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...and you can tell it's a government initiative because it reads horribly. Anyway, here in Australia  it's an anti-bullying day, and I very rarely post in GBS because you people scare me, I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion about schoolyard bullying, and bullying in general. Schools, Workplace, everyday life. One of the things I love about SA is that the users span age groups. Some of you are in highschool, some in college, some are parents of young children. Some of you have been bullied, some of you probably have bullied. I want to hear your stories.Here is a link to the government website: http://www.bullyingnoway.gov.au/national-day/ Share your stories of being bullied, ask questions. To kick things off, here's my story. I went through school mostly in the 90s, and I'd like to think I went to school in a pretty good area. I don't understand the whole 'online bullying' thing. I can remember as early as Grade 4 (10 years old) always wearing jumpers and long sleeve shirts so my mum wouldn't see my bruises. If I came home with only some mean words said at me it was a good day. I regularly got the poo poo kicked out of me, had my stuff stolen, and was physically stopped from leaving the situation. Looking back, my middle and highschool was pretty mental. For example, about 1/3 of my year 7 homeroom has been to prison. The year I moved to highschool, a group of about 4 kids were suspended for throwing a bunch of rocks at teachers cars. They retaliated by going into the school after hours and beating the poo poo out of the vice principal with a cricket bat, breaking his arm, and then smashed up the place. I used to get stabbed regularly with compasses and pen knives and got beaten up pretty badly. In some ways its similar to domestic violence - they never hit you where it will show, but they hit you enough and hard enough so you know. You know. The worst part was, the teachers were almost as bad as the bullies - They'd punish the bullies, and the bullies would punish you... I consider myself lucky, I was only the middle of the road, a lot of people got it way worse than me. Please, share your stories about being bullied or being young and stupid and doing the bullying. I've never understood the bullying thing. Help me understand. edit: I just realized I've kinda gone out on a limb here... I don't think I've ever talked about this stuff before. Favela Flav fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 22:06 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 07:40 |
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I thought it was steak-and-blowjob day?
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:00 |
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Bullying is not hard to understand. People who don't like themselves or their own lives make other people feel lovely as a destructive coping mechanism. Also, Favela Flav posted:I don't understand the whole 'online bullying' thing.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:00 |
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Australian bullying sounds hardcore as hell. Breaking the vice principle's arm with cricket bats? That's definitely a paddlin'.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:04 |
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toby posted:Bullying is not hard to understand. People who don't like themselves or their own lives make other people feel lovely as a destructive coping mechanism. Ow. I probably should have said it better in the OP but what I meant was I find online bullying kind of hard to understand because I never went through it personally. Also I was hoping to have an open discussion about it from all angles.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:11 |
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Yes, I figured. I was helping by applying some online bullying. Maybe not helpful, after all.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:14 |
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I've been meaning to for a while - I'm going to buy and watch this film later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUy2ZWoStr0
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:18 |
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toby posted:Bullying is not hard to understand. People who don't like themselves or their own lives make other people feel lovely as a destructive coping mechanism. Well, yeah. That's why they get bullied.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:18 |
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Favela Flav posted:Also I was hoping to have an open discussion about it from all angles. I bet you take cock from all angles *flicks cigarette at you*
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:20 |
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Favela Flav posted:Ow. I probably should have said it better in the OP but what I meant was I find online bullying kind of hard to understand because I never went through it personally. Also I was hoping to have an open discussion about it from all angles. Not understanding it is a large problem in general because there's still a sizeable number of people (talking US here) that think you should just "suck it up" and "stop being such a pussy." It's the same people who think "My parents hit me and I turned out fine!" They don't see a problem with in-person bullying, so online bullying is even further removed from being "a bad thing". I'm not sure why we don't just call bullying what it really is; abuse.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:21 |
