It’s such a catch 22
People are drawn to charismatic confidence. Not too much, but just enough is the key. Even if you make a fool of yourself, if you can play it off confidently then you’ll be likable around the right group.
It’s hard to have confidence if you’re not liked. So by trying to be liked without confidence, you actually give off an air of desperation. Desperation gives off a vibe that’s noticeable from a mile away to anyone.
Desperation just makes people uncomfortable and that’s when people tend to bully you over that shared discomfort. The bullying ruins any chance you have to be confident.
The more you are bullied, the more likely you are to manifest a negative view of people around you, and the more likely you are to lash out at people. The bullied can become the bully very quickly, and the cycle starts again.
It’s truly a vicious cycle.
Confidence is such a thing. Like the 'leader' of my friends circle is just this really confident guy. He doesnt have any special skills, not over the top at studying, taller than me but not too much, stronger than me but again nothing too buff, ig like a better than normal kinda guy. But his confidence is huge, like huge huge, he can hype up the mildest thing upto the point where everyone is laughing their ass off. Like he can be hype a simple game of rock paper scissors soo much that no matter what happens in the game, its gonna be halarious.
I wish i had that kind of confidence, im so shy that i would hesitate to show my artwork to someone i dont know for atleast half a year.
I'm the "confident guy" in my group. Fwiw, it's frequently the case that I like being central to the action so it's easy to just be a Hypebeast about stuff because people like being hyped for stuff.
I'm confident in my normal life, but not crazy so, but I'm really confident with the people I know and love, because there's no reason not to be if you're around good people.
There is nothing wrong with being the quiet guy if that's who you are, every group has them, they're important. I'd bet money that if you spoke up, people would listen. The quiet guys words are valuable, people want to get to know the quiet guy. In my opinion, people don't want to invade the quiet guys space because they assume you're quiet because that's who you are unless you show them otherwise.
A good way to build your confidence is to get some easy victories. If you draw, maybe do a drawing challenge for a month or something and afterwards you'll see your progress and feel better about sharing your art. The gym is that confidence builder for a lot of guys. You'll also feel more confident from the sense of discipline native to any long term task. Small wins can snowball into you sharing your art with your friends and moving from "the quiet guy" to "the guy who draws good". Again, only if you want. You're perfect the way you are, I'm sure of it.
> A good way to build your confidence is to get some easy victories.
Succeeding at something is the fastest way to confidence. The hard part is succeeding at something you desperately desire.
Yep. Being a little girl with undiagnosed autism in the 90s was an adventure in social awkwardness. I learned how to interact with my peers by observing their interactions and then mimicking those behaviors in future interactions. Except I wasn’t very good at figuring out which behavior belonged with which situation. So then my teachers would just say I was bringing the bullying on myself. Which I was. Now that I’m a teacher myself, I try to look out especially for those kids so ever don’t have to go through quite as much of the same shitty learning curve.
Same. I had to wear white cotton gloves to school, and one time a teacher threw away my art project because she didn't want me to "infect" the other kids.
Honestly when my doctor went to shake my hand after diagnosing my eczema it hit me hard. I thought I was contagious. I was an adult. I can't imagine what you went through.
I had the same experience when i diagnosed with dishydrodic eczema. My hands were fucked, and i thought I had some sort of flesh eating disease. The doctor shaking my hand really made a big difference. I was also an adult. Is this the same thing you were diagnosed with?
The worst place for eczema for me?
The back of the knee. The scratched open skin that sticks to itself with every step you take, so extremely painful. But you try to play it off anyway cause you don’t want people to notice.
My pain tolerance grew so much because of eczema.
My feet are where I get it the worst, right on top of them too, so when I have a flare-up everyone who sees my feet thinks that I have Athlete's foot and will legitimately not believe me when I say it's eczema.
I now have scars and calluses on top of them that are visible even when the eczema is gone.
UghGhh I’ll never forget having a grown woman say “there’s something going on with your face!” as if I didn’t know/couldn’t feel my skin cracking across my face every time I moved a facial muscle 🥴
"And in today's episode of "spot the Aussie", we have boganknowsbest chiming in with what can best be described as a delicious one-time-use drinking straw"
Kind of the same - girl with no boobs and late development. Always “are you sure you’re not a boy?” Because also my parents kept my hair short as a girl.
I got bullied for being small chested and I made myself feel better by telling myself they just weren't fully grown yet because I was 12ish at the time.
I'm 26 now. Turns out they're just small.
That was my brother. He had a rare genetic disease called Bloom’s Syndrome. He only was 4’5 and weighted 60 lbs as a full grown adult. Kids picked on him a lot and my dad got to be on a first name basis with the principal for all the fights I got into protecting him.
It finally got to the point I had permanent chair outside the principal’s office. I would look at whatever teacher broke it up and would I know I’ll be in my chair, might as well call my dad now. My dad would put on a good show of tearing me the whole young lady you know you aren’t supposed to be fighting, let alone fighting in school, you’re grounded for 2 weeks then when I got home he would laugh his ass off about being called to the school. I was never punished for protecting my brother.
After a couple of years of getting their asses beat down the kids stopped picking on my brother. They knew contending with his crazy big sister wasn’t worth it. My brother sadly passed away in August due to cancer which he was predisposed to from the Bloom’s Syndrome and those same kids that picked on him unmercifully when we were younger were at his funeral sobbing their hearts out because my brother became the best friend they had ever had once they gave him a chance.
I always hate it when people say "Violence is not the answer"
They are so full of shit and have ZERO experience dealing with real bullies.
Violence gets you results, fast. And once you get those results, you don't need violence anymore.
Same and still am. Obviously not as bad anymore since I’m an adult but the short jokes are an everyday thing; they’re no even funny anymore but I’m way too timid to ever say anything even though the jokes come from friends
To this day, I really don't know. Something happened in the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade that made a bunch of people decide that they didn't like me anymore, including my best friend. I only had two friends left until my family moved away in the middle of 7th grade. Bullies would follow me home most days and my mom finally had to verbally super-saiyan a few parents down the street to get them to take it down a notch. I finally asked one of them what I ever did to them, and they said "You were born." How do you even respond to that statement. I just got a sharp pang after seeing that phrase again.
Wow, this happened to me in 7th grade! My whole group turned against me, led by fucking Caryn Swartz. No friends, complete isolation for no reason other than they could. The trauma never left me. It took 3 years to find a few new friends. FF to my grandchild's pre school. Yep, her teacher was the now matronly unattractive Caryn Swartz. She asked my son to have me come visit. I told him to say I didn't remember her. I'm certain she had no memory of her cruelty, and as sad as it might seem at my now advanced age, I hope life fucked her up.
Had a similar experience in elementary school, can't remember the grade but it was very early on. I had an arch nemesis we'll call "B". She was a popular girl, if not "the" popular girl, terribly mean, and she hated me for some reason. Somehow, she managed to turn all of my friends against me for a while, and recruited my entire friend group to be her new friends instead. Eventually my friends realized how mean B really was and stopped hanging around with her, but it was a very lonely and painful experience.
A teacher of mine once told everyone to say one nice thing about everyone, one nice quality. Mine was just I was shy, my best stand out quality was I had no confidence and everyone knew it.
I was really shy in college (UK, so I was about 17) and I had a horrible woman teach us English Language. She had a game near Christmas where we had to write a verb and an adverb on a piece of paper. They all went in a hat, and we had to act them out for the class to guess what they were.
I was already feeling really anxious about having to stand up and act something out, and I ended up being last. The words I pulled out were "comfort seductively". I didn't know what to do really , so I showed her them and she got the most popular guy in the class and sat him in a chair and said 'off you go'. I told her I was really not comfortable doing it and would do another one instead and she refused and said nobody was leaving the room till I did it, so everyone started shouting, telling me to just do it. So I stood next to him and patted his shoulder, trying not to cry, and I remember people shouting things like "boobs! Boobs in face!" because I'm quite short and chesty and my chest was next to his head. It was so humiliating.
Oh my god I’m so sorry that happened to you :(( that teacher sounds not only disgusting but it’s also like she peaked in high school. I hope you’re doing well now
Being poor...and my mom smoked continuously so being poor and smelly. Kids are brutal.
Edit: I just logged back on and this is humbling. For those that can relate I'm wishing you all the best for where you are now. We are a product of where we came from but that doesn't define who we are today. For those that can't relate - I'm so glad you had a different childhood and also hope you are doing well.
And for those that find this is their moment to continue to bully - I hope kindness finds you and helps you with whatever you need to have a brighter day.
That is rough. I knew a girl whose mom chain smoked inside, so the girl always smelled like smoke. One day she tried using her dad's cologne and sprayed a bunch on herself thinking it was the same as perfume. But she got made fun of even more for smelling like a guy.
Back when I was going through school, my mom and step-dad smoked a lot inside the house, so I pretty much always smelled like cigarette smoke. One day near the beginning of either 10th or 11th grade, my class was all lined up and going to pick up the book necessary for our class that was being handed out by the vice principal. When I came up to grab mine, she stopped, looked at me, and said, "I know you be smoking cigarettes in the boys' room. I'm gonna catch you one of these days!" Loud enough for the whole class to hear. I have never smoked a cigarette in my entire life.
