Bullying: Stop the complaining.

[AldUK]

I wasn't bullied in school, but some did 'try' it with me. Mostly I put myself into situations where others were being bullied to stand up for them. A little context; I'm 6"5 and built like a tank, I spent most of primary and secondary school fighting, the area where I lived in Northern England was pretty rife with it.

But you know what? I am damn proud of the fact that I never actually began a fight, I simply finished them. Where did it get me? I ended up having to leave school before finishing my GCSEs and all of my so called 'friends' turned their backs on me.

Funny thing is, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. I am not and never have been the kind of person to sit back and watch while others are targeted, it'll probably bite me in the ass one day, but them's the ropes. I'd rather be this way and have basically nothing than pretend to be something I'm not to 'fit in.'

I had such a reputation for it as a teenager, I was once jumped in the local park by a group of 5 kids in the year above me, they had sticks, one had a knife. I got away with a broken rib and a black eye, but I gave as good as I got. The school got wind of it and suspended me. So I guess I'm not advocating fighting back to everyone, it really depends on the person you are, or at the least... aspire to be.

 

[Something Amyss]

The surest way to stop complaints is to bring it up and tell people to not bring it up.

I also find it very sad that the person who wants to end complaints of bullying is playing the role of apologist for bullies.

 

[Therarchos]

I grew up with my fair share of bullying and my response was beating the crap out the guys doing the bullying. 15 years after I doubt the morality of the act but definitely not the efficiency of it.The

The thing is that the most efficient bullies are the one's that have been bullied them selves.

I did good and bad in my childhood but I am still experiencing the after effects.

28 years old and I still can't sit in a room without having my back against the wall... Admitted a tour to the sandbox didn't help but that is not when my paranoia started.

I agree with the OP. You can learn a shit load as a person by overcoming the shit storm that is bullying, but is it worth the price?

It was for me but I couldn't put any other person through that in good conscious.

 

[Something Amyss]

It always amazes me that people take the "I'm okay, you should be, too."

Imagine if people took this attitude to other things.

"Sure, I fell fifty feet into broken glass, but I'm okay. Stop being such a baby."

"A bullet? Well hell, I got shot once. I'd do it all over again."

"A little car crash never hurt anyone. Just deal with it."

I wonder if this isn't so much apathy as it is hostility towards the notion that someone might have it better than they did.

I got literally stabbed once, by a bully. Guy took a knife out in a struggle, and I was lucky enough to get stabbed in the leg (and not in a major artery or anything). I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone with any sense or sanity. And I got that ridiculous "boys will be boys" crap in response.

Also, I should stand up for myself, and so on.

Apparently, societal mentality dictates that the problem should be solved when one of us is dead. I bet there are those in this thread who consider me a "pussy" for going to the cops over a knife in the leg. I mean, after all, that's what you're preaching. Solve your own problems.

 

[Zen Bard]

Folks, I don't think whether or not bullying is acceptable is being disputed.

The issue is how to teach kids to deal with bullies in 21st Century society.

And I happen to agree with the Original Poster. No, bullying is not nice, but it's going to happen. So perhaps instead of playing the blame game it would be better to help young people find ways to deal with it in a more effective manner.

Look, I grew up a small foreign kid with a weird name and a smart mouth.

You want to talk about a recipe for getting your ass kicked? I got bullied frequently. But I consider that an education in real world survival skills. It taught me conflict resolution where I learned to:

a) Sometimes keep my mouth shut (and no, I'm not blaming the victim...but there are things one can do to at least mitigate being a target).

b) Develop a sense of humor. In fact, one time I was about to get my weekly pounding and I kept cracking jokes. The would-be-bully kept laughing and finally he said "I can't beat you up! You're just too funny to hit!" After that, he became one of my best friends.

c) Develop a thick skin. My dad once said "Not even everyone likes God. What makes you think everyone will like you?" There was one older kid who always picked on me. No matter what I did or tried, he would not let up. Finally, I just came to expect it and accept it. Finally, he graduated and I had a few years of peace.

d) Learn how to defend yourself. Yes, violence is bad and any good martial art school is going to tell you it's only a last resort. But if someone is absolutely determined to take a swing at you, there's no reason to make it easy.

I will say that bullying has definitely become more creative and mean-spirited these days. And with the advent of the internet and social media, it's easier to expose the target to a much wider group for ridicule. But that doesn't change the fact that, at least in the U.S., we spend far too much time blaming and suing than teaching our kids to adapt.

