up for Learned Helplessness (e.g., where you come to believe that you can't do anything to change your ugly situation even if that isn't true), which in turn sets you up for hopelessness and depression.

At the same time, you may be learning that you are helpless and hopeless, you are also learning how you are seen by bullies, which is to say, you are learning that you are seen by others as weak, pathetic, and a loser. And, by virtue of the way that identity tends to work, you are being set up to believe that these things the bullies are saying about you are true.

It would be great if the average person was possessed of unshakable self-confidence, but this just isn't how identity works. Identity is a social process. Other people contribute to it. Particularly when people are young and have not yet survived a few of life's trials, it is difficult for people to know who they are and what they are made of. Much of what passes for identity in the young (and in the older too) is actually a kind of other-confidence, which is to say that many people's self-confidence is continually shored up by those around them telling them in both overt and subtle ways that they are good, worthy people. This is one of the reasons people like to belong to groups – it helps them to feel good about themselves. Bullying teaches people that they are explicitly not part of groups; that they are outcasts and outsiders. It is hard to doubt the reality of being an outcast and an outsider when you have been beaten or otherwise publicly humiliated. It takes an exceptionally confident (or otherwise well-supported) person to not internalize bullies' negative messages and begin bullying yourself by holding yourself to the same standards that bullies are applying to you and finding yourself a failure. In other words, it is rather easy for bullying victims to note that they have been beaten up and then to start thinking of themselves as weak, no-good, worthless, pathetic, and incompetent. These are the sorts of thoughts that lead to depression, or, if they are combined with revenge fantasies, to anger and rage feelings.

Where the first ugly outcome of bullying unfolds rather immediately in the form of a wounded self-concept, the second ugly outcome unfolds more slowly over time. Having a wounded self-concept makes it harder for you to believe in yourself, and when you have difficulty believing in yourself, you will tend to have a harder time persevering through difficult situations and challenging circumstances. Deficits in academic performance can easily occur when bullying victims succumb to depression or otherwise become demoralized. They certainly also occur when victims ditch school to avoid bullies. The deficits themselves are not the real issue. The real issue is that if deficits occur for too long or become too pronounced, the affected children can lose out on opportunities for advancement and further study, and ultimately, employment. I've read retrospective studies where people report having left school early so as to avoid continued bullying, and this of course will have altered and limited the job prospects they have available to them as adults. Leaving school may be a dramatic (if occasionally realistic) example of how early bullying can affect one's life, but there are surely other ways that anger or depression caused by bullying harms and developmentally delays people's progress.

Inevitably, it is the sensitive kids who get singled out for teasing; the kids who cry easily; the easy targets. Targeted as they are, many sensitive kids learn to think of their sensitivity as a bad thing and to avoid it, and/or channel it into revenge fantasy and anger. This doesn't much work when you are a kid (it is difficult to reinvent yourself without actually moving to a new place), and it can have negative consequences in adulthood when the same children, now emotionally avoidant or angry or cynical adults, find themselves having difficulty entering into or maintaining loving and warm intimate relationships.

A similar form of damage comes when bullied kids internalize negative attitudes concerning aspects of themselves that set them apart from others, such as their sexual orientation, minority group membership, or religious affiliation. In such cases, bullying sets up a peer pressure to reject aspects of one's self which are fundamentally not rejectable, and thus a potentially lifelong tension gets set up inside that person. If anyone out there has a better idea for how someone can end up become a homosexual-hating homosexual, or a jew-hating jewish person or other seemingly self-contradictory person I'd like to know about it.

The following list, culled from my reading on this subject, summarizes some of the effects bullying victims may experience:

A few interesting observations of factors that seem to lessen the negative impact that bullying has on people have come to my attention during the process of cataloging the ways that bullying can mess you up. For instance:

A 2004 Spanish college student sample study suggests that there is a direct relationship between victim's perception of control over their bullying experience and the extent of long term difficulties they experience as a result of bullying. This is to say, that bullied students who believed they were able to influence and/or escape their bullies reported fewer negative long term effects from having been bullied than did students who felt helpless to influence their situation while it was happening. Perception of control (and not reality of control) was key in this study, as no relationship was found between the various ways that students coped with being bullied and how they turned out.

I can see the outline of a mechanism working here (where students who believed they still had control over their situations avoided developing learned helplessness and therefore had less of a chance of experiencing depression). However the study doesn't really help us to know what to recommend that people do to lessen their chances of long term problems. Remember, it didn't matter what the students actually did; it only mattered what they believed.

If we go with the idea that believing you have control over events is important then the thing to do if you are being bullied is to keep persevering in your efforts to stop the bullying as though those efforts will result in your being able to get the bullying to stop. No single thing you do may actually stop the bullying from happening, but the effect of continually working under the assumption that you haven't tried all options and may still get the bullying to stop may do the trick. And, of course, you might actually get the bullying to stop because of something you do or don't do.

Rather than try to control the past (which is impossible), it might make more sense for hurting victims to get themselves to focus on what they can control in the present, for the benefit of their future happiness and fulfillment. As the poet George Herbert's classic phrase wisely advises us, "living well is the best revenge".

The age at which kids are first bullied seems to be important according to some research. Young children who are first bullied during their pre-teen years appear to be less negatively impacted in the long term than are children who are first bullied as teens. People first bullied as young children report experiencing higher long-term stress levels than do people who were never bullied. However, people who were first bullied as teens report more long term social withdrawal and more reactivity to violence than other groups. There is a greater tendency towards the use of self-destructive coping mechanisms in the first-bullied-as-teens group, and an interesting but hard to make sense of sex difference, where women tend to become more aggressive as a result of their bullying experience, and men to demonstrate a greater tendency to abuse substances. I can't help but wonder if the increased independence and emancipation that teens enjoy makes them more likely to experiment with and then get locked into maladaptive coping strategies like substance abuse than their younger peers.

Finally, multiple researchers point to the protective effect that a good social support network has with regard to bully victim's short and long term outcomes. Having supportive family members and peers around who can be confided in when one has been bullied and who can offer support and advice tends to lessen bullying's impact.

There are a number of reasons why it makes sense that a supportive social network should help, but one of them deserves to be made explicit. Namely, that when a bullying victim is surrounded by and bought into a supportive social network, they are receiving many positive messages about their worth from network members, and there are thus fewer opportunities for bullies' negative messages to find purchase and grow to take over self-esteem. If bullies can only succeed in harming people physically; if they do not succeed in harming them emotionally or harming their identities, then relatively little lasting damage can be done.

If the primary damage that bullying causes is damage to identity and self-esteem, then taking steps to repair identity and self-esteem are in order for people looking to heal from past bullying experiences. What needs to heal, in most cases, is not the physical body, but rather, identity and self-concept. Bullied people need to learn how to feel safe again in the world (or safe enough). They need to learn that they are acceptable people who have something to offer other people. They need to feel in more control over their moods and urges. They need to feel again that if they set their mind to something that they can hope to accomplish it. These are not modest goals, by any chance, but they are the sorts of things that bullying victims need to think about working on.

I'll refer people to our topic centers on Depression and Anger Management for ideas about how these problems can be treated. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is likely to be of particular utility with regard to depression and anger that is secondary to having been bullied because mood problems that have originated in this way are very likely to have come into being as a result of victims having become convinced that they are worthless and incompetent. In the language of cognitive behavioral therapy, these would be thought of as dysfunctional core beliefs which could be addressed and repudiated using cognitive restructuring techniques that encourage people to closely examine such beliefs and dispute them when they are found to contain exaggerations and distortions (which these sorts of beliefs surely will).

Social withdrawal problems and social anxiety also can be very profitably addressed within the context of cognitive therapy. One of the really nice things about a therapy setting is that role playing can take place between therapist and patient so as to provide anxious patients with opportunity to practice and improve how they will interact in feared but desired social situations. When basic social fears and skill deficits have been addressed, it should become easier for socially withdrawn people to find the connections they need to finally feel fundamentally accepted by others.

I typically hate the overused word "empowered", but I'm going to use it here, because it really fits here. People who have been bullied have been fundamentally dis-empowered. Their feelings of personal safety have been violated and their belief in their own competency and adequacy has been brought into question. Such people may exist in a state of perpetual avoidance and paralysis. In order to feel good about themselves, they will need to break through that paralysis and engage in something that helps them feel like they are gaining in power. Not power over others, but power over themselves. No other people can do this for them. Each paralyzed person has to decide to empower themselves.

There are a million avenues one can go in to fulfill an empowerment goal, the one that is right for any given person being a function of that person's talents and opportunities. Anger can be productively funneled into a competitive endeavor (such as education, business, sports, gaming or some other means of becoming excellent) or a creative expression. Fears can be faced down and courage can be found. I, as author of this essay, cannot offer specifics on how this can be accomplished as the right path for each person will be individual, but I can say that it is more or less as simple as picking out a goal you desire to accomplish (which will assert yourself) and then deciding to make it happen. As with any self-improvement goal, it is good to start small, and to dissect larger goals into their smallest possible elements, so that each step you take on the way to a big goal is manageable. You can read more about this process in our Psychological Self-Tools self-help book.

I'll end here with an appeal for comments and contributions. Have I missed anything important with regard to being bullied, in your opinion and experience? What are your own experiences with having been bullied? How has bullying shaped your life, for better or for worse? What are the problems that you developed as a result of having been bullied, and how have you managed to address them? What messages can you give to young people who are being bullied today. What would you have done differently if you could do it over? The more people who contribute to this essay, the more useful of a resource it can become.

I was bullied horrendously throughout my childhood. I too can't remember a time when I wasn't physically and emotionally bullied. I have never really spoken about what went on or how it affects me even today (I am now 30). However, I now seem to have a lot of issues, and think they may be because of the bullying that went on in my past. I lie... all the time. I feel like I need sympathy and an understanding ear from my 'friends' so I make stuff up! I tell them that things much worse than bullying have happened to me so that I get 'time' with them to talk through the horror that was my life, but change the truth to make it similar. I know it is sick, and really I should be punished for doing this, because it is unforgivable but I just feel that people won't listen or understand the full affect that this has had on me, so it seems easier to make things up and get the 'listening' time that I think I deserve. I would be interested to know if anyone out there is feeling as honest as me and would like to 'admit' that they do the same?? Failing that, I will just go with the theory that I am a sick puppy and need to be put down!

I began to be bullied by a person my mother and I took home from school everyday. It started when I was in sixth grade, and he was in seventh grade. At that same time, which was the most important event in my life, was that I became a Christian.

This person would talk behind my back, and when I began to grow (I was tall for my age) would get he and his friends together to pick on my weight, heighth, and when I would exercise. I could not escape these people because where I grew up was very small and enclosed.

By my seventh grade year it worsened. People that were my friends before never spoke to me again. This continued until our family left the area after my freshman year of high school. My freshman year was very good, though, because the school was larger, and our school had groups of people from around the city. I played baseball and basketball, and always worked hard in school. I did not have faith in the guideance counselors at these schools: they would not punish people who beat up other people in the school. I was once placed in detention for talking back to one of these kids, and standing up for the person who was beat up.

Bullying continued by junior and senior year of high school. Our family moved to Michigan, and I was teased and picked on for having a deep Southern accent. At first I tried to play along with it, but when I tried to make friendships it would not work. This was a small town. I was selected to attend an honors program my senior year, and I had one teacher tell me that he would not excuse my work and to not ask him for help. My response was to bear it, and my senior year I continued to work hard, and eventually got a scholarship.

I returned to Michigan after my first year in college because of family problems (financial, and mother diagnosed with cancer). My freshman year in college was great, but I had a good idea of what would happen if I returned. I got into the school, and gave it my best. I graduated with honors, but experienced the same type of exclusion that I did in high school. Most of my peers were similarly unenthusiastic about my interests. I would present my research to a class, and would be hissed of-stage, to the embarrassment of my professor and myself. I was shouted down for comments that I made to the academic advisor about a class.

Right now I am a 2L in law school, am almost proficient in Mandarin, and am working on pursuing a career in international law. In my experiences from middle school to the end of undergrad that I fit best around the international and new students at each school, and later the professors at the universities I attended. I also love cities because it offers a mix of people.

My points are these for those that are bullied. First, it is not your fault that you are bullied. Your imperfections (seen as imperfections) are no greater than anyone else's, and you are wonderfully created. Second, be proactive to stop the effects of bullying. When mine began I started concentrating on my schoolwork, because I never wanted to see those kids again. I also played sports, but if you are not athletic, find something you are good at and develop it. I also began to befriend my peers who were bullied, and though I sometimes succumbed to peer pressure myself, I became lasting friends with them. (those of us bullied stuck together almost all the time) Third, you are precious child, if not to parents, then (to my belief system) God. Fourth, this time shall pass. I endured it from about age 12 until 23. You have to understand that if you have a talent, have high moral character, or are sensitive (a great quality), you may be sneered upon. It is different. How long does it last? Who knows, because as I have gotten more successful it has seemed to stay. Remember, it is not your fault, and though the hurt may never leave, it is not your fault. Fifth, channel your emotion into examples of the activities I mentioned above. The worst thing a bully could see is that while you may be effected by his/her taunts, you still move on. Remember Bull Connor turned the hoses on peaceful protestors, but eventually the hoses were turned off. Sixth, embrace your wounds. May sound strange, but I have examined these times, and confirmed that I have learned many great lessons on wisdom, friendship and life in general. Look at it this way: though difficult, you have been given the opportunity to do something special. Remember "The stone that was rejected has become the chief cornerstone." You can be the most beautiful of all.

Lastly, I am still recovering from these periods. Both the length and my take these instances underscore this. How long will it take? I do not know, but what I do know is to take one hurdle at a time. For me there has been a ton to work out and heal. Maybe the same for you. I spoke to the 1Ls at law school, and about law school I said this: To be proactive and do not give up. The same applies here. All it really takes to topple a bully is to tap him/her on the nose. Do it peaceably and lovingly, but do it nonetheless. Then deal with the hurt that follows. If you do these things, I think you can grow in strength.

I was bullied horribly in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. IT WAS UNBEARABLE. Imagine being stuck on a bus for 15 minutes having no way of escaping. Every morning, I asked my mother to drive me to school so that I could avoid being bullied. Now, I feel like I have this horrible fear of going to any place that I could be potentially bullied. How do you get rid of that pain that those stupid kids put into you? It's like they have no idea what they're doing. But, what makes me feel better, though, is that I KNOW for a fact that they're going to end up bagging the groceries that I buy when I get older and have a successful job and all that. I just know. People like that usually don't have a higher IQ than -16. Personally, I don't think that the school doesn't do enough to get rid of this bullying thing. One time, while I was taking a test, some kid whom I've NEVER met before started to make fun of me. For the full two hours, I couldn't even concentrate on my test. It was horrible. He threw my water bottle to the front of the room, kicked my chair, called me really un-creative names and thought he was witty in a sense. The worst part was that the teacher didn't do a single thing about it. And he knew very well that it was going on. Frankly, I never did anything to those kids and I wish I did. I have scenarios in my head that I think would have dealt with the problem a little better. Right now, I maintain an attitude with these kinds of kids and it seems to keep them off my back.

Well, since everyone's been sharing their experiences with bullying, I might as well write mine down here. I didn't start getting bullied until 9th grade, and when it happened, I was totally unprepared and never defended myself.

When I went to HS, everything just went...wrong. The experiences I've went through there is why I'm still depressed, even to this day. This is what changed me from being a happy, hyperactive girl to a sullen, reserved one.

In 9th grade, I sat around the same girl in almost all of my classes, and she was...horrible. She came from a school that I hadn't even heard of, and all her friends came from there too, so she was popular from the first day. She would stop at nothing to make my life miserable by pestering me and spreading rumors about me. Our HS, being Catholic, was small- so what she said about me spread around fast, especially since she had so many friends to tell it to.

The reason she bullied me because I wasn't cool or amazingly extroverted. I didn't care about my looks that much, and I didn't wear makeup. Oh, and I didn't have a boyfriend, so she assumed I was gay.

I was afraid to even wake up in the mornings to go to school, because I didn't know what she would do next. She or one of her friends did something every day, and I cried at least once every week. Of course, most of my classmates thought that was hilarious. There was probably only a select few girls who wouldn't join in.

Three months later, that same girl went so far as to cause me to have a mental breakdown. Why? She turned the whole class against me. She asked me, "Why don't you like me?" And I could've provided a million reasons, but I never defended myself, so I just hung my head and said nothing. Her friend just laughed and said I had an attitude and that people like me will never succeed or make friends in life.

Miserable and disgusted with myself, I hid away from everything: my friends, my family, everything. I gave up doing certain things because they weren't considered 'cool.' I even deleted my facebook page so those girls wouldn't track me down.

Thankfully, I've forgotten many things that happened that year, but around Springtime it picked back up again, not with the first girl, but with her best friend. And then she pestered me for the first half of 10th grade, and not just in school- even at the mall and dances.

The only person who helped me during these times was my best guy friend, who lived down the street from me. He was the only person who could cheer me up and make me laugh during serious situations, and I swear, if it wasn't for him, I would've lost my mind. Recently, he's been depressed because girls keep bullying him. I haven't seen him in months, and I really miss him...

Eventually, I had to resort to therapy to help me out. See what bullying does? It assassinates your character and identity, and nothing good comes out of it. I could push myself to achieve my goals, but bullying distracts me so much, I just give up because I think of myself as worthless. I wonder if I should even bother being alive, because I'll probably never be as successful as those girls are. They look so happy right now. I hope when they get out of HS, they'll be repaid for what they did to me.

I am looking forward to college, but I only get B's, so I don't know if I'll ever get in. I'll try my best...but if bullying never happened, I could've amounted to so much more.

I think the title of my comment says it all. And I don't think there is the need for any specifics on recovery either - each person will have a different empowerment experience.

and to "Recovery or reaction? - Gregg - Feb 2nd 2010" .... wow dude, our stories are IDENTICAL (except I was fortunate enough to not have such severe injuries). I feel for you dude.

I was bullied intensely by other girls from the time I was in 2nd grade until I was in 9th grade, and then after my family moved to a new community and a new school, I was only ocassionally harassed. To this day I'm not really sure why I was bullied. I was not nerdy or anti-social or anything. But, I was the smallest girl in my class and also emotionally sensitive, so I think that had a lot to do with it. I used to run from the bus to my house. One time the other kids made me get on my hands and knees when I got off the bus, and they took turns riding me like a horse. In middle school I often went and hid in a bathroom stall during lunch to avoid being taunted or threatened, or just because I hated sitting alone. I had a supportive family, but my mom held strong to her theory that if I just ignored the problem it would eventully go away. In retrospect, I spent an awful lot of time trying to avoid physical confrontation, and I probably just should have learned how to fight and/or defend myself. If I ever have kids who go through the same thing, I will teach them how to defend themselves, and how not to back down from a fight. I wish I had just had the courage to punch one of these kids in the face really hard - just once. The longterm effects for me are manifested in defensiveness, over-agression ocassionally, and being suspicious of other people's motives. It's very hard for me to trust people, and I have a hard time letting my guard down. I have been professionally successful, fortunately, and a lot of my self-esteem comes from that area of my life. But sometimes I can be really unsure of myself socially. I manage to hide it pretty well.

I was bullied from preschool until I was in college. Two of the beatings (6th and 8th grade) gave me concussions and one of them dislocated my shoulder. Never had a friend until I was 16.

I'm 32 now, and not a single day goes by where I wish for revenge against the bullies- I still remember every single one of their names. I have diligently trained in martial arts since I was 12 and it's been my obsession for over 15 years. This is how I try to deal with the emotional scars of the bullies, and yet I still feel completely helpless.

There were others who were bullied in my school, and I often see some of them around when I visit my hometown- they are in their 30's and clearly living below their potential. It's very sad to see. I only dodged that bullet because I worked hard in college and my career to compensate for what those bullies did.

Even at 32, I hope to meet one of my childhood bullies in a deserted alley. I want them to know what its like to feel helpless.

I was sexually abused by my 10 years older brother when I was five, so it was quite severe. But worse was the way he physically dominated my sister and I all the time, so that I was constantly bullied or being a witness to his brutality toward my sister. Of course my father was a bipolar bully and my mother narcissistic and damaged, or none of this would have happened. AND, patriarchal society is a bully, so the whole structure is sick.

