Bullying: Stop the complaining.

[generals3]

It's hilarious that you argue logic when you fail to grasp the the actual consequence to bullying.

It's not loss of a persons will to live, it's loss of a persons self-worth. Given enough time a victim of bullying starts to think the same way as the bully. They see themselves as petty, weak, useless. Depending on the source of the bullying it can infer other things (abusive parents infers you aren't wanted, abusive faculty members implies that your bullies are right and you are wrong, useless advice like "man up" infers you are less then a man, etc.)

At a point they don't even feel like lashing out, they can't even see how they could be wrong. If a bully is able to whittle someone that far down, the family fails to notice or doesn't care and the people in our society who have power to intervene don't, then the "LOGICAL" conclusion for the victim is that the bully is right and he is worthless and deserves the punishment.

But no one want's to live like that, so they choose the most rational course of action giving how fucked up their values are. They kill themselves in a fit of self-loathing, not in anger.

EDIT: In case that isn't clear, for some victims of bullying, the bully isn't even an aggressor. I mean, it's the victim, after all, who's at fault. It's his flaw and he can't figure out what that flaw is. Since the bully will keep bullying no matter how much that person changes. It won't even cross his mind to confront the bully because the bully is merely reacting to the victims aggravating and pathetic presence.

EDIT EDIT: There is an alternative outcome, where people do turn on their bullies... it's called going psycho and killing a bunch of people. You know, School shootings and the such.

I think i need to clarify some things. Firstly, usually bullying hits the media after suicides of the victims(hence why i specifically addressed that in the first paragraph, the second was a bit more in general).

Secondly self loathing isn't always the reason, some unfortunately end up committing suicide because they see no end in the tormenting.

And i don't really believe the first edit. I have a friend who used to get bullied by someone and my friend solved that issue by making it clear if the bully would continue he'd kick his ass. Now ok he did get a small beating from the bully's big brother but my friend never heard anything from the bully himself anymore. Usually bullies attack easy targets, people with low self esteem, not that many friends, people who basically don't have anyone to stand up for them or who don't dare to stand up for themselves (there are exceptions, obviously).

And about the second edit. Standing up for yourself =/= going psycho. I know it happens quite often in the US but i actually don't remember any case of shootings and such in shools over here in my lifetime.

Also, while I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not advocating murder as an alternative to suicide, what you just said veers creepily close to the sort of mentality that drives school-shootings. 'Well, I want to die anyway, I might as well go out in a blaze of glory and make all my bullies pay for their crimes.'

Ow ow. I never advocated murder! What i merely said is that the worst that could happen to someone who would stand up for himself is that it can result into a fight which might end up fatal (usually for the victim because not many bullies attack people who have twice the amount of muscles, usually...). All i was advocating is standing up for yourself and applied the logic, if you embrace death already why not stand up for yourself, after all the biggest issue with standing up for yourself is that you could get beaten up nasty but since you don't even fear death it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Bullying just flat out shouldn't happen and in a perfect world wouldn't exist. In reality, it's going to exist inevitably forever.

The media's skewed way of presenting bullying seems to portray it in a way that stresses empowerment of the bullies and further victimizes the victims. Sob stories about helpless children who could have done absolutely nothing to stop the all-powerful bullies and then ended their lives. An act wherein no accountability falls on the weakness of the person who actually pulled the trigger and all blame should be placed on the mean words and actions that tangentially led them to it.

There's an emphasis that the media puts on helplessness which is a dangerous mentality to have. When you're bullied you're outmatched, not helpless. It's a bad situation to be in, but not one that's impossible to get out of. What should be emphasized is assessing the situation and thinking of a way to overcome it. Treating bullied kids like there was nothing they could have done is detrimental, not reassuring.

 

[Vkmies]

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.

