Bullying in Schools

[bellagypsy79]

PARDON MY LANGUAGE ON THIS POSTING!

My name is Jacquelyn Hamby and I was a victim of bullying from 5th to 12th grade. With this whole bullying **** that's going on today...it needs to stop. It breaks my heart that everytime I turn on the news or see the latest people magazine that it makes me cry. I survived this **** and so can they. I want to be a speaker and travel from school to school to talk to kids about my experiences with this and how I survived it. Greg tells me to get over it...yeah you may very well be over it, but every now and then it comes back to haunt you and you sit around wondering what you could've done differently or should have done differently. Bullys scar you for life. If you kill yourself because you can't take anymore, they win! Do you really want them to win!? NO! You are the better one and you know it. Bullys pick on the innocent because they want to impress friends, or they're jelous. They can give you that sob story saying they came from a bad family **** all they want but if you are being bullied by your parents and you don't like it then why are you doing it to others? Greg came from a bad family and he doesn't bully other people. That's no excuse. I'm sorry, but I don't think that's any excuse to get away with it.



The kids I went to Parkway South with bullied me more than the ones at St.Pauls did. St.Pauls was more teasing than bullying. South, was a different story. I got pushed down the stairs, candy and gum stuck in my hair, bad profanity writen on my locker (by someone I know who did it, I'm just not revealing any names on here), rumours spread about me that weren't true, laser pointers pointed at me and kids laughing, people telling the people that I was friends with that I was a threat to them when I didn't even know how to kill a fly, (which was also started by that same person who wrote the profanity on my locker), pushed against walls for stuff I didn't do wrong...and these kids who did this were not the ones in my graduating class, they were in classes below me! These stupid assholes didn't even know me and I was a target because they wanted to test me. And when they could see that I could fight back they didn't mess with me again, but when I did fight back at times it would be worse and all my teachers would say to me was "Go to your counselor." I spent more time sitting in the counseling office or computer lab than going to class because teachers would excuse me from them. They didn't know how to handle it. Hell, I would have to have bodyguards escort me to my classes on somedays because I was being threatened on a constant basis.



Still to this day, every so often, I get flash backs on things that happened to me and I am glad that I didn't let them break me. But I wish I knew then what I know now on what to say and do to stick up for myself. Jesus tells us to forgive our enemies. I try to everyday, with not just people from my past in school, but with friends that abandoned the friendship I had with them for no ****ing reason at all, and customers that I deal with at work everyday and co workers even the asshole that cuts you off in traffic. It's easy to forgive the little things, but it's very hard to forget them because they leave you scared for a while and it's up to you when you want to let those wounds heal. I want them to go away believe me I do. Sometimes I wish for appologies from them all, but it won't happen I know that. I think the only way that can help make it go away is to help other kids who are having the same problem I had and try to help them through it. Not only would I feel better but I think it would help them feel better too. I am tired of being haunted by the bad in my past. I wish for it to end! The friends who abandoned my friendship with them over something stupid that I didn't do anything wrong, (but still won't get some balls and tell me what I did wrong...)**** YOU ALL! I am done with your drama. To the kids who made me feel like nothing and treated me like **** in school, **** YOU TOO! I'm done with thinking about you! Your are not worth my time and if your husbands or children found out that you were bullys in school, God help them!



Excuse my language, but sometimes you just have to scream it. I was even at times bullied by my first stepmom. I was a nothing to her. She saw me the way those damn kids I went to school with did...an insect that must be squashed quickly, even if the insect wasn't bothering you or going near you, it was still in your way, and it annoyed you. I will not go into specifics on this one but she scared me too. The biggest regret of all was not standing up for myself enough, especially to her. I was just scarred. When I stood up for myself at school to this girl who pushed me into a vending machine, I kicked her right in the ass! I told her to leave me alone and she did. I ran into the bathroom and threw up. I think grandma Betty was watching out for me that day. I think she kick my leg up. Beause it certanly wasn't me. LOL!



