incident. When I was about 12 years old, I stayed after school for a wrestling program. After practice, as I left the locker room, to get a ride home, the coach grabbed me -- hard -- and slammed me several times into a wall.

"You look like a cat with your long hair," he said, "and I hate cats."

By coincidence -- though "coincidence" does not exist -- my oldest brother was picking me up, instead of my father (who dislike "long" hair). He asked me why I appeared upset? After I told him, he went into the school. My brother was a professional boxer, with much longer hair than I.

Needless to say, that coached liked me from then on. Well, at least he pretended to. Can't say if his feelings about cats changed, though.

Of the bullied child. I don't know how I lived through it. Worry about a child is the worst fear in the world.

undertant what I was exactly going through. First they lined with the school authority. Then, when I recieved an insulting letter in the mail box ( It was untitled The Trisomic Woman at the Swimming pool) they then really realized.

I was buck toothed, wore thick glasses that didn't improve my vision enough to follow a ball in sports, and had clunky post polio shoes. I was also a Yankee Irish Catholic (although I didn't believe a word of it by then) in a sea of Southern Baptists. I also had an ambiguous last name that netted me a lot of Jew bashing when they were bored with Catholic bashing.

When I was 14, it got much better, the little snots having somehow grown up during that summer. At 16, I grew six inches, got rid of the braces on my teeth, shed the clunky shoes for normal footwear, and generally turned into a swan. I was still the school's dateless darling, being too good at math made me intimidating. When I went to college, I realized it had been them and not me. When I fled the south for Boston, I knew it was the south and not me.

Still, there is always the nagging feeling that I don't measure up and that I don't deserve what few good things in life I've gotten.

Bastards.

By high school I think it is usually better, not worse.

Being the smartest and smallest kid in class was a special kind of hell. I was also Aspergers - not diagnosed until my late 40s - so I was and remain pretty short in the social skills department. It was pretty horrible.

I thoroughly enjoyed college and law school, where no one cares how you go your own way. You always bump into a few kindred spirits.

Workplaces have been another kind of hell. Been fired from almost every firm I have ever worked for. People like my work but find me "arrogant, remote, and 'spooky'" to use a few descriptors. Truth to tell I am just extremely introverted, chary of social interactions and have harmless but eccentric personal interests. I don't give a crap about your golf game, lake cabin, high school sports teams, etc., etc. I am no more interested in them than you are in my interests. If they make you happy I give you joy of it but don't expect me to share your interests. I don't expect you to share mine. Leave me alone and let me do my job. I will always be polite and professional about anything work-related but that is the full extent to which I want to interact with you.

The problem is that our societies are based on appeasing and popularity dictatorship. It rules schoolworld, profetional ones....and even politics.

and was an only child. I never had any problem entertaining myself even when I was a wee lad. I liked to play with other kids but to paraphrase the great guitarist Robert Fripp, me and a book was a party, me and a book and a glass of ginger ale was an orgy when I was a small boy. I also spent countless hours building model cars and messing around with slot cars when I was a boy.

I was a weird, crazy-smart kid and I grew up to be a weird, crazy-smart adult.

The US us a particularly ugly society for introverts, though. There is something seriously "wrong" with introverts in our society, at least by society's standards. Which sucks.

but I was. Due to being poor, having to wear hand me downs, wearing thick glasses I was targeted. I was also very bright and while excelling in class I wasn't often called on or included.

Yes, this affected me - I hate bullies in all forms but sadly I know I hate when I should tolerate, I get defensive instead of trying to understand.

Born of English parents, they outfitted me like an English schoolgirl. Complete with bookbag (in style now). But not then.

I had an English accent having only been with my parents. The teachers loved the accent, so they had me read aloud in class all the time. My classmates laughed hilariously when I said tomato with a soft a and not a hard a. Many other words as well.

This was in the south...omygoodness, the crap I took.

Plus I had asthma then, was terrible at kickball...I was the one everyone argued about who they did not want on their team. I even remember the names of my childhood tormentors.

Funny though, I outgrew the asthma. Years later in college I ran into one of the bullies. She seemed so happy to see me. I was amazed. I noted with satisfaction that she was overweight and horrible looking. (I know that's not a good thing, but she caused me a lot of pain as a child). I was friendly to her.

Very athletic in my life now. Don't know what happened to the other bullies. Never looked for them. That one encounter made me happy.

Good indeed to see that the one who was an ass in the past finally looked in the mirror.

I hated elementary school.