For some reason, I was well-liked by most at school, even though I acted out, defying teachers and a few times got into bullying boys verbally (ones I was attracted to). I never bullied girls. I even stood up for some of them. I guess I had a combination of an innate belief in God or Goodness that one poster talked about, and I had a pretty face, so somehow I had a pretty easy time in grade school despite being suppressed at home.

Then, I think what really sealed the deal as far as twisting my life, was when I was 13 in junior high. I was flat-chested, even have a sunken chest from having been born at a high altitude, and I got very hairy as well. At first boys flirted with me because of my face, I guess, but then I started being bullied by one exceptionally mean boy who made fun of my lack of breasts. He never let up during junior high. Like one poster said, I learned that he was the popular, successful one, supported by the teachers and administration, so I became totally repressed and depressed.

I suffer still from rage and depression. I now, at middle age, have to deal with all the consequences of what happened to me plus getting old and being jobless. I know I am going to recover, but this really sucks. I appreciate all the wonderful information on the net and the extreme generosity of the professionals who post here and the victims like myself who open our hearts. May something positive come out of all of this pain.

I was constantly bullied at the grade school I went to and when I went to junior high the bullying continued. I was called names and pushed around. One person chased me with a broom when I was walking to school. Some girls pretended to be my friend and gave me gum that had been chewed and laughed when I opened it. They called me "It" that was all. That would have been bad enough but the same thing was going on at home. I was a bedwetter and got a morning spanking for the first few years of my life. My parents felt that shaming me would help. It did not help to be treated like the family dog. I often suffer from problems from self esteem. Usually I can overcome it but there are occassions (usually around pre and post pms ) that I feel horrible anxiety about what the people I am around think of me. I used to beat myself up in my own head when I felt I had done something wrong. Now I just berate myself. .... This is what bullying does when combined with the issues I had at home. I have trouble even loving the person I am some days. I am now a grandmother. I have raised my children as best I can...The one thing they were not allowed to do was make fun of Anyone over their differences...( I had really crooked teeth which may have been why other kids felt it was okay to bully me ). There is more but that is enough for today.... I just want to know how to start liking the person I am so I can feel comfortable around others. I am tired of being anxious and feeling worried about what others think of me.

Last week, a girl named Phoebe Prince committed suicide in South Hadley, Massachusetts because of bullies. She was tormented in both school and on the Internet. Lawmakers are discussing this, and parents are demanding answers from school officials. You can read about her tragic case in The Boston Herald. Bullying can truly push kids to the edge.

I was verbally and physically abused by classmates of another race in grammar school. This went on for some months as I recall. My parents or teachers did not know how to handle it. I feel it did have long term effects. I am 60 years old and the emotional scars and memories remain. As a young adult I felt powerless to have the right career or marriage. I was unable to "function" -- my life did not flow as others did. (big point). My parents had a nightmare marriage and my older sibling was my mother's favorite child. I was far behind in development compared to her. Other than that it was a good life. In college I turned to religion and through much very difficult mental work was able to grow out of the depression to a great degree. I still have an overabundance of anxiety and headaches and colds sometimes. I am still unsure of myself in some social situations and do not enjoy coming up against a know-it-all bossy type in church or anywhere else. I just mentally withdraw and don't offer opinions and go find a more gentler person with which to have a friendship.

I have been bullied for 3 years every single day by my former friends (as well as girls from lower and higher years). Everyday I shitted myself going to school, I tried to act like nothing happens, I was too scared to tell anybody and even though I told several teachers, nothing has changed. I had family problems on top, my parents were controlling and never let me go anywhere (so it was hard to confine into them about bullying)....

I eventually developed depression for 4-5 years, though it wasn't till later that I realise what it was, when the bullies left, I had extremely low self esteem, I couldn't talk to anyone, paranoid of everyone and I just kept to myself, withdrawn for another 2 years. I didn't achieve the grades I potentally could've got, but I somehow made it pass the boundaries. I bet everyone just thought I was weird.. In total, I had no life for about 5 years... It felt like a long slow lonely and painful journey that wouldn't end.

Now I'm only 20, and it's still somewhat recent that all this occurred. If you look at me now, you would never suspect I have ever been bullied. I have never told anyone and I can never bring myself to say this, it makes me feel weak - I worry how people would judge me. I try to let go and have fun with life, sometimes I feel like I have, but then suddenely the past rushes back into me.

Still I think the bullies helped me view life in a different way. I appreciate kindness a lot more, I try to help anyone in need... If I never was bullied, I probably would've end up a bit more arrogant.

I've skimmed through some of these stories and it saddens me so much that people have suffered like this. I too suffered a kind of indirect bullying in that I am very tall and total strangers would laugh, mock and call me names. I'm now writing a book on how to help and encourage people who have been through these types of experiences.

@Cindy on September 19 2009 - The first paragraph of your story is incredibly powerful. I've never known the effects of bullying to be described like this. If you ever come back to this website could you please email me at the address above? Thanks

This article and many of the comments resonate very strongly with my experience. I have for a long time thought there was something very wthe wrong with my childhood mainly from the age of 6 to 11. My mother was not very supportive of any of the family, she had her own problems to deal with, and I suspect she was resentful of us for depriving her of a career and having a better childhood than she had as she often said how ungrateful we were and how awful her mother was. I have grown up something of a loner and had all the problems described in the article about, but I had never considered myself as being bullied until recently when finally the penny dropped. In my first year or two in my second school I was punched in the stomach in the cloakroom. This and similar violence happened several times. Not particularly noteworthy but there was no support at all. I was told "don't tell tales". My mother was a teacher at the school and I doubt she had really thought through being a parent and a teacher in the same place. She was also in her first year there and probably under the stress of being in a new job. My reaction was to become very withdrawn, to the point of hiding anywhere from the other children, such as in my mother's classroom. I remember spending some break times crouched in the corner of the yard, knees to my chin with my face buried in my hands. I was also wetting the bed for which I was scolded and made to sleep in dirty sheets and I had my toys burnt. I remember all those things quite vividly, but had forgotten about the bullying in the school until recently. When I did and started to make the connections between these things I also started to remember more pleasant memories of starting at my previous school and of feeling accepted by the other children and the warmth of the teachers. I remember looking forward too going up to the next year when the class would move up from the annexe across the road to the main school campus. Unfortunately that did not happen. But now those positive memories seem like a lifeline to a more happier existence. I can feel a real shift in the way I see things when I recall them as opposed to the "old" way of trying to compensate for feeling that I do not quite belong like trying to be "clever" or getting angry. It also seems that the physical feelings of social phobia are a kind of dim echo of the pain I felt when I was being beaten.

It has taken quite a long time to get here from first going to counselling, which I kept up for about 2 years. It was useful, but I made more progress from a self help book on cognitive behavoural therapy, and the key thing from that book was learning to relax and observe my thinking. Both the counselling and the self help book arose from different crises, such as turning up to work drunk.

The bullying I experienced probably was not that bad, it was the lack of support that made its effects far worse than it ever should have been.

It broke my heart to read all these horrible stories about how cruel people can be. I was never personally bullied, but I do remember a kid in high school who was. His "bullier" was known throughout the school as an absolutely scary, violent guy. One day, in a class of at least 90 students, the teacher stepped out for awhile. The bully took that opportunity to pick on this kid and challenge him to a fight. The bully was 3 years older than this kid and was physically much, much larger. That made me so angry that I marched right up to the bully and told him to pick on someone his own size. At the time, I was 5'1'' and 98 lbs. and female. That bully was so taken aback that he actually just walked out of the classroom. Unfortunately, I think I may have further embarassed the kid he was picking on - but, on the other hand, the bully took an awful lot of ribbing for having been put in his place by a little "girl".

Just remember this - there are tons and tons and tons of people who don't think you're awful or deserving of that kind of treatment. Try trusting that notion for awhile and see if it doesn't help.

My son has been bullied for 2in half year I made my write about how he feels about himself and about what has happen to him.I hope this will help him and others to understand how much it hurts a child.My son is 9 this been going on since he was 7.Alot of the time he does not want to me or his dad.I thank god for staff member at boys and girls club because he talks to him.It is hard went it seem like no-one want to help you.

I had a speech problem growing up and was teased horribly because of it. I had no confidence or self esteem. In elementary school, I was picked on really bad. The name calling was horrendous. I've had my pants pulled down and hair spray almost sprayed into my eyes. The teasing carried over into junior high and high school. There were times when I was waiting for the bus to come after school, I was almost pushed in front of it. The majority of the teachers did nothing to prevent it. In fact, most of the teachers favored the "in crowd." I was even teased graduation day. After high school, things started to look up. I enrolled in a local community college and got a part time job, where I met my future husband. After two years, I transferred to a nearby university where I was teased because I commuted to school. The teasing wasn't as bad as grade school but I was called "uncool" and excluded from social events because of my commuter status. It didn't help that the university didn't have anything for commuters. Nobody wanted to get to know me. I was pretty much a loner, even though I wanted friends. I graduated with a B.A. and got a job. I went through hell there for four years. My supervisor didn't like me and made my life a living hell. Co-workers excluded me for no reason, even though I made an attempt to be friendly. There was a horrible rumor about me sleeping around with men. When I got married, a co-worker took my wedding announcement and made copies of it. They hung it up all over the place with the word "whore" written on it. I've nasty messages written on my car. One co-worker even went as far as to go to my husbands place of work to tell him I was sleeping around. Of course, the rumors weren't true. Sad thing is, these co-workers were all married and pretended they were such good citizens. I was eventually fired from that job. A few years later, I became pregnant with my son(age 3 now) and things have looked up for me ever since he was born. I am back working the same retail job I did after highschool and I love the people I work with. I am involved with my church where the other women are wonderful. I have a great support system of family and in laws. But the scars never leave. I am still reminded of my past. Recently, I had one of the bullies from my past make remarks about me as I was at the mall. I told him to grow the f--- up. I am a more confident, thick skinned person today. There is hope for victims.

In looking back, I don't think a sense of social acceptance and self worth were more palpable than during the 7th grade.

I was the object of ongoing bullying by 2 girls on a daily basis. They continually belittled my appearance during class, so I found myself become even more absorbed to prove my value as an academic.

One of these girls is a well-known author who recently cited her childhood friend ( the other bully) in her book dedication !

I don't believe the pain will be aleviated, though I'm thankful for an adult mindset in looking back.

I was born to a bullying father, brother and I tried to move away and was then victim of more bullying at the hands of my cousins.

I am 29 but I've only come to realize very recently that I've been a victim of bullying. This became more and more apparent as the older I grew I noticed that I was falling behind my peers in career success etc..

I feel that it was quite unfortunate that I didn't realize what was happening to me and I was quite suicidal for some points in my life because I was financially dependant on people who would constantly make me feel terrible about myself and still do. My father and brother criticize every action I take with the emphasis being on what I'm doing is wrong rather than evaluating the merit of what I do or analyzing the details.

I have struggled to escape this and now I'm working in the US on a visa that has helped me reinvent myself and feel self-worthy but this emotional abuse from the past has caused me to fail in many personal relationships as well.

I recently started seeing a therapist who has helped me through this and I wish to help my father and brother as well. Therapy has immensely improved my life and I really wish I had discovered this sooner. I think psychology and psychiatry are some of the noblest professions out there.

Roslyn, what a horrid and unfair lot you must have had. I can't imagine the pain that you felt. Sometimes the unfairness that life brings can be utterly devastating. I do not have words to console you or mitigate your suffering, but I know this for a FACT: God excludes no one. God is with us now, even though we may not realize or understand. You have nothing to be forgiven for: you were an innocent. As are we all in the end. Lean upon faith - not the lies you were told. Take the time and find that secret space in your heart. Find a way to quiet the voices of judgement that spoke to you when you were defenseless because what they told you were lies. Strip away any meaning you put upon their words. And in that quiet place you will understand who you are: complete, whole, loved by God, and innocent from the start. May God bless you; remember your innocence. My prayers are with you.

"The first ugly outcome is that it becomes more likely that you will become increasingly susceptible to becoming depressed and/or angry and/or bitter. Being bullied teaches you that you are undesirable, that you are not safe in the world, and (when it is dished out by forces that are physically superior to yourself) that you are relatively powerless to defend yourself. When you are forced, again and again, to contemplate your relative lack of control over the bullying process, you are being set up for Learned Helplessness (e.g., where you come to believe that you can't do anything to change your ugly situation even if that isn't true), which in turn sets you up for hopelessness and depression."

I do not remember when it started , I don't remember much about my school days (i have blocked most of it out) What i do remember is being treated like crap and called a hypochondriac by my mother because i was allways making like i was sick.. So i wouldn't have to go to school.

Iam 68years old & still feel the traurmas of those years of hell I know the children were fed the information to torture me but it is little conciation for the years of bashings & name calling that went bacck to starting school. Teachers did nothing as they didn't want to upset the GOOD members of the comunity.my sin was being born out of wedlock to a mother who dumped me & a soldier who most likly was treated to gold statous in the country but was to gutless to take responsability for his child. life is a thing that I can't wait to leave behind not to worry I am to gutless to end it (must have my fathers genes) a good Church elder once told me when I was 6years old that I could never go to heaven as illagitamte children just float in space so I guess she got that wrong as I think this world is hell. sorry but God forgive the children they were only products of the Parents

I have come to learn over a number of years that i have a bullying father. It has been very hard to overcome and i have suffered severe social anxiety and depression as a result.

The bullying behaviour is extremely narcissistic and unrelenting and i believe it is to gain attention for himself. He expresses this behaviour by being extremely antagonistic and negative about my life chances when others aren’t around, and when i lash out he always portrays me as someone with mental problems.

Since the death of my mother two years ago who I loved very much and was extremely supportive, I see very little of my large family, which in some ways increased my happiness with fewer bouts of depression and reduced anxiety, who has labelled me as a difficult person to get along with or someone with mental problems, which I believe is a perception that has been created by my fathers manipulation.

He always expresses himself as a saviour to other people as he owns a number of houses and has given me some where to live, but never expresses his happiness with me living there when I tell him I appreciate it.

I am currently nearing the end of my university degree in social science, which has been extremely liberating, as I have learnt the source of many of my problem, but it has been a difficult and long road.

I am currently looking for a full time job and intend to move out and on with my life but have noticed the behaviour increasing, with him further isolating me for my siblings and antagonising me further and claiming himself as the victim as I don’t see them much, and when he stirs up arguments and I react.

I understand that it is in my best interest to stay away from this environment, but I always go back hoping that things might change but it never does, and I always end up dwelling on it?

Any way that is a snippet of my bullying father story and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I now have a great, supportive partner and am looking forward to moving on with my life with a good career; and not just a job;I have to go to each day, which was my earlier opportunity.

i was bullied from day one of primary school. i was in a class which only had 5 girls, and i was ostracised right from the start. most of the taunts were about my appearance, or due to getting better marks than the rest of the group. these set of girls would one minute include me and the next dump me. i spent most of primary school fearful, lonely and totally confused. i even remember looking up the word friend in a dictionary aged 8 to make sure i'd got it right! the gang of girls would pretend to break friends with one of the girls, who would then befriend me. she would get me to talk about the other girls and then run back to the gang telling them eveything i had said. it was all emotional abuse, name calling, and sometimes physical abuse.

aged 9 my father suffered a nervous breakdown and was sectioned under the mental health act after being found on an edge of a cliff. i was bullied for that, and i will never forget one boy telling me that the reason my dad tried to kill himself was because he had a daughter like me. i hated myself, felt ugly, worthless and a nuisance to everyone around me. i thought of suicide often as a child. my home life totally changed and was not a safe haven anymore. my mother took all her frustration out on me, again with name calling, physical abuse and relying on me heavily to listen to her problems, sitting up late at night consoling my mother and telling her everything would be ok, when inside i was in so much pain. i had told my parents about the bullying, and my mothers response was 'try being nicer to them'. so i thought it was all my fault, that i deserved to be treated like that because i was ugly, horrible, a loser.

when i moved to high school i thought things may change, naively i thought they would finally grow up. but it just got worse, the same girls bullied me, and by being in a bigger school i just had more people there ready to join in with the bullying. i spent most days, walking to school in tears, hiding in the toilets until my first class, sitting on my own, having ink splattered all over me, fun made out of me, my property destroyed, my hair covered in chewing gum. this went on every day until i was 15. i started to self harm at age 14, through cutting. no one knew and to this day none of my family know about that. i had long stopped bothering to tell my parents about the bullying. with all the stress at home with my fathers illness i knew i had to keep quiet so i didn't upset anyone. however i was such an angry child, i would lash out at my family because i felt anything they said to me was personal. my family used to call me 'psycho'.

aged 15 i made some new friends, who were actually nice people. however by this point i'd created this mask to hide behind. i pretented to be hard faced and tough. i started to smoke and drink, sleeping with boys so they would 'like me'. i felt so worthless, so unattractive, that if a boy actually did fancy me i thought i was being set up, or that it was a dare. i really had no self respect at all, and didn't care about myself.

since leaving school most of my relationships have been abusive. my first ever long term relationship was with a man who phsyically, emotionally and sexually abused me. the second relationship i had was with a guy who was emotionally abusive and cheated. and i've recently come out of another relationship where the guy was emotionally unavailable and had no hope of going anywhere. i have a huge fear of intimacy, i never let anyone too close to me, and i hide behind this false self i've created to protect myself. people see me as some hard faced tough nut who doesn't get affected by anything. they're shocked if they ever see me cry, because i never let that side of me show. i very rarely allow anyone to see if i'm hurt, and that prevents anyone getting truly intimate with me. my most recent ex doesn't believe that i actually care that much about him, because i hardly ever showed it. i want to show affection, show love, but i become physically paralysed, and i stop myself doing it.

i've been clinically depressed and on medication on and off throughtout my adult life. i'm now 30 and only now starting to put myself back together again. i have no idea about who i really am! its only in the last few years that i've started to pursue hobbies that i enjoy, because i had no idea what it was i enjoyed doing. anything i had been interested in as a child/teen was riduculed by my peers and my mother. so i stopped caring about the things i liked.

i'm just started psychotherapy because i don't want to continue my life like this anymore. i dont' want another failed relationship, i don't want anymore hurt or feeling so detached from everyone. i want to form meaningful bonds with people and to enjoy all that life has to offer instead of feeling like a total outsider. i don't want to question someones attraction to me, or to reject compliments, or to be paranoid about peoples intentions.

when i think back to school and my childhood its difficult to remember events etc. everything is like a blur because i've blocked it out so much to try and stop the pain. its a sad thing to say but i can't actually remember a good time or an event that made me happy as a child. i always felt i was under a huge black cloud trying to be as invisible as possible. when i saw my therapist for the first time last week she picked up on something i had said which was that i felt like a nuisance. when she repeated that back to me, i cried so hard, because thats exactly how i felt and i'd buried that so deep inside me. but it all makes so much sense now!

being bullied has affected every part of my life, but i hope with therapy i will ensure it won't affect the rest of my life

well, i m 20 yrs old today and i think when i was in the 8 th standard, instances of psychological bullying started with me. my peer group members would shout names at me, hurl abuses at my family, someone called my best friend left me to be a part of a group which felt more "powerful " . my appearence was always mocked at.

ultimately, it all led to a negative impact up on me in some or the other way. the way i think now, probably or for sure depends on the experiences i have had as a pre teen .

well, now that i had stepped into childhood, i was diagonised with obsessive compulsive disorder after a bitterly falied relationship problem (HOCD) .

i have been told by my doctor that i have traces of symptoms pertaining to borderline personality disorder as well !!

hurts to know that all of these problems have had actually a root in my past childhood life which could have been easily preventable with intelligent handling

Sometimes I can't help but believe that the most satisfying thing would be to utterly destroy any hope of happiness or prosperity for those who performed the bullying.

The default impulse is to seek out present bullies and respond not merely in kind but vindictively with far more sadistic fury. The general idea is to take the pain they cause me and send pain at least 5-10x worse to them quickly in the hopes that they see the light and change their ways. Sometimes such attempts might work, other times they would merely lead to more aggression. I don't want to permanently crush someone, but I do want their pain to be so unbearable for an ideally brief time that they agree such a path in life is not worthwhile. And I cannot lie, for that instant in time it would probably feel good to be in control.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm a nice guy who believes fundamentally in things like forgiveness and can't help but feel a certain natural sympathy for others. While I can talk about crushing someone, I'm not very good at actually doing it.

Can any amount of therapy give me the same satisfaction and the same reality? If I do not perceive that I have emerged victorious, how can I simply move on and consider myself a true winner?