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toby posted:Bullying is not hard to understand. People who don't like themselves or their own lives make other people feel lovely as a destructive coping mechanism. Bullying is a lot more complicated than that. Some bullies have very high self-esteem, but lack empathy or understanding for others. Some bullies aren't even aware that they are bullying. What you described is more in line with victims of child abuse/neglect or dysfunctional households who start bullying, or bullying victims themselves who start bullying others. That is just one particular shade of bullying, when there's a lot more complicated reasons and circumstances for bullying. Spacedad fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 22:30 |
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I wasn't really physically bullied, the one time someone tried that I fractured their jaw (elementary school, poo poo follows you), but I was verbally bullied all through school till graduation, mostly because I Cymbal Monkey fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 22:28 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:22 |
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Bullying sucks. My best friend's daughter is getting bullied. You wish you could do something for the kids but you can't do poo poo if 99% of the parents turn a blind eye to it and everyone thinks their kid is a loving saint.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:27 |
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Pope Mobile posted:Not understanding it is a large problem in general because there's still a sizeable number of people (talking US here) that think you should just "suck it up" and "stop being such a pussy." It's the same people who think "My parents hit me and I turned out fine!" They don't see a problem with in-person bullying, so online bullying is even further removed from being "a bad thing". Bullying doesn't toughen people up - it destroys personalities. It breaks people down and inflicts trauma on them that can last a lifetime. In highschool, I suffered a nervous breakdown in large part due to bullying - I felt I couldn't trust my peers and that everyone hated me. I still haven't ever fully recovered to this day; it's like a lifelong injury I have to learn to live with. Created in large part from the damage to my brain that occurred in highschool due to the stress of being bullied, I suffer from bipolar depression and anxiety attacks that I'm only recently finally getting under control. I still get PTSD-style flashbacks to that scared little kid I was in highschool when I encounter someone or something that triggers a memory of how I was treated back then, and the paralyzed fear I had. I'll keep seeing ordinary innocent people as potential predators, traitors, and attackers. Sometimes I'll even see my closest friends as victimizers until I'm able to fight off the irrational paranoia. Spacedad fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 22:33 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:28 |
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Spacedad posted:I'll keep seeing ordinary innocent people as potential predators, traitors, and attackers. Sometimes I'll even see my closest friends as victimizers until I'm able to fight off the irrational paranoia. I get that too. As an open question to other people who suffered bullying, maybe the more vindictive types, do you ever get thoughts of action you're uncomfortable with? I was on a train and saw a man with an Oregon Beavers jacket and cap and my first thought was that I wanted to do this to him just because I saw him as a part of the group that I see as responsible for so much emotional anguish. I was absolutely shocked by this thought but I still find my mind wondering to really scary things. I'm glad I have self control and am actually really squeamish. Cymbal Monkey fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 22:34 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:32 |
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Cymbal Monkey posted:I get that too. As an open question to other people who suffered bullying, maybe the more vindictive types, do you ever get thoughts of action you're uncomfortable with? I was on a train and saw a man with an Oregon Beavers jacket and cap and my first thought was that I wanted to do this to him just because I saw him as a part of the group that I see as responsible for so much emotional anguish. I was absolutely shocked by this thought but I still find my mind wondering to really scary things. I'm glad I have self control. Yeah. The damage that bullying can do to someone's brain can last a lifetime - with physical evidence of that 'scarring' showing up in how the brain tissue lights up on catscans. It's almost as if someone in highschool took a lighter or a knife and used that to scar your skin (as some bullies do) so you'd have those scars for life - except these scars happen inside your brain matter, and occur from the mental stress of being bullied. For me, the paranoia I get even about people who are close to me is a reaction I can't control, and have to merely learn to 'cope' with it when it occurs. Sort of the way that an amputee has to cope with a phantom limb pain when it occurs - I can't ever completely stop it; I can only learn to deal with it. It stems completely from the trauma I had in highschool as a victim of bullying, and since I've learned to accept that I've been able to identify it the anxiety when it happens and fight it off.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:35 |
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toby posted:Yes, I figured. I was helping by applying some online bullying. Maybe not helpful, after all. Does this paint a better picture? 