Still pretty much keep to myself. Not wild about people in general.

Especially this new thing of selfies, self-promotion, micro-celebrity etc. .

Not for me.

The hormones are flaring. Everyone asserting their manhood (even some of the girls). I was stopped and pushed off my bike riding home from school one day, by a couple of my supposed class "mates." They laughed, hit me, then stole my watch (at least they left me my bike).

I wound up being friends with each of the three later in school. One died very early, presumably of acute karma poisoning. I then went on to be elected Senior Class President in high school. Fuck 'em.

who did not like that I didnt go out for football. A bad Frosh experience killed anything I could put into the game, but that is another story. Lots of chest puching, shoulder punching. Not as bad as one poor kid getting pansed, and hung upside down in the gym by his ankles during lunch. When he graduated he never came back.
ANother buddy pulled his knife on a bully in the shower changing room during a bullying session. We broke it up and the both of them were lucky that I chose my buddy during the breakup. I grabbed his wrist when I saw the knife. COuld have been alot worse.
And the so called MANLY football players doing the bullying? Worse case of losers in the world. NONE of them amounted to ANYTHING to this day.
I hit the books even harder, went to college, 2 degrees. My other buddies, the same. Seems the bullies always saw something they KNEW they couldnt have, and despised the people who had it.
Today, both our GIRLS were bullied in school. The oldest survived but will NOT go back to the school for anything. Our youngest, we placed in another school. Both times the school would do nothing to assist(Private religious school).
The bullies are either jealous, dislike what they perceive as what they should have, or have other issues at their homes.

some folks bullying does not end after their years in school.

The workplace one is eating me up more than the school one did - I had an abusive supervisor a couple of years ago who treated me extremely horribly no matter what I did. Thankfully the supervisor was fired for it, but if I had worked anywhere but my parents' business I would have looked at filing a lawsuit over the way I was treated. Hell, any employee that has to go through that knows what it's like.

was fired. Wonder how well a lawsuit would of worked. When you wrote workplace bullying the name that came across my mind first was George Zimmerman. It take a certain type of person to revel in some one's suffering.

I was a skinny, squeaky, clumsy, very reactive kid. My asthma was often out of control too. I missed a lot of school.

This was before Aspergers was a diagnosis in the U.S.A., before you could quit high school by taking the GED, and asthma meds were primitive, things like theophylline that made me even jumpier than I usually was.

I was a great target for bullies, practically a chew toy for them. I didn't get much protection in school but bad advice to "man up" and other such bullshit.

I quit high school for college and college was a wonderful place because the physical violence mostly stopped. If an adult beats up a minor (unless they are a cop or a football coach or something, right?) they generally go to jail.

Fortunately I was very secure at home and that probably made all the difference in the world. I could compartmentalize school as a bad place. It wasn't "my life." Kids who have no secure place fare much, much worse.

School violence certainly didn't do me any good, and no doubt contributed to my problems, but even without that I was an odd kid out. My natural, unmedicated mental state is dumpster diving feral human, a mess of obsessive compulsive disorders wrapped up in a blanket of serious depression.

I'm glad bullying is now recognized as a serious problem. Back then it seemed to be regarded as a natural state of childhood. People thought the kids who got bullied just needed to toughen up and fight back. I toughened up all right, but not in any positive ways.

I was in gifted classes and so forth, so I definitely had the "nerd" label. However, I am also both extroverted and athletic, so you wouldn't have expected that I would have had as many problems as I did. I changed high schools after my sophomore year and was fairly popular after I got into a new environment.

My main problem as a 12-15 year old was that I was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of interests and with regard to boys. I remember coming back to school in the fall of 7th grade, and it seemed like every other girl besides me was talking about dating, shaving her legs, had figured out that it was important to wear certain brand-name clothes, and so forth. They grew up somehow over the summer, and I didn't. I just wasn't ready for that yet, and I got left behind. I was still playing with stuffed animals, and had no interest in boys yet. Unfortunately, anything that makes someone different at that age is like having a huge neon target painted on your back. My main tormenter was the head cheerleader, a 9th grader named Amy. She was both physically mature and well-liked, and I lived in absolute terror of her. She once encouraged an entire class to throw wadded up paper at me when the teacher stepped out of the room. Some of the "popular" girls in my own grade were also very unkind - all the usual exclusionary, gossipy mean girl stuff, plus some occasional physical threats/incidents. I spent 2-3 years of my life crying on the bus home from school every day, and was often afraid while I was at school.

