To what degree were you bullied?

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I was bullied a lot, but never physically. I've never been in a fight in my life. Most bullies stopped by the end of the year, because I kept being nice to them, and they finally decided that I wasn't such a bad guy, and they were actually nice to me. Well, in a weird way, they were nice to me. Nobody ever taught me how to deal with bullies. I just figured that they needed a friend as bad as I did.

i've been staring at the blank text box for at least ten minutes. f**k it. there's no way to sum it all up. it ended in rape and eventual alcoholism, horrid path through the world..... i'm near 50 now. In retrostpect it's the betrayal, the worst part is that the adults who supposedly are your protectors can't/won't do a thing about it. they expect it. they even participate. those of us who are adults now must find a way to reach our young people still in those ugly useless prisons called "school" . you are not alone.

I was bullied when I came to a new school in 7th grade. I don't even want to begin to explain what went on, I was constantly told I was unattractive and then verbally-sexually abused by the boys. I was made fun of do being so shy as well as being very skinny.
Later that year I was put into a foster home because my Mother was in jail and my Father couldn't come get me - There, my much older foster brother used to hit me with a baseball bat and beat me with his fists in the woods at night. He used to shot at me with a BB gun (Painful!). In anycase, that exprience has left me with many a sleepless night.

Now, in High School, I am labeled as the mysterious, quiet, awkward "art chick", but I only have about one good friend.

In Kindergarden and first grade, I had saints for teachers. My secound grade teacher was a morbidly obese b***h who was rumored to have tied hyperactive and "disruptive" kids to their desk. I had full body tremors which affected my ability to stay inside of the lines when coloring in. She threatned to send me back to kindergarden so I could learn to color in "properly". She also didn't explain how to do projects and belittled me when they came out "wrong". I had two best friends, Cristen and Amber, at the time so I think that lessened the blow. Amber moved away at the end of the school year and Cristen dumped me because her mother deamed me a "bad influnce". Whenever someone approached me, I figured it was going to be negetive, so I would strike them first. I was never hesitant to stand up for myself even though I always got in trouble for it. I was labeled as a trouble maker and every teacher in the bulding knew it and treated me as if I was a criminal. My worst teacher was my third grade teacher Miss L. soothing attempts. She purposely skipped the chapter in our science book on animals at the drop of a hat because she knew I'd been looking foward to it. She pulled my desk away from the others only adding to my isolation and encouraged the other kids to make fun of my stims. I was super bad with multiclipation tables and as soon as she found out she issued a prize for those who could answer every problem right on the daily timed quizes. You only got a prize if you could get past the threes and I could not and once I was finnaly getting the hang of them, she stopped giving prizes. The teacher belittled me on every little thing and encouraged the other kids to do so too. My only escape was the bookshelf but somehow my name tag mysteriously vanished and I wasn't allowed to look at the books anymore until I returned it. Several months
later, this mean boy goes to where some boxes are and pulls it out, laughing and admitting that he took it on purpose and hid it. The teacher did not even repremand him. I also liked to have my toes squeezed by the bottom of the chair (autistic deep pressure thing) and I could never do it right myself so I asked him too. .I think the teacher had pulled him away from the class too but he had a ton of friends. I've blocked out most of the expirence of third grade so it's hard to remember corectly) At the time I thought he was trying to be nice but now I remember he would go down and hard as he could with a sick girn on his face. It didn't hurt me but he thought it did and he got pleasure out of it. The teacher allowed it. If I had done that to him, I would have probably been chastised. I was developing the reputation of a monster. Parents of other kids would even threaten me to not hurt their kids when I did not even know their kids. I was only acting in self defence. No one would take my side. The teachers had convinced my parents that I was the bully. I had a diagnosis of AS but they didn't give a rat's ass. I was suspended for the rest of the school year for biting a kid when he kept sticking his fingers in my face and taunting me saying, "Bite me, bite me, ah ha ah ha." I tried to explain but the teacher on yard duty was famaliar with my "history" as a "criminal" and wouldn't listen to me.