I hate bullys and they must be stopped. I want to help these kids who are crying out for help. I just want this to end. Parents and teachers can make a difference, I think everyone can! Everyone is different and special in their own way. It's never going to be a perfect world. No one is perfect. Keep opinions to yourself and your jelousy in hiding. Jelousy doesn't get you anywhere. "What does not kill us makes us stronger", that's what a wise man said. Take that with you. Something can be done with this. I can't bare to see another child kill themselves. If you kill yourself, they will win. That's what they want you to do. Don't let them win, keep fighting, because you are beautiful, special and too damn importaint to too many people around you.

My name is Jacquelyn Hamby and I DEFFINATLEY APPOVE THIS MESSAGE! SPREAD LOVE, NOT HATE. Thank you for reading.

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[Silver Springs]

This subject means alot to me too because I was bullied something shocking at school, probably because I actually paid attention and cared about what I was learning. Not a day went by where I wasn't abused for what I looked like, the fact that I was intelligent, how I ate: nothing was above them to poke fault at. I think, if I'm completely honest, my friends were the worst of them all. They would belittle me, act like they cared whilst veiling harsh insults and treating me as low as a Dog that they would have follow them. But I stuck with them, purely because I had nobody better and no opportunity to find anybody better. I put up with alot from my friends.

During Highschool was probably when it was at its peak. Being ginger, overweight and intelligent didn't sit well at all with my peers. I was spat at, insulted, punched in the face and had my work destroyed because I was seen as different. Too afraid to step foot into the school grounds, I made friends with the teachers and spent my breaks and lunches in the classrooms. I didn't eat. I was too ashamed of being seen with food when I was such a fat and ugly individual. I withdrew from people and locked myself inside my shell, my only company being my portable CD player and my music.

I started self harming when I was fourteen. I can remember the time vividly. I had a home tutor whom I adored as a human being. Because he was the only one who could see me for me. Not the friends that would keep me around to make themselves better. He understood me. But even his friendship didn't keep a nagging darkness away from me. I felt as though I was wrong. I was a failed attempt at humanity and I deserved no place amongst people my own age. The first time I cut I had been through a traumatic History lesson. I had fallen out with my friend that day because her boyfriend had begun to harass me and she had only laughed. I don't know why it surprised me, really. He was a member of my homeroom class, and had always had something to say to me. But that day he had been exceptionally cruel, following me around whilst calling me a "manbeast", asking his girlfriend why she hung out with such a fat and boring girl...I just snapped. I remember running out of the lesson crying my eyes out, leaving my posessions to be stolen and vandalised and hid in the empty doorway at the back of the school, sobbing my heart out until it felt like I couldn't cry anymore. I didn't care that a few people had walked by and insulted me for crying. I didn't care when the office head took me to her room for a cup of tea and a chat. I just left when she went to boil the kettle without telling her why. I locked myself in the bathroom and I can remember having taken one of the art box cutters from the classroom a little while before. I carried it around for protection. I never intended to hurt anybody. It just made me feel that little bit safer. I barely remember the next few moments. But I can remember a relief once I'd put the boxcutter back into my shoe. I didn't care that I was bleeding. I was in control.

A few years later, not long before I left the school, somebody spread a rumour that I had said something incredibly rascist to a girl in the corridor after she had pushed me into the wall. I would never do such a thing. But it spread around the school like wildfire. I couldn't walk to a class without being punched in the face at least once. I was desperately unhappy. But the worst of it was that my new homeroom teacher actually believed the rumours. Even though she had known me for quite a while, and knew I was too timid to say anything so closed minded and ignorant. That just didn't matter. I was relieved when I finally left the school. My grades had dipped because I was so depressed about my situation. My weight had dropped dramatically because I had begun to believe the others when they told me how worthless I was and withheld food from myself.

