Have you ever been bullied?

[animalrescuer]

Seeing new commercials about anti-bullying and last year's documentary Bully makes me wonder what I could have done differently to stop bullying towards me. I was bullied mostly in middle school and high school. Seventh grade is when the bullying began, one girl on the bus and lived near my neighborhood at the time kept flicking me in the back of my head and at one point threw stuff at me. Worst of all, I was verbally harassed by boys, saying things like "Hey, sexy", I'd just turn away and ignore them because I know they didn't mean it. Same thing in high school, I was verbally harassed by boys again and again and I ignored them because they were jerks! The thing is I didn't do anything to stop it, mainly because I was so shy and insecure, that bothers me sometimes.

In your opinion, was this the right thing to do, just ignore them or should I have done something differently? What are your stories and what did you do?

 

[D'Snowth]

We definitely already have a thread like this.

http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/have-you-ever-been-bullied.51175/

 

[fuzzygobo]

Very important topic. I started a thread about this last year, and a lot of us had to face the same dilemna you did.

In my case, ignoring bullies doesn't make them stop. For me, it meant standing up for myself, even though it got me into the worst fight of my life, a bloody nose, and three days suspension.

More and more, schools are taking a zero-tolerance stance on bullies, and parents and teachers are now GETTING INVOLVED. Way back in the Dark Ages for me, stopping a bully meant fending for yourself, fight your own battles, and although I hate the thought of it, sometimes it meant FIGHTING. I hate violence, and I'm no fighter by any stretch of the imagination. But I got so tired of being picked on, I decided, right or wrong, I wasn't going to be a target any more. So I stood up to the bully and belted him one.
He got a black eye for his troubles, but he never bothered me after that.

Sometimes there is no one right thing to do, but you do have a right to defend yourself,
regardless of the consequences.

 

[Twisted Tails]

Now thia is interseting to me. The last time I was bullied was back in fifth grade when a girl named Terrance was picking on me. I think she harrassed too but I'm not sure. The neighborhood where I live doesn't have violenve and I never liked war either. After that, I was never picked on again by the time I moved on to a middle school al the way to high school where they had zero-tolerance of bullying.

 

[animalrescuer]

Sorry, D'Snowth, I didn't realize that there was already a thread on bullying.

 

[CensoredAlso]

When harassment enters the picture I definitely recommend going to an authority figure for help.

But don't beat yourself up, it's hard to know what to do when you're young.

 

[beatnikchick300]

Bullies are the worst. I had to deal with idiots like that from the time I was about 8 until I was 17, pretty much. I became clinically depressed when I was 16, and my dad went to school with me to have a meeting with counselors, where he pretty much asked them "doesn't my daughter have the right to go to school without being abused?' Those morons all looked at my dad like he was from outer space in response, which solidified my belief that in such situations, most adults are pretty useless.

Most of the time, when I was bullied, I would silently take it, but this made me very crippled on the inside, so I wished I hadn't. I did have moments where I would fight back: when I was 9, a boy teased me for crying because I got a bad grade on a test, so I shoved him into the cubbies and repeatedly slammed him into the wall for his troubles, and I kicked this girl who made fun of me for falling out of a chair in science class (it had happened two weeks before that and this little witch still thought it was funny; bullies have no lives).

Fortunately, according to my mom (who's a teacher) and my kid brothers, school admins are tougher on bullies than they used to be (the older of my two brothers in grade school, who's 14, told me a girl at their school recently was expelled for cyberbullying). I assume that this is happening because of recent prominent suicides linked to bullying. I'm glad they're cracking down, but I'm only sorry that kids had to die to get people to start taking it seriously.

In an ideal setting, if I could go back to third grade, I would beat up the first kid who teased me. Sure, I might have been punished, but that may have nipped the bullying in the bud; prevented it from worsening, you know? But I'm just glad kids today are growing up where they are at least getting more protection.

 

[CensoredAlso]

my dad went to school with me to have a meeting with counselors, where he pretty much asked them "doesn't my daughter have the right to go to school without being abused?' Those morons all looked at my dad like he was from outer space in response

My family often got the same tone deaf response.

Not to be blunt but most people are sheep and they don't know how to handle it when someone rocks the boat and demands that people behave better.

 

[Collgoff]

I use to be bullied when I was in 2ed grade: it only happened sometime when we were at recses.
Like one time I was playing with a girl when then two boys were picking on that girl which lift her up but I told them to her down.
So they did and they ran away It also happened a few times untill they stop it.

 

[fuzzygobo]

"Sticks and stones may break your bones,
But names will never hurt you".

Biggest lie my parents ever passed off on me.