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:39 |
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Favela Flav posted:Ow. I probably should have said it better in the OP but what I meant was I find online bullying kind of hard to understand because I never went through it personally. Also I was hoping to have an open discussion about it from all angles. You know how all the kids are on the facebooks now and just friend everyfuckingone? It's like bringing the schoolyard bullying home with you. The internet isn't the anonymous wild west it was when those of us around 30 were growing up where you could easily trade in real life for internet life. "Just get off loving facebook" seems like a good solution to me but kids keep offing themselves over this stuff so I guess it isn't. I'm old what do I know?
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:40 |
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I accidentally caught thirty seconds of Home and Away last night and it had the typical "I am a loving baby supervillain and that is why I am bullying you" take on schoolyard shitheadism. That's not how kids talk or think, and kids are dumb: they know they shouldn't do this thing called "bullying" but in media it's always represented in a laughably unrealistic way that doesn't mirror the behaviour we're trying to encourage kids to cut the gently caress out. I mean, not that I'm expecting anything less than awful writing from that show but it's typical of how this message gets mangled. I don't think kids even use that word.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:41 |
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Oddly, I was talking about this with my dad last night. I was bullied a lot in school, particularly from grades 6 through 10. I was depressed and suicidal from the age of about thirteen on. Grade 9 was the worst year, easily. I had tacks on chairs, spitballs in my hair, bits of eraser thrown at me. There was an incident where some older students followed me home and yelled slurs at me from their van. My dad kind of flipped out after that and sat down with the vice principal and demanded something actually be properly done after a whole year of lot of attempting to get some sort of intervention, because this was around the same time the Reena Virk case was in the news. He said to me years later that he could see it really beginning to escalate to a frightening level at that point and he did not want me to be the next Reena Virk. That said, he was telling me that while he thinks the recent anti-bullying movement is generally a really good thing, and as a teacher he's very much wrapped up in it, but he's frustrated with the one-sidedness of it. A lot of what I went through was, as he put it, "teaching you how to growl," and suggesting to these anti-bullying groups that you help kids learn how to not be victims is met with hostility. Not that you can't be proud of who you are, and definitely not that you have to conform or suffer, but just because you are different doesn't mean you have to lie down and take the abuse. I think I see what he's getting at.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:44 |
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Spacedad posted:Bullying is a lot more complicated than that. Some bullies have very high self-esteem, but lack empathy or understanding for others. Some bullies aren't even aware that they are bullying. What you described is more in line with victims of child abuse/neglect or dysfunctional households who start bullying, or bullying victims themselves who start bullying others. That is just one particular shade of bullying, when there's a lot more complicated reasons and circumstances for bullying. Yea honestly I think its a coping mechanism for the people being bullied themselves, that their bully secretly has low self esteem, its textbook projection.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:45 |
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Tons of good posts and info here by Space dad that I can't even hope to manage to meet, but I gotta chime in with something on the contrary to the opposing view of "BUT IT TOUGHENS YA UP!" school of idiotic thought that certain home spun wisdom idiots across the world like to parade out. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...akes-you-weaker
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:52 |
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GreenCard78 posted:Does this paint a better picture? Charming. He didn't even bother to take half-second to google up info on what cyberbullying is or cases of it before he mouthed off this ignorant bullshit. This is a great example of why lovely celebrities and twitter are a reprehensible combination. Cyber bullying of the kind the terrorizes kids to suicide usually involves people who already bully the kid in real life at their school, and just make it even worse by effectively stalking them online. In the past, kids could escape bullying by coming home - social media and the internet has made it so they can get hounded even in their own household. Turning away from the monitor doesn't help, because the knowledge that you'd being stalked with a campaign of anonymous online harassment (which leads to paranoia at school about who your real friends are) in addition to being terrorized at school compounds the troubles of a bullied kid. Also, gently caress Tyler the creator. Spacedad fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:00 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:53 |