Even now at the age of 22, the effects of the constant bullying still stick with me. I still self harm, not only in the cutting sense but in others ways too; I keep my windows open in winter even though it's freezing and the cold physically hurts and I'm shaking so badly that I can barely do anything, I withhold food and limit myself to half a bowl of cereal a day, I walk until my chest hurts with each breath and my feet are bleeding and blistered and I place myself in dangerous situations. I've realised that I do this on autopilot now. It comes as second nature to me do damage myself. I know it's unhealthy. I know I'm unhealthy. But at my worst the insults come at me as fresh as if it had been the day before and I can't bring myself to care about myself. Even now the friends I do have have very little time for me. I'm so lonely most of the time that I cry myself to sleep most nights.

This is probably a really bad account of my experiences. But I find it a very difficult subject to talk about. If I wrote about the worst of the bullying that I can remember I would probably be here for a day typing.

You wouldn't want to hear it anyway....

[GypsySorcerer]

Yes, I think we all need to be doing more to eradicate bullying. I teach at a local university, and I hear so many gay slurs come out of the mouths of my students. :( The fraternity members are especially guilty, from what I've seen. I tell them I don't tolerate that in my classroom, but I doubt if it sticks.

I'm reminded of Elie Wiesel's quote that the opposite of love is indifference, and that silence never helps the tormented.

[LukeA]

The fraternity members are especially guilty, from what I've seen.

Whoa! Are you suggesting fraternity pledges/members are insecure with their masculinity and have to act out on it by immature behavior along with their own brand of socially acceptable homoerotic activites??!?

[Nikolaj]

Whoa! Are you suggesting fraternity pledges/members are insecure with their masculinity and have to act out on it by immature behavior along with their own brand of socially acceptable homoerotic activites??!?


"Socially acceptable homoerotic activities"-- in America??
In Europe, sure.
In America, the biggest insult any kid or teen male can think of is to call another guy a f*g, whether or not the guy is gay.
Socially acceptable homoerotic activity is beyond the scope of thinking in the culture of this country. There are a lot of grey areas in human sexuality, but abuse is abuse, even if it takes place at an Ivy League or community college initiation.
Fraternity hazing is about the cruel and degrading public treatment of someone to become accepted, and there's nothing erotic I can think of about that, homo or otherwise!

[HejiraNYC]

Fraternity hazing is about the cruel and degrading public treatment of someone to become accepted, and there's nothing erotic I can think of about that, homo or otherwise!

...or it's a socially acceptable way for "straight" guys to look at other guys wearing nothing but a jockstrap and a jar of molasses. Homoerotic? Even Elton John would think it's too gay.

[Nikolaj]

Maybe I'm missing the points of Luke and Hejira who are concise and right so often about things without overthinking them to death, like I do.
I just don't think hazing is homoerotic or 'too gay'-- it seems cruel and inhuman to me. But it very well may be socially acceptable, abuse sometimes is.

[Nikolaj]

To the threadstarter, I hope you find healing.
From what you wrote, there is great inner strength that you surely possess to have survived the abuse that you have survived. Perhaps that strength will help you let go and be in the now, but it is incredibly difficult to do so. Writing about it was not only smart of you, it may help others who have had similar sad beginnings in their lives.
Many of us spend a lot of our adult lives getting over our childhoods- or first loves. One good thing is that you likely will wind up being in loving relationships for the rest of your life, because having survived abuse, there's no way you would want to be in an abusive situation again and will be able to see the warning signs clearer than others do.
Someone- who mistreated me in my 20s, once told me "Living well is the best revenge" though I don't know that any revenge is good, or even necessary.
I think being happy and being content are what's most important to me, and it's not easy getting there! And just when I think I'm "over" something-- 'it' can come back, seemingly out of nowhere. But as time morphs, 'it' holds way less power over me. And I'm a total head case, so I think it won't take you as long :)
Well, thanks for the time you took in writing something so personal, I hope that it helps you and others. I wish you peace and think you're on your way!
PS to Silver Springs- Bee- your story was heartbreaking, how wrong of your friend not to stand up for you to her boyfriend. 22 is a tough age, the 'growing pains' really seem to gel right around 22, and the past can make you feel like it's hard to move forward, but it will get better. Hang in there! And don't hold on to one bad word any bully ever said about you, or they win! You're too smart to let that happen.

