What Effects Can Bullying Have on Girls During Adulthood?

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I was bullied all the way through my childhood, and I have been bullied at work as an adult.

I don't have a lot of friends, and my boyfriend says its because I'm too mistrusting of people and I push them away. I think he's partly right, but it's also partly out of choice. I've always liked my own company.

I think I'm a bullying target for reasons beyond my control. I can control how it affects me in the present. I've learned to look down on people who try to bully me in a petty way. I see people who shout immature insults at me as idiotic. I have long term self esteem issues though, and I can be overly compliant, sometimes. I want people to be nice to me, so I do whatever they say and try to help them in any way possible (as long as it doesn't interfere with my moral compass), until it twigs that some people are just using me or taking the p***s behind my back.

I'm bad at dealing with the more manipulative bullies, and this gets me down to this day. I dislike that part of me that is so easily manipulated. I am loved and respected by my bf and when I can forget about all the times I've been used or humiliated, I can love and respect myself.

i did not face anything in my conscious mind cause i was always being dissociative state most of my life.that is how i dealt with it.like the ostrich put their head in the sand when their is sand storm.but occasionally when i wake up from trance like dissociative state i see the same bullying happening all over again.the only way to avoid this is acting like noting is happening so people wont have much fun out of it.not being bullied extremely in childhood doesn't help.cause there's new form of adult bullying.those kids grew up to be more subtle and efficient bully.
occasionally i tried befriending with people.but that never help much.AS causes me to be out of sync with normal people.for one thing i have apathy for my age girls as i received most bullying from them .so i occasionally turn to guys.but that's worse.i can't seem to understand any of them neither boys nor girls.my only resort for friendship becomes all people few years younger or older than me who are more big sisterly or brotherly with me.that sort of relationship is hard to find.so yeah nfor avoiding bullying i avoided human contact by all means and i have not been able to learn any of the things that is required to be known by adults to form friendships,social relationships in adulthood.

No self-esteem.

You know, I try not to let the bullying I underwent as a child and teen impact my adult life. I'm not the same person I was then. I accept what happened to me, but revel i the fact that it is not happening now. It was terrible and hard to live through, but I refuse to let the meanness of a handful of girls dictate who I am or how I live. Living well is the best revenge. Why let a hateful few ruin the life I have now? I have a job I love, good friends, and a terrific husband; I think I live pretty well!

And while I'm thinking of my husband, I am sure that the women here with husbands and long-term male partners have not snagged all the good guys out there. Like Ragnia, I met my husband online -- but not through a dating site. I enjoy MMOs and so does he; we met playing EverQuest. We were best friends and confidantes for two years before beginning a romantic relationship, which we conducted long-distance for a year before moving in together. My husband is a wonderful, smart, ambitious, sensitive, caring, funny, attractive man, and he wants to be with me! (I'm still sometimes astonished by that.) Not all men are pigs, they are most certainly human beings, and by deciding no one will ever love you, you are denying yourself the opportunity to meet the men who aren't horrible, and probably the chance to make good friends. Most of my good friends are men, and they are good people as well.

I'm not saying you should run out there with your heart wide open and trust everyone you come across. That's just setting yourself up for pain. But locking yourself away with the bad memories of being bullied is pain, too. Life does not have to be a cycle of self-loathing and self-pity, all alone in a misery pit. There are people out there who will accept you -- my friends know I have AS and don't treat me any differently from anyone else. To them, I'm just Rose and they accept me as I am...when you let people in just a little, you'll be surprised at how many will like you. They may not want to be your best friend in the world, but that doesn't mean they can't be someone you'll enjoy spending time with. Not everyone is out to hurt you, but you are hurting yourself by letting the thing from your past rule the person you could be now.

Personally, I'd rather deal with a few rotten people than deny myself the chance to meet the good ones.

Taking the beef out of the bully topic

Post bully stress is nasty. It took me years to deal with it, and I did it alone.

Work place bullying occured when i did not have a job I could do alone.

Sexual bullying is also nasty. This seems to be what ttqs84 is writing about.

My ex was a financial bully--always trying to get money out of me.

I like to be alone, as the bullying is less.

I was bullied as a child. I was just different to the other girls and they didn't like it for some reason. I used to think that it was because I was an English person living in Scotland and maybe they really thought that was the reason I was different too.

I blame my mother to a certain degree, the clothes she used to put me in as a child were lovely because my Grandma used to make them for me and I had a couple of wealthy cousins who's mother gave me hand-me downs, but when I became a teenager, my grandma had died and we had lost touch with my extended family and my mother bought me awful clothes. I understood that we had very little money and just thought, oh well, this is what she can afford. I didn't realise that she was colour blind at the time (seriously she is actually colour blind) it's a shame. But she also has no taste and to make it worse, she bought me men's deoderant for some weird reason, so I was the oddly dressed girl that smelled like a guy. My Mum was never intersted in make up. Weirdly it was my dad that thought I might like some. I suppose I wasn't into make up either. But then, I understood that we couldn't afford needless things like that.