I definitely feel that the experience affected (and continues to affect) other aspects of my life. Some of the consequences of being bullied were positive: I have always had empathy for the underdog and I have always been willing to be the one who stands up first to defend someone or to say, "this isn't right". Bullying made me both conscientious and brave.

On the negative side, though, I definitely think that the experience has undermined my ability to trust and form bonds with other women over the course of my life. Even at age 40, I feel distinctly uncomfortable in groups of women - I'm always kind of subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to reject or undermine me in some way. I have learned how to "pass" in my interactions with other women, but I'm never comfortable.

Like (too) many others, I have experienced some other profoundly negative circumstances in my life, including domestic violence and a date rape, but the bullying I experienced as a young adolescent had a more profound effect on me than almost anything else. It definitely shaped my view of other people and my social interactions throughout the course of my life. I wish people would take it more seriously. It's not just "kids being kids". It's a profoundly negative, life-altering experience that happens at a formative time in many people's lives. Most adults would never put up with the treatment from (for example) co-workers or our spouses that we expect children to put up with every day in this country - a lot of this behavior is harassment and assault, but we just think it's normal for a 12-year-old to be able to handle it emotionally and physically.

I also cried on that f....bus sending me back home. But I most cried locked up in the toilets!
And of course, when it was time to go back to sit in classrooms, my puffy and red eyes where the point of start of another round of snarky jokes!
I remember one day when the "principal teacher" of our grade whent furious at the the group. We were discussing group issues, and someone was enough nasty to write down on the board " mylye2222 cries all the times like a baby"!!!!
Then that great teacher gave him a sentence!

It is amazing that you have worked your way though so much of this and are able to return to a setting (school) that was so painful for you. I hope that your studies at this higher level will be among fellow students, who are no longer so vile.

You are a bright young woman, able to converse in a foreign language on topics that many have difficulty writing of in the language they are most comfortable with. Best wishes in both your studies and in finding people who accept you for who you are.

After reading what you wrote, I would have to say that any bullying I was subjected to was pretty trivial and short lasting.

But, my one year of studies is already finished.

in school because of his weight. He finally took his father's 22-caliber pistol to school, stood up in class, said he was not going to take it any more and fatally shot himself in the head. He was only 15 years old.

I dropped out of HS my junior year. It leaves lifelong scars.

A fist is a marvelous tool sometimes. I'm a goofy looking Aspie and was teased a lot. But the old man taught me how to box and the more important lesson of never taking shit from anyone. Both have served me well.

For me the trick was hitting the gym around 12-13 years old and bulking up my skinny frame. The bullying tapered off.

I went to a private elementary school where classes were so small we were all warmly connected. Reunited with all those elementary school pals for a series of reunions in my late 50s, and still loved them. But 7th grade in public school was tough, and 8th grade was impossible. Even though I was physically fit enough to rank in the top 30 boys in the school in some standardized test of athletic ability, I wasn't skilled at any sports or interested in them. By 9th grade things started to turn around as I looked good enough to get dates (even though I was gay) and precocious enough to pick up on the teeny-bopper vibe ahead of most kids and be "cool" by 1969.

What really impacted my life is that it took me until my mid-30s to reawaken an interest in physical exercise because I associated it with bullying in gym class. Still have ZERO interest in sports but through my adult life outdoors recreation has been a huge source of enjoyment and connection with others. All that 8th grade bullying cost me twenty years or so of possible hiking/paddling joy because it made me so averse to anything related to physical activitiy in which one might be judged inferior and bullied.

I went to a lot of different schools. I was bullied at most of them. I used to think it was because my family was poor, but even when I sort of looked like all the other kids I was bullied. So, it was probably something else. Something that made people think I am different. I was bullied at work as well. I think now it's because I have a whole lot of characteristics in common with people who have Aspergers. I don't like large groups, I prefer to listen rather than talk, I don't emote very well at all, I study what I like for hours at a time things I don't like not so much, I don't like team sports, I don't care even a little bit about fashion for myself (if I have to I will look at pictures with my youngest daughter, but that is almost painful), I have a hard time filtering what I say (I do okay on message boards I think, cuz backspace), people tell me their problems (I don't know why) and get upset because I tend to be in problem solving mode rather than sympathy mode ( I still don't know how to do that), and worst of all an invitation to a party feels a lot more like a summons to the principals office to me.
The impact was harsh I believe one of the reasons I got into a relationship was because of that feeling of never belonging. Not even with my family. I finally found someone that I thought appreciated me. I was wrong. But, after decades of being together we finally have a truce of sorts. He no longer insists on the relationship being on his terms. He has sort of accepted that I just can't be the kind of emotional support system he needed/wanted. It's sort of sad, but I never promised to be the nurturing type. It really isn't that I can't understand or that I don't have compassion it's more that I don't have the wiring to be able to emote it if that makes any sense.