The bus driver, Rodger, was just an as*hole who would pick on anyone who was unusual. Everyone hated him and there were several attempts by pissed parents to have him fired. I had two special stuffed animals I had to bring everywhere with me or else I would have panic attacks. He stopped the bus for over an hour (or what seemed like one) in an attempt for me to hand them over. I refused. He litterlay would have had to kill me in order for me to surrender them. He eventualy gave up and tried one last time as he stoped in frount of my house but I still refused. I ran into the house in tears and told my mom what happened. She about hit the cealing. Even she couldn't get me to give them up. She called the school and thankfully he got in HUGE trouble for that stunt. He seemed really pissed about not getting his way and gave me dirty looks for the rest of the school year. He was so much of an as*hole, my parents had to put me on the physicaly handicapped schoolbus to keep me away from him. My parents had good intentions, but the stigma of riding the "short bus" never really disapeared.

By fourth grade, it was finnaly realised that I had an actual problem so I was put in the special ed class. The scars from the previous year had hardened me and made me somewhat paranoid and I would lash out at anyone I saw as a threat. My parents took me out of public school forever to homeschool me and I have thrived. I will still dance at the funerals of the people I previously mintioned though.

I was bullied pretty constantly, if you count verbal abuse. Physical confrontation was rare and I never got in any fights, though I did get bodyslammed into lockers by one particular guy in 9th grade. I have no the hell idea what his problem was either, he just started being a b*tch right out of the blue.

Of course, for some crazy reason I couldn't for the life of me figure out, I irked nearly every boy I came in contact with at school. Those who were not visibly irked to the point of being overtly mean, simply ignored me.

Mostly I was called names, big freaking deal, but the extent of the amount of people engaged in this was simply mindblowing. I still cannot trust guys IRL any farther than I can throw them because of this.

Not a matter of how often or was I bullied but how long it took me to figure out that what I was experiencing wasn't "normal" or the way everyone else was treated.

It was probably continuous from day 1 with names and segragation and other abuses... this would continue until I'd lose it and have a full break down which normally ended with one or more people going to the hospital (not me)... which of course made things worse. Hell, I ended up knocking out my choir instructor in high school with one of these episodes.

I started school painfully shy, but once I got used to it, things seemed to go alright until I had to start a new school year, then the shyness hit again. Nevertheless, that was as bad as it got until 3rd grade. I can see now that it was in that grade that things started getting a bit tense with the other kids, but at the time I still felt like one of the kids. From 4th grade on, though, it became increasingly clear that I had done something wrong and hadn't been made privy to what it was. I even had the whole class side against me with a girl who had cheated on my math test, saying that they thought I was the cheater! She usually got suspicious when two kids got 100% on tests sitting next to each other. Mind you, the teacher was no fool... she knew who had been making good grades and who hadn't and didn't penalize me. By 5th grade, I no longer felt welcome at the school I had attended since Kindergarten. More and more of the kids around me seemed to be waiting for me to screw up. No one wanted anything to do with me. In 6th grade I entered junior high school (middle school) and the entire 3 years of it I was the pariah of the entire school. I had one or two friends at any one time in other classes; two of them moved away. It was just me against everyone. I didn't know what to do. If a group of kids were laughing anywhere near me, 9 times out of 10 you could be sure of the source of their amusement. I was scared or on edge most of the time. I dreamed of suddenly having something wonderful happen that would show everyone how wrong they'd been about me, or having something horrible happen to teach them how wrong they'd been acting. I was utterly helpless. It hardly ever got physical. That's something.

The teachers and administration, predictably, acted as if I brought it on myself. To be sure, I was a filthy little girl; I hardly bathed and my clothes always had stains because I just could not seem to understand that I should try to keep my food from dripping all over my front as I ate. I didn't brush my teeth. I hadn't gotten much parental attention as a child and I used to think that was the reason I didn't have good habits as a tween, but in reflection I really wonder whether they could have made a difference. I didn't like stopping what I was doing, changing from dry to wet, didn't understand what it took to get clean, and hated the taste of mint that all toothpastes seemed to use... Yeah, I guess I was pretty repulsive. I wouldn't want to be around someone like that now. And still I would never condone allowing things to continue as they did... I began getting sick more often and with worse illnesses than I had had in years... I never wanted to go to school... I felt everyone hated me and I couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy causing someone else pain.

In high school things gradually tapered off. There were isolated incidents, I bathed a bit better, grew my hair and my figure, actually met teachers who enjoyed their subject enough to give the students a chance to enjoy it, too. I wound up senior year with a regular article in the school paper that was much fussed over. And even then, for one short walk I had to take daily during class, I got a group of girls who took to following me and taunting me as they headed somewhere themselves. It proves that very petty people will find a reason and a victim no matter how much you improve yourself. All they need is someone weaker to target, to mock, to give themselves that rush. A cheap thrill is cheap no matter how you get it.