Okay...I await the dissenting flames!

 

[Something Amyss]

I feel like I won.

Sounds like a pretty hollow victory to me.

 

[AnarchistFish]

"I was bullied and I just fought back, so stop the whining about it already!" ... That's pretty much all I grasped from the OP. And all I can say is, good lord, you were pretty damn lucky.

Slapping someone who tried to pull shit on me got three dear friends of mine at that time beaten up by a quarter of our school, while a half was watching. You know what else it got me? Detention. While that basterd - and everyone who was helping or watching - got away with a slap on the wrist. That was the one instance I was actually capable of fighting back.

Then, I love how you say "one side usually got the point after the fistfight". So, what you're saying is, "If I got beaten up, I sucked it up." - Congratulations, in most cases I witnessed, this made it worse. Not to mention the fact that what you described hardly sounds like bullying to me, but like a disagreement - at least, if it stopped after the fight. Bullying is ongoing harassment for no reason except for the fun the bully takes out of it - and the more you suffer, the more they love it.

Now, to the main point: Yes, bullying gets a weird angle in the media. We report about kids committing suicide, and how bad bullying is, but noone does anything. It usually ends with the same shit as always: "How could this have happened?" "Oh dear, we really need to deal with bullying ASAP!" "Meh, it was the kids fault ... Should've dealt with it." "Bullying is bad, and people should start caring for each other!" "2 soldiers were killed in an assault on the base in Afghanistan!" - And there the media stops caring again. Because, really, nothing changes anyway.

^^boom

I did occasionally fight back when I was bullied. I was ignored by the teachers anyway, so when I tried handling it myself I either got into trouble myself, got punched in the face or got headbutted in the face. And I'd be kinda outnumbered so what could I do?

 

[Something Amyss]

but it's going to happen.

Only as long as we let it.

Of course, saying it's going to happen is kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy, innit?

 

[The White Hunter]

Snip

I concur with your sentiments.

My entire time at highschool was nothing but constant bullshit for pretty much anything I ever fucking did. Know what? I tried ignoring it. It didn't work. I tried to fight back, and no matter how many times i left a guy bloody and broken on the floor they still kept coming back, they just brought their friends, oh and when I fought back it was my fault and I was the one punished.

No, bullying is absolutely not acceptable and the more steps taken against it the better, the answer lies in educating children about it. I worked in schools recently and it's much rare now than it ever was when I was a kid, because we've started to teach kids froma very young age that it's wrong, that there are other people with feelings, and just because somebody is different you don't get to be a fucking **** to them about it.

I'm past foaming with rage over this kind of topic but I'd be much better off if I'd just never been bullied. I'd have some self esteem, I'd have some genuine confidence, I wouldn't be an emotionally broken train wreck of a human being. I'd have a lot less scars, I wouldn't have difficulties with eating, I wouldn't have so much wrong with me, I wouldn't be afraid to be me.

So yeah, fuck bullying.

 

[Frankster]

God fucking damnit i had a nice 4 paragraph post with personal anecdotes on why being violent doesnt solve bullying but escapist 404 and ate it T_T

Il just say this: my only way of dealing with bullies has been through hyperviolence that no one thought i was capable off due to my timid and passive nature. It has not really done me any favors and i was punished for it each and every time.

Something about having the guys blood on your fists whilst the bully is whimpering on the floor made teachers never believe me when they would see the aftermatch. Heck I got kicked out my school over a fight which i didnt start and got sent to boarding school for troubled youths.

In short, violence aint the answer unfortunately, at least wasnt for me. Individual cases might vary i guess, i hear a whole lot of "bullied kids beat up bullies and gets respect from all" stories but that never happened on my side, if anything people avoided me more after i beat up groups of popular kids.

I'm past foaming with rage over this kind of topic but I'd be much better off if I'd just never been bullied. I'd have some self esteem, I'd have some genuine confidence, I wouldn't be an emotionally broken train wreck of a human being. I'd have a lot less scars, I wouldn't have difficulties with eating, I wouldn't have so much wrong with me, I wouldn't be afraid to be me.

Bro i feel you 100%, especially surprised about the eating part, i have a weird relationship with food too...Wonder how common a symptom that is.

 

[Sonntam]

I agree with you. Maybe I was never bullied enough, but really. I do not understand how "bullying" as it was explained to me by a dictionary, could make someone commit suicide, unless they were suicidal before. Just don't get it and that makes it hard for me to feel empathy towards the people who kill themselves because of it. I wonder how many people die yearly because of bullying. Probably quite a bit less than children who die of hunger, war or something like that. But bullying seems to be the media-sexy thing right now, so that's what we have to listen right now.