Maybe it's a personal thing then. Because me, a weird, long haired hippie with odd band-shirts and a Pink Floyd Beanie, I got picked on. Every now and then, maybe about weekly, I got a snarky comment or someone tried to start shit with me. Somehow I just grew into it. I got a few close friends and completely disregarded all the assholes. Apparently that's not something many people can do. Maybe I am lucky. I just managed to laugh in the faces of all the bullies and eventually they stopped trying. Granted, I had to experience that whenever I changed schools, but it always worked.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Its

snip

There is a difference between a mild teasing and bullying. Look calling someone fat is ok as long as its in good fun and you are not doing it repeatedly. If you get called fat every day for 4 years straight your going to be affected as a person. Thats bullying. Thats what the big deal is.

Thanks for the spell check. Appreciate it.

There's a great quote by Nancy Reagan that goes along the lines of "not letting others affect how you feel". I may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but that idea goes a long way.

Oops that wasn't suppose to be there. That just text I didn't delete my bad. I don't do that spell check revising thing.

I agree 100%

Trouble is, that idea only goes so far.

Unless you train yourself (or have someone else train you for years), you simply can't manage your own psyche well enough for that concept to be truly effective.

Sure, consciously, you might manage that... to a degree (how many people do you know that can always perfectly control how they feel about anything?).

But subconsciously? People have no control over that. And it is in the subconscious where all of the bullshit people spout at you is internalized.

Well... I do recall blowing up on people after repressing an inner rage from being bullied so yeah its probably not the best idea. But putting your emotions on your sleeve seem to just welcome more bullying.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

I'm 17, so I was in school when they believed fighting was wrong and a punishable offence.

Fuck authority. I fought back anyway. If authority tells me that being hurt by scum is fine, I'm not going to do what they please anymore. I appreciate the violence doesn't solve everything, but in this 'molly-coddling' culture we have where children are raised to believe it's wrong to stand up for yourself, people are bound to get torn to pieces. People should at least know that they can fight for themselves without the powers that be punishing them for it. People having a little self-worth would probably stop a lot of bullying in the first place. The weak get picked on for a reason. You don't see the school Jock going toe-to-toe with his bigger, burlier friend.

If standing your ground doesn't work, then tell someone. The bullying issue is massively overplayed, this coming from someone who was constantly insulted, humiliated and hated from primary school up until college. The society we live in is raising children to be weak, and it's fucking wrong.

 

[HippySteve]

I think the "bullying-suicide epidemic", as I've seen it called stateside on the idea that everyone is inherently worth something. So then, when someone gets in their face and tells them they're not, they don't know how to react. They don't say "fuck you" and brush it off, and they don't stand up for themselves. They feel put upon, and just let themselves to continue to be a target.

 

[Stampede]

Greetings, Escapees! I started reading The Escapist forum during the ME3 ending...thing... and after it toned down (although even at this very moment somebody, somewhere, feels the need to open a topic about it) I kept on coming back for more. It's been a great time sink and I figure "Hey, this is as good a topic as any to take it a step further. Gotta start somewhere...". So... Here we go: (hindsight - damned thing came out long... sorry, first post and all... but be warned)