I think these blogs say it all about the severe pain that bullying and psychological damage can cause. I am 48 , and while I try to keep past bullying buried, its still there. I may forget the actual incidents, but who I am today and many of my issues stem from bullying.

Bullying damaged my self-esteem, and once it's damaged, it starts a cycle thats difficult to break..lack of self esteem makes it difficult to form relationships, which causes depression, substance abuse and anxiety. The problems may get further away from the initial bullying, but they can get traced back to that bullying.

I hope if someone is reading this that is getting bullied, please know you can do something. Bullying makes you feel helpless, but you can do something.

Don't be ashamed of the bullying or worry what the other kids will do if you tell an adult, but that's what you need to do. You need to force the adults in your life to not tolerate this behavior in your school, home or neighborhood.

Form a support network of adults that will do something when you get bullied. Parents, teachers, guidance counselor, etc. If you need to talk to a professional counselor, then do it. There is nothing wrong with it.

You may have to tell a few people before anyone does anything. But if you can find one person to support you, then you have one more person than you have right now, who will remind you that you are a good person and do not deserve to be treated abusively.

Yeah, it really really sucks...i know. It seems like it will never stop, but it will. You can do it. People like me that don't even know you are rooting for you.

I was bullied from early grade school through high school because I was underweight and had a nickname my parents gave me as a child that was unusual. Most days were barely tolerable and some days were excruciating.

I would come home and cry to my mother (who was battling cancer since I was in 2nd grade and probably not up to the challenge of helping me) who glossed over the situation making excuses such as they must like you to pick on you or kids will be kids. As a 7 year old, the last thing you want to hear is the reason why they are doing it, you want it to stop. Period. My father excluded me as I was the black sheep of our family not fitting in with his classical taste and for the most part, ignored me.

I had only one good friend in grade school and her best neighbor friend transferred to our grade school for the last year before high school and I was left by the way-side. I tried desparately to compete for her friendship and attention but it seemed the harder I tried the more she retreated to her neighbor friend.

My grades suffered as a result of the bullying. When I wasn't busy trying to be invisible, I was obsessed with emulating the one friend I had and trying to be liked by those who weren't directly attacking me.

In high school I thought this would be my chance at a new start. I made a few close friends most of whom I've kept to this day at the age of 41. However, most the students from grade school continued into high school with me so the ridicule continued but with added new students as a fresh audience. My older sister attended this school and although she herself was bullied too, she did take up for me quite often when she could. She was my protector.

One boy in particular and his cronies made life particularly miserable and I spent a lot of time trying to avoid him even physically slouching down in an attempt to become invisible to escape his taunting. It never worked but did help in ruining my posture to this day.

The summer of my Sophmore year my mother lost her battle and succumb to her illness. Even though her words never helped in dealing with the bullies, she was someone to vent to about it. That same year my sister left for college and my father was forced into early retirement. I lost the little support system I had and was left with a grieving father who dealt by drinking and verbally abusing me when not ignoring me. I dealt with it myself by starting to drink and acting out. I attempted suicide and thought of it often.

The school system was no help. Because the administration never handled things appropriately, or my parents, I

College was more of the same, gaffing off my classes and trying to fit in. I blew it. After the first year of bullying by my roommate and her friends, as everyone else was working to move ahead, I was finally fitting in, but with the wrong crowd-the party crowd. I ended up failing and working at a menial job that I kept for years.

Since that time, I've had issues making new friends, advancing or feeling as if I ever fit in. My self-esteem to this day is low. I lack confidence even when reinforced by others. I question their motives as if I'm being set up and I am doubtful of the sincerity. I take criticism very hard and don't take compliments at all feeling I'm undeserving.

My subsequent shyness, I'm told, is now portrayed as being stuck-up by others. Along with my loner attitude. I don't want to be a loner but I don't feel I ever learned the proper social skills to create relationships because of my attempts to hide from everyone to avoid the bullying incidents as a child. I still, to this day, have terrible relationships, even with my family. I long to be close to others but I don't know how to go about it.

I did spend years replaying and fantasizing of bullying incidents and different outcomes in my mind. Actually obsessing over it. Wishing at what I should have said, physically taking down the bullies and finally getting some respect. I more recently was bullied by a boss at a job and instantly was brought back to that place of no-control and learned helplessness in my mind. My esteem took another huge blow. I still fantasize about telling her off. It seems nothing has changed.

I made the mistake of going to my 20 year HS reunion (at the request of the few good friends I did have). I got up the courage to talk to a few of these bullies about their behavior as they brought up the same taunting remarks 20 years later. When I became defensive about it, I was told that they didn't care because I didn't matter then and I don't matter now. So, what's more pathetic than a teen bully? An adult one. It instantly took me back to feeling like that same insignificant, meaningless, hopeless and helpless little girl I was then. As much as I tried not to let it get to me at my age now, it still did.

Continuing on I've had some complications that have reinforced my feelings of being an outsider. My husband and I lost our first and only child to a disorder so rare I had a better chance of winning the lottery than having had this happen. But it did. We've since not been able to go on to have children that we desparately wish for depleting all our funds in attempts with medical intervention. So, I fear I will always be that outsider looking in at what everyone else has. The haves and the have nots. I feel isolated and forgotten as my friends and family have moved forward in their own lives with their own families once again leaving me behind at Go as they move forward to finish the game. If I didn't already have such deep-rooted feelings of isolation and feeling like I don't fit in, I'm sure this would be easier (not easy though) to accept.

I truly think I'd be such a different person if the bullying never occurred. I didn't end up being one of those people whose skin was thickened by the experience but moreso the opposite. I'm very sensitive and compassionate. The reason I found this article was because I was helping a friend whose son is being bullied now at school and wanted more information to help.

It wasn't until I read this article that things really clicked with me. The light came on and knowing that it's not just me, and that there is a reason why I act the way I do now helps. It felt so good to know it wasn't me that made me this way. Good to know that I'm not the only one struggling even years later. For some reason, knowing the cause gives me more hope for solutions. Like a huge weight has been lifted because I always blamed myself. So thank you, for your insight. I may find the courage to step outside my comfort zone and put myself out there again. Fear of ridicule/rejection kept me from doing this before but perhaps this is the nudge I need to make the effort.

Hello. I'm a seventeen year old female. I read the articles and all the comments and I think I can relate to what you guys have experienced. I didn't have it as bad as some of the people of commented here but I was emotionally bullied for quite a long time.

Bear with me if this seems quite long but writing it all down helps me sort it out as I've only recently realized I had been bullied.

I think the first person who made me feel bad about myself was my nanny. I had to spend a lot of time at her house because my mom worked a lot and my dad traveled frequently and for long periods of time due to his work. She kept saying that my dad liked being away and other things like that. She constantly favored her own children in very obvious ways. There was another kid she was taking care of there too and he, too, was favored. I think all the things that happened there still affect me to this day.

When I was 6-7 years old, some girls in my class started verbally bullying me. My parents still remember I came home crying many times. A new girl, whom I had tried being friends with, starting messing up all the friendships in my class. She was always mean to me, trying to get the other girls to stop being my friends.

The things mentioned above continued for a few years and the entire grade above me all agreed they hated me and started verbally bullying me. I tried to be their friends by agreeing with them on everything and one girl accused my of being a lesbian. I also wasn't good at sports at all and didn't get picked very often. I started comparing myself to other girls (physically, I mean). i wished I could be prettier(mostly thinner) as if it would somehow solve my problems.

I didn't mention it but I tend to make good grades and some people don't seem to like smart people.

Afte primary school (ends after 6th grade), I went to a summer camp. The cool thing there was to get a boyfriend (a bit silly when i think about it) and suddenly one boys pretended to like me. It turned out it was a bet and people were having fun and laughing behind my back. The first person I liked (still hurts me to think of it) was just playing with me. it was so nice ( sarcastic).

When I went to secondary school, I became part of a group of girls who were semi popular. I thought i was part of the group but somehow i never got invited to birthday party or just anything. They would leave me behind, one time i left my bad with for a few minuted and found it in the middle of the playground, damaged. Again, so nice of them (still sarcastic). One day they just threw me out the group. They wrote a letter and all signed it. They passed it to me in class and I had a really hard time not crying ( i ended up crying anyway). I don't know how i did not realize they were playing with me until they 'dumped me', now it seems so obvious.

Pretty much the same thing happened to me during a summer trip to Ireland ( to learn English, it's my second language). My 'friends' were just really using me as a scapegoat.

With boys, it didn't get better. I pretty sure one was cheating on me and it didn't last long anyway. The other one also was pretty uninvolved with me. I have developped a pretty thick skin with boys, i can be pretty unemotional when I want to.

One time, at the mall, two girls I absolutely didn't know came to me and started bullying me because I was supposedly staring at them ( i sort of was but still is that a reason i wasn't being mean). they called me lesbian again. To this day, I'm still wondering if there is a part of me that likes girls.

After 9th grade I moved to the USA. I only got bullied once in Spanish class by a boy because of my nationality (belgian). I got upset a few times but now it's better, he's not in any of my classes anymore ( thank god).

I'm now in senior year I'm not bullied anymore. Next year, college. We'll see how it goes.

All I can see is that, I am pretty reserved. I constantly feel inferior, ugly, not capable, unliked,etc. It's not fun. I have very few friends and most of them are not close at all.

Sometimes, I get depressed and think no one will ever love me (american boys apparently aren't interested in my at all), that i will die alone, that i won't have friends when I get older.

As you can see, I am very insecure about myself, especially about my appearance. I don't think anyone will ever be genuinelly attracted to me.

I love travelling and always have but I have recently realized it's also a way for me to run away from all this.

I'm even pushing my family away, I feel inferior compared to my brother (who is good looking, popular, social,etc). Also, i don't seeing some of my female cousing as I feel they are always better looking. My parents always ask me why i don't have a boyfriend yet. what am I supposed to tell them, that no one is even remotely interested in me? My brother (who is younger) teases me about it.

Well, thank you for reading. It feels good to get it out. It's a bit more clear now and I inted to work on those issues. I hope I will be okay.

Interesting, I could definitely see myself relate to what had been said.
I am 20 now, in the last years of primary school I was bullied. When I look back I wonder how I survived the situation and continued to go to school. As the initial bullying did happen for about 2-3 years about 10 yrs ago, I perhaps felt that I had over come it, not forgotten, but..perhaps moved on.

When I was young, I was such a friendly person who was extremely confident and always wanting to try new things, but ever since being bullied for being an over achiever...I had lost basically all my confidence..when I got into highschool i hated attention. I stopped liking the way i was...constantly saw myself as ugly. After highschool...perhaps I have gained more confidence...but I still find myself being paranoid..I can't be enthusiastic and open, which is hard because people employ people who have a positive and confident vibe..I'm still so afraid of everything.

I guess knowing about the problem helps you understand...growing confidence makes u understand...but it's a very hard thing to go through, and I hope everyone does find the peace they need.

Hi I have been suffering from bullying before I can even remember. I have been told that I have been beaten up and bullied everyday since preschool. I don't remember a time when I was 'not' being bullied. It's been a consistent part of my life. I don't know why I have always been bullied either. I think a small part of it is that I am a 6 ft tall female.

Until I went to college I hated myself. I was an empty shell. I had a list of names that went for pages. Everyday I went home crying. My mother just told me to ignore them. That didn't do a thing. I had no support network whatsoever.

I was suicidal since I was 4 until I was 19. I saw psychiatrists since then. Back then they did not even consider bullying and my horrible home environment being the cause. They just labeled me as having major depression. Now I can see that the environment is what made me depressed. Unfortunately I must try to wean off my meds (effexor) on my own since I have discovered it is worser than heroin. The doctors don't know about the withdrawal effects. I wish I knew that a pill was not the solution. I never received the proper treatment for the right thing.

The verbal abuse from 7-9th grade was the worst. I forgot most of it. It's a big blur. All I remember is everyday having food thrown at me, spit balls and paper being thrown in my hair, teachers having to comb it out everyday at class, being called jolly green giant, ugly, fat, the beast, monster, moose, stupid, that I should die, getting death threats being put in my lunches and locker, getting my bag searched when I wasn't looking and having stuff thrown away and stolen and laughed at when I went through the garbage to get my stuff, having my private information read aloud to the entire class and laughed at, sitting alone at recess and lunch everyday, getting desks slammed against me, getting tripped in the halls, having songs sung about me, boys saying that they would never go out with me, etc. It never ended. The bus, the bathroom, lunch, classes... Teachers did nothing about it. I tried committing suicide a few times. I would rather die than have to go through another day.

These kids I didn't even know. Most of them I have never met. 98% of the class joined in. The girls would chase me to the bathroom stall where I would be crying and then stand on a seat to look over the stall to make fun of me crying. On the bus I would get sexually assaulted by the boys. They would touch me everyday and beat me up. The girls called me a lesbian even though I was not one.

My mother did not give me a razor for shaving until I was 16. The girls called me a man. My mom also gave me really strong horrible smelling spray on men's deodorant. The teachers had the nurse talk to me and my mother about my smelling problem. I hated the way I smelled. She just gave me stronger more horrible men's deodorant.

I slouched making myself smaller with a hunched back and never looked anyone in the eyes hoping they wouldn't notice me. That never worked. I hated my height. To this day I wish I could cut my legs off so I wouldn't be noticed. All I want is to be left alone. My entire life I was told when I grow up I will love being tall but I hate it even more. I can't buy clothes, shoes, everywhere I go total strangers comment on my height wishing they were tall, I am always reminding of my height, I can't fit in public transportation, my knees get black and blue on buses and planes, I have to sit crooked and this is bag for my back since I have chronic sciatica and a herniated disk so I am always in pain, I can't go on some roller coasters, I don't fit anywhere and feel like a gigantic beast, etc. I have to pay 1000’s of $ more for more expensive plane seats that will fit me even though my sciatica makes me handicapped. I have to spend my student loans on these seats. Being that the world is built for small people is a constant reminder of my height. My height is the only thing I wish was different about myself.

But to this day I can't look at anyone in the face. I never had my first kiss or date until I was 22 because I couldn't actually look let alone talk to someone of the opposite sex. Everyone I met was through the internet and let me tell you there are tons of creepy men out there. (including my husband! lol! j/k! I met him through the internet as well however. That was the only way to meet anyone.)

If it wasn't for my husband I don't know if I would be alive today. I am currently in graduate school and feel so alone. I have no friends where I am and the isolation is crippling me. All of my friends live 2,000 miles away. I can't seem to approach anyone and am so afraid of not being accepted that I still cannot look at anyone and only speak when spoken to. Every time I show my personality I feel like I will be immediately be rejected. So out of fear of rejection I remain invisible. This is a crippling panic disorder. When I am in a social situation such as a party, after a while of standing in the middle of the room feeling awkward I start sweating and my heart races and feel like everyone is staring at me and I can't take it anymore. I usually go into a room and start crying for hours because no one will talk to me. And then I sneak out of the party and no one notices (not even the host) that I left. Every time I go to class I feel this way. I am reminded of how alone I am when I am surrounded by people. I am so terrified of going to class and even more terrified when the teacher wants to talk to me. It's getting worse. I avoid social situations at all costs and have decided to choose a career that will allow me no contact with people. As a result I have already missed so many opportunities for employment. Since I cannot get close teachers at parties and functions, I cannot get references and contact of alumni. I have poor social skills and cannot network.

When I have no friends around, it reminds me of my growing up. I cry several times a week reliving the experiences. I wasn't like this when I had friends in my undergraduate school. It's all coming back now and is getting worse and affecting my relationship. Every night I have night terrors where I scream constantly throughout the night. I wake up and don't remember a thing. I can't go back to sleep and am always so tired.

As of the past 3 years some anger problems have just appeared out of thin air. I have this uncontrollable anger that just bursts out whenever I feel there is the slightest injustice such as someone cutting me in line. I get so angry and explode. I can't stand injustice. It seems to be getting worse.

What drives me nuts is finally I actually have great self esteem (with the exception of hating my height) and think I am an awesome fun person to be around. I just see it an no one wanting to give me the chance. People only like extroverts. (I guess thats where my bitterness plays) This boggles me because it is so contradictory. I always believed the myth that once you like yourself then you are excepted. Well sorry to say that it is not true. You have to be extroverted. Shy people are overlooked. Now i see the world as a bunch of idiots who don't know what they are missing out on.

I know I have healed partially because I have my esteem back but now feel stuck as I can't afford to see a shrink to help me socially and also don’t trust them anyway. I know the second I go back to my doctor she will refer me to someone to pop me on more pills. I wish that doctors could recognize that it is not always a mental illness to be depressed. My psychologist whom I saw for many years always thought I was very 'sane' and more functional than most adults. I believe that the abuse just left me lingering way behind with social developing skills. This article is great. It seems like all of my problems make perfect sense now! Thank you!

I have been on the receiving end of over 6 years of bulling from my neighbours, which began as soon as my father - to whom I was very close - died.

The neighbours decided to breed 11 dogs in the house, which is joined to mine. I was subjected to noise and barking day and night and kept awake incessantly. When I challenged the woman, I was subjected to bawling and shouting and demanding of rights for the animals and the herself. No discussion, just 'What do you expect, they are dogs!!!'. They began to set the dogs out in the garden every time I opened my back door - to go to the bin or put out washing. They took great delight in my terror and it just made me a nervous wreck. I ended up screaming 'Shut up' at the animals, again, to great delight by the 3 sons.

The parents went off and left the 3 lads in the house for a month on their own with the dogs. I was then subjected to incessant hours of dog yapping, plus 48-hour drunken swearing parties. Eventually I could take no more and banged the wall and told them to shut up. This was a great opportunity to get the 'father' round to my house to terrorise me in my own home. I opened the door and he was in my porch, then he swore and screamed and yelled at me. I was so scared I fled my home for a month, and only went back when my Mum came with me. I was terrified to go outside and petrified inside.

The abuse has continued unabated for 6 years. They have attacked my car, sworn at me, kicked the wall and sung filthy songs, had incessant drinking parties lasting weekends or even every night of the week at times. I have had to flee the house 3 times in all. I constantly called the police and council. They seemed to want to help at the beginning, but earlier this year, they got really nasty with me for persistently ringing up, and now I am so scared to contact the agencies, I have now to live in the house with all the doors locked.

I only go to the door when I have first checked through the window to see who is there. I have been repeatedly on the verge of a breakdown and am still taking antidepressants after 6 years. I am trying to sell the house, but unsurprisingly no-one will even give me an offer. I am trapped in an evil cycle of abuse, out of which it seems impossible to get. I thought of renting out the house, but when I thought on this, I realised that it is quite likely these people will try and get into my house, through whoever rents it. I also worry about it being smashed up because my brother rented his house out, and it was bashed to pieces. These people would take great pleasure in smashing my place up. This would not help me sell. At least the house is in good order at the moment.

The abuse continues, and just when I start to think it may be settling down, they think of another nasty thing to do to me. I had a serious operation 3 months ago and had to be in the house for weeks afterwards. This of course, made me a sitting duck. As soon as I could drive again, I basically left the house every day no matter the weather, just to be away and get some peace for an hour or so.

I don't know how it will all end. I think of suicide quite often, but then I think why should such evil people win? They are the perpetrators and they shall not win.

Playground bulling is a terrible thing, but so can adult bullting be. And just because there are laws in place, it does not mean the authorities will listen to you or act to defend the innocent victim. I have found that it is those who can shout about their rights that get all the help, not their victims.

Thank you so much for posting this insightful treatise on the problem of bullying.

I was bullied for most of my formative life, until I was 16 years old and finally moved to a different school in a more tolerant area.

It was the most incredible, emotionally debilitating experience I've ever had, and I still, at 37 years old, suffer from its effects. Low self-esteem, depression, bitterness about society, massive interpersonal difficulties, avoidance, hard-time advancing at jobs, it just goes on and on.

It's easy to feel totally alone out there, like nobody gets it - like nobody understands the seriousness of what I went through and the traumatic effect it can have on you for decades afterward.

People say, "Get over it, it was a long time ago," as if it's possible to just snap your fingers and have perfect self-esteem and confidence. But they never experienced it, so they don't get it.

I'm extremely grateful to be able to read all of the comments here from people who have been through the same experiences, and to know that I'm not alone suffering from the effects of the incessant abuse that undermined my sense of identity and ability to get along in the world.

