Did any kind of bullying affect you PSYCHOLOGICALLY?

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I was badly psychologically abused by my classmates before and all through high school. I was extremely emotional and they found that they could get me upset very easily and it... amused them. It makes me sick to think that people cause pain to satisfy their boredom.

After a while I learned to just be blank and feel nothing around people. Right now I feel like I am incapable of either loving or hating anyone. I am just numb towards them. For instance, my closest and only friend recently told me to never speak to her again and that I should kill myself (because I think that, in some cases, suicide is an appropriate response to certain circumstances). It has been several month since then and I haven't heard from her at all. The strongest emotion I felt throughout all of this was mild annoyance at her for being so closeminded. I am not on any antidepressants or mood levelers.

I do still get upset and depressed but it is always caused by me being upset at myself for my many failings. If someone mocks me or insults me, I just shrug and go on with whatever I'm doing. Sometimes I will get upset at myself if there is truth in their insults but I rarely show it. The flip side of this is that I just cant get close to people. I never feel comfortable around others: always an "I" and "them" instead of "us." It doesn't help that other theater major are constantly picking on me even if I am their boss. Today, I was talking about possibly Stage Managing something (the person who organizes rehearsal keeps things running smoothly between the artistic and technical sides of the production before the show opens and who times everything once the show gets into performance mode) and the person I was talking to dismissed this saying "you couldn't be a stage manager. You have to be a certain kind of person; people have to respect you and like you." I laughed it off but it really hurt because it was true. I could never be a stage manager because people don't respect me and they hate working with me.

In the last few years I have tried to open up and join in the activities of my peers but I consistently fail. Things that I find amusing are not so amusing to others EVERY TIME. I have come to call myself The Man Who Could Do No Right. If I add to the banter, anything I say is invariably insulting or creepy yet I can't understand what I am doing differently than everyone else who is bantering. It has started to effect me and my work pretty badly. I am slowly being psychologically conditioned to think everything I like is hated by everyone else and everything that amuses me is either boring, stupid, or insulting to everyone else. This is killing my confidence in both my personal life and my work. I am trying to become a theatrical designer. Much of the time, even if I think a sound or light cue works I keep subconsciously remembering that what I like is generally what most people don't like. Lately, I have had a lot of trouble committing to ideas unless the director is holding my hand every step of the way and most directors don't like to do this. I am becoming an incredibly needy designer with no confidence. I try to actively work against it but it is hard. The last design I did was fairly pathetic but I just couldn't think of anything to change that would improve it.

[/whine]

i'd have to say yes. it affected my self esteem in a negative way. i have a feeling its gonna take some time maybe years to undo what was done to me physically&emotionally at home and school.

Well, whenever anyone used to annoy me, I felt so helpless. The only way I could really get them to stop was to shout at them, basically act completely the opposite to my normal quiet self to show them that I meant business. Trouble is, that I hate having attention drawn to me, so I could never bring myself to do it, I hate it if everyone turns roudn to look at me and I run the risk of my voice souding odd and then I'd probably be laughed at even more.
I could just punch them in the face of course, but that tends to bring attention to myself too, and if I don't knock them out and they get angry, which is probable, then I'd probably get my arse kicked.
It's that feeling of helplessness that I despise, there's nothing I can do in those situations and I just go absolutely crazy, luckily, since I left school there have been no similar siuations. But everytime I am around people, I resent them, if they make the slightest crack at me, I consider them a major threat and wish to destroy them. Of course I can't do that, so I do the next best thing and stay away from people.
I get slightly paranoid, always think I'm being watched, I always look around my self, checking for threats. I know I'ts all in the mind, but that doesn't stop me. I get edgy, if someone suddenly reaches out their arm for whatever reason, I instinctively block it as though I'm being attacked.

So yeah it's messed with me a bit.

Yes it has affected me. I feel VERY lonely most of the time, yet I push everyone as far away from me as I can. I feel that if anyone gets to know the real me they will hate me just like everyone else. I suspect ALL of my current friends of secretly hating me, and I'm scared that one day they will ditch me just like everyone else. I fear that anything I say will be taken as something about sex (which was caused by my so-called "friends" in year 8). Most of the time I hate myself for not being good enough to be friends with other people, and I feel that I'm not even human, cuz if I were people would like me. Sometimes I seriously wish I was never born.

Me and my brother went to the same primary school. Even though the fact he was HFA meant he was held back and had an intergration aid with him all the time. He was tested at an IQ of 75 and so he could get into the mainstream school system. BIG mistake.

I didn't mix well with everyone when I came, but no one really teased me. Barely anyone knew me so I kept a low profile except to teachers. When Gareth came, things changed. People noticed him. Even though he made friends with another autistic at school, he was the only one I had to hang around. And at 6, the inteligence diference was no big issue for me. But we were together labeled to have germs and eventually no one would come within a few metres of any of us. They teased us and even beat us up at some points. At y6, we both fell into depression.