I agree with andrewfox at the general level. Naturally, like any forum, 30 posts down the conversation people become rather specific and focused on certain aspects and I will get to specifics later on, but I firmly stand behind the idea that every human being needs, not has to or would be great to, n e e d s to at least have a basic understanding of the most fundamental reality - defense of the Self is going to be required at some if not most periods of your life. Darwinism or not it is ultimately true. That being said, it's also true that people are very different in so many ways and how one defends one's Self should be entirely different. Standing up for yourself can have as many forms as there are people. I've seen a lot of them and I agree with most. What I can't agree with is people who are willing to remove the Self from the picture for whatever reason. Viewing bullying as anything else but an attack on one's person (be it emotional or quite bruising) is an unnecessary complication and an error in judgement in my personal opinion. It's hardly a "phenomenon of modern society" and should not deserve such treatment. Like most things that involve people's thoughts and emotions nowadays, bullying falls in the category of "too much media time" which leads to all the natural developments and ultimately to the funny-sad moment when a bullied teenager sees a forum thread or watches a YT video about the same tribulations he/she is going through and doesn't think to himself "Yeah, there are others like me, my story is not unique... So let me figure out how that person lives with it and maybe I can figure my own at some point..." but rather "Damn, this is happening everywhere and no one has an answer, so why should I?". Our modern times are doing a great disservice to everyone by robbing said teenager and everyone like him (which is quite a lot of us at some point) of the will and drive to adapt and if not overcome at least endure this particular behavior. That goes double for the US (since it became a specific thing down the comments) which is notorious for bullying whole countries into economical turmoil, but has a no-nonsense policy for school violence and bullying in particular... No offence yanks, but it doesn't get any more obvious than that. A society that accepts bullying from it's own government for the sake of survival and safety will inescapably let that notion drip down to the youngest and smallest and lead to those very hopeless developments that this topic is aimed at. In general - bullying is like any other human behavior - it can lead to both harmful and beneficial outcomes (sometimes both...) because as humans we are both paradoxical and straight-forward and our very nature is shifting, specially at a young age.

So generally, yeah... Complaining might help, probably won't, but it will certainly deprive you of the need to find or develop qualities that are most certainly useful - strength, endurance, flexibility, cunning and so forth. To deal with it is a general term and I know people don't like those when it comes to emotions and thoughts, but breaking it down I believe it means "figure yourself or the things around you out and stand up in your own way. Grit your teeth, hunker down, maybe punch and claw your way forward or channel your emotions into something, but don't ignore." Ignoring it would be like ignoring ANY problem you might have, which means the outcome won't be much different - it won't go away and regardless of weather it gets worse or not it effectively removes yourself from the defense of your Self... That's redundant.

As for complaining - I strongly believe that it has to stop. There is no point in any case and, to the reasons above, it only serves to aggravate an already aggressive human behavior. A person either does not experience bullying by having the tools necessary, lacks them and either finds a way to endure it or acquire them, living with the scars that follow, or lacks them and doesn't find a way. Either way being vocal about it ranges from pointless to patronizing to downright disgusting.

Me specifically - frequenting a site like the Escapist Mag, you can safely assume that I am your run-of-the-mill, internet-born, game-infused geek. I am, however, blessed with a strong body and a talent for violence, and growing up in Eastern Europe and Northern Africa I've personally felt the effects of quite a lot of types of bullying. Garden-variety violent athletes, religious-based assaults, lifestyle and financial-based abuse etc... The works. I came to understand very early on that people get hurt and broken, but that it goes both ways. I also, even today, deploy the reasoning that everything people do to one another has a point, purpose and specific emotional tone, no matter how deprived or... well, ugly. Understanding and accepting the workings behind people's acts and hitting where it hurts with either fists, words or acts was my standing up. I even got good at it to the point where I became a bully myself. I could pressure and hurt people and a younger, more violent man with socially unaccepted hobbies and interests abused that tool to no end. Recently, being more mature and experienced, I've adapted and changed and now I can help the people around me and even get a job with that very talent.

So yeah. To me it comes down to things that are far away from Highschool life and closer to being human as a whole. Cruelty is part of who we are, same as need, fear, anger, compulsion; having to understand and accept people's more grey qualities at a young age (or hell, even later on) is painful, even more so when you have to aim that very idea at yourself. I believe that bullying has it's part to play in most people's life, same as University pressure, stress at your job, relationships with all manner of people, making choices and living with them... The rules change but to me, the game stays the same.

Lastly, for those extreme cases that end up at the bottom of a sidewalk - I have a hard time believing or finding a reasoning behind the idea that bullying is the greatest, most guilty factor in these cases. I think it brings forward the need that i spoke of and with that comes the avalanche of other things one has to do that are rightfully associated with a lot of pain. To me that sharpens other, more personal and specific, usually horrible elements a child or teenager might be exposed to (abuse, poverty... the really ugly stuff) and those are the reason, the bullying becomes a convenient cause.