So thank you to the author, and to those who were kind enough to share their experiences. It really helps to know you're not alone.

I moved house aged 9 and this along with some other big changes at the time resulted in bad depression. I was badly bullied all through comprehensive school and after that. I can totally relate to everything said about being bullied at school and the long term effects of this. All the comments here show the same reasons for bullying and methods bullies use.

People often categorise 'victims' or people with mental health difficulties into boxes. Children that suffer well known about methods of abuse e.g physical, sexual are well known to be likely to suffer mental health issues.I'm not for one minute saying these experiences aren't terrible, but bullying and consequent problems happen for so many reasons.

I came from a well off, supposably 'ideal' family where problems where not supposed to exist and there was a lot of pressure to present a sucessful, perfect image to the outside world. I was the 'outsider' and felt very guilty about being bullied. When I did pluck up courage to ask for help my parents didn't want to know- I got told off and consequently felt more ashamed. I had depression, eating disorders and suicide attempts. I still struggle to understand how my parents- pillars of the local community- ignored and castigated me for this.

You can survive bullying and depression. I am 34 and mainly happy, although I feel my experiences will always be with me and there are times of great sadness. It's very helpful to have this website. Bullying works by isolating kids and reading others experiences makes me feel less alone.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't bullied in school. I am learning disabled (dyslexia, audio processing disorder, and ADD). I was also bullied at home by my brother, who was academically "gifted." I was also very skinny, and different looking. I would get bullied all day, every day, and then come home for more. I managed to take advanced placement classes in high school, and graduate from college. I have been a target at each and every one of my jobs, and I have been in mostly abusive relationships. All of this ended when I choose to get psychiatric help. I have learned how to stand up for myself, and how to act confident. I am now married to a wonderful, supportive husband. I have a terrific job, and I'm very happy. Getting bullied ABSOLUTELY lead to more bullying later in life. Bullies have radar for these people, I'm telling you. The best advice I got was, when someone starts messing with you, is to say (in a stern voice), "Why the F*CK did you just say that?" You have to act agressive back the FIRST TIME. Usually they will just pick another victim. If they keep bullying you, avoid them. If that doesn't work, tell a teacher, or your HR manager. If that doesn't work, transfer to another school, or get another job. It isn't your fault, and bullies NEVER CHANGE.

I found this article very interesting and helpful. I am speaking from the point of view of a partner of someone who was severly bullied as a teenager. My fiancee went to a boarding school and so had nowhere to run and hide. He was 'psychologically tortured' for over 4 years as he describes it because he was smaller and also there were rumours he was gay. He told me he coped by running on the athletics team and also by retreating and spending most of his time on his own. I feel so saddened. But how can I help him? He is a successful doctor now, but in his personal life it is a different story. He gets very angry and rages if anything emotional comes up. It makes it difficult for me to talk to him as he takes everything personally. He is now 40 and he has had only one other long term relationship and even that was unstable. He is very much a loner and although he has friends, they are not close intimate ones. I worry he is a bit self destructive too. If we have problems, he becomes totally passive and doesnt fight for the relationship and when we were having problems last year he started seeing another woman albeit stopped it when we resolved our issues. I dont know what to do. I want to help him heal. Can anyone advise on any ways I can help him? I love him dearly but I dont think he trusts me at all.

I went to a local Comprehensive School ( High School ) during the 80's and for four yrs I was constanly bullied I was bullied by Teacher's as well which gave the "green Light" for kids to feel "its a free for all"

One of my problem was/is I had two hidden disabilities 1) Dyslexia, 2 ) Dyspraxia,

Many yrs later after leaving school I still have those fears of large groups of people and social events.

I would say to Bullies what give you the right to inflict pain both physically and phycologically on others!?

As we all know most of us learn to cope with stratigies but sadly there are many who do not and choose the only way out.

Can't think of a title. Too many bad memories right now. - Catherine - Oct 13th 2009

The comments of those bullied explain a great deal for me – the anger, depression, shame, severe breakdowns, always being alone and never belonging anywhere. I don’t really want to write this, but I feel I owe those of you with the courage to talk about what happened to you. My mother sent me to school at age four to get me out of her hair, and I never knew what was going on in school to begin with. I went to a small Catholic school in a semi-rural area. I was small and skinny. In fifth or sixth grade, the bullying began on the bus when two older girls started harassing me every day for no reason.

Then the bullying and ostracizing started in the classroom.Almost every boy would scowl at me and call me ugly, stupid, etc., every chance they got. The girls ostracized me and said nasty things. They never allowed me to play with them and would send me away when I wanted to play ball, etc. I remember walking the playgrounds all alone every day. I was so ashamed I wanted to die. I would crouch down on the other side of the school building, where not so many people could see how rejected and pathetic I was. They also had “slam books” – notebooks that each kid had that rated everybody. I was always called, “the ugliest girl in the school” or some variation of ugly. I skipped school as much as I possibly could.

I then went to a public high school, where the girl down the road decided she hated me and began bullying me there -- always threatening to beat me up, saying and doing mean things. One day she got this popular guy to take his huge textbook and slam it down on top of my head as hard as he could while I was walking down the hall. I saw stars and felt faint. In my state of shame, I tried my hardest to smile and just said, “What was that for?” Like it was no big deal – a real betrayal of my own self.

Life at home was a nightmare too. My mother lost her hearing soon after the second baby was born – there were nine of us kids, and she spent every single day crying and screaming hysterically until the veins popped out in her neck and she turned purple. She called us every name she could think of, anything she thought would hurt us the most, especially my brother and me. It was her goal to make us cry before we left for school in the morning. I finally refused to cry, and told the other kids not to cry. She always saved the worst for my father, though. She went after him with a vengeance, screaming and yelling sometimes all night long. This went on every single day, with no let-up. Holidays were worse.

But I believed there must be something really repugnant and awful about me. I decided to mask my shame and inferiority by wearing a protective mask of assertiveness, competence, etc., though I could never shake the feeling of being inferior. I’ve been a loner all my life; have suffered from severe depression, and anxiety and breakdowns. I managed to get a B.A. degree, but never got anything more than menial secretarial jobs. Now I feel that I have to, for the first time actually begin my life, since everything that happened before seems invalid. And that’s a good thing!

This was a clear, concise, well-written piece, and I could relate to it very well. I was bullied for many years, from junior high through college, because of my Asperger's Syndrome. Because I also have a condition called super memory, I also remember the exact dates of the harassment, as well as songs that were popular when the bullying occurred. Sometimes hearing a song from the bullying era--especially a maudlin mid-1970s ballad--can trigger the unwanted memories. I am currently working on a project on bullying for a graduate social work class.

The other night I was thinking about this article and the so called "new information & research", but really, all abuse is a form of bullying, and it has been going on forever.

It isn't new..I'm not thinking we'd need therapists if bullying of any sort didn't have severe and long lasting effects on people's lives.

I do think the people who have the power to actually do something about this is in fact our therapists, doctors, attorneys etc., I'm not trying to be rude, however, I don't think we will ever see the laws changed or the punishments that are so badly needed because it would put many a therapist, counselor, & psychs out of business.

And the article mentions Columbine..just out of curiosity, I asked one of my children if they could name and/or remember many of the people who bullied (him/her) and 42 minutes later, without one single second thought on not one name, the list of names came. More than three pages of names I wrote as they were spoken. That was a enormous "WOW & OMG!" moment! My child wouldn't ever hurt anyone but it sure did open my eyes!

My children know that the one thing I have absolutely no tolerance for is teasing anyone about anything, and I do mean ZERO tolerance. I think some parents out there need to look in their own homes before blaming the person who finally snapped and decided to take it to the extreme. I'm sure most would not agree with me that I believe both bullying and the killings because of, are of equal crime.

i have been bullied from elementary school thru college. by people i know, like classmates, and by strangers walking down the street. i was a big time target being unpopular and looking different (much shorter than an average person) and acting different than "normal". i want to say that the bullying has (and i believe) will always stay with me. it is an immense inner pain. and i try to forgive but it is a great struggle. it makes you think terrible things about yourself...like you are less than everyone else. and bullying makes me outraged because i do not believe any person or animal should be subjected to that evil. bullying is pure evil. well for now i try to forgive and i am looking to God to hopefully one day make things right.

i once got a very short haircut in 5 grade. everybody called me "mushroom head". i would cry all the time. it was bad

I was bullied all through school because of my weight, getting beat up and called names.I have never gotten over it,I pick terrible friends and married a verbally abusive man.I am struggling in school because of anxiety and depression and now I am seeking therapy, I hope it works for me.I feel no control over my life and now that I am 40 I wish I would have sought help earlier.I never understood why I have so many problems until I read this article I think I know were this is all comming from.

bullying, like everything else, is an experience which can be resolved - Seth - Sep 24th 2009

I am very grateful that when I was a child, the endless disorders, diseases, and conditions were not yet invented/manufactured. I have no doubt that I would have been diagnosed with many, and within those diagnosis, obstructions would have been placed in my path toward an otherwise perfectly determinable resolution. I was bullied terribly throughout my school years - most significantly in my teens, once puberty set in. I agree that it was a very painful experience and it would have come as a welcome relief for someone capable to step in to relieve the situation. However, for someone to be capable, he would have to have had an understanding for both the recipient of the bullying and the bully. In order for me to have been satisfied, I would have not wanted the kids who bullied me to be condemned or harshly judged, or "bullied" by adults, but rather I would have liked a mutual understanding and respect to have been presented and created, where learning and growth could occur. Understanding is key to all of life's challenges. Our understanding takes us beyone the specifice perspective which painful experiences leave us with. I do not accept that bullying has to have long term or worse, life long affects. As an adult, and because of my commitment to overcome, learn, grow and change, I not only understand myself - in terms of my familial experiences and how I presented myself, and how to overcome the impact, but I also better understand those who bullied me and recognize that they too were in equal or even greater pain, conflict, or whatever term one wishes to use, based on his specific circumstance in life. Kids are not born bullies. They are responding to something very specific within their own circumstances.

I don't claim to have everyone else's answers, since each of us has an individual path, but I do wholeheartedly believe that each of us have within us the ability to overcome challenges, despite how seemingly overwhelming or insurmountable. However, these answers come from within the individual. These days, I honestly believe that while it is not always the case, the mental health industry can very well become an obstruction to solutions. The labels, disorders, conditions, and predetermined and often inaccurate assesment of a person, which is based on some "case study", rather than based on the individual, can guide a person away from himself, and therefore, his solutions.

I am the last person to minimize one's pain or experience, but I admittedly am the first one to defy the conventional perspective that people require diagnosis and subsequent medication, or need to embrace long term/life long depression/pain/hurt as a result of an experience, which being bullied is an experience. We have the choice to interpret is as permanently negative or to interpret it as something we can provide a purpose to and make it positive, without denying, dismissing, or invalidating the hurt from that experience - hurt that can be something of the past, and the present can include growth, understanding and a new, amore fullfilling interpretation can be taken with us toward our future.

To the dismay of many, I am grateful for my combined experiences, indluding those of being bullied. I don't say it because I dismiss how "wrong" it is or because I think it should be tolerated. I say it because my bullying and the subsequent pain, desolation, conflict of it was really an extension of feelings and challenges from within my home life, which pre-existed being bullied. I was able to learn from the bullying and take a closer look at myself because of it. And I did ultimately come face to face with some who bullied me. I did not blame, attack, condemn, or judge those individuals. I used the understanding that accompanied my resolution of other challenges and my commitment to strive toward being all that I can and offered it to the individuals who once "tormented" me. In most circumstances, retaliation or vindictiveness is not a solution. While we each have a right to express ourselves and rid ourselves of frustration and "hate" or pain, we don't have a right (nor is it a step toward inner peace) to impose it on another human being, even if that human being was someone who belittled, ridiculed, tormented, or beat us up. Resolution comes from understanding. Understanding come from being honest with oneself. I did not ignore my deep and profound frustrations that came about from being bullied, amon other things. I created circumstances where I vented those feelings, physically and mentally rid myself of those feelings, which in turn, created a space for understanding to occupy. I could go into more specifics about how I resolved my own personal issues - without professional help, but it would take up too much space and time. My main point here is that despite what conventional methods tell us, we are not destined or required to suffer long term or for the rest of our lives for something which in reality, is perfectly within our reach to overcome permanently.

I am deeply sorry for those of you who have been bullied. I do understand how painful, desolate, it feels and how it can compel us to judge ourselves as negatively and harshly as how we feel those who bully us. Please do not interpret this as some sort of intolerance to your pain. I have felt that pain - deeply and profoundly. I just hope that reading this will somehow loosen the grip that those painful experiences have on you and above all else, help you to recognize your entitlement, ability and deservedness to be free of those feelings.

I know exactly the situation faced my many in schools. The entire system of school forces association with individuals that otherwise you would be able to adequately avoid. It's punishment and procedures are almost perversely designed to entrap the victim. I feel I would have been far better of having never been to one.

For some reason I just never ever feel comfortable talking about what happened. I can't even do it anonymously here. Not that it is anything unusual or overly extreme. I just can't discuss it. I always feel embarrassed or ashamed. I do believe it permanently alters the way your brain processes and reacts to the world as it often happens at such crucial formative years.

You can get better. But I don't think I will ever be what is thought of as "normal". I used to feel intimidated just walking down the road. I would become completely concourse of how I was walking or moving and terrified I would be mocked for it. I never developed any personality or taste in music till my late teens because whatever I liked I felt would be ridiculed. The same with fashion too. I became depressed and felt there was no point in doing anything just for me. Everything seemed pointless.

But I also know because of the things I have managed to achieve or do I have grate courage. Unlike ordinary people who wouldn't feel terrified I know I have had overcome great anxiety. And so I know I have had to face fear end stress they have never needed too. An attitude of fu*k it and do it anyway as well as not giving a dam if it all goes wrong helps. I'm not sure if that is really healthy. But while I can overcome it and so do things even when I have managed it many times it never goes away completely. Like being scared of motorway driving. I did it. All day. I was good at it. But if I got in a car now a drove to one I would still be scared until i got on it and was doing it again. I would still have to say fu*k it and just do it. Even though I know I can.

That sort of thing is what makes me think I will always have this lingering over me to cope with. It still amazes me my girlfriend finds me so attractive. That she genuinely likes me seems strange. It's unbelievably great but it shouldn't feel confusing and bazaar. I still am nervous at social occasions but instead of avoiding them and hiding away it takes me a while to get in to them instead. Just to prove it to myself I even did karaoke sober.

Life can get better. And overcoming some of my demons made me far better at dealing with things other people totally stress over. I care much less what anybody else thinks now. I am still quite antisocial and avoid interacting with people but that's better than not doing it at all.

I guess I'm still angry. And I can never forgive them. I doubt that will ever change as I the only reason too is for my own benefit and it just doesnt seem to be a good enough reason for me.

Remember you are not the only one. The world won't cave in if you help yourself. It is not a disaster if you fail at something. And if ANYONE tries to stop you making yourself better. Or ridicules you for trying. Tell them to FU*K off. You don't need people like that.

Bullying is a Killer. It is disguised by taking many forms, it is planned and carried out with the strategic mindedness of a professional. It is rarely, if ever, 'caught' and brought to justice. And people of all ages die- in the worst case-by their own hand, in most cases they wander around life like dead trees that continue to stand-lifeless. I was bullyed as most starting in 4th grade. The invitation I unintentionally displayed was a weight issue. As others with this same issue well know, bullying brought on by a weight issue never ends-ever. Starting in 4th grade, bullying consisted of learning how to be totally by myself in school- kids would play the pick a number game to see who would have to sit next to the fat girl in lunch, in gym actual shouting matches between team captins took place infront of the gym teacher, over which team would be stuck with the fat girl. Being home brought no relief. We lived in the country, there were no neighbors, my parents were unable to assist or support in any way. Once having mentioned the situation to my mother, I was told the story of her high school bullying experiences and suddenly our places were exchanged- I became her support for all her bad experiences, and continue to be that support today. After this I never said another word about anything. Both parents then and now have always said "We never have to worry about Cindy- she knows how to take care of herself" From 4th grade until graduation, bullying was equivalent to daily vitamins. There is no exaggeration here. The pool of potential bullies is so vast and varied it truely never stops. Classmates, work associates, total adult strangers, family members are all contributers. Enough for a lifetime. I try hard to forget these events but most are stuck, burned in for what seems to be forever.

4th grade: from the unfortunate who picked the low number- "Hey Cindy, do ya think if ya poked yourself with a pin all that fat would leak out!" and a whole side of the lunch room joined in the fun.

7th grade: From an unknown locker artist- a road-like caution sign beautifully drawn with a large moose on it saying " Caution Moose Crossing"

9th grade: Swimming, getting weighed to find the right color bathing suit (color indicated size e.g.; blue-skinny, green-skinnier...) As I stepped on the scale with my face down so no on could see me cry, the gym teacher laughed and called over to her assistant- a student from the class (in a green suit) saying "209lbs- Good god hurry up and get the black suits before she gains anymore weight!" 48 other voices joined the laughter.

18yrs. old on vacation. Going on a trail ride at a horse ranch. The man who gave everyone a leg up looked over at me making the entertaining remark "Oh lord- give me a break" Fellow trail riders enjoyed the entertainment. Once in the saddle, he looked up at me and said "you know, you'd almost be pretty if you weren't so damn fat."

24yrs. old: showing the one and only somewhat friend I had ever had, my new swim suit. She herself slender and lovely, took one look at my thighs and in an utterly mystified way said "My god, how did you get your thighs so huge? Do you mind if I grab some?"

I am over 40 now and the effects are still as strong as the moment the words were spoken. I have developed an eating disorder, trust no one, know many people but have no friend or friends. Everything I do or make or think or say disgusts me, while at the same time those around me would indicate the opposite. But who will be next in line with a comment- the person I say a polite hello to everyday, my co-worker, the grocery store clerk, a gas station attendent, a neighbor- because there is always a 'next' and I have the feeling there always will be a next. I don't hold out much hope for learning the types of techniques mentioned in your atricle- although I do agree with nearly everything else. While some people have been cruel -how could so many people be wrong? I have the feeling they can't.

Thanks for writing this article and for the comments. It really has made me feel better that I'm not the only person in the world that had a terrible time in school. I was bullied by a narcisstic mother who felt that I was wrong at home and grandparents who insisted I was never meant to be born. Then after 3rd year I changed in school it was the other kids who teased me about my ethnicity. I was the outcast and they made sure that I knew it by writing racial slurs on anything they could get their hands on. To this day I can't believe that I am what ethnicity I am when I look in the mirror. It's disconcerting to look at pictures of myself. I changed schools again in 7th year and the teasing turned into the mean girls stuff. Pushing down the stairs, being called names, homosexual remarks because I wasn't developing, teased because I like science (I'm a girl). I became a different person during that time. Angry, defensive, cocky, and depressed all at the same time. I had a complete break at 17 and transferred again where more problems occured. I met an abusive boy who strung me out of whatever diginity I had left and made me feel absolutely worthless. I've almost split into two people and to this day (20) I'm having issues with this (the original me who loved life and the angry person who stops everything original me tries to do). Don't know where things will end up but life isn't going anywhere at the moment. Every little thing social rejection triggers a bad reaction. I started crying because some young teens laughed that I was scared of this big dog that came running barking at me. I almost punched someone because they muttered why I was wearing sandals with pants (kicked a tree instead). There was a class in uni that the girls purposely didn't call on me (roundtable discussion lead by the class). It hit me so bad I withdrew the whole semester and I took the next semester off because it just tore me up inside. It's dumb I know but .... can't stop. Therapy don't work...but I'm hoping to move to a new city in a diff country next year...a chance for a new start to rebuild myself.

A news article came across our desk today regarding a Finnish research study linking early bullying experience to later life psychiatric conditions. Readers of this essay may want to check it out: Scars of Bullying Linger

It is such an important topic and it seems that very few are truly interested in the subject itself, let alone take the time to write about it in a manner that shows not only an understanding of the effects of being bullied, teased and taunted, but with compassion for the victims as well.

I would PRAY with all my might that somehow, someday, the Dr.s, and mental health "professionals" who are so quick to stick a mental illness label on anyone, will be educated enough to know, that by doing so, can almost be the last straw for those who's live's have been profoundly effected in every way by being bullied.

Being teased, taunted and bullied most definitely causes the most negative of emotions to be felt by the victim, however, maybe it's time for some new diagnosis....a trauma victim would be simple enough without the negative stigma that the mental health diagnosis hold.

