I was pretty much a loner as a kid, no reason for that as far as I’m aware, I was just an island. That by itself made me stand out and so I got unwanted attention. The only way to stop bullying is to beat them down so that they’re afraid of you. That runs the risk of turning you into a bully yourself, but there comes a point in everyone’s lives when enough is enough. There are worse reactions than punching your tormentors in the face to get them to leave you alone. I didn’t start it but I ended it. Seems fair enough to me.
Agreed.
By the time I was 12, I had experienced nearly constant bullying as far back as I could remember. Not actual physically damaging assault with blood and bruises in most cases, but simply picking on me or public or private torment.
As an example,I remember one older kid sitting on me with his knees on my shoulders, and he hocked up a lugi, and while he hovered his face over mine, began to let the spit come out. He would let it come out a little bit, then suck it back in. It sounds completely stupid and even kind of funny to consider, but to an eight year old kid, that is pretty bad. (It was also the first time my older brother actually stuck up for me, and pulled the kid off me and got into a fight with him)
I also had a kid who did that stupid thing where they sit on you and grab your hands and begin to make you hit yourself with your own hands. It sounds absurd, but...as a kid, it was real enough and humiliating enough.
I would go home, my clothes and skin dirty or torn, and when my mother would see me, ask what happened. When I told her, she invariably said “You are bigger and stronger than them...sit on them! Just sit on them!”
Easy for her to say, I thought. And she and my father never picked up the phone and called the kid’s parents, I think they know that would only make things worse. They knew I had to learn to stand up to them.
But the thing that got me over the hump was when I DID have enough. I had a kid who picked on me when I got on the bus...he would pretend to lunge at me and stop, laughing when I shrunk away. Or knock my books or lunch out of my hands. He was a year older, in my brother’s class, but kind of scrawny as I recall. One day, I got on the bus and was walking to the back, and he stuck out his foot and tripped me. I recall just laying on my stomach for a second that seemed like an indeterminate amount of time, and in that instant, I just boiled over. I don’t remember thinking at all that I might get my ass kicked...I just saw red. I leaped to my feet and launched myself into his seat and began flailing non-stop with both hands, and I just kept going until I realized he had a bloody nose and not only wasn’t fighting back, but was cowering with his hands up near his face in a completely defensive posture.
In an instant the rage disappeared when I saw this and I stood up, but that was it. Nobody (including him) ever bullied me seriously again after that that I recall. I wonder if there was some subtle change in me after that, like I wasn’t emitting some kind of vibration signalling I was fearful or vulnerable, and I just did not appear to be a prime target anymore. I was never a fighter, and only got into a handful of fights after that (last one was as a 19 year old in the Navy with a guy who pissed in a urinal I had just cleaned for an inspection!) but...didn’t get picked on, either.
I did the same thing.
I was invited by the cool kids to go smoking and drink at parties when I was 12, I said no thanks. I was alienated from that, and spent years fighting. Fought everyday from grade 8 through grade 12. The latter years were mostly spent defending kids being bullied because nobody wanted to pick on me anymore lol. I couldn’t stand by and watch someone else being tormented though, I’d intervene everytime.