High school for me was '72 - '76. I was a good student but hung with the "freaks" (non-athletic hippie types). I would smoke a cigarette every day after school before I got on the bus. I think the jock-type girls were a little bit intimidated by me. But some of my friends had such strict parents. They weren't jockettes, they weren't brains, they couldn't smoke and be part of the "cool" culture I was in....they were screwed. I do pride myself to this day that I always rose to their defense and supported them during the bullying garbage. Some of them, as adults in their 40s and 50s, have thanked me. It must have been hell for them

And I was always ready to fight anybody anytime, so I got picked on a lot by bigger kids.

Until I grew 8 inches and 50 lbs between my 14th and 15th birthdays. Afterward, there weren't many bigger kids and the ones there were, pretty much left me alone. But the best part of it was my whole demeanor changed. I was no longer a mouthy little jerk, I had nothing to prove, and no desire to bully any of the smaller younger kids in the school. My last 3 years in high school I probably got in fewer than two or three fist fights and one of those was over a girl.

I'm certain I said the words "I was bullied and I turned out fine, it taught me coping skills" more than once. Turns out those coping skills weren't exactly healthy ones. I found myself suffering from prolonged anxiety and depression later on in life and came to realize my school aged years were the cause.

I've worked on a lot of this with a therapist. I've made substantial improvement, but still struggle sometimes.

I can say that my life would be substantially better if I had a childhood where I was accepted for who I was and if I ever have a child I will try desperately try to make sure that they have that.

Never one to stand by and let someone smaller and weaker (or outnumbered) be bullied, I'd always step in - even when I was in kindergarten. Needless to say I had a lot of enemies growing up, took a few beat downs and administered a few.

I think it started when because I had a life long friend (who has since passed from AIDS) who was picked on as a small child and through high school.

Fat and bookish. I put up with it, while my parents did their best to end it working with the incompetent school system, until the 8th grade. I never engaged in a fight and always ran to avoid violence. I didn't want to fight. So I took many bruises and free punches while fleeing to safety. One day I had just had enough while they ganged up on me in a local park and I just nearly beat one kid to death. I unleashed a can of whoop-ass that must have been building for most of my school life. I had to be dragged off of him and I was still pounding him even after I got a bloody nose from a second bully trying to stop me. A second incident days later left one with a concussion as he charged me on a bike and I knocked him off his bike head first right onto the road. And that ended my years, YEARS, of bullying.

It still bothers me to this day that the obvious lesson was "Sometimes Violence IS the Answer". At some point you are just going to let it all out.

during the summer between 9th and 10th grade. This was in the '70's. I went on a weeklong school trip to the North Carolina shore with a bunch of girls my age. I was a late bloomer and thought we were going because we liked the beach. Apparently we were going to pick up guys. I mean, why did I want a one week relationship with some North Carolina townie? (No offense North Carolina townies, I came to like you kinda guys in college.)

Anyway, when my peers were having no luck with the locals they started to blame me. Probably because I dressed a little behind the times. I wasn't, at that point, aware that you wore jeans no matter what the temperature, I packed shorts 'cause it was hot. One girl was the ringleader and many of the rest followed along. Thankfully, my roommates were too busy fighting each other to worry much about me. It was horrendous and I hid out in the beach house most of the week. Feeling guilty about wasting the money my Dad paid for the trip. That trip could not have been over soon enough for me.

When school started I got stuck sitting next to one of my tormentors in biology class and we had to be lab partners. She actually apologized to me. I have no ill will towards her and greatly appreciated her apology. The rest can rot in burning hell. I'm over it, but I like to keep a little hate-fire going just because it feels good to fan it about once a year or so. I ran into the ringleader after college when I was working in a department store and she was a customer. She actually had the gall to act nice to me, like we were long lost chums. I pretended not to know her, because she so obviously expected me to remember her fondly. She came into the store a bunch of times, often shopping with her mother. Her mother actually approached me once and asked me didn't I remember her daughter, we were in high school together. In all outward appearance I was clueless. In a way I was clueless. It is beyond me how she could try to be nice to me like the whole thing never happened. To this day I don't wear shorts.

