Remember when "bullying" entailed physical assault?

[Louis.J]

Is this just an American/old people thing?

Growing up, I was handed more than than my fair share of verbal (and a little sexual) abuse, but neither I, nor anyone I knew of, was never physically abused, ever.

I'm 21.

It's also a Danish thing, children beating each other at school. I'm 28.

 

[CymbaIine]

i mentioned indirect and relational aggression (aka social ostracization) because it has never been societally recognised or frowned upon and is in fact the primary means of practising aggression for at least half of Humanity (ie women) and it is effectively honed during peoples school years.

as it has pretty much never been societally recognised or frowned upon imo it is now, today, the dominate form of aggression in "polite" society.

When I was at school I witnessed the most horrendous bullying of a class mate in this manor. They drove her out of school, she came back for exams and literally walked out of the first one because the bullies were doing this cough/laugh thing at her. I never saw her again. To this day I feel horribly guilty for not doing anything (it wasn't my crowd but still).

I often wonder if the internet has made it better or worse. Sure it's opened new avenues for bullies but it also means there is proof and adults have a chance of discovering it. I think if the internet and mobile phones were a thing when I was at school that whole scenario would have gotten a lot worse a lot faster but there would have been intervention before exam time.

I think it is socially recognised more now. A few years ago a childline survey said that the most harmful form of bullying was non-physical and coming from typically middle class girls and that it was going unnoticed because people thought of bullying as physical and the bullies as working class boys.

 

[EvanJO]

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[PinkiePyro]

first off the title of this thread pisses me off second No

I was horribly bullied from elementary school till I graduated high school. only three times was the bullying physical,


the first time the bullies got off Scott free despite trying to to tie me to a goal post for being a stupid retard teachers pet (I actually have autism and was in the gifted program) because the drunkard principal thought bullying was just something kids do.( my mom made a huge stink at him and the school board, short version he retired and the school board ended up paying for me to go to a special school)


the second time (in the special school) the bully was sent to jail after he punched me in the back (don't know for sure why he hated my guts I think it was a combo of me being smarter and a girl, he seemed a bit misogynistic at times, acting up and threatening the female teachers, acting respectful towards the few male ones)

the third time (was a Private high school for gifted kids only) the kid beat me with a plastic ficus tree. he was kicked out of the school.


and to anyone on this thread who thinks bullying only matters if its physical.. tell that to my therapist, I am in my mid 20's and still in therapy for anxiety and self-esteem issues from all the abuse. at one time it was so bad I could not leave my home without a family member or friend accompanying me...

 

[Brennan]

I wasn't physically bullied much, but that's only because I was good at evasion. Physical bullying definitely happened to people when I was in middle school (first half of the 90s). It was definitely something I worried a lot about, which is kinda why I was good at evasion.

At the time, verbal/psychological bullying wasn't something the school system even recognized as a thing that existed, much less could or would do anything about. In regards to physical bullying the school authorities were far worse than useless: reporting physical bullying resulted in a ton of administrative political BS that at best would have zero result, and at worst would see you, the victim, slowly dragged through the mud both socially and officially while the bully walked around unimpeded. Fighting back was heavily frowned apon, and could result in you getting far greater punishment then the bully. Most teacher/counselors, if pressed, would give the old "ignore them and they'll go away" line, which has always been dangerous BS and every kid knows it: ignoring bullies invites them to escalate their attacks.

I did get verbally bullied. Not as severely as some others here, but that was circumstantial: the same social issues that made me an inviting target also made me a difficult target to keep a bead on. Still hurt, and definitely messed me up even further than I already was.

I can't look at bullying of any sort as a "right of passage" or a "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger" thing. That's primitivistic nonsense on the level of superstition. Being bullied messes you up psychologically and socially. It damages your ability to function optimally in society. Bullying victims who go on to lead better lives do so because they repaired that damage, not because they sustained it.

 

[FlatCat]

So, Escapists- are you old enough or from a bad enough community to remember when this sort of thing was commonplace? And if not, do you understand that it really did happen? Like, a lot?

Yup. I remember being attacked and fighting back. I remember being both the target and the aggressor. And we used more than words. We kicked the shit out of each other.

And I'm only 35.