I was trying to explain this to my sister the other day. She says I don't like girly things. I kind of do. I love colour, I'm quite artistic and I like bright make up and interestingly designed clothes. I still have this weird hang up though that these things are not neccessary, and I'm still skint, I can't afford nice things, so I am more than slightly distainful toward girls that buy them. I feel like it is a reaction to how girls treated me as a teenager. "They don't like me, they'll never like me, they're stupid!" I still feel inferior to other females for some reason. I don't get on with them well. I always worry about how I look and I get stressed out when I go shopping. What do I choose? What will make me look suitable? My sister doesn't get that. She just tells me, "let go of the past."

I didn't think that this bullying affected my relationships with men until I read this thread. I have this huge issue with not wanting to be used as well. And I wonder why? Maybe it is a self-esteem thing. I have an ideal, I suppose because my parents were married young and are still together. It just seems like I am pre-disposed to wanting a permanent partner. Whether that be genetic or learned, I don't know. It may be a self esteem issue. I think that the worry is that I maybe want one thing and the guy wants another. I'm not good at sussing other people out. I've got to try and work out what they guy's intentions are. Is he wanting a relationship or am I just a bit of fun? Not sure how to work that out. I don't want a stop gap relationship, just keeping each other company until someone better comes along. One of us could get hurt.

My sister is the same. She and her boyfriend are not going to move in together until after they get married. Which might sound nuts. It could all go wrong. How do they know how they will get on living under the same roof? But at the same time, it seems really sweet and romantic. I would like that.

I was bullied a lot in middle school and high school, even. This has left me with a lasting impression that the world is full of pain, but a part of me says that I should know better. Even though I have extreme anxiety to this day, I keep telling myself that there's something out there that's better than what I knew as a child. The optimist in me has been working toward it for years, and I do think something is clicking. I've focused on making my art and in having positive interactions with people - I'm not there yet, and I don't think I will ever be there, but I'm far better off than I have ever been, and I don't feel defeated yet.

Everything I do is work towards bringing happiness in others and in proving them wrong about the harsh world out there, just as I've had to prove for myself. It's all I really can do to stop this cycle of hate, even if I can only reach a few people, I'll do my best at infecting others with happiness for as long as I can.

I was bullied from about third grade on, and it only really stopped around my junior year in high school. It just made me feel even more shy and introverted, and more afraid to branch out and meet people. I had VERY low self esteem and became depressed. I still have bouts of depression and low self esteem at times but it's not as bad as it used to be. My social awkwardness made me afraid to meet new people, and I still am that way.

I've been bullied throughout grade school so I can say it had a huge impact on my confidence. So when someone compliments me, I sometimes will believe that they are just making fun of me. I'm working on my self-confidence but it's a work in progress. D:

I have definitely been bullied/targeted for all of my childhood. The only repercussion I can immediately think of, in my adulthood, is never trusting people. I am always skeptical that people mean well, especially when I have difficulty reading their actions and words.

I also can't take compliments or light teasing at all. A few of my "close" friends stole things from my family and me in high school... and now whenever something is missing, I immediately think of the last people that visited. I always think someone must have stolen it. It was foolish of me because I trusted these people. I showed my friend how to get into my house without a key. He also sent a heartfelt letter I gave to him to the whole school for laughs. That was a platonic relationship, by the way. Being from Generation Y, I probably experienced the first cases of cyberbullying! The list goes on.

I truly believe bullying didn't make me a stronger person... If anything, it just makes me better at remembering those times. To this day, I still wonder why people would do such things. I am just really paranoid about good intentions.

From my experiences, I've learned that the majority of people are just sheep who only think when they're forced to, and they'll do anything, even if it's evil, as long as it's considered normal. They only live for two reasons: to satisfy their immediate selfish desires, and to fit in with everyone else. They also seem to think that, as long as they're normal or as long as they have religious beliefs, they are good. Of course, most of them could be considered to be basically good people, but it's a superficial brand of good. A minority of people (though not that small of a minority) appear to actively enjoy hurting people, and unfortunately, they tend to be good at getting the sheep people to work for them. Then, there is a smaller minority of good people who put thought into everything they do and are willing to suffer some inconveniences for the good of others. Thankfully, I do meet people from the last group every now and then.

As a result of what I've seen and experienced, I no longer trust people, and I don't value human life nearly as much as I did when I was naive.

You mentioned religious beliefs. I know few people whose fathers are ministers and I always assumed having those type of friends are the best. SO not true. They can be evil too. I even was a member of this Christian singers fan site and on the forums there was so much evil and cruelty.