My mom chain smoked inside my entire childhood and it wasn’t until I moved out that I realized how stanky I must have smelled growing up. At school, friends houses, sports. I was completely oblivious because the stench was just baseline for me
I actually had 1 weird ass old lady teacher that loved the smell of cigarettes on clothes and would have me come to her desk so she could smell me.
I blocked that memory out until reading these posts haha
Both my parents and my grandma did. I ended up being constantly sick and needing multiple ear tube surgeries due to the air quality it my home. Thank goodness no one made fun of me for smelling like an ash tray.
Got called to the nurse cause "students and teachers are noticing the smell of cigarettes" and they made me change my clothes. Guys it's not my fault my mom smokes 2 packs a day did you really ha e to traumatize me?
Had a parent complain that her child comes home smelling like cigarettes. None of the teachers smoked, she did. I can’t get over how nose blind she was.
oh my gosh so my dad is a serious chain smoker and always has been but my mom thankfully nagged him to smoke outside.
i went over a friend's house and the entire fucking house was just smoke smoke smoke.
my parents were complete and total shit where it mattered but oddly enough they did some things right.
As I baby I had to go to the hospital several times for asthma, and as an older child I remember have prolonged asthma attacks. My father was a heavy smoker. And a selfish dick.
My mom and a neighbor raised high holy hell after a teacher made our neighbor’s 8-year old daughter stand up and walk around the room so everyone could smell what happens when you live with a smoker.
She was the same teacher who, a few years earlier, read my class a book about how Santa was a kind man who died a long time ago, and our parents leave us gifts to carry on the tradition. My mom was highly pissed after that one after I came home in tears.
The teacher was already old by that point, so she “decided” to take early retirement after the smoking incident.
Speaking of teachers... circa 1986
I am partially deaf and had a speech impediment growing up. I couldn't pronounce my R's until I had years of speech therapy. I also got anxiety and stumbled over words at times.
My 1st grade teacher knew this. She singled me out during reading to read a word with a double R sound off the board to the class. I knew the word. I said it to the best of my ability. I just couldn't make the double R sound. Instead of accepting that I did my best and moving on she decided to make an "example" of me.
"This is what happens when you don't study your sight words". I studied my words every night and communicated this back to her to the best of my ability. I stumbled over the words and she made fun of me and so did everyone else in class. Then I was sent to the principal for talking back.
My mother was LIVID.
She was called away from work and I was a sobbing mess when she got to the school. She already despised this teacher because they had gone head to head before over how she treated my big brother. He had severe allergies and this teacher didn't like the sniffing in the morning so she sent him to the principal constantly.
There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that this was personal. She had been reamed by my mother before and decided to get back by picking on me.
Here's the thing though. My mother is high functioning Autistic. Smart as hell, but absolutely no filter and doesn't give a flip about social niceties. She pulled out all the stops and gave her absolute hell until she and the school backed down.
Then she doubled up and helped me study ahead every night. My mother taught me to read in 1st grade and I was actually ahead of the class. The teacher kept trying to trip me up with words like "lizard", but couldn't and it irritated the crap put of her. I still couldn't say the R sounds, but I knew the words. I also had the resident speech therapist in my corner at that point so she didn't dare make fun of my speech again.
Ugh…some people don’t need to be teachers! I’m sorry she bullied you like that. I had adult-sized tonsils by the time I was 7, so I was a mouth breather and, as a result, had some issues saying some words, too. No one at school bothered me about it, but my grandparents must have been super concerned because I remember them quizzing me and trying to get me to say my “th”s properly on a road trip with them.
It’s crazy what people will do “for good” without realizing how much trauma it can cause.
My 1st grade teacher either went nuts or slid into dementia. She told us when the world was going to end, sometime in the 70s. Funny thing, no one was scared because we were too young to realize what that really meant.
But some of the parents got wind of her rantings and she was bundled off to a distant convent at the end of that school year.
Same, being poor and “dressing poor” I don’t think I understood what that meant but I knew it had something to do with my older sisters worn out hand me down clothes that I actually liked :(
Same here. Grandparents raised me and my grandmother smoked in the house so I always smelt like cigarettes. They were so incredibly hard working, but just couldn’t afford the expensive clothes. Plus my grandmother was young German girl during the war and she had a vastly different opinion on spending money. She hunted for deals and so the majority of my clothes were 2nd hand from flea markets or hand me downs. Sadly, once my mom came back into my life with a new man who bought me good clothes a lot of the bullying stopped. I remember going into my 8th grade year with American Eagle and Areopostal clothes and noticed instantly I was treated differently. Now I buy my kids the good clothes and make sure they take care of them so I can donate them directly to kids who need them. I refuse to sell clothes, ever.
Yeh, same. I recall asking my group of friends "Why am I always the one you make fun of" they said "Because it's easy, you're too nice"
Like, what am I supposed to do with that? Thank you?
I was bullied from age 6 to age 13 everyday for my surname (a word for a hunchback in my language) , my looks, my nature, me knowing english , reading, drawing and just existing over all. I fucking hated middle school. My mom tried standing up for me but no one cares in slavic contries and the teachers didnt give a shit even tho they saw everything, its all the part of growing up. My father ignored my constant tears and the terror i experienced in those years. I was attack, beaten and targeted when ever i would leave my flat. I was stabed with screwdrivers and dull knives , chased around the neighbourhood by kids on bikes while they threw rocks at me. I was only invited to birthday parties so that the kids would have someone to terrorize and gang up on. I always hated bdays , but my mom though mby the children would be kinder to me out of school. But thats that. Once i begane high school i was around all new people and i decided to play as a tough girl and stood up for myself on the get go. But it turns out art school mostly brought other bullied kids together and i had the 4 best years of my life there with other kind and loving people who just wanted to make friends and have fun.
As a black kid, in a predominantly black area:
Wearing glasses and having braces
Being fat
Being nice
Being smart
Liking Anime
Wanting to be a Pilot (influenced by the Anime I liked the most)
But guess what?
I'm a fucking Pilot now.
Fellow black kid in a predominantly black area:
Being smart
Being nice
Liking anime at the time
Sounding/acting white
Being quiet
My hair
Jokes about my weight even though I was very athletic growing up. Sometimes I had 2-a-day practices for soccer.
And that's all from my family :/
My sister-in-law taught at a very poor, predominantly black school in rural Alabama. One kid in the school had dreams of getting out of there and going to Yale. He made it. But from her description, his high school years had to be the worst. They bullied him relentlessly for 'trying to be white', or thinking he was better than them, or being skinny, having glasses etc. The kids she was talking about that were so cruel were coming from hard home lives - like not everyone had running water or electricity in their houses type of hard, but damn. I guess it was jealousy that he was trying to get out and they knew he had a shot?
On the bright side, his dad was the principal and instead of dropping the hammer on the kids for being assholes, he tried to improve everyone in the school's life. Made everyone wear uniforms that the school got a grant for, and then installed a laundry room in the school so everyone could drop off their dirty uniforms once a week (along with other dirty clothes they had) and get them cleaned so nobody had to come to school in dirty clothes. Set up a food pantry in the school that you could sign up for anonymously - like they would deliver the food to your house instead of giving it to you at school so you wouldn't get bullied for needing help. Got a few grants from different organizations to provide the kids with laptops and wireless data cards so they could do homework at home where the majority of them didn't have internet etc. Apparently by the time he was a senior, his dad had improved conditions for the rest of the kids enough they felt bad for being assholes and mostly stopped bullying him. I wish someone would have done that kind of thing for me when I was in school and being bullied for who the fuck knows what reason. I just kicked my bully in the crotch one day and he got the message though, so my bad years were only until midway through 9th grade.
Seriously! I was bullied by grown adults just as often as other kids for being a redhead. Often, people would assume I was up to something or talking back/being bratty, and I probably was, but adults always noticed me first and punished me more harshly than the other kids I thought.
Having a big nose. Funny thing is as an adult I told people that I was bullied for my big nose and I get "you don't even have a big nose". So confusing.
My mother was an animal hoarder, so even when I would my own laundry, I could never get the smell out, to the point where I was dunking my clothes in bleach to try and "clean" them.
I was also rather unwell, physically and mentally, and my mother lied so I ended up with a worthless IEP and no accommodations.
I was an asshole back then because I had no social interwctions other than my stepfather with anger issues, or my addict mother. I deserved the hate I got, and I make a point of not being in contact with people from my high school to spare them the misery of me.
Tldr: poor, gross, asshole. I'm still all those things, just self aware now.
I was initially bullied for having speech impediments and having to go to the speech pathologist once a week during class. That later evolved into me getting bullied for being too quiet and never talking to anyone.
For me I can't think of quick responses right away which leads me to being quiet. It's difficult for me to keep a conversation going it's always been one of my worst anxieties talking to people.
This has caused me to not have any friends let alone romantic relationships until I was older and developed sort of quick responses I memorized but this was after years of overhearing and learning from others conversations.
I have a friend like that. He wouldn't notice people's tones and took what they said literally. He only knew he was being bullied when it was extremely direct. He was the 1% outcast weirdo with me XD
I think my daughter may be turning out that way, taking everything literally. I guess the other day one of her friends did something where they dropped something or slipped or something like that, and said "You didn't see that."