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The Radix posted:I accidentally caught thirty seconds of Home and Away last night and it had the typical "I am a loving baby supervillain and that is why I am bullying you" take on schoolyard shitheadism. That's not how kids talk or think, and kids are dumb: they know they shouldn't do this thing called "bullying" but in media it's always represented in a laughably unrealistic way that doesn't mirror the behaviour we're trying to encourage kids to cut the gently caress out. And of course the bully is someone we hate from beginning to end. He gets his comeuppance and we cheer.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:54 |
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IRQ posted:You know how all the kids are on the facebooks now and just friend everyfuckingone? Well it's different now since kids these days literally cannot function without Facebook. I always found it loving stupid and I'm only 3 years out of high school.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:58 |
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Economy Clown Car posted:Tons of good posts and info here by Space dad that I can't even hope to manage to meet, but I gotta chime in with something on the contrary to the opposing view of "BUT IT TOUGHENS YA UP!" school of idiotic thought that certain home spun wisdom idiots across the world like to parade out. quote:And this is true for humans as well. Mayhem and chaos don't toughen you up, and they don't prepare you well to deal with the terror of this world. Tender love and care toughen you up, because they nurture and strengthen your capacity to learn and adapt, including learning how to fight, and adapting to later hardship. Just wanted to quote this part in particular. It's absolutely the case. In fact, the people who are good at fighting off bullies (including when they see bullies attacking other people) are usually the ones who have a stable life where they feel loved and appreciated - and so the bully can't really isolate or harm them.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 22:58 |
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Spacedad posted:Bullying is a lot more complicated than that. Some bullies have very high self-esteem, but lack empathy or understanding for others. Some bullies aren't even aware that they are bullying. What you described is more in line with victims of child abuse/neglect or dysfunctional households who start bullying, or bullying victims themselves who start bullying others. That is just one particular shade of bullying, when there's a lot more complicated reasons and circumstances for bullying. It's worth noting that there is a segment of the population, probably not insignificant but under reported, that are basically functional sociopaths. They aren't dangerous, at least not physically, they aren't involved in illegal activies, they are just willing to manipulate people in whatever way they choose for their own ends including amusement or to break someone for other objectives and feel no genuine remorse or guilt about it. Three Olives fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:04 |
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Does bullying happen cross-culturally? Edit: You are all right that was retarded. Miltank fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:02 |
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Miltank posted:Does bullying happen cross-culturally? I could definitely see how one person being the butt of everyone else's jokes could be beneficial evolutionarily. Evolutionary psychology spotted
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:01 |
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Miltank posted:Does bullying happen cross-culturally? I could definitely see how one person being the butt of everyone else's jokes could be beneficial evolutionarily. Dumb thought... or the dumbest thought ever posted? Sorry for bullying you but its just how I feel.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:01 |
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When I was a kid (like 8-10 years old) I was bullied sporadically. It wasn't that bad. Nothing that I would lose much sleep over. Then puberty hit and all of the little shits my age turned into monsters. Kids between the age of 11-13 are not human beings. It's important to remember that. You may think that you were a human being back then, but you weren't. You were just a loving goblin, intent on harm and destruction. Some kid named Dashe (that was his loving name) started physically bullying me around, knocking me down in the hallways in front of people to embarrass me, which was something that hadn't happened before. I didn't want to go to the teachers or principal for fear of worse abuse. I had a little mirror on the inside of my locker, and one day Dashe comes creeping up behind me. I turned around and nailed him as hard as I could, broke his nose. Two of his friends jumped me and kicked the poo poo out of me. We all got suspended. After that, Dashe left me alone, though. He bullied other kids. I remember seeing on facebook a few years back that he stabbed and killed in Philly. Don't think they found the guy who did it. I don't really harbor any more anger over it, but I'm afraid of what might happen to my son when he gets older. I think it used to be that defending yourself would largely ward off physical bullying, and even verbal bullying to some degree. If a bully is afraid that he'll get a bloody nose every time he tries to pick on you, he's simply not going to do it anymore. But these days it seems like kids fight in huge packs. Ten on one. And fighting back can result in being seriously maimed or killed (and then afterward people will watch you being beaten to death on worldstarhiphop). So I don't even know what my position is anymore on teaching kids how to deal with bullying. The harsher administrators get on small time bullies basically drives them out of the school system altogether, and turns them into real life killers on the streets. Also, Tyler the Creator is basically the biggest piece of poo poo in music today. He's a walking stereotype of everything people hate about hip hop. His songs shamelessly promote surprise sex, homophobia and violence. I actually remember him complaining about being the victim of "racism" in Australia a while back. Too bad he can't connect the dots in that loving head of his about bigotry. http://www.racialicious.com/2011/06...for-2011-06-07/