 

[Metalchic]

"mean words mean words mean words mean words mean words mean words mean words mean words"


its all i ever hear about when the discussion of bullying comes up. 'mean' 'hurtful' 'harsh' in words mean nothing to me, they meant nothing when i was being bullied in school and mean nothing now. As someone with high functioning autism it makes it hard for me to understand language, when i was in school i had no idea there was even ac concept of underlying secondary meanings to languages. as a result, mean words had the same impact on me as trying to break down a brick wall by spraying it with silly string.

it wasn't the words that hurt, it was the fists. here's how a typical schoolyard altercation would go: someone pushed me down and i scraped my knee, i went to the staff who was supposed to be 'watching' the schoolyard, they would tell me 'i didst see it, it didn't happen.' this sent the message to me that authority didn't really have any authority so i needed to deal with my own problems. however due to having become a squeaky wheel the staff now had their eye on me so when i tried to deal with the situation myself i would be hauled off to detention for starting fights on the schoolyard.

I was always told that bullies run in packs, take out the leader and the rest will scatter. Maybe that's how it was in the 50s when my grandma grew up. but that's not how things worked when i was walking home from school in 1999. Upon clocking the lead bully square in the face and knocking him on his ass i was then held down and kicked black and blue by the bullies buddies and left to limp home, where i got a lecture and grounding from my grandma because the bully went back to the school with his bloody nose and told them i attacked them unprovoked. so what was i supposed to do? not stand up for myself and get kicked and smacked and had people purposefully hitting me in the crotch with balls? if i stood up for myself i got my weak ass pummeled for it and then punished for fighting.

After years of being bullied during my freshman year in high school i finally snapped after this one guy spent the whole day poking me for being fat and wearing a shark shirt from the aquarium. with almost superhuman ability and ability far beyond my overweight self i lept over a 4 foot high science desk that was 6 feet across in a single bound and attempted to stab him with a pen, but he was smaller and weaker than i had become and so his football quarterback buddy tried to pin me, he finally did and i was about to explode again and push him out of my way when the teacher came back into the room and broke it up, i got detention and a psychiatric evaluation he got jack shit. the evaluation came back positive i was not insane or psychotic i had autism. once the news got out the bullying went in a completely other direction, no one was willing to get into a physical altercation with me puberty had made me large and difficult to move around by force. in staid i was completely cut out of the social hierarchy.

no one would work with me, people would not pair up with me, when assigned to pair up with me they would protest till they got detention in staid of working with me. they would double up on students at single desks to avoid sitting within 2 seats of me. in staid of physically bullying me they would do things they knew would annoy me like flick things at me and poke fun at my lisp as well as cut off all contact with me socially. there was the jocks, then there was the nerds, then there was me. technology in the school district suddenly lurched forward in 2002 from 1989 to 1998 with the introduction of the internet and brand new Pentium 2 computers! suddenly everyone wanted my immense technical capability to work with computers so i could help them fix problems with the internet and connect to the printer in the science lab. but they didn't want me to be a part of the social structure anyway. eventually i developed a nihilistic outlook on the whole thing by my senior year the only reason i was still getting up and going to school was because my grandma could motivate my much larger biker thug grandpa to move me physically out of the house and lock the door. why bother? even the teachers wanted to limit their contact with me, i was struggling with the book learning we were trying to do (i need a more hands on demonstration based approach to figure it out) so my grade suffered. and then something magical happened. we got the internet at my house. suddenly i could leverage the entirety of 2006-2007 internet directly into my home. suddenly i could watch videos explaining how to do things and animations detailing how things worked and i could read with as much detail as i wanted how to solve problems i was having. i destroyed comprehension tests and failed horribly on standardized tests and did miserably with 0 on all my standard assignments because i didn't view them as necessary to help me comprehend and absorb and learn the information i was given.