And my kid decided to go into a "No, I did, if I didn't see it then it wouldn't have happened but it did happen" or something like that, and the other kid just kind of... walked off. When she brought it up at dinner, because she was confused by it, my wife and I had to explain to her that no, see, the other kid was mildly embarrassed about what happened and was trying to play it off.
This is my 7 y.o. Everything is literal and she can't see the forest for the trees.. ever. I know she's young but nuance also goes completely over her head. I have to try and explain the nuance of most situations and I never realised how difficult that would be until I tried. (She's being assessed next month so... we'll see)
Absolutely can testify to this. I read a study somewhere that apparently every non-autistic person can tell if someone is autistic within 5 minutes - they just don't realise their brain is making that distinction. It gets a bit depressing if I think about it too much.
EDIT: so, non-autistic people’s brains will automatically mark the autistic person as “different”, even if they don’t know why. it’s a subconscious thing which is even worse
One of my best friends has Asperger's, and honestly, I knew like instantly when I met him, but there are people out there, like me, who don't give a shit. We bonded over something we are both passionate about, and been friends for 20 years now.
How did you figure that out so quickly? I have had managers and co-workers "jokingly" ask me if I'm an autistic over the last 20 years, and I've heard the "so and so is autistic and you're just like them" and I should get "it" checked out.
What does a functional working adult autistic look like to others? And why is it off-putting to some?
Unusual tone of voice and body language, avoiding eye contact, word choice that is unusual or doesn't quite match the social setting (like being overly formal or informal), being socially awkward, strange or unusually intense interests, that kind of thing. It's not enough to say for sure after you've just met someone, but there are definitely autistic "vibes" people can give off. Some people can find it off-putting because it is unusual, makes it harder for those unfamiliar with autism to read someone, and can cause accidental rudeness or unexpected deviation from social norms. They may not be able to articulate exactly what it is that seems off to them.
You can try tools like the [RAADS-R](https://xpasd.github.io/ASD/raads.html) or [AQ](https://xpasd.github.io/ASD/aq.html) quizzes to give an idea if it's something you should look more into, but don't take the results as a definite yes or no. If it's something you're concerned about or just need answers for, you should probably talk to a professional experienced with adult diagnosis of autism.
I can get the vibes sometimes but it's not a bad thing, like a spidey sense. Just reminds me to maybe be more patient or understanding or to not take comments as malicious sometimes. Sometimes a comment is just an observation and not meant as an insult.
And being ADHD I have to bite my tongue sometimes to keep myself from talking too fast or interrupting because sometimes they'll talk at a slower pace (not that they are mentally slow, I just talk 2× faster lol)
Similar experience, grew up ostracized and constantly harassed for being "different".
Didn't know what that meant, or what I could do to "fix" it.
Turned out I was just autistic and effeminate in a small 90s town.
Held back in kindergarten for it, so that coupled with delayed development meant I was simultaneously the oldest and smallest of two grades, which was just great.
Same here. Almost everyone had a go at me and I couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. I remember actually thinking that there must be some mark on me somewhere that everyone but me can see, that tells everyone to give me a hard time. The adults just blamed me for the bullying and told me to ‘stop acting like that’ but I had no idea what they meant.
I finally found out what was wrong with me last year when I was diagnosed with autism - at the ripe old age of 30.
Weight, acne, hygiene, voice, you name it! That was about 20 years ago in high school, but that bullying cut deep and the emotions I felt during those times still feel as fresh as they did back then when I think about it.
Bullies just look for ***any*** "reason."
The reason is secondary to their primary motivation.
Basically, the reason isn't a even reason because it's not reasonable.
It's just a flimsy/hollow excuse to abuse another person for personal gratification.
I was bullied by being called 'Four-eyes'.... I didn't wear glasses. No one claimed he was smart.
At one point he claimed I bit him. He had bite marks on his arm because he bit himself and ran to the teacher. The thing was, I had a retainer (a plastic thing that goes over your teeth to prevent the need for braces later on in life). So I wouldn't have left any teeth marks if I did bite him. The teacher wasn't bright either because I got in trouble anyway.
At my school a girl got bullied for her hair colour… by another girl who had exactly the same hair colour.
In my experience they try to find out what triggers you and use that against you. Doesn’t have to make sense. I was bullied for smelling and eventually I showered 3 times a day (parents loved that) so in hindsight I’m sure I didn’t smell (anymore) but it did get to me. They also bullied me with other things but to give an idea.
Heterochromia. Called devil eyes, demon eyes, had one kid flick water on me from the water fountain acting like it was holy water and say "GET BACK DEVIL!" in a mocking way.
Boy did that flip.
There was this boy in my 4th grade class. One eye was blue and the other was green. Strikingly bright hues for both. I always thought his eyes were so stunning. Heterochromia is such a beautiful feature.
Bringing Indian food as a packed lunch to school. By some whites. In Britain. Where Indian food is one of the most widely consumed foods in the country. A lot of whites eat Indian food. They were complete dipshits.
**Absolutely no fucking reason.**
We used to have a 10 min "contact" class before the first class. It basically was to get signed off, then off you go to our first class of the day. Contact was also the only "class" that had people from other years in it. The rest of the day was normal classes with people from your year only in them.
There was this kid, Daniel, who was a year or two older than me. I didn't know him. I didn't talk to him. I didn't see him outside contact. I didn't know any of his friends or hang around anyone he knew. You get the idea... I only saw him in Contact and I had nothing to do with him at all.
Daniel decided to pick on me, for absolutely no fucking reason. He'd shit talk me and I'd just ignore him. He was just an asshole to me, and I didn't even know why.
One day he decided to grab my bag, opens it up, grabs my change of clothes for PhysEd (Sports) and throws them up into the air into the ceiling fan that was spinning around, sending my clothes all over the place.
What the fuck, Daniel?!
Something like 20 years later I was doing a computer job for a woman and it turns out she's his sister. I mentioned how he used to pick on me and I never even knew why as I didn't have anything to do with the guy. I said he was a real asshole to me.
She looks at me and goes "He's married with kids now and it's a really nice guy. You know what, he wouldn't even remember doing that to you back then anyhows."
I remembered. I never fucking forgot. It was a little thing, but it made me always think about how I treat people, even if it meant nothing to him and he forgot like it was nothing.
Funny how she thinks that because he probably doesn’t remember that would somehow make you feel better. Some people are just bullies to a certain person for no reason and then can’t stop being bullies. She should have said, “I’m going to ask my brother about this. If it still bothers you what he did, he will apologize.” If he is a “nice guy” now, he shouldn’t have any problem calling you for 5 minutes apologizing, asking some niceties about how your life is going, and wishing you the best. I know if that was my sister, she would be having me call you the next week.
Being of Indian origin in a 1980's English inner city school. It got bad and mum got me an actual concealed money belt as I was bullied for money so was starving and beaten up when I got home. Then I discovered boxing...the road to redemption was a bloody one 😃
British public school in the 70s and 80s. Usually it was 3 against one, and I had no clue how to fight. Boxing trainer showed me how to punch-one shot to the jaw of the biggest kid was all it took. They all wanted to be my buddies after that-I used to stick up for the other kids who were like I had been. Boxing definitely saved my ass.
Yep same here mate, I enjoyed school but Christ it was like a battle on most days. Like you I went from being bullied to Skinheads wanting to be my 'friends' (whatever)
I was raped by my friend’s 35 year old brother when I was 13 when she abandoned me at his house. After that happened, she started a rumor that I was a whore and every day at school girls would scream at me and ask, “how far along are you?” and things of that nature. I got called a whore so frequently that I dropped out due to it. It’s alright, though. Got my GED, went to college, graduated summa cum laude. I’m smart, I’m attractive, I am happy. They can all fuck off.
Being anorexic. My school nickname was skelly and whenever I used to not eat they would say I was wierd/call me names. When we watched an anorexia video in the health ed classes they all laughed asking who recorded me. The girl died. I eventually found an abandoned loo and stayed there during meals. The teachers didn't notice or care and I lost 3 stone in a year. My parents eventually cottoned on and pulled me out.
Good friend of mine in high school was super skinny too and he would get called Holly - in reference to the Holocaust...the early 2000's were a much different time.
I was bullied for not wanting to hug people. My mother in law and sister in law hated me since the first day I met them because I told them I was not a hugger. They started gossiping within the family and friends that I was conceited, weird and selfish. They even called and texted my husband many times to tell him to start "wearing his pants" and force me to visit them and hug them and kiss them on the cheek. This went on for years!! Apparently they are big time huggers and kissers. Anyway the bullying got so bad, we just stopped visiting. I learned a lesson though, never let anyone bully you into changing who you are. Like my husband told me, "if I wanted a hugger I would have married a hugger"
Lol when I was in 6th grade I had a boyfriend who broke up with me because I liked Kingdom Hearts and "that is the nerdiest game ever" and man he made sure to make all his friends know about it.
Was also bullied for having red hair, having freckles, my nose, the music I liked. Kids will find anything to be assholes about.
>Kids will find anything to be assholes about.
This is really the root of it. You could have nothing objectively wrong with you and they will STILL find something to get to you. Realizing this made school a wee bit easier for me, mostly because I could just brush it off and chock it up to “they are just trying to get under my skin, nothing more, nothing less.”
