I was bullied in elementary. The other girls always made me feel less because my parents weren't rich. They also made it seem like I was so much fatter than them. It doesn't bother me now because I look back at the pictures and I wasn't fat at all! Thank God I ended up moving and doing high school in Colorado.
This is what I never understood even as a kid - how the adults could look on and watch the horrific bullying, and any kid who interferred on the victim's behalf was likely to be punished.
I used to get hit by this one boy for no reason. He would just smack me and hit me, and I was in the front row where the teacher saw everything that happened..
She never did a durn thing about him, but I got sick of the crap and started hitting him back. she ignored me hitting him too so I guess it balanced out, but I wish she could have moved me or something. it sucks when an adult that your supposed to trust won't stick up for you or take care of you.
It wasn't that she didn't like me either. My poor younger sis got an earfull of what a great student I was.
Last edited by CrystalZ10; 04-11-2011 at 03:16 AM.
I was never bullied as a child for my weight. Nor did I know of anyone who was. I was quite fit and loved playing badminton and dancing until I was about 14-when we had some big family issues. From that point on I gradually gained weight. I have been picked on by complete strangers for my weight though. Its normally just teenage lads trying to be clever. But I just think "I can do something about my weight, but you'll always be stuck with that face". It annoys me when people say something about my weight. Its just ignorance.
I was a skinny kid and was bullied by a chubby kid at elementary school. I was in that school only for 6 months, so it never progressed more than staredowns and mean looks. However, my sister who was a chubby kid was bullied much worse in school, and I think it was mostly because she would not fight back. I remember this one time, some kids poured some kind of liquid candy on her long beautiful hair and there were also times when kids in the neighborhood refused to play with her saying it was because she is fat. Kids can be so cruel.
IMO, bullies & victims come in all sizes and shapes. It is probably just easier to pick on a fat kid because they probably have self-esteem issues to begin with.
Well, I was horribly bullied in middle-school. I grew up with a hearing disability so it made me a bit vulnerable to being picked on. In elementary school, I was sexually harrassed because I was super ignorant about street terms for body parts (my Scandinavian parents taught us real body part language and taught the elbow, toe and breast were all equally important). Made me a sitting duck. Didn't help that our cultural values and faith were different (no one realized it but it made for undertones that I think made me stick out).
In middle-school, I had a very large bosom, loved to read, had to sit in the front to hear, and like my teachers (mostly). One teacher committed suicide and all the kids talked about how he blamed our grade because the kids were so mean.
Kids painted geek on my locker. The janitor was always having to clean it. The sad thing is that it was the janitor who had to tell me what a geek was. In 8th grade, I was beaten up between the concession stand and football field during a major high school game by about six girls. I had had enough from this little skinny mean girl who confronted me while I was carrying a tray of drinks for my friends. I shoved it all on her and they pounded me like there was no tomorrow. No one stopped the attack. No one helped me at all and it was in the complete open. My old elementary school best friend's mom came up afterwards. She said she saw the whole thing and thought I might want a ride home. I was sobbing in her van and she thought I just felt bad. I was sobbing because I couldn't believe no one came to me--especially her--when everyone had to have witnessed the attack.
After the attack, I didn't know why I never ever was bullied again. However, years later I found out that some girls from my softball team (also old elementary school buddies) witnessed the attack and later isolated each attacker and beat them up in my name. As a Quaker, I wouldn't want anyone hurt especially in my name. But, I'm a blue-collar neighborhood raised kid. I was so overwhelmed that these girls watched my back and made sure the attack did not go unpunished. It went a ways to make me feel that people out there do value me enough.
I currently work on violence prevention as part of my work. I teach anti-violence and write policies with community officials. I know bullying from so many points of view (both professionally and as a parent). I see the teachers struggle with it. I see parents of both bullies and victims who are blind to parts of it and so confused. I also see how our paid prevention consultants are pretty much sidelined to only a one-day prevention training then the schools post a huge banner about their school's "commitment". The administrators struggle with giving bullying even an hour in their professional development or to make appropriate policies.
I have been so impacted by bullying and violence (other incidents over the years) that I pulled my kids out of public school to a charter school in hopes that this school's focus of community leadership would be a place where these things wouldn't happen. However, my older son became super depressed in his new school because they bullied him because of the way he crossed his legs. His summer-camp friend (the only other kid he knew from before that he could connect with) had some of his long hair cut and kids put glue in his hair. The teachers in the classroom did nothing even though I am officially part of their administrator's anti-bullying taskforce.
There's so much more that has to happen in the schools and community. People think that we live in a tough world so it's better to toughen up the kids and learn how to fight back. Victims of bullies are usually people that have some kind of "anti-social" or nonpopular thing about them that makes it allowable to tease.