NO ONE NOT A SINGLE SOLITARY PERSON came and asked me however why this was happening. they assumed in staid that i was lazy and that's why i didn't complete my tests, that i didn't study and that's why i did poorly on the standardized tests. they completely ignored the other facets that i was doing much better than everyone else on because all that mattered was the standardized testing. in staid the teachers would push me around insult me, tell me things like 'if you don't do well on these standardized tests i was going to fail life.' they started bullying me just like the other students had done with their social segregation.

the internet has failed to bring into focus one important thing about all this, why i got bullied to start with, why did the kids beat me up in grade school? why did the kids cut me completely out of the social structure and leave me for dead? why did the teachers start bullying me?

The only answer the internet EVER brings me is this: i was bullied becasue i was inadequate and i just needed to stand up for myself. nut my history has taught me otherwise.

 

[Nikolaz72]

http://www.usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/bullying.htm
(Bullying causes violence in life)
more specific, Bullying leads to violence in schools.
(http://www.nssc1.org/bullying-main-cause-of-school-violence.html)
Countless of proffesionals have made comments on this subject, and the far majority of those specializing in the field agree's that (Standing up for yourself) and (Growing a thicker skin) is 'not' the solution. Actually attempting and failing theese things will lead to a ton of lives ruined beyond repair. In extreme cases, death of hundreds.

 

[WolfThomas]

Obviously everyone has different experiences but telling a teacher only ever resulted in good things for me. A lot of the students who bullied were on very shaky ground with the coordinators for other things like attendance and behaviour in class. Few complaints handled anonymously on top of that (and they always had multiple victims) and they were threatened with outright expulsion, the ones who didn't give a damn got expelled, the ones who needed highschool stopped very quickly.

It really depends on who you find though. Some don't care at all or will even actively try to shush and ignore whatever happens for the 'image of the school' and really don't care about what happens to their pupils. Also many teachers don't realise systematic bullying is a severe behavioural disorder that really needs correcting.

So, as much as they're the people where the solution should be coming from, they can't be relied upon to prevent bullying.

Yeah my school was the only public school in a rural town, so it had a wide socio-economic demagraph, especially a lot of kids from rougher background. No real public image to speak outside of the town.

But this meant they had an absolute zero tolerance policy about anything related to violence, sexual harassment, drugs or alcohol. Because there was no financial incentive to keep trouble students (most weren't even paying the nominal fees) they were quick to expel. Most of the worst kids dropped out when they wedre old enough too also.

 

[Milanezi]

Way I see it, a kid punches the other until ones face gets all torn up, or ruins the kids locker at school, locks the kid inside the locker, etc. All that, that isn't bullying, that's fucking criminal. Granted, in some countries children can't be prosecuted for some crimes, but fact is, this sort of thing is VERY bad, and the kid delivering the pain MUST get some sort of treatment, because kids shouldn't be that violent if you know what I mean.

HOWEVER, if a fat child keeps getting called fat everyday in school, or excluded because he/she is one of those pain-in-the-ass goth types like I was, sometimes the kid gets shoved around, LIGHTLY. DUDE THAT'S CHILDHOOD! They'll grow up to a very unforgiving world, and at first sign of trouble, at work for instance, what will they do? Cry to their bosses? The fall will be hard because they didn't get tough when they were young. It's the same as children who don't get enough exposure to the environment due to a parent's extra-care and then any disease that comes along is fucking brutal. And I'll say something, sometimes that leads to a GOOD habit changing, but I'll point that later, on a personal level.

So I painted two scenarios, I don't mind which one you call bullying, bullying is just a verb, just a word, what I find stressful is how the same word has been filled by the values of both scenarios. I'm against the first scenario, that's VIOLENCE, those are things that would put adults in jail or something.