I've found a web site since then that explains a lot about the bullying mindset. It was hard to read the first time because it was so bitterly true that it almost sounded as if the person writing it was justifying bullying. He was not. He was explaining it because knowing the inside of the thing makes you able to realize it isn't as personal as you think. Also, that thinking that it must stop now and that you have to make it stop is what causes it to escalate, not end, because it leads to the reactions that encourage teasers. Would such a knowledge have helped me then? I think it would not. My brother tried to tell me to "just ignore them" but that simply didn't go far enough. But the fact is, even if I had the whole story then, I would have had to have been able to understand it, to believe it, to own it... and still the best I could have hoped for would have been to stop most of the remarks until I managed to clean myself up.

I still have hope for my kids. I'm not against the school having anti-bullying policies, but I wish they'd use good sense and include training kids in how to stop bullies correctly... by doing nothing at all (to encourage them, that is). No reaction, good or bad, to just see that it really means nothing when the winds of stupidity blow about you... So that the kids don't feel helpless, so that they can make a choice other than to run to school authorities and risk making it worse.

Well, I've gone and written a whole speech, haven't I? I'll put up that web site, someone here might get some good out of it. It really is remarkable, the things they say there. I never expected to see an anti-bullying web site say it's okay to laugh at other people. They say it in a certain context of course, that most humor is at the expense of someone and that learning to shrug it off or laugh at yourself can be the key to not letting it bother you, and once it doesn't bother you, they can't hurt you with it... they get bored... they stop. It was an earth-shattering realization for me, one I heard before but never really understood until recently.

Here's the main site:

http://www.bullies2buddies.com/

The article on how to stop being bullied without even trying is under manuals on the left, but here's the link:

http://www.bullies2buddies.com/How-to-S ... lly-Trying

He has an article somewhere about being a good sport. I never would have considered such an idea as a kid... there was no justice in it. I was never one for the long road, no patience. Now I just hope my kids will get it before they have to deal with too much. They are not the kind of kids who blend in, not the kind who ever will. They're much too interesting.

I went to quite a number of schools for short periods of time. Usually about a month each, intermittently. My clothes were faded, dresses that were growing too short. Always a new kid. The bullying was very bad. Tripped in the halls, spitballs in hair, tacks on seat, stabbed in the leg with a pencil, hair pulled in the school yard and tripped and knocked down, chased to and from school, in one instance chased with bats and board with rocks being thrown (for being in a neighborhood I didn't belong in) and just the constant name calling, all of which pretty much destroyed me. Being abused by my peers was even harder to cope with emotionally.

I was both bullied and molested before the age of 6 outside of school by some neighborhood kids...part of it stemmed from my being left alone all the time.
I was regularly bullied by these paternal twins who lived next door to me and molested by the older brother of a kid who was my age who lived down the street,..and then in an isolated incident by some older kid...teenager?...who lived over on the next street.

In one insult to injury situation, I had been in still yet another molestation situation involving a person that my parents let stay at our house when I was in 3rd grade the first time., and I could not bring myself to tell my parents, but I told some girls who I thought were my friends...and I got totally stigmatized for it and made fun of and the bullying only increased.

These are some things that make it difficult for me to differentiate between my having an ASD or just complex PTSD...though I don't think complex PTSD leads to idiopathic toe walking and certain other traits I have...so that is why i suspect I might have both...I don't think I have the PTSD anymore though...though it might have affected my development...

sorry for over-disclosing...

I don't have any trouble differentiating and I still have PTSD.

There is no need to differentiate or label really, especially when there is little medication wise to be done for it. A complex psychological and emotional profile is just fine as long as you are okay I definitely am strongly Aspergers but I also have PTSD and a couple other unique things in my profile, so it can get a bit overlapping probably. PTSD both from the physical and sexual abuse and abandonment issues as a child and something to do with having to serve during Kosovo, Afghanastan, and Iraq. Yeah, my plan to escape my past through the military, not so well planned out... But, thankfully that is over and I'm just left with the scars.

This has been very sad to read.