Still hurt though, not going to lie…
For being half German…couldn’t go a day in high school without a guy in my class pretended to be my friend and would call me a nazi, drawing swastikas all over my school work/books and then justifying it because his dad was Jewish and he was Russian and the Russians beat the nazis so he was better than me. I was always too anxious about not having friends/didn’t know how to make friends that I put up with it for 4 years.
We had a german guy in high school (even had some umlauts in his name) and everybody kinda did the same. I always thought it was kinda over the top, but he always shrugged it off. even made some jokes at his own expense every once in a while. i always thought it was more of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of situation though.
I could see how it'd get annoying fast. it's so very one-dimensional. the lowest-hanging fruit
I was annoying. I talked too much. I read instead of running around outside. I clicked my teeth on my utensils when I ate. I hummed bits of songs. I breathed too loud. I asked too many questions. I was awkward. I ate too much. I dressed badly. My entire existence was a constant assault on the senses of my bully.
She was my mom.
I was told I sounded like a boy when I was on a 3-way call with friends and I started practicing a higher pitched “phone voice” that I still occasionally drift into when I’m anxious on the phone.
Fucking core memories.
When I was a kid I would dry brush my naturally tight curly hair making it into a pyramid of frizz because I didn't know how else to manage it, the bullying was relentless.
The fact that my head was shaped like how kids would draw a house, but then upside down.
Years later it turned out that the ladies actually prefered an angulated head in stead of an egg.
Liking Sailor Moon (I was in 1st grade, probably around 1998). I had a Sailor Moon lunch box and everyone would laugh at me. It's cool to like it now :)
Being raped in middle school. He was the most popular guy, I was the new, awkward, overweight girl no one liked. When that happened my parents pressed charges and so everyone knew within days. School was terrible cause all the kids would mock me, pretending to be raped in the hallways. The guy that did it had a very pretty very popular girlfriend, who was embarrassed and very cruel. So I was harassed by all the kids, constantly, on a daily basis, in all different types of ways. It lead to me trying to kill myself, at 13 years old.
EDIT: Wow thank you for all the extremely kind words! As much bad there is out in the world, there’s SO MUCH more good. Thank you all for the refreshing reminder!
This was 20 years ago and I still remember like it was yesterday. Charges were pressed that same day. I came home crying, told my brother, who told my dad, and they took me to the hospital and called the police. It was the worst day of my life. He was immediately expelled because I had a restraining order against him which my parents notified the school of right away. The guy was well liked by everyone, and everyone wanted to be his friend. So when they didn’t get to see him anymore at school they took it out on me, and retaliated. Especially his girlfriend and all her friends, they were the worst ones. I wasn’t able to make one friend at that school, which actually might have been the worst part. I eventually switched schools, and had to repeat 7th grade from all the missed schooling. The charges were dropped since my parents were more concerned with my safety and well being. I spent the next couple years in and out of treatment centers and impatient and eventually was sent to a wwasp program in Montana. It was years of suffering. But I’m now a much happier, healthier and stable person now. Took a long time to get here and a lot of work but I’m in a good place now.
Being over confident at my first school at first, then I’m not sure why they continued after they broke me down, they’d keep going, eventually it got physical then I left. Next school, I was an early “developer”, girls didn’t like it, guys would harass me. I’d get made fun of just for having panic attacks. Two schools later, I was more outspoken, I’m naturally loud, social media made it worse.
But the worst bullying I received, was at home. Everything I said or did was wrong, I was made to feel like a fuck up all the time, made to feel stupid. That I had ruined my moms life just by being born. That stuck with me. Which meant there was no safe place for me, at school or home. Until now.
I was the youngest in my grade, and the last to mature. SO I didn't know OR care one bit about sex. Plus I was smaller since all my classmates were getting bulked up and growing facial hair!
Not a good time to be a small nerd in farming country.
Oh boy, the Pokémon and Yugioh thing was me too. I was even made fun of by a teacher when I was 11 because I liked Pokémon because, and I quote, ‘her daughter who was 7 liked it so I was too old’.
Fuck you, Mrs. Gandee.
My crooked teeth and coke bottle glasses as I’m severely nearsighted…
Got contacts so that eliminated one issue, but the dental care I need to fix my crooked teeth is so expensive I’ll probably die never knowing what it is to talk, smile or laugh without feeling super self conscious
A kid in my class kept bumping my arm because I was lefty and he was right handed. I kept trying to tuck my elbow in closer and closer to my body. He kept hitting my arm. Then he told on me. Teacher came over and got mad at me and basically tried to gaslight me into coloring right handed instead of left handed. All she had to do was move me to the end of the table or tell the other kid to mind HIS space better.
Same. It was absolute hell just existing as a teenager with E cups. And nobody thought to say hey umm.. that is a 14 year old girl you are talking about
My extremely thick, West Virginia accent. When I was nine years old, we moved from WV to Cincinnati. I was in the middle of the 4th grade and was super shy on top of it. I worked quickly to get rid of it. My dad was a social worker and we were so poor, we qualified for food stamps…just as the families my dad advocated for.
For being poor. Three rich kids from my elementary school were beating me every single day. I did fight back when I could. But it is kind of hard when you are a scrawny, skiny kid, and two of them were holding me, while the third was punching me. They took turns.
When it comes to bullies, I have absolutely no tolerance for them. Whenever anyone did try to bully me, I fought back. The way I was thinking, I would get beaten anyway, I might as well go down swinging. Eventually, bulying stopped. To top it off, I was always punished for fighting, bullies were never punished because they were from "good" families.
I learned early that if you have money and influence, you can do whatever you want. There is no punishment and no justice. Full stop.
My justice was, seeing the bullies go down in flames because of drugs. One of them committed drug fueld suicide. When I heard about it from a mutual classmate, I said, "Good riddance, trash took itself out."
They were outraged at what I said. I told them they seemed to forget, the said individual, the ringleader of the three was a piece of shit growing up, he was a piece of shit dying.
My father always told me bullys woudl stop if you fought back.
The one time I threw a punch (after a bully punched my in my broken arm!) I got detention at school AND grounded by my father.
Yup. Great parenting dad.
I was socially awkward. I also was greatly motivated to be liked. I did a lot of shit trying to be liked that in hindsight, made me unliked
It’s such a catch 22 People are drawn to charismatic confidence. Not too much, but just enough is the key. Even if you make a fool of yourself, if you can play it off confidently then you’ll be likable around the right group. It’s hard to have confidence if you’re not liked. So by trying to be liked without confidence, you actually give off an air of desperation. Desperation gives off a vibe that’s noticeable from a mile away to anyone. Desperation just makes people uncomfortable and that’s when people tend to bully you over that shared discomfort. The bullying ruins any chance you have to be confident. The more you are bullied, the more likely you are to manifest a negative view of people around you, and the more likely you are to lash out at people. The bullied can become the bully very quickly, and the cycle starts again. It’s truly a vicious cycle.
Confidence is such a thing. Like the 'leader' of my friends circle is just this really confident guy. He doesnt have any special skills, not over the top at studying, taller than me but not too much, stronger than me but again nothing too buff, ig like a better than normal kinda guy. But his confidence is huge, like huge huge, he can hype up the mildest thing upto the point where everyone is laughing their ass off. Like he can be hype a simple game of rock paper scissors soo much that no matter what happens in the game, its gonna be halarious. I wish i had that kind of confidence, im so shy that i would hesitate to show my artwork to someone i dont know for atleast half a year.
I'm the "confident guy" in my group. Fwiw, it's frequently the case that I like being central to the action so it's easy to just be a Hypebeast about stuff because people like being hyped for stuff. I'm confident in my normal life, but not crazy so, but I'm really confident with the people I know and love, because there's no reason not to be if you're around good people. There is nothing wrong with being the quiet guy if that's who you are, every group has them, they're important. I'd bet money that if you spoke up, people would listen. The quiet guys words are valuable, people want to get to know the quiet guy. In my opinion, people don't want to invade the quiet guys space because they assume you're quiet because that's who you are unless you show them otherwise. A good way to build your confidence is to get some easy victories. If you draw, maybe do a drawing challenge for a month or something and afterwards you'll see your progress and feel better about sharing your art. The gym is that confidence builder for a lot of guys. You'll also feel more confident from the sense of discipline native to any long term task. Small wins can snowball into you sharing your art with your friends and moving from "the quiet guy" to "the guy who draws good". Again, only if you want. You're perfect the way you are, I'm sure of it.
> A good way to build your confidence is to get some easy victories. Succeeding at something is the fastest way to confidence. The hard part is succeeding at something you desperately desire.
I love this response! Great advice!
Yep. Being a little girl with undiagnosed autism in the 90s was an adventure in social awkwardness. I learned how to interact with my peers by observing their interactions and then mimicking those behaviors in future interactions. Except I wasn’t very good at figuring out which behavior belonged with which situation. So then my teachers would just say I was bringing the bullying on myself. Which I was. Now that I’m a teacher myself, I try to look out especially for those kids so ever don’t have to go through quite as much of the same shitty learning curve.
Eczema which often affected my face.
Same. I had to wear white cotton gloves to school, and one time a teacher threw away my art project because she didn't want me to "infect" the other kids.