About seven years ago I decided I turned goth, the reason was pretty sincere even: I started buying this gothic music that I really enjoyed, and then I saw all the girls and guys bundled together in a group with their dark clothing and silver items and what not, and to a young mind that was just "wow!", so I started mingling, going out with them, my parents weren't very happy but didn't complain either, I had high grades, some closer friends (also goths and a few non-goths) that they trusted, didn't get into trouble, etc. There was OBVIOUSLY, bullying, you know how it is, the whole classroom ignoring you, calling you names, making irritating jokes, but that's all it ever got to, and I must admit, any level of violence at ALL never came because of the attitude, only dumb child stuff, such as stupid verbal arguing getting too heated for anybody's good. I remember one day this dude pissed me off so much I just went right at him, it hurt him, we both got into trouble for that, but again, nothing big, but that STAND made the jokes stop for a while. Fast forward me out of school to the first 2 years in college.

I went to Lawschool at FAAP, a Brazilian college that is known for being the hive of popular kids, so you can imagine what happens to the gothic newcomer in a place full of sun-tanned Ferrari driving boys and girls that are the embodiment of what popular people should look like. Inside my classroom it wasn't that bad, but most people avoided me, I could hear whispers, but nothing brutal, only some mean questions from a few people (my classroom turned out to be pretty different from the rest of college), the corridors were bad, people would outright keep staring, laughing, and so on. But slowly I made friends, and one of them, a very religious girl by the way, just turned to me one day, with a firend and said "Dude, stop dressing like that, YOU are pushing people away. You're a very nice guy to talk to, you're a good person, and everyone in the classroom likes you (by then the whole classroom was pretty much befriended and we were starting to own our reputation as the "zoo"), so stop doing this freak show of clothing and stuff. People get uncomfortable to get close, but once they do, they like you, so why not make it easy and quit the gothic show, you're not even REALLY into it". And even though I dismissed it at first, later I did what she said. It worked, and it opened my eyes to something horrible. For a long while my so-called "goth friends" had vanished, if I didn't call them, they wouldn't call me, on the other hand, some of my childhood friends, the more "normal" guys, kept phoning me, inviting me to dinner and all, EVEN THOUGH I was ignoring them.

End result: when I, the victim, quit my bullshit the table turned. I was invited to EVERY party in college, I still am, fact is I hate most parties, so I hardly go, but people would actually get pissed at me because I DIDN'T go and they wanted me there, they wanted ME to share with THEM their happiness. My classroom, particularly, huddled together to become this crazy place (yeah, everyone hated us as a classroom, EVERYONE, we were about to graduate in law, and acted like kids, this friend of mine would buy coconuts to hide inside girls' purses, while others would hide people's bags inside the ceiling, or just hang a dildo at the teacher's table lol), we became FRIENDS, and I GREW, I GREW because the whole "bullying" led me to a point where I said "shit, this girl is right, it's my fucking fault". Everyone knew who I was, they knew I was sorta nuts, a total geek when it came to videogame, and that I enjoyed very hard metal, and nobody gave a shit anymore, because I had changed that little bit that got me in with the (right) crowd.

A year ago or something there was a reunion with people from school, and after of my childhood friends insisting A LOT I went to the damn place (with the fat promise that we would later go to a burger joint lol). What amazed me was that, in the end I discovered that even then, at school, it was I who made things hard for myself, it was I who wasn't open enough to receive a few jokes and a few bullying, and my bullshit gothic "I wanna shock" talk that got me a target on my head. People whom I thought HATED me, just didn't... It's not like they loved me, but they liked me as much as the guys next door. In short, I made school a bad time for me, I have bad memories of it when it could have been as good as college, and it was mostly my fault. But it all came to one conclusion: in the end all the pressure made me a better man.