When high school rolled around, he was sent to a school for high functioning kids with developmental disorders, but he became anorexic because of his depression and was pulled out for almost a year. Eventually he was placed back into the school system at a school for low-functioning developmental disorders.

I was sent to a girls grammar, but was moved when they mentioned AS to my parents through their fear of previous experiences with Autism. I was placed into my current school later which I am in to this day. I made no friends until year 9 when one new girl came and we became close as best friends can be.

She's moving soon so I'm preparing myself to be alone again. What's more the school counselor wants to talk to me again soon. But life is happier since I now know why this has all happened. Not like I'm gonna mention that to my parents though.

Life is happier now.

How can it not?

It has had an immensely bad effect on me. I was bullied for most of my school life, as well as at home by my mother, in a sense... she says she is only human and did her best, but I don't think calling your child gormless and stupid and ignoring her when she doesn't conform is doing one's best. The result of all the bullying is that I am hyper sensitive to criticism... and take it to generally mean I am worthless/bad etc etc. This reaction seems to be so automatic it is proving very difficult, if not impossible, to change. I am also left with a deep seated sense of self loathing and generalised pessimism about people. I am always on high alert for any words that might result in the same feelings of hurt I experienced as a child.

yes bullying has effected me. It made it very hard for me to trust people and I didn't want to be near anyone as friends because I was afraid they'd hurt me like the ones did back in Washington. I pushed boys away when I was 14 and in high school and at 17 I started to be with kids again when they asked me to hang out with them but it was always boring because all they did was sat and talked and I wasn't doing anything. I knew not to talk about my obsessions or I'd scare people away.


I have also learned how to not show any feelings when being picked on because I didn't want the kids seeing they were getting to me and I was hoping using that defense would make them leave me alone. Now I hardly show feelings. Someone can be bugging me and getting on my nerves and I just look blank, looking like I don't care what they say or do. Every now and then strangers will bug me but I just ignore them and keep on walking.


I have also learned not to care what people think of me after being put down so many times and now i don't care what people think of me. They can think I'm rude, stupid, ret*d, mentally unstable or self centured and I won't care. I'm done with putting on an act by trying to be like everyone else. I don't care if I look dorky or nerdy or childish or out of style. Keeping up to date with fashion is too much work and why should I spend my money on tyring to be like everyone else. I'd rather spend it on videogames, DVDs or on trips to see my family in Montana or going to Spokane. I'd rather even spend it and maybe go up to Seattle and hang out or use it to see my gay uncles in Vancouver BC.



I am now finally going back to trusting people again. I realized I have to start trusting people sometime again or I'd never meet anyone and get married.
I used to get real defensive about when people ask me if I was ret*d (because I was called that all the time and made fun of for it because they all thought I was ret*d) but I don't anymore after hearing the expression so many times when I was in high school.

I have a rather interesting situation with this.

I used to be, and then it reappeared when I started trying some meds for AS, and now it's gone again.

My real life friends are and always will be as*holes. As far as they're concerned, I'm a passive little fa***t who does nothing whatsoever. But I still hang around with them. Why? They have a damn good sense of humor. And the longer I hang around, the less they make weird, random mythologies as to how my slight, slight French-Canadian ancestry instantly categorizes me as a pacifist, which, in my group of friends, is the worst thing you can be.

I hear you guys! my shool caree has been a living hell,each an ecery day i was spitted on,kicked,hit,cursed at,and humiliated by students & teachers alike(though only afew were nice to me but thoughs guys were few and far between. and i did fight back but it was always was an uphill battle.) And even after getting my G.E.D i'm still suffering opsychological pain.I won't bore you with details but its pretty bad.

PS, Did anyone who first signed on to wrong planet have a hard time adjusting to it 'cause i don't think i'm doing it right(i'm still after nine years on the computer semicomputer literate i only really started in 1999... yeah kind of pathtic i know.

Double PS, My name is (my online name is Seeleunitone hey how are you doing?

Yes, I was bullied all throuh-out my school-life even all the way up to High School which for me, was not the most memorable of times to remember whereby today, there is the tendency for me to be somewhat distant towards most persons in an emotional manner as well, I often don't do well conversation-wise as, I sometimes find it hard to not feel a sense of sub-humanity in one way or another still, I try to keep going though .



ProfessorX

yep yep yep....I was bullied like hell..I was even bullied by teachers..called an idiot and whatnot..i could go into a long-winded rant about the way i was emotionally abused by one first grade teacher in particular...
I was different from all the other kids in school so i was constantly singled out.
..i am not gonna bother to continue with this post..it would get too long..but yeah..i am not quivering in tears under ym desk at the moment..but it has adversely affected me plenty.

yeah i was bullied to the point of depression and failing grades to i got to tenth grade when i had my growth spurt

Psychologically?