I was teased and taunted everyday of my life since I can remember (literally). I now have three daughters who are going through the same teasing and taunting. I have many doubts that my oldest, who is now 17, will actually survive it.

It is too much for me to write about my experiences and the impact they've had on my life, but, I would like to add that in my entire lifetime of 42 years, the most painful, and thus the worst "bullying" of all that I have experienced came from ADULTS. The worst coming from an adult family member who is a RN, who used a facial difference that is hereditary in our family, as a means to imply that we were mentally ill, her statement was very clear that she was trying to say that we were "crazy" without actually using that exact term. Her goal? To help her Brother in law, my ex, get custody of my two youngest children. Although her sickening attempt did not work (in fact, she made his case worse) due to the rebuttal from the Chief Pediatrician and Head Genetic Specialist at Children's in Seattle.....she was able to cause the most harm of anyone to date. Her words have caused my immediate family (my children and self) immeasurable and irreparable damage.

Getting help? Getting better? In our situation this seems highly unlikely considering that it would be the people we would normally trust to help, the health care professionals, are the ones who we now trust the least.

It saddens me to think that those who have had it the hardest of all, you will never hear from, because those people are no longer with us.

I was subjected to 18 months of bullying at senior school. Mostly mental abuse in the form of name calling and people not talking to me. On a couple of occasions I was nearly pushed down the stairs by older girls and one girl had me by the throat over a banister. What I couldn't get my head around at the time was that it was mostly from people I didn't even know, hadn't grown up with. I was an only child and was never one for being 'part of the crowd' and had more of a sensitive nature. Did this mean I should be bullied???? Thinking back, this probably set me apart from the minority who knowingly bullied. I experienced anxiety and weight loss and lost so much weight people didn't even bully any more because I probably looked so ill. I felt I was achieving something by losing the weight because it stopped the bullying! Only one teacher out of the whole school had any understanding of bullying and the effects this could have on an individual. The rest were a waste of time and not long out of teacher training college themselves. My parents had always been supportive and loving and knew there was something wrong, but for 18 months I didn't feel I could tell anyone. I told them because I had come to the end of the road. Not suicidal but completely 'done in' and exhausted from putting on a front. My parents were horrified that this had been going on.

I am 40 this year and happily married. The way the bullying made me feel is something I will never forget. It is said you can forgive but not forget. I would still have to work very hard on that one because these things can run very deep. However I still believe some things happen for a reason. I am a sensitive loving person, but have a very strong exterior which I have gained through the bullying. It is not something I will never condone, but it is something which I think will always be around because we are human and all different.

Hi everyone, Ive read this article and its brilliant. I was also bullied as a child an am now studying to be a counsellor, in which im now doing my dissertation on the long term effects of school bullying. If anyone would be kind enough to email me (annar1984@hotmail.co.uk) and answer one of my questionnaires that would be fantastic, also mark i would like to contact you if you would be so kind.

One of the things my Dad would say when I came home crying was "buck Up, your making them not like you" Yeah ok dad. I am sixteen now and was sexually abused from 3-5 then I went to school and from 5-16 have been bullied constantly. I agree with the physical part not hurting as badly as the words. I am suicidal,and believe if it all never happened I would be happier and a better person.I want to go to college and become something, but we are very poor, but I will still try.

I never fit in at school myself, and there were certainly times when I was teased and ostracized; though I was never physically beat up.

In the eighth grade, four of my best friends stopped speaking to me when my parents divorced. Two of them did it because they did not know how to deal with me because I really was a troubled kid, and I don't really blame them for that. But the others shunned me because they just didn't want to be seen with me; I was too much of an embarrassment for their appearance-oriented families. I think their parents told them not to play with me any more.

Many years later, one of those snots actually emailed me; saying she found me through Google. I did not answer her email. I had completely written those girls off a long time ago.

Some of my other ex-classmates emailed me too, and I didn't respond to them either. I completely ignored them. Over the years, I occasionally ran into some of my ex-classmates on the street, and I would pretend I didn't remember them. When I told one of them this, she said: "Well, I remember you." I think she suspected I was lying. I don't care.

None of these people would give me the time of day when I went to school with them. All they did was snub me because I wasn't a cheerleader, or stoner, or a "brain," or fit in any of the established high school cliques. I will never understand why, after all these years, they seemed to want to befriend me now. I have no interest in them. I don't give a fuck about any of them. I don't care what any of them think of me.

When I was in high school, I would turn myself out, wondering what was wrong with me that I couldn't seem to have friends like normal people. I tried very hard to fit in. Eventually, I gave up because no matter what I did, no one would accept me. So I just stopped taking high school seriously. Of course, I still studied, since I had to make decent grades. But for me, school was just this place where I was stuck having to go and never wanted to be. I went there because I had to, never because I wanted to. I would call school a prison, but (thank God) I didn't have to be there 24/7.

I had always hated cliques and "mean girls." If any of them want to gang up on me and diss me, they can do it as much as they want. As long as they're out of my life, as long as I don't have to associate with any of of them, that's all I care about.

For me, the bullying began at the age of 11, when I began high school, and continued until I left at 16. The bullying was never physical (although there were threats at times), it was all verbal. It began by being accused of taking drugs, due to the heavy bags under my eyes. This continued for a year until it gradually changed to taunts about my personal hygiene. What didn't help was the fact that I had a fairly poor upbringing, being raised only by my Mother (my Father visiting occasionally), who never really taught me about personal hygiene when I was a child, and it's her who I feel the most hatred towards. She also believed that the school I attended was perfect and things such as bullying never occurred there.

As the taunts continued, I felt myself become more and more withdrawn. I made very little effort in class, I felt even teachers targeted me in class too, certainly asking me more questions than anyone else, or placing me in awkward situations which inevitably embarrassed me in front of other students. Despite this, my academic performances were not all bad, and there were good, sometimes excellent grades, only this would sometimes lead to even more hostility from students, who couldn't accept it when I achieved more than I obviously should have done in their eyes, and this included so-called friends of mine.

By the time I reached 14, the stress I was feeling led to thoughts of suicide. In the end I never actually attempted this, but looking back, it was the suicidal thoughts that acted as a refuge, a potential escape route where I said to myself that if it ever became too much, I could take my own life, and I knew how it would affect the people who were making my life a misery. These thoughts came to a head when I turned 16 and things at home had taken a turn for the worse. My Mother had suffered a breakdown and had walked out from her job (I also worked there at weekends) and with my final exams on the horizon, it became an even bigger struggle to cope. No-one at school knew what was happening at home and the taunts continued. Sometimes I wonder if I should have spoken to a teacher about the problems I was encountering at home, but by now I didn’t know who to trust.

The final situation I had to deal with at school was an incident when several students in my year, who were stood at the other end of the playground during lunchtime, decided to throw stones, as well as broken bricks at me and some friends of mine, one of which struck a student on the back of his head, drawing blood. During the next lesson a teacher visited the classroom I was in and asked everyone if they knew who had been throwing missiles in the playground. I had no hesitation in giving names, although I assumed at the time I was doing this in confidence. But of course when it came to trust, I should have known better, and the teacher duly informed the perpetrators that I had given their names.

Throughout the rest of the day, I was subjected to threats and abuse. Then, the next day, it stopped. By now there were only a few weeks of school left with just final exams to take, but within those final weeks there were no more taunts or abuse. Perhaps blowing the whistle on the individuals who threw the missiles made them realise I wasn’t afraid of them, or maybe they simply wanted to concentrate on exams themselves. I should also point out that no action was taken against the individual who threw a brick at the student who was injured as a result.

Once I began college, the bullying stopped, but the residual effects are still (and always have been) present. Despite holding professional qualifications in catering, computer programming, Business Analysis and Design, with degrees in Earth Sciences and Computer Science, a certified IQ of 142, as well as competing in several marathons, I still live with my Mother, and externally I have little to show for what I have achieved. On top of all that, last year I entered into an Independent Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) to help pay off debts I had accumulated due to a failed business. I’m also in a job which I hate and isn’t relevant to any of my qualifications.

Personally I’ve never had a real relationship, and I have very few friends, as I feel like I attract the wrong kind of friends all the time. After failing to finish an Ironman Triathlon a few weeks ago, it has made me look at my life and what has gone wrong. Until recently, I had buried the experiences I endured at school, but after joining sites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited, and seeing the names and faces of people who made my life a misery at school, I have been reminded of what happened during that time. But I now realise where all the problems stem from. The fact I had a bad childhood at home is a major factor in how I am today, but the miserable time I had at school has also had a major effect. I know I still face an uphill battle but I feel after years of burying this issue, I’m facing up to why my life isn’t as good as it should be.

Bullying is one of the most underestimated issues that are in schools today. Many people, even psychologists dont know the long term effects of bullied children. Im 26 years old, still live w/ my parents, and Im barely making it in the profession that I am in. People at work are telling me that I need more confidence. I have been through traumatic experiences in grade school, high school, and college and the worst part is is that NOBODY UNDERSTANDS, not even psychologists. Not even family. Family will blame me for my low self-esteem without even realizing what has caused it in the first place. Its like I am being blamed for having lack of self confidence. This article hit the issue head on. But its up to us to do something about it. We cant fix our past but we can prepare for our future. Its hard, but Im trying to get all the help I could get. I am a Christian and I started getting into the word of God. I say postitive self- affirmations to myself almost everyday. It has helped a little bit, but little by little i can just feel my self-esteem getting restored. I just have this hope that one of these days, i know that i will be self-confident in myself.

Good article on stopping bullying over at slate.com - Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. - Aug 14th 2009

There's a good article about how to stop bullying that is occurring *now* over at slate that some people may want to look at:

The main author is psychologist Alan Kazdin, Ph.D. - a past president of the APA

I've found this article very informative. Problem is although it does render a better perspective it's difficult to say weather it actually helps. (Please don't take this the wrong way) but looking back I had a moment to act (and get vicously beaten or just badly beaten as I in fact was) and I didn't. There isn't a day goes by where I don't wish I had been braver or just done something (ANYTHING), emotionally that would have at least been a psychological ledge to hold on to. I didn't. Since those events many years ago most of my live has been spent replaying them, acting out things I would have done differently. Of course I've done other things but it's always there waiting in the wings for a quiet moment.

I go a bit glazed, some times audably snigger and mumble to myself as I replay and this time (secretly) I win. I have regained a modicom of self confidence on my own, thanks in no small part to my love of making things (I may perceive myself to have little worth but the things I make do. Simple maths stipulates that 1 cannot come from 0, therefore I have worth Q.E.D.).

Still I have this knawing feeling (sitting here, back in time travelling emotional replay mode, AGAIN) that I would have been a hell of a lot better if all of this hadn't have happened in the first place.

I have a daughter now, and as a father it is my duty to teach her that actions have consequences. It is also my duty to teach her that inaction can have emotional consequences that follow you around for the rest of your natural life.

Just read the story, the comments, and that additional blurb "Why I Won't Be Going to my High School Reunion." This is going to sound strange, but it's been both helpful to me to know I am not alone in this, but also sad for me to see how many people are affected. Sounds impossible, but that's the best way I can explain it.

It seems I was bullied since the first grade, where I was the only minority in an otherwise all-white private Catholic school. I was pretty much excluded, ignored. Then in public school the bullying got bad right around the 7th or 8th grade, and continued onward.

I just realized how ironic this is, but I think in high school there were two episodes that I'm still working through today (I'm 29). One was with boys who could not stand to see me without shouting how ugly and undesirable I am (supposedly... ha!) Since I was fiercely smart, a common joke was, "If you give me all the answers to the test I'll go out with you."

Another instance in high school was with a lesbian who was in the same grade as I. I've told my therapist about this individual and she said it sounds like this lesbian is a textbook borderline personality. This girl was a "friend" of mine until the age of 16, when she started seriously coming on to me. When I decided enough was enough I pushed her away (emotionally) and began ignoring her. She went schizoid and began stalking me and members of my family, threatened to kill me, began every nasty rumor imaginable about me and turned all our common friends against me and into pawns that would do her dirty work.

Like the man who wrote the blurb about why he won't be going to his high school reunion, at least one of these "common friends" I had with this crazy lesbian has e-mailed me through various social networks wondering why I stopped speaking to her. Like the author of the blurb I wonder what the hell is wrong with her...? How dare she. The best thing that ever happened was for me to get rid of people like her in my life.

Someone said here that she does not believe the bullies ever think about her. Think again. For a bully, his/her whole pathetic life centers around the enjoyment of torturing their victims. For example: I ran into one of the guys from high school who used to shout across the hallway how ugly I am, and how he'd never want me. I was at the store shopping. He was at the store stocking shelves. He repeatedly tried to get my attention, while other store workers looked on and laughed. I couldn't think of what to do so I continued ignoring him and made like I didn't remember him.

Am I supposed to be impressed that this idiot is in his late twenties, stocking shelves at a retail store? He seems too old to be doing that kind of job. I can't help but wonder if he's mildly retarded. There's really not a single bully from high school... all those guys who thought they were so cool.... none of them are doing much with their lives today. I hope they had fun in high school because the rest of their life is gonna suck!

Again... I'm 29... heterosexual (just to make that clear) going to graduate school. I'm far from being interested in some nut stocking shelves at the local Target or some other nut who now drives a UPS truck. THEY are the REAL losers!!

I'm working on building self-confidence as well as my ability to form relationships. I come from a dysfunctional family so this has not been easy... I wish everyone on their own personal road to recovery the best of luck as they discover who they were born to be!

As others have aptly stated here... it could be worse... YOU could be the bully!

After reading your article, I realize exactly the long term implications of bullying. I succumbed to being bullied for about 9 years. I have low self esteem, anxiety and depression problems. I yearn to want to belong but never seem to belong anywhere. I'm always the one apologizing and basically excusing my existence. I never have felt good enough. I can't seem to establish friendships or hold onto jobs. Of course, I always blame myself. Dr. Phil comments that abuse changes the person you could have been. Yes, I probably could have been okay if there was some assistance as there is today. Although I have extreme difficulty fixing my life, I hope that early intervention prevents others from becoming like me.

I was bullied when I was 12 years old, and it went on for years until I finish the 3rd year of junior high school and go to high school. I never notice this long-term effect of bullying until I read your long-term effect of bullying points. OMG, they're matching! Since then, I was bullied over and over up until now.....maybe about 5 times or more, and by different people/group of people. I always thought it's because my personality is really bad, I don't know why and I just think that maybe I am that ugly-hearted as a person.

Now that I found out the main source of my problem, I believe I can achieve better quality of life if I can break myself free from this long-term effects.

Can someone please help me to find out how to shake this long-term effect of bullying? I am in tight-budget now, and I don't think I can afford therapy by myself since I'm still studying in a university and can't find a work now with my condition(hyper-sensitive, thin-skinned, negative view of herself, bullied over and over by different people, low confidence, and many more). I am broke, on the verge of adulthood yet too afraid of fail finding a job, and I don't know if I can manage myself.

My other soiurce of problem is, my parents are one of those who think going to "shrink" is shameful and embarassing (I don't think I can change them) so they won't give me the financial needed to go to a therapy, so I need quick help maybe in the form of online group of therapy?

When I ask my mother that maybe I need to see a psychiatrist she said it's unnecessary- as long as I'm strong hearted and willed then I dont need to see one, means she will never let me go to a psychiatrist as long as I'm still in her debt.

I really need a chance to heal, but I don't know how. I really want to break free from this chain- being bullied over and over repeatedly will destroy me and makes me think of myself as maybe I am that bad as a person.....please help me.

It took me until 17 to realise I was a shy introvert due to pretty much most of the bullying experiences in the above article I have suffered from to a certain degree apart from suicide thoughts and familly bullying (god forbid) and for anyone who has, God bless you against these scum people. shyness yes, partially, but introversion no which in a way made me feel more comfortable about myself in a very small way along with a very very small close circle of genuine friends who understand me but not nesaccerily have me as their top priorities. However I am still very socially anxious above the majority and lacking in confidence.

As i hopefully get a place in uni next year im not sure how to go about it socially. Should I go with the "I stand for what i believe in (difference) what I do, say, react etc etc regardless of if im the most unpopular person there, or if im still bullied for years to come" hopping (but not fully convinced) that I will gain quality really close naturing friends where in the short term be a laughing stock but be happier further down the line (again not fully convinced) or just be stuck in the same position as of now.

Or do I go with the mentallity "I will push myself beyong belief to take risks, say and do things way out my comfort zone to conform (e.g. regular parties of the unknown)" Where in the short term go through stress, on edge and seen as very wierd and in the long term hopefully (once again not fully convinced) become popular and gain gain quality really close naturing friends (perhaps conforming is the only way) aswell as casual friends where i become confident and get included far more socially or which may make it even worse then it is at the moment socially.

I'm now 36 and was badly bullied from age 5- 15 or so. The worst time was at age 12/13. The whole class would gang up and make sure I hadn't got a chair to sit on etc. I would dread school with the constant being put down, name-calling, spitting, threats, being locked in the toilets, pushed and publically humiliated. Then at home my father and 2 sisters would also gang up on me and make me feel small and like a rubbish person. I was made to feel completely unattractive, worthless- a common class joke would be about taking me out on a date.

Thinking about it i think I definitely had Learned Helplessness going on- I never even thought of running away or doing anything dramatic which makes me cross at myself now. Why didn't I? Why did I sit there lkie a stupid sheep and take the abuse? But my mother taught at the same school (which was one issue I was bullied about) and we had been so well-trained to behave and not answer back, not show emotions really.

When I left school and went to uni I tried to reinvent myself and completely discard the old me. I would tell myself that that had been a different person. I couldn't stand having been a victim. Instead I went out alot and had sexual experiences and took drugs. I thought I was confident and coping- of course I wasn't, I was still acting in response to the bullying; trying to prove something to them. I started to suffer very badly from depression and also developed anorexia.

As an adult I have suffered serious depression and am on long-term medication. Also I still have long-term eating problems and body dysmorphia. I work as a psychiatric nurse and sometimes can feel I do a good job but my confidence is still fragile. I have not managed really to have long-term emotionally intimate relationships- I isolate myself through my behaviour and feel terrified of people getting close, yet am also very lonely. I still can feel pathetic for having been a 'victim'. At the same time a lot of the feelings I had then seem to be lost or cut-off. I can't really relate to it very well emotionally. But I do not cope very well with bullies - it sets off bad reactions in me.

I am about to start Cognitive Analytic therapy. I hope I can make some changes. I don't give up. I see a future- there are things to be changed in this world and I can make a difference to them even if I can't massively change the way I am. I am a sensitive person and I am glad that I am these days.

I was bullied by the same group of girls from 1st grand through 8th grade. I now have an anxiety disorder. I began ticking in the 3rd grade and since the age of 10 I have had severe TMJ as a result of clenching my teeth from nightmares. These girls hated me. I was "not allowed to be friends" with certain girls. I had secret friends who pledged their alligence to the ring leader. I had mothers making fun of me. I was a cute little girl. I was just different; creative and small and boys liked me. I was naturally athletic and good at almost anything I attempted but I could not be liked for anything. One day during recess in the 3rd grade I was taunted around the entire playground w/ a cheer that the girls had made up about me with all sorts of nasty mean things. I had an intervention the next day w/ all of the girls in the psychologists office. It did not work. The long term effects are horrible. What kills me is that I seriously doubt any of those girls even think twice about me or the damage they caused. I am now a very nervous person, I fail to attach to people for fear of getting hurt, I am numb to most feelings, I am very reserved. I have always said that in the 3rd grade I aged 20 years. I have since had a knowledge about people and who they are. I feel that I am wise beyond my years. It is a good thing I suppose but it has turned me into a very untrusting person. I am very unhappy and I long to be able to walk with my head up and not staring at the ground on which I walk.

I am so glad to have come across this article and realize I'm not alone. I'm 36 and was bullied from 3rd grade through the 10th grade. Hard to know when the bullying really stopped though, because I had changed myself so completely by that time and had purposely isolated myself to a point where lack of active bullying didn't really signify that it had gone away. I became an expert at making myself disappear.

At first the bullying had to do with my weight--I'm a girl, and the tormenting began about the time I started to grow and develop more (I was tall and chubby, but not by any means fat at the time). The bullies were girls and boys, hard to tell which were worse--they had different techniques and different areas of emphasis. Day after day after day for months and years I was repeatedly told how ugly, fat, nasty and dirty I was, how no one liked me, that my parents were ashamed of me, etc. The only decent trait they let me have was my intelligence, and it's not like any of them cared about that.