 

[Metalchic]

Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence Anecdotal Evidence

Dude. Geez. Try and get some proffesional sources, I mean... Personal examples are fine, but for every A you come up with, I bet that there are five more B's lying around.

usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/bullying.htm
(Bullying causes violence in life)
more specific, Bullying leads to violence in schools.
(http://www.nssc1.org/bullying-main-cause-of-school-violence.html)
Countless of proffesionals have made comments on this subject, and the far majority of those specializing in the field agree's that (Standing up for yourself) and (Growing a thicker skin) is 'not' the solution. Actually attempting and failing theese things will lead to a ton of lives ruined beyond repair. In extreme cases, death of hundreds.

excuse me what? the overarching point i was trying to convey was that standing up for myself wasn't working. i wasn't providing 'anecdotal' evidence i was providing personal experience you were supposed to come to your own conclusion based on what i had written.

as for "lives ruined beyond repair" let me put it this way, when the emergency services called up to tell me my grandfather had been run over by a fully loaded gravel truck, several people hurt and 10000s of $ in damages caused my response was an indifferent "oh ok"

 

[Nikolaz72]

excuse me what? the overarching point i was trying to convey was that standing up for myself wasn't working. i wasn't providing 'anecdotal' evidence i was providing personal experience you were supposed to come to your own conclusion based on what i had written.

as for "lives ruined beyond repair" let me put it this way, when the emergency services called up to tell me my grandfather had been run over by a fully loaded gravel truck, several people hurt and 10000s of $ in damages caused my response was an indifferent "oh ok"

Ah sorry, I must have quoted the wrong person. I could have sworn I was quoting someone who said that standing up for yourself 'did' work. Reading over it again, I was wrong. I have edited my post.

I myself have had a fairly easy life. Some bullying for being different -light violence and namecalling-, different being physically fit and very violent which caused me to lack friends, which then made me turn to videogaming. That changed after a treatment which turned me neigh-pacifist. Now im just wierd for being on the internet all the time causing little bullying through the start of highschool -No violence, everyone keeping distance-... Now I have a few friends but compared to the norm the social-life is a dead-end.

Doctors and teachers alike have wanted to Diagnose me with everything from Autism to Depression but with no success (Truly I'm happy for that) Due to the lack of partying causing concerns amongst the classmates I 'was' forced to attend several psychiatric sessions which ended up being more about me conversing with the psychologist than him trying to find out what was wrong. In the end he just said that I was too mature for my age (Must be all that time spent in the basement of the escapist. Makes you more mature I-kid-you-not) And since then, apart from another single case of now a consultant trying to get me to take a test for autism. I have been free of those minor annoyances.

 

[GaryH]

I don't have time to read this entire thread so I apologise if this has been covered already.

As someone who was bullied for 7 years straight, I can tell you that there is no "dealing with it". That's not even an option. If you are told, every single day, by the vast majority of your peers, that you are worthless, you eventually start to believe it. As I said, I was bullied for 7 years, but in actual fact I am still bullied today, almost a decade later. I have internalised the bullying and I now do it to myself. This happens automatically and without any conscious thought, I can't just think it away. I have come on a long way and continue to improve every day but when people talk about emotional scars they are being literal. Bullying stole years of my life from me. I do not forgive my bullies or justify their actions by saying that they gave me a thicker skin. They did not. I am significantly weaker for it and I may never be the confident, capable person that I would have been otherwise.

Bullying causes real, permanent damage and to say that someone can "just deal with it" or somehow ignore it is beyond ignorant. The victim has this damage done to them at no fault of their own, they can't unbully themselves any more than you can heal a black eye by pretending you weren't punched.

 

[charge52]

Not reading the entire thread but I think you can always 'deal with' bullies. Don't let idiots get to you, as simple as that. If someone is fucking with you to the point that you even consider taking your own life, walk up to them and punch them in the throat. Don't be afraid of conflict, I've yet to read a story in which somebody committed suicide that couldn't have been avoided had the victim fought back.