Really the issue is the culture of the group. Nowadays, teasing is practically the only way kids and adults communicate with each other. I see it at the office all the time. I see it at school pick up with kids to their friends and between kids and their families.
In different places, the whole group knows that teasing is not alright and any kids immediately nips it in the bud (my kids' karate school is a perfect example). If the classroom culture encouraged kids to say something like "hey, that was uncool to say" and a few pointers of how to support friendly exchanges, I know we'd begin to turn the tide of permissive teasing and abuse. My younger son is a super social kids (9 yrs) who is very successful at being popular. He says he always says something but doesn't see it much. I told him that bullying usually doesn't happen around the nice popular kids or teachers because everyone knows what will be said. Bullying happens around people who won't say anything or might join in on the "fun".
I'll always work on this and really hope we'll start to see a change. It's worth the effort.
I was never bullied per se...but like others I've had several isolated instances over the course of my life where I've been called names or just simply discriminated against b/c of my weight. But I've found that people who act like that will find ANYTHING to pick on people about, whether it be weight, looks in general, clothes...it doesn't matter. If someone is a bully they will find SOMETHING to make you feel bad about. We all have imperfections, and I've learned over the years to pity people like that. They have way more problems than I do, most of which are way harder to fix than just losing weight. It's more sad than anything else.
I was tormented in school....There was one time in the 4th grade, and I remember it like it was yesterday because it haunts me to this day... I thought that the boy I had a crush on was talking to me. I didn't hear exactly what he said so I asked him. Obviously he wasn't talking to me because he looked at me and said "I wasn't talking to you you fat f'n pig..." Then in high school, another guy who was friends with some of my friends, used to sit with us at lunch. Every day, it never failed, he would be the first to sit at the table with me. And every day, he would look at my lunch, no matter what it was, and say "Do you really think you need that?" It got to the point that I forced myself to exercise until I cried and lived mostly on celery and water... I finally got to the point that I didn't care what people thought of me if it was based solely on my weight issues. I had friends, GOOD friends, and I didn't need the haters.
Was I bullied as a child? Yup. Every. Single. Day. Without Fail. I was called fat, cow, whale. I can remember one incident where a kid looked at me and said, "Shamu, why aren't you at seaworld?" And, of course, all the kids laughed. They thought it was funny. I was a painfully shy girl and I was obese. I developed a disabling mental illness which made things worse for me. It got to the point where I stopped going to school. I couldn't take it anymore. I got into a charter school and graduated high school. I still to this day am terrified to get on a scale because I ALWAYS think I've gained weight. I ALWAYS think I'm fat and ugly. Kids are extremely cruel and I was a very easy target.
I was teased in school, but not because of my weight. Everyone would call me "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese" because of my last name. I'm over it. I moved around way too much as a kid to really remember anything about certain schools, but high school was not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Sure, I was overweight in high school, but no one really made any comments about my weight.
I sure was. Mostly in junior high. And I do agree that the teachers did nothing to make it better. In fact, on more than one occasion they were laughing right along with the tormentors, which sticks out more than anything the kids ever said to me. Those were some very dark times and it breaks my heart knowing that kids have that feeling that it will never get better when it does. I hope for kids that are bullied today that there are adults in their lives who point that out.
It got much better in high school. I became much more of a participator and got involved in music and made a lot of friends. My prime tormentor in junior high was actually my prom date senior year! I went to a small school and run into a lot of people I went to school with and we've all seemed to have ended up in this magical place called "the middle". It's funny how life becomes an equalizer.
Wow. Such awful stories and teachers. Thankfully, I was never bullied but had some unpleasant comments made from time to time. In athletics, I got in trouble and had to do wall jumps (which hurt with boobs FYI) and this girl sitting nearby made a comment about how I really needed to do more because I was fat.
Someone else made fun of me for playing in the orchestra. I was carrying one of those metal, foldable music stands and told him if he bothered me again I'd beat him with it. Easy enough to intimidate them when I was a head taller than most of my class by age 12.
In 7th grade, I was sitting in English and this guy behind me popped my bra so I turned around and punched him. My teacher asked me what possessed me to do that so I told her. She looked straight at the boy and said "You ever do that again and you'll be lucky if you only get punched."
I guess I didn't get bullied because I was fairly quick witted and so much taller than everyone. Though I was in the orchestra, band, read constantly, I had no qualms about defending myself, even physically, if necessary. I just feel so sad to hear about everything that goes on to other people. I couldn't imagine not intervening, or at least call the cops if there's a group beating someone up!