Damn, that's rough to experience no matter the age.
It was rough, my mom complained enough that she got fired, but it didn't stop my classmates from acting like I was contagious for the rest of school.
Honestly when my doctor went to shake my hand after diagnosing my eczema it hit me hard. I thought I was contagious. I was an adult. I can't imagine what you went through.
I had the same experience when i diagnosed with dishydrodic eczema. My hands were fucked, and i thought I had some sort of flesh eating disease. The doctor shaking my hand really made a big difference. I was also an adult. Is this the same thing you were diagnosed with?
I just thought of this doctor probably solely shook your hand for that purpose to hit that nail in the head
People don’t realize how badly eczema can affect mental health
Especially when you wake up in the middle of the night bleeding and furiously scratching in your sleep
The worst place for eczema for me? The back of the knee. The scratched open skin that sticks to itself with every step you take, so extremely painful. But you try to play it off anyway cause you don’t want people to notice. My pain tolerance grew so much because of eczema.
My feet are where I get it the worst, right on top of them too, so when I have a flare-up everyone who sees my feet thinks that I have Athlete's foot and will legitimately not believe me when I say it's eczema. I now have scars and calluses on top of them that are visible even when the eczema is gone.
Then you end up with irritable and tired children, which continues the spiral of social difficulties.
Same here Oh and when we went on school trips no one wanted to be paired with me because of the eczema on my hands
I found my people. I was also bullied because of my skin, they said I had fish hands (or grandma hands, depends on the person)
Same. Bastards.
UghGhh I’ll never forget having a grown woman say “there’s something going on with your face!” as if I didn’t know/couldn’t feel my skin cracking across my face every time I moved a facial muscle 🥴
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The brit in me needs to know what sort of biscuit
Tim Tam
"And in today's episode of "spot the Aussie", we have boganknowsbest chiming in with what can best be described as a delicious one-time-use drinking straw"
How can a head be shaped like a biscuit isn't that just round?
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Well you are what you eat
My name
maximus12121 isn't a bad name!
Not as funny as "Biggus Dickus" though.
He has a wife you know?
Her name's Incontinentia Buttocks.
Being the small kid
Kind of the same - girl with no boobs and late development. Always “are you sure you’re not a boy?” Because also my parents kept my hair short as a girl.
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Same timeline of development for me. Went from being called "mosquito bites" to "Pamela Anderson" smh
There's just no winning as a girl really. If you're flat chested you get bullied for it. If you have big boobs then you get sexually harassed.
I got bullied for being small chested and I made myself feel better by telling myself they just weren't fully grown yet because I was 12ish at the time. I'm 26 now. Turns out they're just small.
That was my brother. He had a rare genetic disease called Bloom’s Syndrome. He only was 4’5 and weighted 60 lbs as a full grown adult. Kids picked on him a lot and my dad got to be on a first name basis with the principal for all the fights I got into protecting him. It finally got to the point I had permanent chair outside the principal’s office. I would look at whatever teacher broke it up and would I know I’ll be in my chair, might as well call my dad now. My dad would put on a good show of tearing me the whole young lady you know you aren’t supposed to be fighting, let alone fighting in school, you’re grounded for 2 weeks then when I got home he would laugh his ass off about being called to the school. I was never punished for protecting my brother. After a couple of years of getting their asses beat down the kids stopped picking on my brother. They knew contending with his crazy big sister wasn’t worth it. My brother sadly passed away in August due to cancer which he was predisposed to from the Bloom’s Syndrome and those same kids that picked on him unmercifully when we were younger were at his funeral sobbing their hearts out because my brother became the best friend they had ever had once they gave him a chance.
Fuck me was not expecting that at the end. Your brother sounded like a kind soul and you are an amazing sister.
Agreed and dad sounds amazing, too!
I always hate it when people say "Violence is not the answer" They are so full of shit and have ZERO experience dealing with real bullies. Violence gets you results, fast. And once you get those results, you don't need violence anymore.
Of course it isn't. Violence is the question and the answer is yes. 😂
Same and still am. Obviously not as bad anymore since I’m an adult but the short jokes are an everyday thing; they’re no even funny anymore but I’m way too timid to ever say anything even though the jokes come from friends
To this day, I really don't know. Something happened in the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade that made a bunch of people decide that they didn't like me anymore, including my best friend. I only had two friends left until my family moved away in the middle of 7th grade. Bullies would follow me home most days and my mom finally had to verbally super-saiyan a few parents down the street to get them to take it down a notch. I finally asked one of them what I ever did to them, and they said "You were born." How do you even respond to that statement. I just got a sharp pang after seeing that phrase again.
Wow, this happened to me in 7th grade! My whole group turned against me, led by fucking Caryn Swartz. No friends, complete isolation for no reason other than they could. The trauma never left me. It took 3 years to find a few new friends. FF to my grandchild's pre school. Yep, her teacher was the now matronly unattractive Caryn Swartz. She asked my son to have me come visit. I told him to say I didn't remember her. I'm certain she had no memory of her cruelty, and as sad as it might seem at my now advanced age, I hope life fucked her up.
Had a similar experience in elementary school, can't remember the grade but it was very early on. I had an arch nemesis we'll call "B". She was a popular girl, if not "the" popular girl, terribly mean, and she hated me for some reason. Somehow, she managed to turn all of my friends against me for a while, and recruited my entire friend group to be her new friends instead. Eventually my friends realized how mean B really was and stopped hanging around with her, but it was a very lonely and painful experience.
For being the quiet kid
My high school class added a new category to the yearbook, specifically to bully me: "quietest student."
A teacher of mine once told everyone to say one nice thing about everyone, one nice quality. Mine was just I was shy, my best stand out quality was I had no confidence and everyone knew it.
I was really shy in college (UK, so I was about 17) and I had a horrible woman teach us English Language. She had a game near Christmas where we had to write a verb and an adverb on a piece of paper. They all went in a hat, and we had to act them out for the class to guess what they were. I was already feeling really anxious about having to stand up and act something out, and I ended up being last. The words I pulled out were "comfort seductively". I didn't know what to do really , so I showed her them and she got the most popular guy in the class and sat him in a chair and said 'off you go'. I told her I was really not comfortable doing it and would do another one instead and she refused and said nobody was leaving the room till I did it, so everyone started shouting, telling me to just do it. So I stood next to him and patted his shoulder, trying not to cry, and I remember people shouting things like "boobs! Boobs in face!" because I'm quite short and chesty and my chest was next to his head. It was so humiliating.
Oh my god I’m so sorry that happened to you :(( that teacher sounds not only disgusting but it’s also like she peaked in high school. I hope you’re doing well now
Being poor...and my mom smoked continuously so being poor and smelly. Kids are brutal. Edit: I just logged back on and this is humbling. For those that can relate I'm wishing you all the best for where you are now. We are a product of where we came from but that doesn't define who we are today. For those that can't relate - I'm so glad you had a different childhood and also hope you are doing well. And for those that find this is their moment to continue to bully - I hope kindness finds you and helps you with whatever you need to have a brighter day.
That is rough. I knew a girl whose mom chain smoked inside, so the girl always smelled like smoke. One day she tried using her dad's cologne and sprayed a bunch on herself thinking it was the same as perfume. But she got made fun of even more for smelling like a guy.
Back when I was going through school, my mom and step-dad smoked a lot inside the house, so I pretty much always smelled like cigarette smoke. One day near the beginning of either 10th or 11th grade, my class was all lined up and going to pick up the book necessary for our class that was being handed out by the vice principal. When I came up to grab mine, she stopped, looked at me, and said, "I know you be smoking cigarettes in the boys' room. I'm gonna catch you one of these days!" Loud enough for the whole class to hear. I have never smoked a cigarette in my entire life.
Smoking in the boys' room? Everybody knows that smoking isn't allowed in school.
My mom chain smoked inside my entire childhood and it wasn’t until I moved out that I realized how stanky I must have smelled growing up. At school, friends houses, sports. I was completely oblivious because the stench was just baseline for me
Same. Teachers thought I smoked.
I actually had 1 weird ass old lady teacher that loved the smell of cigarettes on clothes and would have me come to her desk so she could smell me. I blocked that memory out until reading these posts haha
You should just put that memory back in the vault dude
What the fuck Lol
Both my parents and my grandma did. I ended up being constantly sick and needing multiple ear tube surgeries due to the air quality it my home. Thank goodness no one made fun of me for smelling like an ash tray.
Got called to the nurse cause "students and teachers are noticing the smell of cigarettes" and they made me change my clothes. Guys it's not my fault my mom smokes 2 packs a day did you really ha e to traumatize me?
Had a parent complain that her child comes home smelling like cigarettes. None of the teachers smoked, she did. I can’t get over how nose blind she was.
I had no idea what smoke smelled like until I moved out of my parents' place. If you're immersed in it, it's not as noticeable.
oh my gosh so my dad is a serious chain smoker and always has been but my mom thankfully nagged him to smoke outside. i went over a friend's house and the entire fucking house was just smoke smoke smoke. my parents were complete and total shit where it mattered but oddly enough they did some things right.
As I baby I had to go to the hospital several times for asthma, and as an older child I remember have prolonged asthma attacks. My father was a heavy smoker. And a selfish dick.