[holidayroad]

Jackie-I sympathize with you completely on the bullying you suffered. Still, your remark that 'I survived this **** and so can they' is not always a possibility. If someone being bullied has a good home life, maybe they can make it through. If you have a bad home life + you are bullied, it takes it's toll in a big way.

Silver Springs(Bee)- I think you are a great person and these people you dealt with at school certainly have no idea what they missed. I would have been thrilled to have a friend like you in HS. I truly hope that someday you will see that you can treat yourself well, because you really deserve it.

[vivfox]

Silver Springs(Bee)- I think you are a great person I would have been thrilled to have a friend like you in HS. I truly hope that someday you will see that you can treat yourself well, because you really deserve it.


Amen to this, sister of the moon.

[ButterCookie]

I don't think for one minute staff and schools do enough to stamp out bullying.

I survived this **** and so can they

I have to disagree.

Myself and the first friend I made in secondary school were bullied something wicked for the fist two years of our upper school lives. By the same girl. We were both insulted for our intelligence and because she was tall and I was 4' 9". She had the most beautiful aubourn hair I've ever seen and a smile that could have lit up Buckingham palace. I left the school because my mother pulled me out for a few terms and I never saw Ashleigh again because on the 6th January 2005, she hung herself because the bullying had gotten so bad.

Her home life was somewhat steady. Her father left when she was tiny and her brother was wayward (through no fault of their mothers) but her mother was supportive, disciplined, caring and the most loving lady I have ever met.

I was also bullied by another girl at the same time. A girl who had long been my best friend. She went out of her way to verbally assault me, harass me over the internet and generally make my life a living hell. Even in the months I was out of school, I would curl up in a towel on the floor sobbing until there were literally no more tears to cry. Even when I moved to my new school, the girl had spread rumours through the place via a Dance Class contact which took weeks to finally fizzle out.

A few years later, it came back to 'haunt me' as such. I found that I was unable to control my anger and I would 'playfully' hit people and get so angry that I could do little more than hiss when Teachers asked me to do things. Thankfully, I'm still a small fry so my punches probably couldn't hurt a gnat but it's not something I ever want to feel again.

Silver Springs(Bee)- I think you are a great person and these people you dealt with at school certainly have no idea what they missed. I would have been thrilled to have a friend like you in HS. I truly hope that someday you will see that you can treat yourself well, because you really deserve it.

I completely agree. Bee, you're a wonderful person who doesn't deserve that BS. Reading your post made me angrier than I have been in years. Those scumbags will get their comeuppance and I hope to god it hits them hard and fast. The girls who bullied me, one got packed off to Boarding school in London and the other dropped out of school and now works in the local New Look clothes store.

[MissLadyLoki]

I've been bullied quite a bit over the years myself. While I was just generally looked down on in elementary school (I had to get taken out for services such as speech therapy for reason still beyond me to this day and everyone basically wouldn't acknowledge my existence), but nothing compares to the scum I encountered in junior high school.

For some reason, these few girls had it out for me and everyday, at my locker, they'd harrass me to no end. For example, when word got out that I had no boyfriend (let's admit it: 13 is a bit young to be seriously dating) and they decided to start a vicious rumor that I was a lesbian, not tha I have any problem with anyone sexualit, but they did, to the point where I'd be harrassed to no end at my locker, and they tried to "prove they were lesbians" by kissing each other. It was horrible, but I took it to the AP and they never said a word to me again.

To this day, I still have trouble making friends, always worried I'm gonna do something wrong and then get bullied again. I still live my life in fear of that happening again.

[SolitaryMan]

Yeah Junior High was the worst for me too but just at the bus stop and on the bus. Mostly just verbal (from both genders), some weird ear abuse from behind on the bus, and keep away with items of mine, but an occasional egg throw and fight off the bus.

I was way too quiet in general, didn't have my first kiss till after age 30 with a girl from a Stevie board; my wife isn't from a Stevie board but we did kiss on the 2nd floor of Stevie's Mom's antique store!