When you are told such things often enough, they have a tendency of becoming true, and even if they don't it is monumentally difficult to not believe them, because the picture of yourself drawn in the loudest and most obnoxious paints is the one you remember.

The bullying stopped late in high school b/c an eating disorder made me thin. However, it wrecked my health and could not be sustained, and over time my self-destructive coping choices slanted the other way, and I built a fortress of fat for myself to keep the pain out, to keep people away from me.

Even though the bullying stopped, and new people I met didn't understand why I was so hard on myself, deep, deep inside I couldn't get past the belief that I was ugly, fat, nasty and dirty. I had difficulty communicating with people. I was constantly on edge b/c I feared they would find out who the "real" me was. Of course it was no surprise that I had few friends. I tried to tell myself that was due to things about myself I believed I could fix, or due to things about my environment that could be changed, but deep, deep inside I knew it was because I was ugly, fat, nasty and dirty.

After a while I got tired of the complete sense of isolation I felt while being around people, because I felt like everyone around me understood the secret language of friendship and love and intimacy, and I just couldn't figure it out, no matter how hard I tried.

I keep trying. I keep trying. But it's like there is something terminally broken deep down inside of me that can't be fixed, no matter how hard I try.

I feel like if someone could just tell me what to do, I might be able to change my life, but I'm really losing hope.

I was bullied as a child by my brother, life was actually really good for me at first but the green eyed monster took over and he gave me hell.

from being a really bright, popular, happy child i became introverted, unhygenic and of course a victim for the jealous kids who had hated my popularity in the first place.

my brother would whack me, verbally abuse me and sadly force me to carry out sexual acts on him so as to control and demean me.

the bullying carried on throughout my teenage life and whilst i verged on suicide i decided to pull myself together and try and make something of my life.

i did okay, i now have a wife and 2 beautiful boys but i am still haunted by my teenage life which was stolen from me by people who just totally victimised me.

last year i confronted my brother (30 years on!) and he would not apologise, instead he became aggressive, angry and very spiteful to me; in the end i gave up with him.

i did track down one of the bullies at school (turned out he had also raped my first love at school when she was 21) and i sent him a xmas card delighting in how my life had gone. his though had gone terribly, he had recently been to court for various acts of animal cruelty, i ran into the story on the bbc news website!

of course i printed it off and sent it to him with the card telling him how he who laughs last laughs the longest...it was a shame i never got to see him open it but the joy off doing it took so much of my shoulders.

i have had my trousers ripped from me and forced to walk home in my pants, beaten up without provocation, verbally called queer when i was young when i was'nt and on and on and on...yes i am still very angry and bitter but this site has made me realise that there are others out there and it is right turn the anger on the bullies not yourselves.

they already controlled your life once...dont let them do it again is now my motto!

I've been on the end of abuse from bullies throughout my schooldays and college thereafter. I can't stress more strongly that people, like me, who've been on the end of bullying must get deep in touch with our anger that we've been turning against ourselves all these years and turn it out against the perpetrators of these crimes.

I've seen it all before. Bully targets a victim, gets others around them frightened and turns them into henchmen who they can use to accumulate more force and backup. True bullies are often of above average intelligence and work like chess masters in developing and maintaining a sick strategy game.

Here's the real problem! Most people, either deliberately or unwittingly are actually playing along with this game. We are all victims of bullying on some level, whether it be coercion by media and advertising to amass more needless possessions in keeping up with manufactured fads. Or becoming enslaved by religious institutions and forced to believe in their dogma; becoming hypocrites in the process. There are a million and one ways in which people are controlled and the only real solution is to become aware of them and consciously break the rules that they enforce. I admit that this takes some real courage and that, at times, courage runs counter to immediate survival but it's so vital to overcome the fear which these evil sub humans instil in us. Sadly, if we don't develop this courage then we will never defeat the evil in this world and don't stand much chance of recovery ourselves.

An example of how I have defeated some (sadly not all) bullies within my lifetime is using violence unexpectedly. I've always been a peaceful person who loathes wanton cruelty and violence but in spite of this I have managed to corner some bullies back in my schooldays by catching them on their own. In doing this I had to be prepared to use actual physical violence to the extent of inflicting serious injury, and be totally ready for anything they could give back. Some kid who used to make fun of my acne on the school bus on the way home had it coming to him when I followed him down a cul-de-sac and ambushed him from behind a garage. I have to admit that laying punch after punch into him and watching him break down in tears was really quite a satisfying experience. He had got his just deserts and would hopefully think twice before trying those same antics again.

Some people who want peace may not agree with a violent reaction to an oppressor but all I can say in response is that you are deluding yourself in this respect. True peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the presence of a continuing movement for justice. A true bully will never give you peace! They don't want to make up with you and become your friend unless they can make use of you as another weapon in their arsenal to intimidate other potential victims. Would you really want to go the way of weak minded idiots who are bullied into becoming the bullies themselves? I have seen this happen and I'm sad to say it has 'almost' happened to me in the past, but now I choose to take a 'hard line' against anyone who attempts to victimise me or others who I see being bullied.

The worst thing to do is to stand back and watch. This is the precise attitude that has resulted in the death of 6 million Jews in WWII, the continuing apartheid in South Africa, the ongoing oppression of the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip and many more global atrocities.

Bullies, whether on the world stage, in the home, on the street, in the office or in the playground must all face stubborn resistance and be subjected to the harshness that they have so liberally shown to others. This is unlike the philosophy of many so called religious people who advocate forgiveness but are only ever forgiving to those more powerful then them. A sycophant like this is effectively being cruel to the innocent by being kind to the guilty. Sounds like trademark hypocrisy to me. Please never become lulled into a false sense of security by people who are only concerned with using you for their own ends. Please develop a hard line form of justice against bullies and together we might eventually put a stop to their vile cruelty once and for all.

My husband was bullied from 5th grade on. He displays obssessive behaviors and seems addicted to a certain type of online site. States he uses it to fill this void he has , that the response he gets from the indiviuals on these sites kind of allows him to feel like he's the "Big man" on campus so to speak. Allows him to be the way he wished he was back then. That it makes him feel accepted. Problem being it makes me feel like dirt about myself. I'm doing my best to understand it but it's difficult. He also lied about alot of his life to me. Says he was afraid I would think he was a loser and would'nt be interested in him if I had know the real truth of how he had no friends. I've been with a man for 14yrs and just found out I don't know him. Kids are horrible and cruel. I love him and I want to work through this but I need to know from others who experinced bullying if this is common. I'm asking for help so I can understand and learn how to help him. I have two children with this man and love him dearly but our marriage is suffering. Please reply. I'd be forever grateful.

Bullying can indeed lead to some long term damage. I am 25 ( dutch ) but still filled with anger about those days.

When I joined that school I was typical nerd-type of guy I was silent, didn’t have much social skills and wasn’t particularly strong.

However since I did a higher type of education in my country so I wasn’t in a bad class, still I was the main target in my school during break time and traveling to school. Eventually I lost interest in real life events and did more things I liked to do like gaming and creating software. Eventually duo to this my grades got so low that eventually I dropped from highest to highest to lowest of lowest form of education.

There my life became upmost horror, I was the outcast of the class and I now had to spend time with same type of people that bullied me around in break time. I have to say that those days were pretty hard. I was trying to survive day by day which was doable at first I tried fighting back but nothing seemed to help. All I could do was resist and give some bite full comments back once a while since I wasn’t stupid those days I could think about 1 or 2 things to sneer back. Eventually though I kind of gave up and just held on the thought of completing education as best as possible so I could go to higher ladder of education.

I never had the courage to fight back but they didn’t have the courage to fight me either because of my sneers eventually it just remained at taunting me what seemed endlessly, the girls were more a problem those days they started rumors about me being gay and those rumors traveled must farther and had more detailed lies than that of the guys. And it didn’t feel properly to address them for that with anger but I now had old friends asking me if I was gay.

Finally I finished school with high grades of course and moved to the middle class type education ( bachelor level ) but the damage had been done despite me feeling great in those days

I became semi-attractive and even got a few flirts at start of that education ( I was bit older than rest and my body was in good shape ) but those moments soon ended after a girl tried to steal my agenda in playful matter.

I just snapped and pushed her so hard she was tossed through the hallway, I was filled with disgust of what I had done I wanted to apologize to her but a good guy from school went to her protection and wanted to beat me up in her defense of course he went down with same ease. I apologized to the girl and the guy ( of course those 2 got a relation with each other ) later in the office of the school director. Despite the apologies my name in the new school was set, at least I was never teased again though but at the price of never being able to enter any circle other than that of a group of nerd like guys I used to be myself 2. At least my status could protect them from same behaviour and eventually group was accepted an none the guys got bullied upon..

Between that and now I managed to get at least one girlfriend but she dumped me for my friend saying I was to insecure and since then I just feel like my heart is been replaced by something else.

Later I found out that bullying is a tactic to move attention from a scared individual to another person ( basically meaning that most bullies ( older ones ) are also not very secure people themselves and often were bullied upon themselves that’s why my sneers kept most of them at bay and when I met them when they were alone they would act like they did not see me )

I am doing well now got into the bachelor studies (2nd year ) and my cynical behavior and remarks has its charm to some people I can luckily call my friends. The more I train my body the more the feeling of revenge is disappearing ( despite the main reason im training is still to carry out the revenge fantasy ) but I don’t feel like I’ll ever want to get into a relationship again and the feeling I might snap anytime still remains.

as a child from the time i started school until i left school i was subjected to an environment that was harsh unnurturing and unmerciful i can not remember ever being treated out of kindness the bullying i endured came from all quarters adults children and often teachers mercifully while my home life was dysfunctional it was a nurturing and loving environment and credit this as the reason i have gone on to achieve such a happy life iendured this meaness and resolved never to treat any individual in this way .I am 51yrs and come across many bullies and none of them are as happy as me.you need to be patient however it is my experience that without exception they eventually bring themselves undone.BULLIES ARE IGNORANT AND UNHAPPY INDIVIDUALS

Why I won't be at my high school reunion - Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. - Jul 18th 2009

I found a rather good blog entry on this topic of long term effects of bullying the other day which people here might want to read. It's on the scienceblogs.com website, and the title is "Very off topic: Why I won't be at my high school reunion".

I am pleased I have found this site, but what is apparent from reading the accounts of others is sadly, time is not a healer - but can make matters seem worse.

I'm 33 now and suffered badly between the ages 13-15. Very vulnerable years. I was persistantly verbally bullied by a girl gang one year above me at school. It was physical on one ocassion and I ran away from school. I remember that dark day in January very well. A group of them waited for me in a dingy corridor whilst I ate my lunch. The school was being refurbished so I had no other escape route. There were no teachers around, and three of them pushed me to the ground and then kicked me - whilst a couple of others watched on. I ran away from school and then had to confess all to my Mum. I was ashamed of what was happening to me. The school dealt with it reasonably well, and the bullying did die down. But the hostility I suffered was unbearable. I lived in a small town and was labelled a loser. I had few friends and boys were rarely interested. When I got a little older, I tried to fit in at being a 'local' but going down the town and the pubs just filled me with such anxiety I rarely went out. I had a couple of long term relationships with guys I was not in love with, just to get me away from seeing with these people and anyone associated with my past.

My expriences have left my afraid of change and meeting new people. I have been in the same job for 15 years. Like others, I often wonder what life would of been like and would I have achieved more had I never been bullied?

I sometimes see my bullies - although they ignore me now I still feel the same fear. What annoys me is they all seem to have done so well for themselves. Nice houses, husbands, kids...

I do believe in what goes around comes around though, I have not got the courage for revenge, but boy do I think about it!

Good luck everyone, I wish you all well - we are all survivors. I hope one day we can put all this behind us, where it belongs.

Hi. I have been bullied far too many times in my life, and the psychological damage that has been done to me may be irreversable. Here are some things I have experienced:

(One of the most traumatic of all) - During class in 8th grade, a bunch of guys were throwing things at me constantly, and when my teacher noticed this, she got mad at me, not them. I ran to the library and bawled my eyes out.

Even after high school, when I worked at a fast food place, I would be poked incessantly by coworkers and people would come and make fun of my voice.

Today, I often go into phases of low self-esteem, deep hatred towards people from my past, and an intense desire to get even somehow.

I have uncontrollabe feelings of loathing towards my male peers that I don't know, to the point where I shake my head in disgust.

The long term effects are very serious, and more people need to take action to prevent this. Doing so could very well save your child, or your future child's life.

This article is spot on in terms of how it describes the long term effects of bullying and how they can manifest themselves throughout a person's entire life. I was bullied to some extent at primary school and it was, in my belief, the start of many years of alienation, introversion and silent suffering. I feel that my situation back then was grossly complicated in that both of my parents were teachers at the school, (my dad being the head teacher) and they often had to be 'seen' to be fair in not showing favouritism on my behalf. This meant that in spite of feeling protected at times I would often be punished and humiliated in classroom situations when it was really quite unnecessary. I received many mixed messages from both parents and peers and in retrospect my childhood bullying followed a particular pattern of being victimised or ostracised by those who I considered as friends.

The same thing happened in my teenage years but to a greater degree. Friends would frequently turn against me as a group and I would often be the subject of humiliating remarks in front of girls, constant jibes and jeering on the school bus and some physical attacks in my home town and outside of school. It wasn't so much the punches and kicks that hurt but the effects of being angered and then forced into submission where I could do nothing but admit defeat. The feeling of being nothing more than a weak, stray animal forced to the bottom of the food chain is so extremely painful that I wouldn't wish it on anybody; or any living creature for that matter.

I never really fitted in at secondary school but found that when I put my energies into study I felt far more at home with the 'nerds' than the 'in crowd' I'd originally hung around with. Still, I aspired to fit in with everyone to some extent and never wanted to break my ties with either group. I admire the confidence and inner strength of people who have been victims but have somehow summoned the courage to stand up to and/or ignore the bullies but somehow I knew that trying to cut them out of 'my' life would only make matters much worse.

Towards the last two years of school I started binge drinking, playing truant and experimenting with drugs. Somehow I managed to do really well in my studies and this was my only real source of pride. Outside of school I'd try to spend time on my own as much as possible. I would spend evenings and weekends immersed in reading, study and listening to music but would always be up for some alternative escape with drugs or alcohol when a few of my friends/bully buddies might turn up. Needless to say that after several heavy drug binges on cannabis & certain hallucinogens I ended up having a complete breakdown at the age of 16. I wound up in a psychiatric hospital at the time I was due to Start College. At the time I didn't really know what was happening to me and needed to be sectioned. It took me several years until I was even able to leave psychiatric care.

Sixteen years have passed and I'm now 32 years old. It somehow feels like my life has been some strange sort of dream. I've embarked on several college courses and have somehow achieved two, (albeit relatively minor) qualifications. I started a University degree and dropped out due to not fitting in with the other students. I've had occasional jobs but no real career and have had no serious girlfriends as such. I live in a small one bed flat by myself, which I struggle to keep clean and tidy and fear that some day I will end up old, lonely and sick with no one to care for me.

People, including my family tell me that I need to 'try, try, try' but I have tried and it's got me f**king nowhere. I'm still here, nothing has changed, and psychiatry has failed me along with numerous others. It's my opinion that antidepressant medication does not work effectively for SERIOUS DEPRESSION. I've tried an online cognitive therapy course as well and while I admit it may be successful for some, the truth is I found it to be really quite vague, overly simplistic and at times almost patronising. There is no way that challenging your thoughts and beliefs can help when dealing with gruelling emotional upheavals and the unique and highly complex problems such as those which arise from persistent bullying, harassment, abuse etc. It's not the thinking of the victim which has to change but the way in which society at large views and deals with bullying. People who commit murder (are supposed to) spend 25 years or more in prison and yet people who have displayed the equivalent in vicious, sociopathic bullying behaviour are at worst given a slap on the wrist or are all too often actually commended in some way for this evil. I read Laura's story below and hearing about how her dad informed her that her (old bully buddy) is working in the hospital he's staying in and that she's doing great etc. I can say that I can totally empathise on that score since I've randomly bumped into a few school bullies since my school days and on hearing that they are doing ok, have good jobs etc. I seriously would like to buy them a stiff drink for their merits and lace it with cyanide. I know this is only a vengeful and far fetched fantasy but for me there is a hint of truth in it. I feel very strongly that it is of paramount importance that any society is built fundamentally upon principles of justice and that regardless of how some may tell us to forgive, forget and transcend our hurts everyone must be held wholly accountable for any amount of bullying inflicted upon another. In other words bullies must always be punished and made to feel deep shame for their actions.

I know this is a real long shot but some day in the distant future I really hope that some radical change in society may occur in order for completely new standards of behaviour to arise so that bullying in any situation will be viewed in the same way that we view paedophilia, rape and murder. In that way there will be absolutely no stigma attached to having been a victim of bullying and anyone who has been a bully (whether child or adult, woman or man, black or white etc.) will be made to feel the same sort of shame that most of us victims have been made to feel for years through no fault of our own.

During my school years (11-16yrs) I was merciless physically and mentally abused. My parents (especially mother) didn’t help as they didn’t understand/ believe the problems I had to face every day.
I was forced to go out of the house when my parents went out and often I would walk for hours in rain storms.
I walked and walked asking myself the question why me, what had I do but couldn’t work out the answers.
In my 20’s I was encouraged to get fit by a colleague and we trained for a marathon. I didn’t understand then but I was starting to take back control into my life and empower myself.
I left home and embarked on a challenging career full of mistakes and successes.
My career often seemed to stall and at the age of 31 I returned to full-time education. I was told I as bright at school but couldn’t concentrate in lessons and was always worried about how I would get home in 1 piece.
After 3 degrees including 2 career direction changes I seem to be locked in a conflict of identity. I will explain, you see I used running to empower myself to take control of my life. It gave me a physical confidence that would help me stand up to my parent and although I was never violent I managed to stop my parent using physical force towards me. Also, running using up negative mental energies that had built up in both in a self loathing way, not standing up to the bullies, and against the bullies themselves.
I am 48 now and have been through 3 knee operations and have almost given up hope of running. I have 2 issues I hate the way that people in the UK don’t look after their environments and a remnant of the Thatcher era is a dog-eat-dog culture where people are not very friendly. I hate a number of what some people call minor issues such as people parking on the pavement blocking access for wheel chair users, pram pushers. I hate people fly tipping and littering the countryside. I had a colleague who was bullied and just wanted to stand up for her. Really, I could continue forever.
My wife is fed up with my negative comments. I have to say something to point things out to these people as it seems to do not so would go against me as a person, the identity I created standing up for myself, rather than letting myself be bullied/ not heard/ not valued. I just don’t know or understand how to break out of this destructive cycle. Any help would be appreciated!

I'm so glad to have found this website. This is a subject that I've been trying to research for years, but there was not much information out there. I was a very confident girl up until the 8th grade. When the 8th grade began, I became the scapegoat of the class. One boy used to spit in my hair, and other kids would laugh. If the teacher left the room for a few minutes, the whole class would pick on me. It was a hellish year, and the only thing that kept me going was that I would start an all girls high school the following year. It would be a fresh start.

During the second week of high school, three girls started in on me during a bus ride home. The ring leader was the worst. She was very tough, and I knew that she could kill me in a fight; I was afraid of her. I was picked on so badly on the bus that day; I cannot describe it. Something snapped in me that day. After that bus ride, I had no desire at all to socialize with people my own age. Instead, I feared social situations. I stopped taking the school bus, and went out of my way to take two other buses and would get home a half hour later every day. I gladly did it just to avoid those girls. I never told my family what was going on, as I was ashamed of my complete lack of popularity. By junior year, those girls had matured and stopped picking on me. However, the damage had already been done.

Although I finished college, I never became a big success and found myself being severely bullied in two of the jobs I've had over the years. After college, I gained weight and became a shopaholic. I'm now digging my way out of severe debt (it will take a few more years to pay it off). Although I take full responsibility for my actions, I don't think my life would have turned out this way had it not been for those earlier years of being bullied. My self-esteem took a nose dive at a very pivotal age, and I believe that's where my shopping problem came from. I will always wonder who I would have been if those kids in the 8th and 9th grades just left me alone.