By the time I hit middle school/jr. high (I attended 3,) I'd learned not to form bonds, since I knew I'd be moving on. I learned to be unnoticeable, to fade into the background, and I learned mostly passive resistance when bullying was persistent. The new, unknown person was always a target. By high school, I had a couple of incidents of not-so-passive resistance, but then, there were a lot fewer incidents of any kind. The only real trigger was when someone's boyfriend looked at me for too long.

I sent my own 2 kids to small schools, and made sure they went to the same schools with the same people. It helped.

I've always chosen to work at small schools, where adults all know the students better, and can recognize and intervene faster. I KNOW that my students don't suffer from the same level of bullying today that I did, or that can happen on larger, more institutionalized campuses.

Sure, every once in a while 2 or 3 of them would pack up on me; I was one of the smaller kids in my grade - but I was just liable to start swinging, and I don't think that's really what they want. They want to intimidate and humiliate more than they actually want to beat people down, for the most part.

for 2 years. These kids thought I told teacher on them but I was asking her how much longer we had to run track, they were hiding behind tree. She asked me to tell them to come out, I did as she said.

To this day I think the teacher handled it wrong, nothing I could say to the kids made them believe me, they clipped me, pushed me, threatened me, etc. my parents did nothing, and I was shy scared skinny kid too afraid to tell any teachers.

I was also afraid to go to school, my grades went from A's & B's to C's and D's and no one seemed to notice or care, parents had their own problems.

I had to call my mom once because they said they would beat me up if i left Woolworth's store.

I wish my parents had got me self defense classes instead of ballet!!!

And before them my older brother bullied me.

How it affected my life is I was sort of bullied by first husband and relationship after that...I finally got more empowered in my 40's and not that way in my marriage now. We are equals.

It's hard to overcome the fear.

IMHO

They for long took bullying as "a part of kid s évolution" and I would nt say btw encouraged it, but for long it has been the harassed kid who has been labelled as "to fragile".
This really must stop.

But letting the bullies continue did not help.

That's why I think self defense or some other program to encourage self esteem is what kids like me needed.

Elementary school was fine. I was in a gifted program, pretty much all of my classmates were nice, if perhaps slightly weird kids. I got along well with just about everybody and made a lot of friends I kept for years.

Junior high? Pure hell. Actually that's not entirely true. The first week or so the popular girls were nice to me. Then they turned on me all at once, one day while we were sitting around in the gym at some kind of PE class orientation. I can still remember the whole conversation and I have no idea if I committed some faux pas or it was entirely random.

High school? More of the same until sometime in the spring of my freshman year. Some girl in science class was bothering me and a boy grabbed her sleeve and stage whispered to her "you know she's dating (name of very large Senior here) right?" She shut up in mid sentence and literally no more bullying was aimed my way in high school. Not one word.

I still can't make any sense of it getting turned on and off like that. But that's what happened.

I was still the same kid either way. However I handle individual conversations well and large groups well but am exceedingly uncomfortable and awkward in middling sized social groups, and I think that my school experience is probably why, although my poor hearing also contributes- I really have to concentrate in small groups and get lost when people start talking over each other. One on one conversations aren't like that and large groups tend to be organized enough to avoid the problem.

Brainy kid, obviously not into guys when all the other girls were. I ended up getting the physical and the mental bullying because of those main two plus a few more involving the fact that my gait is off because of my spina bifida. I never stood a change.

K&R

actually junior high meaning 7-9 grade. I got called fag nearly every day. I also got smacked around, wedgies, pantsed that kind of thing. It took me quite sometime to embrace being gay thanks to this awful experience.

there was no actual name for "bullying". I was teased some at school -- mainly because of my weight. But the real bullying came from my brother and my cousin. They took great pleasure in teasing me until I cried. There was no help from my parents -- my father was disinterested and my mother said there must be something wrong with me for getting my feelings hurt. It got better when we moved across country and my brother and cousin were separated. My brother continued to badger me until I cried and my mother reminded me of my failings for crying. I'm still a softie -- I cry at movies and even when reading touching stories. Because I've developed into a strong person, bullies have no interest in me (they only like people who CAN be bullied). And, in the event you are wondering how it all worked out with my brother and cousin, I dropped them about 12 years ago and never heard from them again.

I was never bullied by my classmates. I was always afraid I would be. I had other things going on in my childhood that left me scarred and being "popular" became a sort of refuge from that. But I never ever bullied or was nasty to the kids who weren't "popular".