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/TheLaw/school-bullying-epidemic-turning-deadly/story?id=11880841

[vivfox]

my wife isn't from a Stevie board but we did kiss on the 2nd floor of Stevie's Mom's antique store!


Before you kissed, did you tell her, "you could be my silver spring?"

[bellagypsy79]

Jackie-I sympathize with you completely on the bullying you suffered. Still, your remark that 'I survived this **** and so can they' is not always a possibility. If someone being bullied has a good home life, maybe they can make it through. If you have a bad home life + you are bullied, it takes it's toll in a big way.

Silver Springs(Bee)- I think you are a great person and these people you dealt with at school certainly have no idea what they missed. I would have been thrilled to have a friend like you in HS. I truly hope that someday you will see that you can treat yourself well, because you really deserve it.

Thank you for your posts on this subject. It means a lot to me to hear your stories and thoughts. I need to correct an error I made in that comment about me surviving and "so can they", I was saying "they" as in the victims, not the bullys. Sorry for the typo. LOL!

[holidayroad]

Thank you for your posts on this subject. It means a lot to me to hear your stories and thoughts. I need to correct an error I made in that comment about me surviving and "so can they", I was saying "they" as in the victims, not the bullys. Sorry for the typo. LOL!

I knew you meant the victims. I should have been more clear in my post. Not every victim of bullying can handle it. Like I said, if someone is a victim of bullying and they have a good life otherwise, maybe they can manage. If the victim has a bad home life already, plus bullying to deal with, it can become unbearable.

[estranged4life]

I suffered in my younger days was in during 2nd grade, and I was bullied due to the color of my skin (white).

My hometown of Muskogee Oklahoma did not start integration of schools until the early to mid 70's, which led to many racial issues (That still exist today). When I was in kindergarden I knew of only one black student in my class, Natalie Walker, who didn't judge people on their skin color (And someone I counted on as a friend even after I graduated high school) and treated everyone equally regardless of skin/creed/etc.

After kindergarden, Old Irving Elementary (Which was a building at least over 100 years old) was torn down to be replace with a new Irving Elementary. So for First Grade I, along with my 2 older brothers, was bused across town to Grant-Foreman Elementary along with all the other Irving students for the school year. Still, there were not many black students at the combination of Grant-Foreman (A white middle class district) and Irving (Lower/Middle working class district).

The start of Second Grade saw the original Irving students back at the location of Old Irving, but inside a brand new facility. But with the larger facility came the re-districting of the school districts. So Irving became a school for those in Lower/Middle working class area around the school and the school for those in the Poor/Low income class district North of Main street in Muskogee, what is the largely black population district.

Racial issues and tension were still strong in the mid 70's, and the new 'students' singled me out for no other reason than I was 'white'. So I had noone minus my peers (Pre-2nd grade) and my older brother (4 years older) to defend me. The bullying continued on and on, until after October 1977.

I remember this as if it occurred just yesterday, Those same bullying students were making fun of "My Daddy"....You know, the usual macho BS postering "Your Daddy is this...", "Your Daddy is that..." - not realizing that my Dad had just died very recently (Saturday October 22,1977), which as a 7 year old boy was very ABSOLUTELY devastating to deal with.

My teacher that year took those 'bullies' out of class and informed them of what had happened to me family, and that the bullying they did was not only uncalled for, but very very much in the wrong.

Those same black students, realized (I'm assuming after the principal contacted their parents) that what they did was wrong and apologized to me...And a REAL apology at that since maybe their conscience may have gotten the best of them after what they did and didn't realize what was going on in my family's life.

Those same 'black' students, from that time until now have remained some of my closest friends during my elementary/Jr. High/High school days. We all grew up together, understood we were going through the same BS in life regardless of 'skin color' and no longer saw each other as "black" or "white", or "insiders" or "outsiders" - but we saw each others as equals and friends.

I never recalled being bullied again after that or me being a bully...Not in my personality.