I am so sorry to read these stories of abuse. I am a parent and a grandparent and maybe I am just pathetically blind. My son was probably bullied because he is so gruff and insecure today. My daughter was probably tormented and I'm sure that I told her to tough it out. I wanted my children to be tough because I had to be. I should have helped them to build their confidence rather than give credence to the idiots of the world. Why are we so afraid? Why do we allow ourselves to be victomized and then ignore the signs when, as adults, we are empowered to make a difference. I'm so sorry for those of you who carry these burdens of pain and insecurities because of people who were too lame to stand up for you. I'm sorry that you suffered in the hands of someone who could have been stopped. I want you to know that you are the strong ones and we are the weak ones. Don't ever doubt that. The weak ones are the creeps who hurt those who cannot defend themselves, those who look the other way, or those who could not hear your cries for help. I am so sorry that you feel tainted for someone else's crimes or that you are burdened with memories of their idiotic, narcissistic behavior. In the long run, you are the tough ones and maybe, just maybe, you can help to stop the cycle. I'm sorry for your pain.

I found the article and other readers comments struck a lot of chords with my own experiences - i was first bullied by girl classmates at ten years old and then again from the age of fourteen until i got to leave school. The hardest thing to deal with and what i remember mostly was feeling so alone, and it is hard to shake off that horrible thought that somewhere the bullying i received had some validation. Girls tend to bully in a herd mentality and in my experience it was always verbal, day in day out i was ostracised and had stupid things yelled at me, when you are trying to struggle with already surging hormones as a teen you really are poorly equipped to deal with all that on top. I am 35 now with four children, and i have to admit i am still left with a much larger distrust of other women, although i will stick up for myself much more than i did as a girl, the fear of it is still there. I wasnt loud, or fat, or spectacled or any other of the usual suspects as normally used for reasons of bullying - none of which you would ever condone anyway, and that makes it a bit harder to deal with, in that i cant to this day understand why me. I do notice on the way home from my childrens primary school i will always intervene if i see any bullying - even if i dont know the children! Its terrible, but i cant walk on by, its over twenty years ago but i can still all too vividly recall how hellish the whole experience makes you feel. Bullies do lack empathy, they stick two fingers at any thoughts of compassion, they are cruel attention seekers, and thinking about it i would actually rather be on the 'been bullied' side than to ever think i had been one of them.

Hi everyone I'm an adult in my thirties who endured constant name-calling and rejection in Year 7, as well as being sexually assaulted, which has affected my life. The memories are still fresh and I regret to say I still get angry, particularly at situations involving bigger people asserting their "authority" over smaller ones.

I hated the school and became more detached as the year went on. The taunts were against my character which led to a bout of severe depression when I was in my twenties. I became fearful that there was something wrong with me - all because the taunts and rejection hurt so bad and the useless teachers did nothing about it. I'm not trying to say "poor little me" but the reason I'm writing this is because I'm doing an uni essay on school bullying as part of a teaching diploma, and it has inflamed old feelings.

Not long ago I was awarded some money from an organisation (Christian Brothers) due to negligence and a failure of duty of care by the teachers at that school. I didn't contact that school. I feel I've got something off the wroing people - a national organisation instead of taking the school - teachers and students to court. This would be a monumental effort, bringing back past hurts and resentments. What makes me angry is that a lawyer once said to me that I could made a case within 4 years after leaving the school. I still don't believe this, and after 23 years I want to see if I can sue the school for damages.

Yes, childhood can be a rotten time. I think the bullying stems from not only school condonement but from the wider dysfunction in society. Many teachers don't want to get involved. Why? Sticking up for a kid is what teachers need to do, I don't care what people say. I was made to feel that it was my fault, so I turned the blame on myself, sapping my energy and self-confidence. Sometimes I'd like to meet these teachers now and tell them all my life's achievements to say "There, I prevailed".

On a positive note I feel that even these bad experiences will do good in the long-term. I have been resilient. Like many of you I have workplace skills challenges, I go in and out of employment, I have anger, but I will overcome these experiences as now I'm an adult and have clout. No longer am I the helpless 12 year-old. I am educated, good-looking, have a car and believe the world can be a beautiful place. I'm committed to nurturing my talents, and I love to travel (very healing!!).

To make a long story short, my best friend sophomore year in high school turned on me and made my life a living hell.

The worst (and most embarassing thing) that really broke my self-esteem was when her and her friends spraypainted "I (heart) ni**ers" on my parents house and had strewn garbage all over the front yard. Even my so called "friends" knew about it, and lauged at me behind my back because they had been swayed by her. Of course, only one person had the guts to tell me it was her - over five years later.

The tormenting didn't end until I switched schools. In fact, my parents wouldn't let me leave because of the bully and I had to make excuses to get enrolled at a different school.

It all reared its ugly head again this week when my father was admitted to the Veterans Hospital here in town. I called him to talk, and immediately he went into "Oh, (your old bully) works here. Shes doing great, married, has two kids.." etc. etc.

When I told him I didn't want to hear about it he told me to "get over it", and had the balls to ask me "why does it bother you so much?"

I just can't understand how my father would say something like that to me, after being the person that I would come home to crying because of the alienation I suffered at the hands of this girl. It felt more like a knife in my back more than anything.

So here I am, crying uncontrollably all day, wondering why I am so upset about something that happened so long ago.

I was at a party this past weekend and I have been over the years, a visitor. Each time a middle-aged man constantly humiliates his son and his friend. For instance, in front of a group he calls out to one of the boys, who is shorter than the rest" Have you hit 5 feet yet..?" The kid laughs it off but at the age of 21, this must be embarrassing to be focused on like this. The sad thing is not one of the other adults say anything. I did and am told I am a crank or they have no sense of humor. Even one of the youngest noticed the singling out and mistreatment...it depressed her as well. She is only 7!! She asked why does he do this and why is he so mean to so and so.

Everything these 2 boys do is subject to riducule. It has been so for at least 10 years. They try to have a conversation, like wow I would like to have a house, and the man smirks and says right. As boys, he always singled these 2 out...making them walk home from the beach while others rode, forcing them to sit and finish a meal because he had heard they had a bagel before dinner. One young man suffered from depression and this man dismisses it as a weakness in his son or not real.

I really avoid going to any affairs at this "home" anymore. I advise the friend to stay far away from this person. I feel this constant humiliation is is going to explode or implode one day.

Is there something I can say to the other adult witnesses who sit and say nothing or worse join in the mocking.

Yesterday my child told me that upon hearing the true story of a child who was bullied and eventually killed himself (the teacher shared it with the class to relate the effects of bullying), that he sometimes felt that way, too. That sometimes it was just too much to handle. We talked to the school a few weeks ago, and in no uncertain terms made it clear that the bullying needed to stop. This latest revelation has now shocked us into immediate action to withdraw him from his private "Christian" school, transfer him to the charter school where my husband teaches, and most likely get into counseling with him. Our child is the one who most kids want to be like - he's extremely talented musically, funny, handsome and likes most everyone. I can only believe that the bully is utterly and completely jealous. The time for talking is over, now we are taking the steps necessary to make him feel secure and protected. He's been begging us for several weeks to not make him go back to that school, and it looks like now he will be getting his wish . . . and getting his life back!

all i can say is wow!. these stories i have read are astonishing and totally discust me. i live in a small town and go to a very small school but even there i see kids being bullied everyday it hurts me to see it happen even though ive never been a victim of extreme bullying and also have never been the ring leader in such acts. i would like to know from all of you who have been bullied how i can help to put a stop to it in my school. i have an appointment with a 5th grade teacher to make a speech in her class about bullying and how the long term effects of it can be dangerous and even life threatening. so please if anyone could help me i would love to be the end to kids suffering in my schools and possibly other surrounding ones, i really want to make a difference. thanks=)

Ugly and worthless is how I feel, and how I've always felt because I was teased all through primary and secondary school. I am nearly 40 and for the first time ever last year, I punched a woman in the arm because she was the third person to jump the queue in front of me at the shopping mall. I screamed at her like I'd never screamed at anybody before, and if my workmates or girlfriends were with me, they would've been ashamed to have been seen with me, because my behaviour was disgraceful. Tnat was the day I knew I needed to see my gp. He referred me to a psychologist, for anger management, and because I have trouble socializing with other people at functions and parties. I hate men too! I have improved somewhat, but I could do better. Seek help as soon as you can. I should've done this years ago.

Hi. I wrote about my own experience of bullying on 5th Feb under the name of ‘Jen’. I wanted to let you know that I think that you ('mother of bullied child') sound like a really kind-hearted and caring person. It sounds as though you have tried your hardest to help your daughter through all her difficulties. She has clearly had a really bad time and it is no wonder that she still has some problems today. Although she will probably always bear the psychological scars from her experiences, I am certain that things will get better for her as she gets older and that she will start to heal.You will never be able to fully protect your daughter from the knocks she might face in life in the future but the fact that you are able to show that you care about her and that somebody thinks she is worth something and loves her is SO important. Try not to worry too much about your daughter’s future experiences – let her go out into the world and learn – but don’t stop what you’re doing! You sound great! I bet a lot of us who have shared our stories on this website wish we had similarly caring parents! Best wishes to you and your daughter and good luck with everything!

WOW that is wowo i mean that was very interesting bulling is very harsh these days and the best way to ingnore it is by just tune it out they dont know what there talking about xoxoxox CC

My daughter started getting bullied in kindergarten, some teachers were helpful in stepping in, others were not. She was cute and smart, but an easy target because she cried easily. She had never been picked on before school started, and didn't know how to deal with it. Years flew bye, schools changed, I can't count how many meeting I had with teachers, principles, eventually the school police officer. I used to joke that I would start dating Officer Kelly to keep her out of trouble.I tried to encourage her to ignore comments, but instead she became angry and lashed out, getting herself into more trouble than the bullies. I encouraged friendships so she would feel she belonged, some lasted, most didn't. I tried getting her counseling, she hated having to talk about it with a stranger. I intervened at school by speaking to teachers, counselors, and principles. At one point a student came up to my car and threatened her right in front of me, and I went to report it immediately to the principle, and let him know that if I ever heard that that boy said another word to my daughter I would sue the school, that he'd better call that kids parents and let them know what is going on so they can step in at home. In high school I got a psychiatrist and an anti-depressant to help her cope. I tried the teaching of cognitive therapy for her. Ultimately one day in high school she told me a boy she liked had forced himself on her in the bandroom and we went to the school to deal with the problem. The Officer found her story not-believable and the boy claimed it was consentual. My daughter actually got referred to the youth authority and a probationary sentence for having sex on campus!Thankfully, the probation officer was a woman, and after hearing that it was not consentual and that my daughter suffered from depression, was under the care of a psychiatrist, and on antidepressant, she dropped the case against my daughter and was kind enough to provide her with some other resources. I took my daughter out of the school, where clearly she was not safe. I enrolled her in a home study program and that was how she finished high school. I fostered her few friendships as much as possible so she would still have friends.She suffers from low self-esteem, and often feels like she can't accomplish the things she needs to do. She became overweight on the antidepressants which she got off of about a year and a half ago, but the weight stayed. She is in junior college and ok. There's always more time for video games than home work. Then a low grade just make her feel more defeated. She is kind of slow at taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, she is 18 now. For example she didn't want to learn to drive. It's like she doesn't have the normal desire for freedom and independence.I did all the things I thought I could do, but nothing worked, and nothing helped. I think the only good thing I did was take her out of school. It really lowered her stress level and made her feel safer. I think she felt relief that the action proved that I believed and supported her, but I always had. I would just like to know what I can do to help her become a happy, healthy adult and put all that behind her to some degree. She is still young and living at home and I would like to think I could still have some influence over her over-all outlook on life. How can I make the loving acts of the people who care for her seem larger to her than the cruel acts of the people that didn't? How can I empower her to feel able, successful, and safe in a world that really isn't?

Additional afterthought from CYNIC -( a la chaise lounge incident) - - May 4th 2009

I forgot to add that I have residual sensations of bitterness, self doubt and resentment...and I have a hard time trusting people -- keeping them at a safe distance...the crap that was spewed at me from the cesspools that were the bully's mouths as verbal diarrhea as a young, vulnerable, lonesome teen kind of stuck and, every now and then-their harsh judgemental words-echoe in my memory...the taunting. The insults, The berating. The exclusion... I'd like to approach thoe people now, as adult to adult...and put them in their PLACE....but I know...people don't change the essence of who they are. They're still the creeps they were then...maybe they are now posing as imposterous prigs as active memebrs of their community and even church....but I know what they did...and even if they might clain to myraculously have some defective memory--deep in the bowls of their fetid minds....they DO so remember...I bet you they do...and they're probably still executing their wretchedness in a more organized, subtle and snide fashin to their peers at work...and- the bigest crime is they're more likely than not -- passing along their defective seed of judgement to their off spring...perpetuating the cycle of hatered, disharmony and intolerence for anyone who fails to "blend"...but rest assured...only one with the lowest self perception would stoop to that low and evil level...When people are truly happy with themselves and where they are AT in life,,,when they are brimming with self confidence and love, then they ressonate love to all...and compassion, understanding, open - mindedness and acceptance...it's all about respect--and that stems from the inside outward.So, yes--while I am somewhat vaguely bitter and resentful of that what was wrongly done to me at the hands of uncivilized banshees in their pack dog mentality--I am the lone and capable wolf...able to sustain on my own..able to function alone...wanting company but not NEEDING it to the point of fore going all moral fortitude to get it--to FIT in--with pack - dog mentality of hateful abuse and disregard for Humanity and ones right to be individual...We are all of intrinsic value and each and every one of us human beings is an important component in the machine called LIFE.NO ONE has the right to make anyone else feel less than valuable.Anyone who does...can kiss my royal ____________.D.L.

Greetings fellow survivors.Oh boy--ok--here's the dreaded "chaise lounge incident of '78"...I had a group of 'friends',,,about 6 of us girls..all close --or so I THOUGHT.I was in those impressionable teen years....in the summertime this happened.i was at the house of this girl I was friends with.She had a chaise lounge chair in her front lawn...I liked her.We were suntanning.She told me that these girls we both hung out with were on their way over.i said,"YAY!!!!!!!!!"and she said,'What do you mean 'YAY?'""They talk so mean about you!"I said I did not believe her-that those were my good friends!She said,"Here-get under this chaise lounge chair..quick--they're gonna be her any minute"and she said"If you lay there, I will then throw this sleeping bag over the chair and you hide....I will then bring up YOUR name--telling them I'd just run into you moments earlier..that they just 'missed you'... and so then you LISTEN to eavesdrop of what it is they then say as a response"Well, along they came.She broght up my name"I just ran into ______(anonymous me)..she went home-u just missed her!"They then began to SHRED my character,,,insulting me, making fun of how I walk, talk, of my nervous TWITCH(I have VERY mild tourettes which expresses itself in a vague twitch/nervous tick when I am nervous or very tired), insulting my Mother, our house,,of how poor they thought our family is, of how I dress, of how I wear always my brother's hand me downs, of how unpopular and horrible they thought I am...and I do especially recall the word "loser" repeatedly peppering the conversation.it was a HOT day...and I was BOILING under there...and crying my head off SILENTLY...just balling my eyes out in utter complete and shocking humilitation! and to top it off, I REALLY had to PEE!In FRONT of them, I crawled out from that friggin' chaise lounge chair--and they all saw me crying..and I was so humiliated..have not been so humiliated in my entire life--to this very DAY..and I said NOTHING..they stood there-GAWKING at me...with their jaws a-gape...and I just RAN as fast as I could--all the way home...crying..From that moment forward to present time (now age 45), I have never voluntarily been in the company of more than one woman at once...as friends...never in groups ever again--all because of them..stabbing me in the BACK...f-ing bitches! Broke my trust of women in groups as friends.Now I can only feel at ease one-on-one and am always VERY wary of a person who gossips about a friend of hers...because to do this is indicatie of a chronic back-stabber. I am getting really mad at what those girls did to my inner child...and they drastically damaged my LIFE...how I relate to and can no longer realte to people..they crippled me.My home life growing up was tumultuous. As the youngest child and only girl in a family with 3 older brothers, parents who drank andhad violent fights...the home life was unsavory...unstable and, being the youngest and only girl, my brothers paid no attention to me.I guess by the time I came along, my parents were kinda bored with the whole "child" thing and I was rather like somewhat of an accessory--the only novel thing being that I was to be LADYLIKE and not be like my siblings...I had to conform, behave, be 'dainty'..and a "nice girl"...so said parents.I of course rebelled like crazy...all I wanted was to fit in SOMEWHERE...and, launcing rather early into Puberty, I took note that the girls who seemed to be popular were rather -- promiscuous.Long story short, I had sex at an early age...and kept pursuing it...I loved it--was a real rush...but at the same time, it awarded me that Human contact...that semblance/reasonable facsimile of "love & acceptance" I was starved for; not to mention a welcome diversion from the incessant insanity in our violence-riddled homelife.So a slut I became...and the thing is--so WHAT? When a guy sleeps around as a young man--he is a big "ladies' man" but if a young woman of identical age does it, she's branded a "harlot",,,I know, from my own motivational factors, that I was lookin' for "love" in all the wrong places --(as that 'twangy country-ish' song goes)...point being:I did NOT deserve to then be beaten to a PULP in the parking lot of a highschool dance by a large murder of screeching, hidious CROWS who were my ex friends' older sisters...they beat me to the ground before the dance all because I'd dared to ask this hot guy to the Sadie Hawkins' dance...and I guess they were jealous...I was a very attractive young woman who I am told at the time looked very much like a young Jane Fonda from the film 'Barbarella'...they beat the CRAP outta me..shook me, shrieked at me like hysterical tea kettle banshees that I am a "slut" loser, whore, b-tch...kicking my spine, pulling my long blone hair, spitting on me, kicking my privates, till one hot shot who bore a strong resemblance to a female Brian Denahey decided it's a good idea to kick my head...What they did not expect is I got up, brushed myself off, went to my locker, changed into a t shirt and jean shorts...cleaned myself up and WENT right into that dance where that young stud did indeed dance so seductively with me to a corny Nazareth song...but my point here, fellow survivors ... is people who bully--do not act so fussy when targeting a victim...the person just has to differentiate enough to stand OUT...oftentimes, bullies misinterpret kindness and friendliness for weakness...and they underestimate the target .... We targets grow up.As an adult survivor of bullies...I took great pleasure in going back to my home town of Deep River Ontario a few years ago to take NOTE of what those bullies look like now--where they're "at" in Life...because 99% of them aged about as well as the rotting fish in the back of a Chinese Delicatesson...they looked like HELL and were not mavaricks in any way, shape or form...just bland, boring, generic dullards--while I--survivor, have aged magnificently, am a very talented portrait painter and, cynical? Yes --you bet...bitter? Sporadically yes--if I get to reminiscing...but mostly-what haunts me now are these fantasies...not entirely legal or morally sound fantases of revenge which--I shall NEVER act on...nevertheless--they DO --'LOOM'.Nowadays, I have a very hard time trusting people and letting people in. My assholery- detector is set to 'high',and I am like the U.S.of A.:Zero tolerence...so now, I will do routine housecleaning on my friendship roster...not entirely a big fan or practicer of forgiveness and certainly not tolerence in terms of anyone showing me one iota of disrespect...be it in form of snide remark, attempted 'clever' sarcasm...using...none of that.I detect it and tehn i FIRE the abuser...coldly...Yeah-so I guess that sums it up.I'm now hard....But ironically, to those who treat me with the respect, compassion, consideration and loyalty I deserve : I am a very generous, patient, warm and loving person--and a good listener.So I am effected by the residual emotional aftermath of the **numerous** incidents in which I was singled out as "freak, eccentric weirdo, slut, b-tch, falsely assumed to have been 'weak and not intelligent' (just because I was good looking, kind and friendly) --that physical and more emotional bullying-(2 incidents of which I shared here with you)...can't help but infultrated the essence of "ME" to shape who I have become.Cynic ?Yes.Nevertheless hopeful and tenacious? Moreso!The bullies?F-ck then in the necks...they're peasants on the greter scope of what matters...nothing but incidental rotting flora and fauna in comparison to all the other great people out there...so take heart fellow survivors...most of the interesting and unique and entertaining people on this planet happen to be those who've endured a rocky terrain and tumultuous ride.Hurts?You bet.But makes us stronger--that what has not broken us...Remember this--always:The strongest person is the one who has the CAPACITY to hurt another--BUT--who CHOOSES not to.The others are operating on the most base, low, foul, evil animal instincts...to attack that what they fear and fail to comprehend...US:The Marvellous MAVERICKS.A-MEN!Thanks for listening.Big cyber hugs to you all...D.L.