You should consider that you basically spend every day at a place where you have to sit and give your best to stay invisible, because if you don't, you will be humiliated for amusement of other people.

It gets under your skin in the weirdest way possible.

I believed there were normal people and then there were people who are a level beneath everyone. Freaks like me, socially awkward and generally less worth than your average human.

I still had the internet, games, anime and my twin sister. But I always felt like I was worthless. But not only that, I also knew that everyone in school would be happier if one day I just would stop coming to classes. It would be a relief, because I was embarassing to them, had to be assigned for group work (ugh, but who wants to work with THAT girl?) and if I absolutely had to talk to someone you could literally see that they wished I just wasn't there.

And you should keep in mind that the form of bullying I got was extremely mild, I wasn't picked upon daily, I never got beat up and generally the only thing I got were rare insults when someone was extremely annoyed by my presence (that was my number one offence, obviously).


Of course, now I would simply laugh in the face of anyone that would try to do that again to me. I could make a riot, bring in teachers, talk to the classmates, reminding them of their conscience. NOW, I could have brought myself out of this mysery, but back then I didn't have the confidence to defend myself from a puppy.

Seriously, if you never had been bullied, you can't know how much it f*cks with your mind. You start believing everything the bullies tell you in some way. You hate yourself, you despise yourself for being so weak and disgusting.

I had good things to keep me going. But many people don't.

 

[Zen Bard]

but it's going to happen.

Only as long as we let it.

Of course, saying it's going to happen is kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy, innit?

I don't agree. In fact, I'd say it's plain old Social Darwinism. But if anyone has an idea on how to stop it, I'm all in.

Planting the seeds of tolerance and brotherhood is a huge step. But even that's going to take some time to take root in some people

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Bullying is not okay, ever. It did however I suppose eventually make a stronger person out of me, once I stood up for myself. I got picked on a fair amount, teachers helped sometimes, but more often then not I would be bullied on the bike ride home.

Standing up for yourself doesn't mean beating them up, I started to show I wasn't afraid of them and after a while they kinda stopped, apart from name calling etc.

I hardly see how the whole "we can't help the kids because they won't know how to deal with it when they become adults" idea works, at all. See if you're getting your ass kicked as a adult you get help in the form of police and lawyers. Same for if you're getting harassed by people you don't like, unless it's a co-worker then you get help from someone higher up who doesn't want that kind of crap hurting productivity. Or switch jobs if it's that bad, and no on'es willing to help, which sadly enough isn't a real option for schools a lot of the time.

So the question here is: What exactly is letting kids get bullied preparing them for again? Because it certainly isn't adult life.

Some people think it's necessary for them to learn to stand up for themselves in such a manner, people who say that tend to be people who used to (or still do) bully people.

It's why I always stand up for the little guy, there's a school on my way to the bus stop that I go to work from and I have come across kids bullying, some of their parents I even know as customers at my work. I've helped out a few kids by standing in the way or breaking up physical violence and helping the little ones home (it's a primary school, so kids 5-11 years. I think it's called Elementary school for the US?) the teachers have been thankful too, I even gave them my contact details so if they need me, or a parent wants to talk to me about something they can. All I have ever got is thanks from them.

In short, I can't stand bullies, they are not "part of life" they are a parasite, and should be got rid of.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I tried to deal with it, but now every time I think of the person who made my life hell in primary school, I have a burning desire to kill him.

For some people, it works to stand up and I do(in secondary now), for myself and others, but different solutions work for different people, there is no one true solution.

Personally, I think waiting it out works, after all, since school is split up into about two sections(in America, there are three, I think), so chances are you won't have to see the asshole for longer than 6 years.(After all, bullies usually get weeded out at college level)

 

[The White Hunter]

I'm past foaming with rage over this kind of topic but I'd be much better off if I'd just never been bullied. I'd have some self esteem, I'd have some genuine confidence, I wouldn't be an emotionally broken train wreck of a human being. I'd have a lot less scars, I wouldn't have difficulties with eating, I wouldn't have so much wrong with me, I wouldn't be afraid to be me.

Bro i feel you 100%, especially surprised about the eating part, i have a weird relationship with food too...Wonder how common a symptom that is.