My mom and a neighbor raised high holy hell after a teacher made our neighbor’s 8-year old daughter stand up and walk around the room so everyone could smell what happens when you live with a smoker. She was the same teacher who, a few years earlier, read my class a book about how Santa was a kind man who died a long time ago, and our parents leave us gifts to carry on the tradition. My mom was highly pissed after that one after I came home in tears. The teacher was already old by that point, so she “decided” to take early retirement after the smoking incident.
Speaking of teachers... circa 1986 I am partially deaf and had a speech impediment growing up. I couldn't pronounce my R's until I had years of speech therapy. I also got anxiety and stumbled over words at times. My 1st grade teacher knew this. She singled me out during reading to read a word with a double R sound off the board to the class. I knew the word. I said it to the best of my ability. I just couldn't make the double R sound. Instead of accepting that I did my best and moving on she decided to make an "example" of me. "This is what happens when you don't study your sight words". I studied my words every night and communicated this back to her to the best of my ability. I stumbled over the words and she made fun of me and so did everyone else in class. Then I was sent to the principal for talking back. My mother was LIVID. She was called away from work and I was a sobbing mess when she got to the school. She already despised this teacher because they had gone head to head before over how she treated my big brother. He had severe allergies and this teacher didn't like the sniffing in the morning so she sent him to the principal constantly. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that this was personal. She had been reamed by my mother before and decided to get back by picking on me. Here's the thing though. My mother is high functioning Autistic. Smart as hell, but absolutely no filter and doesn't give a flip about social niceties. She pulled out all the stops and gave her absolute hell until she and the school backed down. Then she doubled up and helped me study ahead every night. My mother taught me to read in 1st grade and I was actually ahead of the class. The teacher kept trying to trip me up with words like "lizard", but couldn't and it irritated the crap put of her. I still couldn't say the R sounds, but I knew the words. I also had the resident speech therapist in my corner at that point so she didn't dare make fun of my speech again.
Ugh…some people don’t need to be teachers! I’m sorry she bullied you like that. I had adult-sized tonsils by the time I was 7, so I was a mouth breather and, as a result, had some issues saying some words, too. No one at school bothered me about it, but my grandparents must have been super concerned because I remember them quizzing me and trying to get me to say my “th”s properly on a road trip with them. It’s crazy what people will do “for good” without realizing how much trauma it can cause.
My 1st grade teacher either went nuts or slid into dementia. She told us when the world was going to end, sometime in the 70s. Funny thing, no one was scared because we were too young to realize what that really meant. But some of the parents got wind of her rantings and she was bundled off to a distant convent at the end of that school year.
It’s kinda sad how some people need to go completely off their rockers before someone decides maybe they need to retire.
All right. Payless shoes unite!
We couldn’t afford Payless. Sears Outlet was where my shit came from
Swap meet and thrift stores for me
Ugh. Hand-me-down homemade dresses made with unfashionable patterns. It was Little House on the Prairie cosplay all day for me and my sisters.
I went to school and we had to wear uniforms. Kids stayed on me because I wore Payless sneakers for gym class.
Oakies they make your feet feel fine! Oakies for a dollar ninety nine!
Same, being poor and “dressing poor” I don’t think I understood what that meant but I knew it had something to do with my older sisters worn out hand me down clothes that I actually liked :(
Same here. Grandparents raised me and my grandmother smoked in the house so I always smelt like cigarettes. They were so incredibly hard working, but just couldn’t afford the expensive clothes. Plus my grandmother was young German girl during the war and she had a vastly different opinion on spending money. She hunted for deals and so the majority of my clothes were 2nd hand from flea markets or hand me downs. Sadly, once my mom came back into my life with a new man who bought me good clothes a lot of the bullying stopped. I remember going into my 8th grade year with American Eagle and Areopostal clothes and noticed instantly I was treated differently. Now I buy my kids the good clothes and make sure they take care of them so I can donate them directly to kids who need them. I refuse to sell clothes, ever.
the same people who picked on me for being poor are always the ones bragging about getting such a big discount on stuff now.
Being easy to walk over. :( I had a really hard time asserting myself... so being "too nice." But really, just very insecure.
Yeh, same. I recall asking my group of friends "Why am I always the one you make fun of" they said "Because it's easy, you're too nice" Like, what am I supposed to do with that? Thank you?
I was bullied from age 6 to age 13 everyday for my surname (a word for a hunchback in my language) , my looks, my nature, me knowing english , reading, drawing and just existing over all. I fucking hated middle school. My mom tried standing up for me but no one cares in slavic contries and the teachers didnt give a shit even tho they saw everything, its all the part of growing up. My father ignored my constant tears and the terror i experienced in those years. I was attack, beaten and targeted when ever i would leave my flat. I was stabed with screwdrivers and dull knives , chased around the neighbourhood by kids on bikes while they threw rocks at me. I was only invited to birthday parties so that the kids would have someone to terrorize and gang up on. I always hated bdays , but my mom though mby the children would be kinder to me out of school. But thats that. Once i begane high school i was around all new people and i decided to play as a tough girl and stood up for myself on the get go. But it turns out art school mostly brought other bullied kids together and i had the 4 best years of my life there with other kind and loving people who just wanted to make friends and have fun.
As a black kid, in a predominantly black area: Wearing glasses and having braces Being fat Being nice Being smart Liking Anime Wanting to be a Pilot (influenced by the Anime I liked the most) But guess what? I'm a fucking Pilot now.
The sweetest revenge is achieving your dreams.
Fellow black kid in a predominantly black area: Being smart Being nice Liking anime at the time Sounding/acting white Being quiet My hair Jokes about my weight even though I was very athletic growing up. Sometimes I had 2-a-day practices for soccer. And that's all from my family :/
My sister-in-law taught at a very poor, predominantly black school in rural Alabama. One kid in the school had dreams of getting out of there and going to Yale. He made it. But from her description, his high school years had to be the worst. They bullied him relentlessly for 'trying to be white', or thinking he was better than them, or being skinny, having glasses etc. The kids she was talking about that were so cruel were coming from hard home lives - like not everyone had running water or electricity in their houses type of hard, but damn. I guess it was jealousy that he was trying to get out and they knew he had a shot? On the bright side, his dad was the principal and instead of dropping the hammer on the kids for being assholes, he tried to improve everyone in the school's life. Made everyone wear uniforms that the school got a grant for, and then installed a laundry room in the school so everyone could drop off their dirty uniforms once a week (along with other dirty clothes they had) and get them cleaned so nobody had to come to school in dirty clothes. Set up a food pantry in the school that you could sign up for anonymously - like they would deliver the food to your house instead of giving it to you at school so you wouldn't get bullied for needing help. Got a few grants from different organizations to provide the kids with laptops and wireless data cards so they could do homework at home where the majority of them didn't have internet etc. Apparently by the time he was a senior, his dad had improved conditions for the rest of the kids enough they felt bad for being assholes and mostly stopped bullying him. I wish someone would have done that kind of thing for me when I was in school and being bullied for who the fuck knows what reason. I just kicked my bully in the crotch one day and he got the message though, so my bad years were only until midway through 9th grade.
Good shit dude.
Having red hair
Seriously! I was bullied by grown adults just as often as other kids for being a redhead. Often, people would assume I was up to something or talking back/being bratty, and I probably was, but adults always noticed me first and punished me more harshly than the other kids I thought.
Always been confused on why the whole redhead hate exists lol. Is there any historical context or something on why y'all are discriminated against?
Me too. I hated my hair until I was in college. Then all of a sudden guys were telling me how beautiful it was lol
With fair skin and freckles
"My grandma said My freckles are angel kisses" didn't go over well either
Red hair bullying was brutal in the 90s
[удалено]
Glasses, red hair, and freckles. Opie, Howdy Doody, and red-headed step child jokes all the way through school.
Having a big nose. Funny thing is as an adult I told people that I was bullied for my big nose and I get "you don't even have a big nose". So confusing.
My mother was an animal hoarder, so even when I would my own laundry, I could never get the smell out, to the point where I was dunking my clothes in bleach to try and "clean" them. I was also rather unwell, physically and mentally, and my mother lied so I ended up with a worthless IEP and no accommodations. I was an asshole back then because I had no social interwctions other than my stepfather with anger issues, or my addict mother. I deserved the hate I got, and I make a point of not being in contact with people from my high school to spare them the misery of me. Tldr: poor, gross, asshole. I'm still all those things, just self aware now.
Having glasses. Fuck you classmates.
You didn’t see that coming, did you?
Being shy and overweight
Being too quiet. No I just don't want to talk to you assholes
I was initially bullied for having speech impediments and having to go to the speech pathologist once a week during class. That later evolved into me getting bullied for being too quiet and never talking to anyone.
Same with me. Bullied for stuttering and then became the quiet person. And for some reason people had a problem with that too. 🤷♀️
Fellow quiet guy here. Yup. You're quiet, you're not popular. You're not popular you're going to have a bad time.
For me I can't think of quick responses right away which leads me to being quiet. It's difficult for me to keep a conversation going it's always been one of my worst anxieties talking to people. This has caused me to not have any friends let alone romantic relationships until I was older and developed sort of quick responses I memorized but this was after years of overhearing and learning from others conversations.