Really, just "don't let them get to you", really? Are you that fucking stupid? It is not that easy, that is the equivilant of going to a clinically depressed person and telling them to "just cheer up", it isn't that easy. Not everyone has great self esteem, not everyone was raised in a way that made them able to just brush things off, for some people the extremes bullies will go to is just too much for them. Oh, and guess what, not everyone in the world enjoys punching people in the throat! What about pacifists? What if someone hates pain so much because they have been bullied, that the though of hurting someone makes them more miserable than being bullied?

Spoiler

Oh, you've yet to read one? Well how about I tell you one? He was your normal kid, the only obvious difference if you looked at him would be how pale he was, being a pair of red eyes away from being albino. About halfway through the year a new kid moved to the school, and a few new people were moved to some of the same classes as him, they decided to attempt to make his life miserable. First they tried making fun of him about being pale, which was as you can predict useless, he and his friends( 4 people) always made jokes about it, so he naturally took it as one. This upset them, so they started insulting various things, in an attempt to find what upset him the most, soon enough they learned his home life was... shit. His dad had died in a car accident 3 months earlier, and his brother was a barely recovering drug addict. So they taunted him about this, and when they could his friends tried to help. They told teachers of course, but none of them did anything. Now we reach the point of the story where everything goes to hell. See he was mad enough about all the insults, so mentally he wasn't built up, more easily knocked down than humpty dumpty, and they continued to insult him until one shouted something along the lines of "Your brother only took drugs because he couldn't stand having such a peace of shit for a brother!". This visually got to him, his fists clenched and he looked like he was about to scream. So what happened? He fought back naturally, why else would I tell you this? He told them if they don't shut up, he was going to keep attacking them until either they are dead, or he dies of exhaustion. He hits one of them, and quickly they are caught by, you guessed it! One of the teacher who was "on top of the problem", he accused the victim of starting it, they had more people so she believed them, and then when he got back from suspensions they continued to mock him. He couldn't fight again, he hated doing it once, and his friends decided they would do something. They told them much the same he did, and they all got into a huge fight, which ended in everyone being essentially beaten the crap out of. They all got in trouble(even the bullies, they had to make an example), but they only got suspended, his friends got expelled. It got worse, and fast forward a month when our story ends. Now I think you know how this story ends, but I'll give hints for anyone who can't figure it out, it involves a note, a knocked over chair, and a rope.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Its

snip

There is a difference between a mild teasing and bullying. Look calling someone fat is ok as long as its in good fun and you are not doing it repeatedly. If you get called fat every day for 4 years straight your going to be affected as a person. Thats bullying. Thats what the big deal is.

Thanks for the spell check. Appreciate it.

There's a great quote by Nancy Reagan that goes along the lines of "not letting others affect how you feel". I may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but that idea goes a long way.

Oops that wasn't suppose to be there. That just text I didn't delete my bad. I don't do that spell check revising thing.

I agree 100%

Trouble is, that idea only goes so far.

Unless you train yourself (or have someone else train you for years), you simply can't manage your own psyche well enough for that concept to be truly effective.

Sure, consciously, you might manage that... to a degree (how many people do you know that can always perfectly control how they feel about anything?).

But subconsciously? People have no control over that. And it is in the subconscious where all of the bullshit people spout at you is internalized.

Well... I do recall blowing up on people after repressing an inner rage from being bullied so yeah its probably not the best idea. But putting your emotions on your sleeve seem to just welcome more bullying.

And I'm probably the end result of a more successful attempt at burying one's emotions for extended periods of time.

Now... I have trouble maintaining any emotion other than anger or depression for too long. And I've forgotten how to emote properly. (if I ever had any idea to begin with, the point being that the timing for showing my emotions is no longer there... and neither are the subtleties of showing emotion)

Because of this, I have a great deal of trouble relating to other people.

In the end... not worth it.