Ironically, My cousin Wendell who died on this very date back in 1989 was the opposite of me when it came to racial issues...Whereas I was dealing with a legal issues (Having NOTHING to do with race) due to my own stupidity and 'parental-neglect' in early 1988, he was dealing with legal issues because he was a member of a 'white racist' group that started a riot at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskogee_High_School">Muskogee High School</a> against some of my friends (Of color - Whom I apologized to profusely afterwards because I did not want Wendell's views to be misconstrued as being my families outlook of race - sorry my Mom didn't play that ****, she was Irish/Scottish she married a Irish Cherokee, and raised her kids to know color/sexual preference/etc is NO reason to lash out at someone)

[UndoingTheLaces]

I'd just like to throw in a few cents about the bullying topic. This is for those of you who've been talking about the impact that the bullying has had on your lives.

I was bullied like crazy in school. I was picked on because I was different. I didn't even know I was gay back then but when you're a boy who likes to play with the girls, hates sports and has more of an effeminate demeanor than a masculine swagger then you are a prime target. The "popular" kids were more disinterested rather than mean, and the worst of the bullies were what some would call the lower class kids who get in trouble for all sorts of things. Still, when you're picked on you tend to lump every snide comment in with every punch in the stomach, no matter where either of them came from.

When my ten year reunion came around I scoffed. I was so full of resentment and anger and the last thing I wanted to do was to go back there and be around those awful people. Then I saw Romy & Michelle's Class Reunion. I was filled with a new sense of pride and going back to my reunion meant I would tell these people off and show them that they'll never keep me down. That reunion never happened.

My fifteenth came around and I was a nervous wreck. I was out to everyone but my parents, who still lived in the same town as a lot of the people I'd gone to school with. If I went with a woman I wouldn't be true to myself, but if I took a guy the small town rumor mill would certainly get back to them. Still, I plotted and planned, in perfect TV sitcom style that I would take one of my porn model friends with me, male or female, rent a car I couldn't possibly afford, and make a big show out of being a huge success in Hollywood even though I lived paycheck to paycheck and didn't think of my life as being all that fabulous. That reunion was so small and so last minute I couldn't have made it if I wanted to. So, that was that.

Recently, a girl from my high school contacted me on Facebook trying to get together all 98 members of our class for our twenty-fifth reunion. I've been through so many feelings about my childhood and have become such a different person in my life that I really regard those days more like some movie I'd seen long ago rather than anything that has control over my life right now. So, without much thought, and not expecting much to come of it, I added her. Next thing I know I'm getting tons of requests from people I haven't talked to in nearly 20 years, many of whom I didn't really talk to much then. What transpired was a virtual reunion unlike any I would have guessed. Most of them added me just to be in the loop and other than polite hellos we didn't really converse. But the conversations I did get into were pretty amazing. I found out that many of the people I'd had very bad feelings towards for many years didn't even remember me as being unpopular. The girl who had first added me was surprised to find, through some FB postings, that I had been picked on so bad in school. And a lot of people I'd thought of as being in the "A" crowd, actually weren't and didn't think of themselves as anything more than just part of everybody else. Quite a revelation for someone who went through a good many years believing a large segment of those 98 students hated them.

Something else happened. I went through a lot of my FB postings over the past few years, wondering what they looked like to someone who didn't know me other than a small remembrance of that awkward kid they went to school with. And I was amazed to find that I was absolutely impressed. Looking at my life in short little soundbites, videos, jokes and songs, I realized that I've led quite a remarkable life. While my accomplishments may seem minuscule to some they could seem incredible to others. And the idea that all these people from my past can see them now does not make me feel that I am better than anyone, it simply makes me feel good that I can share these things with people and that I can see their lives and appreciate the things they've gone through as well.

So if you feel anger, resentment and tons of other bad feelings about your past, let it go. Look at what you have now and appreciate every little thing that makes you who you are. And I'd be willing to bet that among those few embittered people who made your life hell, there were probably many more who never got to know you as well as they wanted, and there were many more who didn't have it as good as you thought they did.

Life is like a rose and every day we pull back the pedals to find new and interesting things all within the same little flower.