I was a happy, confident child until my family returned to the UK when I was 5, after living abroad. My parents say they noticed my whole personality changed and I became much more withdrawn and serious.This is because the first kids I met here, at a neighbours garden party, took me off behind some bushes, pushed me to the ground and sat on my head until I couldn't breathe. I still have no idea why they did that but I was so shocked that I became wary of other kids, which I never had been before.In primary school I had a few close friends but I was seen as an outsider in the small village where we lived and one of the girls resented me because I became friends with her best friend in grade 2. She used to call me names or whisper about me to other people but it wasn't too bad at the time. When I was 10 I went to camp along with my best friend and some of the other kids there started hiding my stuff. Again, I didn't know why. I reported it to one of the leaders who said she would talk to them. The girls gave me me stuff back, but then started a regime of hiding something for a while and then giving it back later. I spoke to the same leader again who said that as long as they did give it back then what was the problem?My family moved again for high school and again I was the outsider in a close-knit group of kids. The bullying started almost immediately and over the next 5 years on a daily basis I was called names, pushed into the wall while walking down the hall, had spit balls thrown at me during class, had cartoons and horrible things written about me on the blackboard, my so called 'friends' never once stood up for me and would even play a game of rating eveyone by who they liked best. I was always at the bottom. I was very tall for my age, the youngest in my year, got good grades and my father was a prominent member of the community. All of these things were apparently a reason to hate me. I was told by other girs that I was unnattractive and that the guys didn't like me. One guy who did seem like he might was scared off by the bullies who started laughing and cat-caling when they saw him speaking to me and that reinforced my feeling that these girls were right.I tried to develop a thick skin and pretended that I didn't care. I put up with the bullies treatment without retaliating and tried to ignore it but in doing that I built walls around myself which I am only now learning how to break down. I spent a lot of time outside school at home with my family, who didn't understand what was happening and kept on at me to invite friends round or to go out on a saturday night. They didn't believe I had no one to go out with. At University things were better but I had become so practised at not letting people in, at putting on an act, that I was unable to make any close friends and for the next few years I got by but I pushed friends and potential boyfriends away because I was scared they would reject me once they got to know me better.I am now 27 and am slowly but surely learning how to let people in and to trust them. For the first time in my life I have friends who like me for me and who have my best interests at heart. I have also become best friends with someone who was also bullied and we are helping each other see that we really are ok and that what happened to us wasn't deserved and doesn't relate to who we are now.I have a great job, a family who love me, have travelled the world and now have some wonderful friends. But even now, I still get nervous when I see groups of teenagers, I think people are laughing at me if I hear a group of people laughing near me and I find it very hard to believe that any guys are interested in me and have been on very few dates. But my relationship with my friends is allowing me to see that I can get close to people and it is definitely worth it and so I am hopeful that this side of my life is something that will get better too.

[Don't worry. This isn't about molestation. It's about bullying.] Sorry for the delay. Rob touched me, put his fingers inside of me. I was eight years old. He thought I was asleep. On a couple occasions, he showed me his dick and pubic hairs to show how he was maturing. What Rob did in that sexual aspect was never anything in comparison to what Doug did. There was a constant bullying that I had to endure until about age 13-15, when both Doug and Rob were finally gone and out of the house mostly. Even after Doug and Rob left, I had to struggle to gain any positive identity of myself. I still struggle with it.Rob had a spanking game, and it was really mostly an irritant, but sometimes funny where we would try to smack each other’s butts. I don’t think this was sexually exciting for him, but it may have been another means of bullying and exerting his control over me.I spilled the beans about what happened in front of cousins Kristine and Kevin ------- one time when I was young. We were in the pool room. It was me, Rob, Kristine and Kevin. Ask them. They might remember. Rob was playing his spanking game to annoy me. I told him to stop, and of course he didn’t. I tried to get him back, but then he called ME, “Freshie,” as in someone who was getting fresh with another person, even though he was being the Freshie. (Such is the way it goes with bullies. You’re always wrong, and you’re always the one who is IN the wrong.) I yelled back at him in front of Kevin and Kristine, “You’re the freshie! You stuck your fingers up my crotch at ReuAnn’s wedding.”Rob pulled me quickly into the shop area, closed the door, and whispered at me, “SHHHH! No one’s supposed to know about that!” He was obviously disturbed, and he even looked scared when he thought I would tell on him even more. I think I saw this as an opportunity to bargain with him, because I told him that he had to stop being mean or something, or I would tell. I remember him bargaining back like, “okay, okay, just don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay?” He really had some fear in him, because he didn’t make me promise or anything. It was like a hand-shake agreement. It was not long after that, that we began to have a better trust with each other. I must have had a golden key over his head, because our relationship became better after that, not greatly better, but it was a beginning of something kind of decent. He slowed down on trying to make me feel small, and he started treating me like I wasn’t so much less than him anymore. We found camaraderie in what we both had in common, which was hating Doug. It's so easy to hate someone who hurts you and hates you.I remember learning about how Rob molested some kid in Colorado or somewheres-abouts. Mom told me. We were in the kitchen, and I was following her to the laundry room. I was standing with my back toward the window as she messed with the laundry and the cupboard on the right. Some time before, I had overheard Mom talking on the phone with someone discussing how molesters usually abuse the same aged child. That’s pretty much all that I knew. Unwittingly, I asked Mom if Rob had molested someone that was eight years old. She was alarmed by me asking and asked me if Rob had ever touched me. I quickly said, “No!” I recovered from the alarming question and my boo-boo in saying something, and I said, “I just thought that was the age that people were molested at.” And of course, Mom told me that any kid at any age can be molested, which I already knew.And really… truly, really, I have more hurt from Doug than I ever did from Rob. I had a few years to experience what it’s like to not be completely Less Than someone else. But Doug. Doug bullied me my entire life, which has hurt me worse than Rob ever did. That was the crux of what I wrote to you in my last e-mail.If we want to talk about something, then it should be about Doug and how he was about eight years older than me and the biggest bully I have ever known. He loved to watch me feel pain, and it was very, very sick. He told me that I was ugly, that I was no good, that I was fat and stupid. He did this repeatedly, for years. He called me a ratt, and he called me dirt. He pinned me down and spat in my face and in my mouth, so did Rob. He slapped me in my head, so did Rob. He would sing to me, "You're no good." I would tell him to Stop it! To SHUT UP! SHUT UP! But he didn’t. He just laughed and sang more and kept on singing. He put me down and made me hateful towards him. He made me into a person that is unsure of herself, constantly needing outside approval to feel okay about myself. He made me feel so small and meaningless. I was only useful if I pleased him, only useful for changing the T.V. channel. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t have a little shit to kick around while I was at school.” He said that after he had returned from college one year, after he had dog shit on his foot and was trying to wipe it on me. I was 13 years old, I think. Can you imagine someone saying these things to Sierra? After she had been bullied her whole life? Could you imagine her self-esteem? Being bullied? Oh yeah, he called me, “Little shit” A LOT. He never stopped tormenting me and making me feel bad about myself. I remember often telling him, "Don't!" "Stop it! Stop it!" "Don't!" while making me punch myself in the face with my own hand. But telling him to stop doesn't work. Telling him "NO!" doesn't work, yelling, screaming, crying, throwing little fists, it all does no good. Being aggressive is pointless and futile, but I hated being dominated against over and over. Being assertive with him did nothing except for making him mimic my words and laugh at me even more.It makes me wonder how many times I said, “I’m going to tell.” Only to have him reply, “Go ahead! See if I care.” Then I tell, and, yeah, he doesn’t care. He wanted to hurt me. He wanted to dominate me and be bigger than me. He loved it when I was helpless, and he was hurting me. He would laugh in my face as I cried; it would just make him even happier and continue to make me feel smaller. He loved it. He loved being bigger than me and hurting me over and over. It’s just fucking sick! That is not normal. It is sociopathic, having no remorse for hurting people, and enjoying it all at the same time.I'm told that I have to deal with this bully who is twice my size and twice my intellect, and twice the skin. I'm told to just ignore him, and I tried to ignore him. I tried really hard. I tried to muster all the goodness in my heart and be good and just ignore him, but I couldn‘t, because he hurt me too much, too often, too deep. And he rarely ever stopped hurting me. I was just a little kid. It came to a point where I was already so deeply hurt from the years of his abuse, that anything that may have resembled a possible insult to me, was humiliating. Kids who don’t get bullied don’t react that way. So, I’m told that he puts me down and dominates me, and he does hurtful, bullying things like spit in my mouth, because he loves me. He hurts me over and over, making me punch myself in the face with my own fist, put crap in my hair, because he loves me. I knew this was wrong, and I argued it with you saying, “No! He doesn’t do it because he loves me!” How could I believe that someone who spits in my mouth, someone who makes me feel small and worthless, and laughs in my face is doing it because he loves me. It just buried me deeper into myself which later became depression. No wonder I was a cry-baby. No wonder I ran from the table crying. He had just abused me the same way just moments before we sat down to eat! How else does an eight-year-old react to a life-long abuser? No wonder I’m a goddamn lesbian. I was abused, I wanted it to stop, and I cried about it, and I acted out, and I tried to make it stop myself, but I couldn‘t. I was dominated by a person who loved to hurt me, and that became my picture of what a male is. Until a few years ago, I had this belief that men really don’t feel love for women at all. They see women as just play toys, and they think that women are a lesser gender. They are smaller, and men like to feel bigger and stronger. I hate feeling small. I feel small as I write this, and it burns my throat. It burns my soul, and I feel hatred. It burns my soul whenever I think of Doug and the way that he treated me, how he would laugh in my face. I look at myself, all of the bad characteristics about me, and I can see where they came from. My insecurities, my instant reactions of anger when someone tries to be dominant against me. I can see why I am always trying to be great, excellent, better than. And it burns me into the ground when I’m nothing. I don’t want to do anything. I want to retreat into myself and wither away, just disappear, anything but feel small again.There were calms in the storm, but that’s all, just short moments of calm. I remember sometimes during these calms, like on vacations sometimes, I would think, “Maybe we can get along now. Maybe he thinks I‘m equal to him now, maybe I really am good enough to not be spit on.” Looking at him with hope and love, only to have him say, "get out of here, ratt." The good, it never lasted. I wanted to have a good relationship with him, but he would just hurt me again, which really was more hurtful than the constant hammering of hate from him; because I would open myself up and start to trust him. These calm times were temporary, because he would hurt me again and again, until he was finally away and off to college. Even after college or during college it wasn't great, because he would still come home. I never discussed Rob with Dr. Shadle. I don’t think I ever discussed it with Dianna. I’ve carried this secret for years, having only shared about it once with strangers in treatment. Every time they said in treatment every year, “Now’s the time to share about being molested, or being abused,” I’d say, “I’ve never been molested.” I always denied it until the last time I went to treatment, but I was so irritable with trying to quit nicotine that no one even really liked me. They thought I was cold and heartless, and they didn't really care anyway.It’s so hard to walk through life being cold, secretive, having hate in my heart. It hurts so much. I know that Doug was just a kid, too, but he’s psychopathic. He loves to hurt me, and he can’t stand anything good in me. He abused me so bad and put me down so much. I know what is real. He made me believe that I was small, and I had been trying all of my life to be something great, because that’s the only time I feel any worth.

I remember being confident as a child. I loved exploring the world and creating art. I felt secure and un-selfconscious. Then we moved and I started 5th grade at a new school in a different state. It started almost immediately because I was small for my age and this is when kids start to really enter into diverse stages of growth. The teacher was a polite Southern woman who was completely blind to anything that happened right in front of her. At first it was boys...I had chairs pulled out from under me, volume cranked up while listening at an audio station so loud it physically hurt, pinching, having things thrown at me. At first, I protested. But it became clear that the teacher benefited from ignoring other kids bad behavior. Because I was new and most of these kids had all lived grown up together, no particularly wanted to be the friend of the target except other kids who were also targets. Of course, I understood pretty quickly that socializing with other "targets" would make me even more of a target. So then the verbal abuse began. In some ways, it was hard to take personally...these rotten kids even taunted the bus driver. I think it was the attacks on my personal appearance that hurt worst of all. I was small and a "late bloomer". These same bullies would verbally attack me for being undeveloped and at the same time grab girls with boobs. I'm sure those girls felt terribly self conscious, but I would have given anything to be in their shoes rather than my own. I developed mysterious stomach aches so my mother would have to come pick me up before lunchtime. I finally told her how bad it was and I wanted to go to another school. But she didn't get it; I got those same bits of worthless advice about being extra nice to people, turn the other cheek, toughen up. So the teachers didn't help me and my parents didn't get it.The worst of it was a girl who thought I was smart and suddenly decided to be my friend. She was like leader of her own small gang of girls who idolized her and boys (many of them the same ones who had tormented me a year earlier) who followed her around like dogs . She was coy & manipulating. It wasn't long before I did something embarrassing in class, trying too hard to be likable, and it was all over for me. She turned on me in an instant to keep her position in the "tribe" and she spent the next three years tormenting me through the her friends (or minions as I like to call them). Again, like many other stories I've read here, it all had sexual overtones to it.Junior high was like going to school with baboons and prison guards. I never knew when someone was going to jump out of the woodwork to try & humiliate me. I'd be excluded from parties, left out of conversations, jokes, etc. I was always on the outside, because even though I had a few friends, I was never anyone's best friend or confidant because that would have stigmatized them. No one ever stood up for me and I had no idea how to stand up for myself.By the time I reached 9th grade, my self-esteem was shot. We live in a world that glorifies popularity, physical attractiveness and being well endowed. It was easy to internalize that I had deserved what I got. I had watched teachers & counselors walk buddy-buddy with my bullies down the halls. I learned that keeping to myself and staying invisible was survival. I kept my head down and my mouth shut. And then we moved again and everything changed, except the scars were already there. I made friends, but I couldn't confide in anyone. I participated, but kept to myself at the same time. So I looked normal on the outside, just labeled the quiet one. So teachers like me and I excelled. But again, as someone else put it so well, I'm "haunted". I had trouble making women friends, I chased after men to prove I was attractive and I focused on escaping instead of achieving after college. Certain songs from that era, yearbooks, pieces of memorabilia, conversations with my sister, bring it all back. Years ago, I drove across the state to visit the one friend I have from those years and left flowers on the doorstep of the school for my child-self and for anyone else who suffers the way I did. After reading some of these stories, I can understand that I was fortunate in many ways because at least home was the refuge. I wonder time and time again, what I would do if I had a kid in this situation. I find that most people's thoughts on the subject are akin to blaming the victim instead of holding the bullies accountable. Instead, I find that as I open up to my friends in adult life, that so many of them had a similar experience, feeling isolated and in pain. And there is healing in that sharing. Anyway, to all those who left their stories here before me, peace be with you.

I am so amazed at this article. After all these years I now know why I am ...the way I am. I too as many of you was the victim of bullying as a child. I was chubby. I also was the child of a parent with Mental illness, which was because his father was abusive verbally and also a pedophile. Unknowingly he became abusive to us, his children. So I was bullied at school and then came home to bullying at home. My father, who did not realize the impact, always chastized me for having a second helping at dinner. I had no escape. My mother, also a victim, did not know and could not challenge anything that was happening. As a matter of fact their solution to my bullying for being chubby was to enroll me in weight watchers at 12 years old. So much for acceptance at home. Anyhooo I wrestled with sadness in school and thoughts of suicide. Even though I did not want to die...I just wanted the hell to stop. After a failed suicide attempt, my mother bargained with me. I wanted to leave the town and finish high school elsewhere, but instead she arranged with our family doctor to put me on diet pills at age 16. I lost 44 lbs and looked good for graduation. In 4 years I gained over 100 lbs. Now became bullied at 21 years old and continually hereafter I skyrocket in weight and social bullying. Until finally I am over 400 lbs and society treats me with this wonderful scum-of-the-earth banter. I know I sound pessimistic. I wish I did not. I wish I had a "can-do" attitude and accomplish my goals, but I feel defeated before I start. P.S. I must tell you I tried drinking and did not like it, drugs and did not like it, I even got converted, a born-again christian, which was great for a while as people seemed to really like me and I was gaining such popularity, until I went to their theological school to become a part of ministry. It was the bullying there by fellow ministers that really took me low. I left and have isolated my self and I know it is because I just do not want to subject myself to any more abuse. I am on self-protect but also on self-destruct with my weight. I never feel safe and I hate that. I am actually a creative person but feel paralysed by the internal frustration. I am going to counselling this week and hope that it will take me out of this depressive funk. If there is anyone out there who can relate...please email me at aimhighenterprise@ymail.com.

My heart goes out to you, and I wonder if you have told an adult about this? Your post didnt say... I am so angry for you, the adults are supposed to intervene. Have you told your parents? Can you show your parents this website? Can you talk to the school guidance counselor? Show that person this website? Honey, if you were my kid I'd have the name of each and every one of those little bastards and give them and their parents hell, then I'd help you with some snappy comebacks to say if anyone dared insult you. Do you have any friends on the bus? How about in school? At all?I'm so glad you found this website, you are not alone. I want to help you so bad but it's hard not knowing anything about you and what resources you have. Perhaps you could post again, let us know if you have told an adult? I want to try to advise you but that's hard without knowing if you told, who you told, their reactions, etc. Please let us know - every adult here is one who has gone through this. I will say a prayer for you!

Yeah I can definitely relate to this essay. I really enjoyed it. I'm 30 with a wife and very happy now but adolescence was brutal. Junior high was very torturous for me. No one put their hands on me or anything but I was constantly ridiculed. It was an every day occurance with the exception of just one day those 3 years from 6th-8th grade. The kids would form circles around me and just cap on me. Making fun of everything you can think of (I can't even name it all anymore) and none of it made sense. Sometime girls would join in too. That definitely didn't help puberty any at all. That was especially rough on me because I already didn't have any friends and a distant father to begin with. My only support in life was my mom. My self esteem was severely damaged and I wasn't able to make an actual friend until I was 16. I tell the story to anyone who'll listen but most people don't seem to care or don't think it was that was that big a deal. Thanks again for writing this essay

I'm really deeply moved by everything I've read here. I may have to come back and write a more substantive reply later, but it would be difficult to address everyone individually.Which just goes to show that you are not alone. This is, for better or worse, a human experience.Don't lose hope. Re-training yourself is difficult, but not impossible.You are all very strong people.

IN REGARD TO THE COMMENT7th grade - - Apr 20th 2009just letting you know, what you wrote is completely true about you being beautiful.I like it. Its a fact that everyone sometime in their life is bullied, particulary in teenage years. Bullying is a nasty way of someone making them feel good about themselves. They bully because they are not completely happy with themselves and find reasons to pick on someone else, either because of jealousy or they find them an easy target. Dont listen to the others that say stuff like that to you, all that matters is that you are happy with yourself, and by what you wrote about knowing your beautiful even when they say horrible stuff like that to you..well thats true beauty. You show positivity and charateristics that these others cant find in themselves, your not doing anything wrong and it will blow over. As long as you keep positive and tell yourself your beautiful then you will be ok. The others, they dont matter and to you, they never will because its people like them who try blowing others self esteem...but your showing courage and thats awesome.I dont know if this has helped but just letting you know your comment was inspiring to read :).Keep your head up girl... your doing fine.... and keep telling yourself that ok. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Hello I am in 8th grade and I Want to know why. Why are kids demorolized if they a from a different race or religion. . Kids dont deserve that kind of torture. In most schools Every thing is revolved around this disgusting ring of kids who think they are sooooo cool and do what ever they can to feel better about themselves. Those kids are of no importance. When you are on your lunch break at your big corperation an you go to Mcdonalds, those kids will be the ones taking your orders. bullies are just dirt that need to feel like pretty flowers. Well you are the ones who will be walking all over this dirt in your future. Id love to help people in anyway possible and i hope to be a pyschologist in my future. I dont think it is funny in anyway to be bullied and take action. I dont care how you do it but dont hurt yourself or anybody else

Hi, I'm in the 7th grade and I get bullied all the time. On the bus all the 8th grade guys make fun of me and say oh look at her she's so ugly and stuff. It hurts me but I know I'm not ugly. I just tell myself, they are jelious. I am beautiful and they just need to feel good about themselves.