fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3097 ]

[ SECRET POST #3097 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3097 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not posting this in hopes for an "lol I was a mean girl in hs" brag book. I really want to understand why people bully.

So did you ever bully in school? If so, why? Have you ever apologized?

I think it depends on the person. There are all sorts of bullies. Some bullies just believe they can get away with it. Some bullies tend to morally justify their bullying by convincing themselves that the target is a horrible person who needs to be put in their place. I've run into quite a lot of the latter online.

What's really sad about the latter group is that they'll be the first to decry bullying but don't realize they're part of the problem.

Oh yeah.

"Bullying is bad!!!" (when it's us being bullied).

I guess I bullied a coworker for awhile. I found her really annoying, because some of her behavior reminded me of myself at my most obnoxious. And other people found her annoying as well, which made it easy to justify mocking her, especially when they joined in or initiated it. I wish I could apologize, but she retired some years ago, and I never said anything to her face, and so far as I know, neither did anyone else. So it would be super awkward if I had to explain that I'd been an asshole if she never picked up on it, because if she never knew she'd probably be happier, seeing as how she'd never have to see me or her other coworkers again. As for why I did it? I was and am a socially maladjusted shithead, and it was better to bully than be a target. I've been on the receiving end and it sucked. And yeah, I'm sorry I did it. It was my boss' job to discipline her if she wasn't doing her job; it wasn't mine or my coworkers' responsibility to shame her into doing her job.

I bullied for three reasons, depending on the person (listed here from most to least common for me).

One: because I was embarrassed about my disability. I didn't want people to think I was like the other kids in my "special" class who couldn't or wouldn't "pass", so I put them down to try and forget that I was one of them.

Two: because I had anger issues. Sometimes, somebody would just be in my way without meaning to be, or something just wouldn't turn out the way I'd hoped, and I would take it out on people who didn't deserve it.

Three: because I was jealous. I know that's a stereotype, but when somebody was just so much better than me at something, I'd get frustrated and start to hate them, and making them feel bad did make me feel good.

I have not apologized, because I'm not in contact with anyone I knew then and I don't want to be. Plus, all three reasons are still factors in my life, and I worry that if I tried to reach out to the people I can remember bullying, my lingering disgust for them would take over and I'd lash out again. I'm still a jealous, angry, self-loathing ableist. I just try to control it now.

I think it's difficult to say what is and is not bullying. That said, there were definitely times when I was way more of a dick to other kids than I needed to be. The reasons behind that are, one, insecurity - by pulling others down you establish your position. And two, I thought it was funny, and did not have a well-adjusted sense of empathy.

I was never a bully but there were times I didn't speak up and I should have and I still feel bad about it.

Mostly because I was afraid of getting bullied myself, or felt awkward around the person being bullied. I was a shy child. (Often they would want to be my friend and become very clingy and I wanted to escape.)

There were times I did speak up, though, too, and I'm glad I did.

Same here. I was basically a quiet student and I didn't want any drama.

There's one girl who was bullied in 5th grade and I feel bad that I didn't do something about it. :(

I bullied because I was insecure, didn't like myself and making other kids feel like shit made me feel like I was better than them. I know you're not supposed to believe that about bullies nowadays because it "justifies" them, you're supposed to think bullies all have great self esteem and just love to drag others down because they're evil, but there ya go :D

And I only apologized when I got caught and the teachers made me. I wasn't really sorry, though.

I don't agree with the idea of painting bullies as "evil".

It makes it into this black-and-white thing where the idea of evil is incomprehensible, when in fact, all of us are capable of being evil, even in little ways.

How else do you think people like Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot got away for it decades? They didn't have a hundred clones of moustache-twirling villians following them. They had ordinary people following them who didn't give a shit about others - who were too scared or weak or selfish to fight back, or who saw other people as things instead of human. That's just basic everyday evil.

I was sort of a bully, yeah. I was never physical, but I was really mean to people that I didn't respect, and that was always the kids that cowered when they were confronted about anything. I can't exactly explain why, but that utter lack of confidence was always something that just completely put me off.

I'm better about it now, I can be (and am) nice to people regardless of how they feel about themselves, but I do still have a very hard time respecting them.

As for apologizing, I didn't really keep up with anyone from high school once I graduated, but one girl did find me through Facebook and we ended up talking for a bit-- she asked why I had always been mean to her, and I told her. I did apologize. She said she could kind of understand why I felt like that, but thanked me for apologizing anyhow.

So let me get this straight. You don't respect people who lack confidence. So you bully them.

How do you think they got that way. Lemme tell you as a bullied person. Being bullied ,for a lot of people tanks your self confidence. There's a very good chance that the people you were mean to because you "didn't respect them" for their low confidence got that way because they were bullied.

Maybe you should consider thinking about why a person might not have confidence instead of just deciding "well I don't respect them so I'll just be an asshole". you are literally making the situation worse. People who are not confident or hurting don't need someone making judgement on them, they need empathy. And they certainly don't need someone bullying them and making them more lacking in confidence.

it sounds like anon got a huge power trip out of bullying people they decided were weaker than them.

We bullied a younger boy in school once--we physically twisted his arm up his back and laughed at him. It was a terrible thing to do, but we stopped because our younger brother just gave us this disgusted look and said, "What are you DOING?" And we never did it again after that.

Why did we do it? Because we had been bullied, and nobody had cared. The bullies always seemed to do better, be better liked. So we got it into our head that other people weren't bothered by bullying, and the only reason we were was because we were weak. And so bullying other kids weren't bad because they weren't weak like us, so it didn't upset them.

It was really twisted fucked up logic, but there you have it. I'm ashamed that we did it, and glad our brother immediately called us out on it.

--Rogan

I had a small reputation as a scary kid, but only because I retaliated visibly.

I know this is going to sound like I'm justifying, but it's not. The difference between me and them was that I only ever hurt them in defense after they had already done something aggressive at me and I was much worse at lying and covering it up than they were. By "something aggressive" I'm not talking about jibes, I'm talking about backing me physically into a wall.

I also won most of the time since I was the one that didn't care about getting in trouble or keeping up a shining reputation, so I looked even worse.

TL;DR lots of people thought I was one when I wasn't. Not apologetic in the least.

I bullied people out of ignorance. I had no filter and kept saying shit about people without realizing that I'm hurting them, because I thought that honesty was a good thing and telling people their faults will help them improve. I also played mean pranks on people and made fun of them under the assumption that it was just a bit of harmless fun and that it was just as funny to them as it was to me.

My siblings and friends did the same to me and I never held a grudge against them, so it never occured to me that this behavior could be wrong, even when teachers disapproved.

I was bullied very young and then became a bully when I was a teen. It wasn't even intentional. Thinking back, I vaguely recall having an inbuilt notion that that was how you dealt with problems. It probably didn't help that there was some domestic abuse going.on in my home at the time.

It took me ten years to get the perspective to understand what I'd done and even longer to understand why. I've been mentally composing my apology to her for two years now. I just don't know if she'd welcome having old wounds reopened....

Maybe I'll find the right way to tell her. It's a regret I will take with me to my grave.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3097 ]

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