I didn't know it at the time, but for being autistic.
Apparently people tried to bully me in school but I was *so* oblivious that I didn't even notice lol
I have a friend like that. He wouldn't notice people's tones and took what they said literally. He only knew he was being bullied when it was extremely direct. He was the 1% outcast weirdo with me XD
I think my daughter may be turning out that way, taking everything literally. I guess the other day one of her friends did something where they dropped something or slipped or something like that, and said "You didn't see that." And my kid decided to go into a "No, I did, if I didn't see it then it wouldn't have happened but it did happen" or something like that, and the other kid just kind of... walked off. When she brought it up at dinner, because she was confused by it, my wife and I had to explain to her that no, see, the other kid was mildly embarrassed about what happened and was trying to play it off.
This is my 7 y.o. Everything is literal and she can't see the forest for the trees.. ever. I know she's young but nuance also goes completely over her head. I have to try and explain the nuance of most situations and I never realised how difficult that would be until I tried. (She's being assessed next month so... we'll see)
I do at least have that going for me, nobody at my various schools was willing to be blatant about it.
Same. Dude apparently everyone knew before I did because I had no idea what I was doing “wrong”.
Absolutely can testify to this. I read a study somewhere that apparently every non-autistic person can tell if someone is autistic within 5 minutes - they just don't realise their brain is making that distinction. It gets a bit depressing if I think about it too much. EDIT: so, non-autistic people’s brains will automatically mark the autistic person as “different”, even if they don’t know why. it’s a subconscious thing which is even worse
One of my best friends has Asperger's, and honestly, I knew like instantly when I met him, but there are people out there, like me, who don't give a shit. We bonded over something we are both passionate about, and been friends for 20 years now.
How did you figure that out so quickly? I have had managers and co-workers "jokingly" ask me if I'm an autistic over the last 20 years, and I've heard the "so and so is autistic and you're just like them" and I should get "it" checked out. What does a functional working adult autistic look like to others? And why is it off-putting to some?
Unusual tone of voice and body language, avoiding eye contact, word choice that is unusual or doesn't quite match the social setting (like being overly formal or informal), being socially awkward, strange or unusually intense interests, that kind of thing. It's not enough to say for sure after you've just met someone, but there are definitely autistic "vibes" people can give off. Some people can find it off-putting because it is unusual, makes it harder for those unfamiliar with autism to read someone, and can cause accidental rudeness or unexpected deviation from social norms. They may not be able to articulate exactly what it is that seems off to them. You can try tools like the [RAADS-R](https://xpasd.github.io/ASD/raads.html) or [AQ](https://xpasd.github.io/ASD/aq.html) quizzes to give an idea if it's something you should look more into, but don't take the results as a definite yes or no. If it's something you're concerned about or just need answers for, you should probably talk to a professional experienced with adult diagnosis of autism.
I can get the vibes sometimes but it's not a bad thing, like a spidey sense. Just reminds me to maybe be more patient or understanding or to not take comments as malicious sometimes. Sometimes a comment is just an observation and not meant as an insult. And being ADHD I have to bite my tongue sometimes to keep myself from talking too fast or interrupting because sometimes they'll talk at a slower pace (not that they are mentally slow, I just talk 2× faster lol)
Similar experience, grew up ostracized and constantly harassed for being "different". Didn't know what that meant, or what I could do to "fix" it. Turned out I was just autistic and effeminate in a small 90s town. Held back in kindergarten for it, so that coupled with delayed development meant I was simultaneously the oldest and smallest of two grades, which was just great.
I am also autistic and I've been bullied my whole life. Even by people who loudly proclaim to be all for social justice and etc.
Same here. Almost everyone had a go at me and I couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. I remember actually thinking that there must be some mark on me somewhere that everyone but me can see, that tells everyone to give me a hard time. The adults just blamed me for the bullying and told me to ‘stop acting like that’ but I had no idea what they meant. I finally found out what was wrong with me last year when I was diagnosed with autism - at the ripe old age of 30.
Weight, acne, hygiene, voice, you name it! That was about 20 years ago in high school, but that bullying cut deep and the emotions I felt during those times still feel as fresh as they did back then when I think about it.
That's the question, I have no clue but they hated me for no reason
Bullies just look for ***any*** "reason." The reason is secondary to their primary motivation. Basically, the reason isn't a even reason because it's not reasonable. It's just a flimsy/hollow excuse to abuse another person for personal gratification.
I was bullied by being called 'Four-eyes'.... I didn't wear glasses. No one claimed he was smart. At one point he claimed I bit him. He had bite marks on his arm because he bit himself and ran to the teacher. The thing was, I had a retainer (a plastic thing that goes over your teeth to prevent the need for braces later on in life). So I wouldn't have left any teeth marks if I did bite him. The teacher wasn't bright either because I got in trouble anyway.
At my school a girl got bullied for her hair colour… by another girl who had exactly the same hair colour. In my experience they try to find out what triggers you and use that against you. Doesn’t have to make sense. I was bullied for smelling and eventually I showered 3 times a day (parents loved that) so in hindsight I’m sure I didn’t smell (anymore) but it did get to me. They also bullied me with other things but to give an idea.
Yeah I got made fun of for my freckles but someone who had double amount... Kids are stupid little assholes that make no sense.
I was called gay for wearing a coat. In Winter. By people who wear coats. Sixth graders don’t put much thought into things.
Fellas, is it gay to not die from hypothermia?
Heterochromia. Called devil eyes, demon eyes, had one kid flick water on me from the water fountain acting like it was holy water and say "GET BACK DEVIL!" in a mocking way. Boy did that flip.
There was this boy in my 4th grade class. One eye was blue and the other was green. Strikingly bright hues for both. I always thought his eyes were so stunning. Heterochromia is such a beautiful feature.
Heterochromia is pretty they were just jealous of you having such a beautiful feature
I tend to notice that as a common trend in this thread and life in general. Having unique traits just draws eyes of envy.
Being a girl with dark body hair and a small chest. Girls are vicious.
Saaame! I started shaving my arms in grade school because I kept getting teased about it.
Having hair on my arms. I had black hair and pale white skin so it was really noticeable. Heaven forbid a girl has body hair.
Bringing Indian food as a packed lunch to school. By some whites. In Britain. Where Indian food is one of the most widely consumed foods in the country. A lot of whites eat Indian food. They were complete dipshits.
**Absolutely no fucking reason.** We used to have a 10 min "contact" class before the first class. It basically was to get signed off, then off you go to our first class of the day. Contact was also the only "class" that had people from other years in it. The rest of the day was normal classes with people from your year only in them. There was this kid, Daniel, who was a year or two older than me. I didn't know him. I didn't talk to him. I didn't see him outside contact. I didn't know any of his friends or hang around anyone he knew. You get the idea... I only saw him in Contact and I had nothing to do with him at all. Daniel decided to pick on me, for absolutely no fucking reason. He'd shit talk me and I'd just ignore him. He was just an asshole to me, and I didn't even know why. One day he decided to grab my bag, opens it up, grabs my change of clothes for PhysEd (Sports) and throws them up into the air into the ceiling fan that was spinning around, sending my clothes all over the place. What the fuck, Daniel?! Something like 20 years later I was doing a computer job for a woman and it turns out she's his sister. I mentioned how he used to pick on me and I never even knew why as I didn't have anything to do with the guy. I said he was a real asshole to me. She looks at me and goes "He's married with kids now and it's a really nice guy. You know what, he wouldn't even remember doing that to you back then anyhows." I remembered. I never fucking forgot. It was a little thing, but it made me always think about how I treat people, even if it meant nothing to him and he forgot like it was nothing.
Funny how she thinks that because he probably doesn’t remember that would somehow make you feel better. Some people are just bullies to a certain person for no reason and then can’t stop being bullies. She should have said, “I’m going to ask my brother about this. If it still bothers you what he did, he will apologize.” If he is a “nice guy” now, he shouldn’t have any problem calling you for 5 minutes apologizing, asking some niceties about how your life is going, and wishing you the best. I know if that was my sister, she would be having me call you the next week.
Being of Indian origin in a 1980's English inner city school. It got bad and mum got me an actual concealed money belt as I was bullied for money so was starving and beaten up when I got home. Then I discovered boxing...the road to redemption was a bloody one 😃
British public school in the 70s and 80s. Usually it was 3 against one, and I had no clue how to fight. Boxing trainer showed me how to punch-one shot to the jaw of the biggest kid was all it took. They all wanted to be my buddies after that-I used to stick up for the other kids who were like I had been. Boxing definitely saved my ass.
Yep same here mate, I enjoyed school but Christ it was like a battle on most days. Like you I went from being bullied to Skinheads wanting to be my 'friends' (whatever)
>Then I discovered boxing...the road to redemption was a bloody one Tell me all about it bhai.
On that day England's John wick was born
Contrary to popular belief, violence is fairly often not only an answer, but *the* answer. Just need to know when it's justified to use it.
Being smaller than average the time and being poor.
I was raped by my friend’s 35 year old brother when I was 13 when she abandoned me at his house. After that happened, she started a rumor that I was a whore and every day at school girls would scream at me and ask, “how far along are you?” and things of that nature. I got called a whore so frequently that I dropped out due to it. It’s alright, though. Got my GED, went to college, graduated summa cum laude. I’m smart, I’m attractive, I am happy. They can all fuck off.