Well I used to eat way too much for periods, then nothing at all for ages, then too much, nothing, etc. Then I hit 18 and I started drinking far too much with my diet yo-yoing as ever and I put on a fuckload of weight, think I was around 14 stone this august when I finally said no, I'm, sick of being this, I'm sick of hating my own image in the mirror.

Finally lost some weight, 11stone 8 pounds now with some good muscle definition and no real flab.

Know what?

I still feel fat -___-
And ugly. But the scars from years of self harm don't help with the whole damn thing.

Edit: I feel ya on the Escapist 404 eating posts, nowadays if I'm gonna wall of text I write it up in notepad first > > I also feel you on the hyperviolence, I broke all kinds of bones on people, smashed noses open, knocked out most front teeth, broken furniture and hockey sticks with/over people, kirb stomped people, dragged a guys face along 200 metres of pebbledashed wall, hell I even set one guy's hair on fire and left him to burn.

It solved nothing, people just kept on as ever, and it took me a long time to reach the point of commiting those kinds of acts. I'm mostly cold, heartless and untrusting these days because I tried to "suck it up" for so long, that I just saw monsters and not people, then endeavoured to end them. To this day I know a good 20 people or so that I'd kill if I could get away with it.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I agree with you on the part where telling a teacher often doesn't work. A lot of teachers simply can't be arsed to live up to that area of their job description, and those that are are often constrained by bullshit red tape that stops them from being able to deal with bullies properly. That shit needs fixing.

However, telling people just to 'deal with it' is one of the most asinine, unhelpful, and quite frankly clueless ways to approach this problem. The whole point of bullying, however it manifests, is that it's a psychological attack. The relentlessness of it chips away at the victims self-esteem until there is nothing left. That's not something the human mind can really 'deal with' for the most part. Deal with it how exactly? Fight back? That's possible if you have any kind of physical advantage over your attacker(s) and are not overwhelmingly outnumbered, but such a scenario is rarely the case. Just shut up and get on with things? Of course, because the healthiest thing for a person under psychological attack to do is to isolate themselves from anyone who might be able to give them reassurance. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Bullying isn't acceptable and no one should have to put up with it, my best friend was bullied to the brink of suicide when people from his School, people he didn't know, started phoning him up in the middle of the night with insults and death threats.

When people insult or beat me up I just usually laugh, don't know why but people are less inclined to hit me if I act like a nutter and tell them the word "press X to slit up" appear above their heads when they piss me off... Oh, and I strangled a guy once and he stopped bullying me...

 

[elvor0]

eeh.. it's not that simple really. It's quite a big issue in the UK too. My Mum always told me to stand up for myself, which I did, and even get the first punch in if you know they're going to hit you, coupled with the fact that I have the family "psycho gene" it did sort of work out. Pick on me, and I will beat you senseless with this chair, I will not stop until someone stops me. You get a warning, if you continue you have only yourself to blame, because I sure as hell ain't gonna be in control of myself. I'm not even a very good fighter, in fact were I not to have an adrenaline fuelled blind rage when I get into fight, and actually kept my cool, I have no doubt that I would lose horribly.

Frankly on a side not, if I could get away with it, I'd be more than happy to strap some of the nastier pieces of shit from my teenage years in chairs, glue their eyelids open and beat them with a lead pipe so I could watch the light in their eyes go out. But I digress.

Unfortunately, not everyone has that blood-lust, or are too timid to stand up for themselves, and thus all they can do is take it, or hope someone stands up for them instead. Because we sure as hell all know that the advice we're given by teachers (mostly by the school board, given most of my teachers tended to turn a blind eye to me lashing out), is to just walk away. As we all know bullies are non mobile creatures, confused and peterbed by someone moving away from them. They are rooted to the spot, and only bully those who come close to them.

Also, it's completely disregarded as an actual issue most of the time. I've seen people get some bad beatings, hell, I've seen people mugged come out better off than some school yard beatings. I hate to be sensationalist, but there seriously needs to be more reprimand for this shit, more (or actually giving) detentions would be a good start, if people are getting beat up on a regular basis, that's when the police would start getting involved in adult life, yet kids are free to hate on, emotionally bully and beat the snot out of other kids and get off with nay so much as a slap on the wrist, it's fucking shit.

On the other hand, cyber bulling is something I don't get really. I mean that DOES have the ability to walk away. Block whoevers being a dick and bam, done! Of course something like a 4chan mass troll is a bit more difficult to circumvent, but your average schoolyard bully is unlikely to be massively computer savvy, and blocking him is easy as pie.