I pushed the bully back in grade 8. Bullying comes in all ways and I wanted to be tough to handle it, so as my teens progressed I developed techniques to stay out of harms way. None the less I have low tolerance for it. I found power in a book called Bully Busting, and will pass this book onto my children if they run into real problems. One of my greatest fears is that my children get tormented. I would like them to have Karate training to keep them strong and safe, despite their high likely hood of being bullied. As it is now they haven't had any real problems. We just encourage them to follow the social norms and guide them through the tougher stuff.

I wasn't horribly bullied in grade school (1st through 8th grade.) I just didn't have any friends, and I was always getting dumped on by everyone else, even the losers that for whatever reason called themselves teachers.

I grew up in a Christian school. We just had a few students in each class and I was stuck with the same people for my entire grade school servitude. We had one rule, and that was I was wrong and everyone else was right. Any strange smell was blamed on me, even the teachers would ask if i needed to go to the bathroom if a smell came wafting in the room from a farm in another county. One time we were in music class and the kid next to me actually did pass gas. Everyone turned around and looked at me so I pointed to the actual perpetrator. I got sent to the principal's office for pointing at him. Somebody did that to me the day before right in front of the teacher and not a word out of the teacher!

I may be the only person in the world who hated recess. We had a swing set on the playground, and the teachers made this ridiculous rule that if all the swings were being used, the kid who wanted to use the swing next had to stand in front of a kid already on the swing, count to "100", and when the kid was done counting to 100, the kid who he was standing in front of had to relinquish the swing. The system was open for abuse, as when I was on the swing, there was a line of kids standing in front of me counting to 100. When I wanted to get back on and I finished counting to "100", the response I got was "I called no counting." In grade school, everyone was allowed to cancel rules by saying "I called." However, I was never afforded the same privilege.

I never got in a fight myself, but one time during physical education the kids the teacher chose as the team captains got in a fist fight over whose team I wouldn't be on. The team captains had to pick players for the team, and I was always the last one picked. Then they would start in with their "I called.." garbage again, as in "I called no Kevin, he's on your team."

Every Christmas we had to pick names out of a hat and exchange gifts. I never got a gift from the person that picked my name, so I decided I was going to do the same. Of course, I got in trouble for it, but nobody else did.

That was grade school. High school was hell. My older brother, who is six years older than me, went to an out of state religious boarding school, and he was popular. In the church denomination that I was a member of, people progress socially by kissing the right people's butts in church. Butt kissing is a social skill I never learned, but my older brother was great at it and he did very well in the boarding school. My parent's thought it was a good education and sent me there. It was hell.

First of all, I'm not going to write the names I was called on this forum because I would prefer not to have any of my former classmates Google search it and find me. Second, all of their names were of an obscene nature, and the moderators would just delete it anyway. Christians are such great people [sarcasm]. I finally decided to dump going to church recently. All of the people that are friendly to me aren't Christians, so I'd rather fry in hell with them forever than be in heaven with the people I went to school with.

My dorm room was broken into and trashed weekly. In the middle of the night, they would pound and kick my door. On weekends, they would urinate in my clothes drawers. One weekend, someone had diarrhea and relieved himself in my clothes drawer when I wasn't in the room.

My senior year, when it was time to go home for Christmas, it was arranged so that all of the students from my area would ride home in a van together. We pulled into a rest area, and when I came out of the bathroom, the van was getting back on the highway without me. If that's not enough, they through my suitcase out the window on a bridge over the river.

School sucks! That's why I never went to college. Why continue the hell? I'm happy with my job where most people leave me alone!

I've gone to private schools for most of my life. That's probably the reason that my bullying was mostly verbal and not physical. And if it was physical, it never left marks. But it hurt. It hurt a lot. And I could never prove anything. Ever. Sometimes it even left me wishing that the bullies had given me a black eye or something so I could prove to those wretched teachers and staff what was going on. What still goes on, to a degree.

I started school in 4th Grade. That's when the issues started, too. I had been a child TV actor at that point (no joke), so homeschooling was the most convenient option to get me to the sets and auditions. At first I attributed my social awkwardness to the four year gap before I really started having to interact with kids. But in 5th Grade I was diagnosed with ADHD. That made some sense. Just recently my Psychologist talked to be about Aspergers.

Those NTs must have some 6th sense that tells them when anyone is just a little different, so they can go after them. Or, as I saw another user put it, Aspergers is like having a spiritual "kick me" sign taped to your back.

(Oh yeah. Not generalizing about NTs. I know many great, kind NTs. Just, there will always be a few that will make your life hell.)