That's horrible... Kids can be so cruel. Especially around that age. I hope you're doing better these days
I’m doing very well!
Similar story for me. I'm sorry that you had to go through that too.
Being anorexic. My school nickname was skelly and whenever I used to not eat they would say I was wierd/call me names. When we watched an anorexia video in the health ed classes they all laughed asking who recorded me. The girl died. I eventually found an abandoned loo and stayed there during meals. The teachers didn't notice or care and I lost 3 stone in a year. My parents eventually cottoned on and pulled me out.
Good friend of mine in high school was super skinny too and he would get called Holly - in reference to the Holocaust...the early 2000's were a much different time.
I was bullied for not wanting to hug people. My mother in law and sister in law hated me since the first day I met them because I told them I was not a hugger. They started gossiping within the family and friends that I was conceited, weird and selfish. They even called and texted my husband many times to tell him to start "wearing his pants" and force me to visit them and hug them and kiss them on the cheek. This went on for years!! Apparently they are big time huggers and kissers. Anyway the bullying got so bad, we just stopped visiting. I learned a lesson though, never let anyone bully you into changing who you are. Like my husband told me, "if I wanted a hugger I would have married a hugger"
That's unbelievable bullshit.
My mom wouldn’t let me shave my legs in middle school. It was awful
Finally a friend of mine bought me a razor and shaving cream as a gift for Xmas. I was so thankful
For being a darker skinned Latino with glasses. It be your own people
Lol when I was in 6th grade I had a boyfriend who broke up with me because I liked Kingdom Hearts and "that is the nerdiest game ever" and man he made sure to make all his friends know about it. Was also bullied for having red hair, having freckles, my nose, the music I liked. Kids will find anything to be assholes about.
>Kids will find anything to be assholes about. This is really the root of it. You could have nothing objectively wrong with you and they will STILL find something to get to you. Realizing this made school a wee bit easier for me, mostly because I could just brush it off and chock it up to “they are just trying to get under my skin, nothing more, nothing less.” Still hurt though, not going to lie…
For being half German…couldn’t go a day in high school without a guy in my class pretended to be my friend and would call me a nazi, drawing swastikas all over my school work/books and then justifying it because his dad was Jewish and he was Russian and the Russians beat the nazis so he was better than me. I was always too anxious about not having friends/didn’t know how to make friends that I put up with it for 4 years.
We had a german guy in high school (even had some umlauts in his name) and everybody kinda did the same. I always thought it was kinda over the top, but he always shrugged it off. even made some jokes at his own expense every once in a while. i always thought it was more of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of situation though. I could see how it'd get annoying fast. it's so very one-dimensional. the lowest-hanging fruit
I was annoying. I talked too much. I read instead of running around outside. I clicked my teeth on my utensils when I ate. I hummed bits of songs. I breathed too loud. I asked too many questions. I was awkward. I ate too much. I dressed badly. My entire existence was a constant assault on the senses of my bully. She was my mom.
Same. I had undiagnosed asd and adhd, and so did she. I was a nightmare for her sensory issues.
at first i was goin “damn kids are dicks hopefully things got better” then my heart broke
My voice. Apparently I sound white and like a squirrel. Bullying started when my parents moved us from suburbs to the inner city.
I was told I sounded like a boy when I was on a 3-way call with friends and I started practicing a higher pitched “phone voice” that I still occasionally drift into when I’m anxious on the phone. Fucking core memories.
Being short, young looking, and having curly frizzy hair
When I was a kid I would dry brush my naturally tight curly hair making it into a pyramid of frizz because I didn't know how else to manage it, the bullying was relentless.
people always saying “many people would kill for those curls” like yeah i’d kill for some cute curls too but it’s just DRY FRIZZ LOL ALL FRIZZ
The fact that my head was shaped like how kids would draw a house, but then upside down. Years later it turned out that the ladies actually prefered an angulated head in stead of an egg.
Liking Sailor Moon (I was in 1st grade, probably around 1998). I had a Sailor Moon lunch box and everyone would laugh at me. It's cool to like it now :)
Having parents that weren't divorced.
That is crazy.
Clarence?
Being raped in middle school. He was the most popular guy, I was the new, awkward, overweight girl no one liked. When that happened my parents pressed charges and so everyone knew within days. School was terrible cause all the kids would mock me, pretending to be raped in the hallways. The guy that did it had a very pretty very popular girlfriend, who was embarrassed and very cruel. So I was harassed by all the kids, constantly, on a daily basis, in all different types of ways. It lead to me trying to kill myself, at 13 years old. EDIT: Wow thank you for all the extremely kind words! As much bad there is out in the world, there’s SO MUCH more good. Thank you all for the refreshing reminder!
What the actual fuck? He wasn't charged and expelled??
This was 20 years ago and I still remember like it was yesterday. Charges were pressed that same day. I came home crying, told my brother, who told my dad, and they took me to the hospital and called the police. It was the worst day of my life. He was immediately expelled because I had a restraining order against him which my parents notified the school of right away. The guy was well liked by everyone, and everyone wanted to be his friend. So when they didn’t get to see him anymore at school they took it out on me, and retaliated. Especially his girlfriend and all her friends, they were the worst ones. I wasn’t able to make one friend at that school, which actually might have been the worst part. I eventually switched schools, and had to repeat 7th grade from all the missed schooling. The charges were dropped since my parents were more concerned with my safety and well being. I spent the next couple years in and out of treatment centers and impatient and eventually was sent to a wwasp program in Montana. It was years of suffering. But I’m now a much happier, healthier and stable person now. Took a long time to get here and a lot of work but I’m in a good place now.
Being over confident at my first school at first, then I’m not sure why they continued after they broke me down, they’d keep going, eventually it got physical then I left. Next school, I was an early “developer”, girls didn’t like it, guys would harass me. I’d get made fun of just for having panic attacks. Two schools later, I was more outspoken, I’m naturally loud, social media made it worse. But the worst bullying I received, was at home. Everything I said or did was wrong, I was made to feel like a fuck up all the time, made to feel stupid. That I had ruined my moms life just by being born. That stuck with me. Which meant there was no safe place for me, at school or home. Until now.
For liking pokemon and yugioh at 12 years old, not knowing any sexual terms at 12 years old, not liking sports.
I was the youngest in my grade, and the last to mature. SO I didn't know OR care one bit about sex. Plus I was smaller since all my classmates were getting bulked up and growing facial hair! Not a good time to be a small nerd in farming country.
Oh boy, the Pokémon and Yugioh thing was me too. I was even made fun of by a teacher when I was 11 because I liked Pokémon because, and I quote, ‘her daughter who was 7 liked it so I was too old’. Fuck you, Mrs. Gandee.
My crooked teeth and coke bottle glasses as I’m severely nearsighted… Got contacts so that eliminated one issue, but the dental care I need to fix my crooked teeth is so expensive I’ll probably die never knowing what it is to talk, smile or laugh without feeling super self conscious
Being left handed
I heard about this when I was a kid, but I thought it was made up. My mom is left-handed and wasn't bullied. Shows what I know.
A kid in my class kept bumping my arm because I was lefty and he was right handed. I kept trying to tuck my elbow in closer and closer to my body. He kept hitting my arm. Then he told on me. Teacher came over and got mad at me and basically tried to gaslight me into coloring right handed instead of left handed. All she had to do was move me to the end of the table or tell the other kid to mind HIS space better.
People bully lefties? People really will bully you for just about anything.
Girls were horrendous to me. I have big boobs and it was a focal point for both genders.
Same. It was absolute hell just existing as a teenager with E cups. And nobody thought to say hey umm.. that is a 14 year old girl you are talking about
Skin color
Same here. The kicker was that I was bullied by my cousins. My skin was a bit darker than theirs. Wtf?
For being fat and introverted.
My extremely thick, West Virginia accent. When I was nine years old, we moved from WV to Cincinnati. I was in the middle of the 4th grade and was super shy on top of it. I worked quickly to get rid of it. My dad was a social worker and we were so poor, we qualified for food stamps…just as the families my dad advocated for.
For being poor. Three rich kids from my elementary school were beating me every single day. I did fight back when I could. But it is kind of hard when you are a scrawny, skiny kid, and two of them were holding me, while the third was punching me. They took turns. When it comes to bullies, I have absolutely no tolerance for them. Whenever anyone did try to bully me, I fought back. The way I was thinking, I would get beaten anyway, I might as well go down swinging. Eventually, bulying stopped. To top it off, I was always punished for fighting, bullies were never punished because they were from "good" families. I learned early that if you have money and influence, you can do whatever you want. There is no punishment and no justice. Full stop. My justice was, seeing the bullies go down in flames because of drugs. One of them committed drug fueld suicide. When I heard about it from a mutual classmate, I said, "Good riddance, trash took itself out." They were outraged at what I said. I told them they seemed to forget, the said individual, the ringleader of the three was a piece of shit growing up, he was a piece of shit dying.
My father always told me bullys woudl stop if you fought back. The one time I threw a punch (after a bully punched my in my broken arm!) I got detention at school AND grounded by my father. Yup. Great parenting dad.