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:05 |
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Three Olives posted:It's worth noting that there is a segment of the population, probably not insignificant but under reported that are basically functional sociopaths, they aren't dangerous, at least not physically, they aren't involved in illegal activies, they are just willing to manipulate people in whatever way they choose for their own ends, including amusement or to break someone for other objectives and feel no genuine remorse or guilt about it. Yes, and most of the people with that personality profile are able to lead productive lives. Because they lack empathy they also tend to lack fear, and are able to deal with dangerous situations calmer than most - so you will see them as surgeons, first-responders, firemen, police, stuntmen, athletes, etc. Unfortunately they also have a tendency to become highly damaging bullies. TheNobleNegro posted:Also, Tyler the Creator is basically the biggest piece of poo poo in music today. He's a walking stereotype of everything people hate about hip hop. His songs shamelessly promote surprise sex, homophobia and violence. I actually remember him complaining about being the victim of "racism" in Australia a while back. Too bad he can't connect the dots in that loving head of his about bigotry. When people called him out on his overuse of 'enjoyable human being' on twitter and the like, he made the excuse of 'MY GAY FANS THINK ITS OKAY.' gently caress him. Spacedad fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:12 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:05 |
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GreenCard78 posted:Does this paint a better picture? Goddamn. That shouldn't shock me but still, some people 
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:12 |
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Spacedad posted:Yes, and most of the people with that personality profile are able to lead productive lives. Because they lack empathy they also tend to lack fear, and are able to deal with dangerous situations calmer than most - so you will see them as surgeons, first-responders, firemen, police, stuntmen, athletes, etc. Unfortunately they also have a tendency to become highly damaging bullies. Then us nerds are stuck doing nerdy things like writing and IT or if we are bullied really hard, lawyers and politicians.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:13 |
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Also let's not scapegoat sociopaths - most bullies are people with fully functional emotional capacity to feel for others. They've just turned it off or don't realize how they are hurting other people. This is partly how broadening education about bullying helps - there are very often kids who don't realize that what they are doing is bullying and hurting someone else, and then feel devastated when they understand how they were hurting another person. There's all different kinds of bullies - from the ones who don't know what they're doing is wrong, to the kind that know what they're doing is wrong.) The many different types of bullying need to be addressed in a comprehensive manner if we're to protect kids and young adults from the damaging abuse. Spacedad fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:21 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:18 |
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Kids around here, and even when I was recently in high school, don't tend to physically bully one another or get into fights, they talk poo poo about each other online and cyber-bully, mostly. I don't know if I'm thankful for that or not. On one hand, at least people aren't getting brutally beaten, on the other hand, mental anguish from verbal/cyber bullying is a big deal and is much, much harder to track. 
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:19 |
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Spacedad posted:Yes, and most of the people with that personality profile are able to lead productive lives. Because they lack empathy they also tend to lack fear, and are able to deal with dangerous situations calmer than most - so you will see them as surgeons, first-responders, firemen, police, stuntmen, athletes, etc. Unfortunately they also have a tendency to become highly damaging bullies. If they have the brains or talent to do those things. If not, they wind up like a coworker I have. She will never be anything more than a mid-level functionary that everyone knows is useless and at best tolerates. She tries to manipulate and bully people, but everyone knows she's toothless and that the owners want her gone but won't fire her because she's been there so long. It's not always true that the bully winds up unsuccessful and the nerd comes out on top, but it does happen.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:19 |
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Miltank posted:Does bullying happen cross-culturally? Absolutely. One that tends to be overlooked is areas with high concentrations of one minority and then a population of Caucasians. Now, take one mixed heritage kid (I.e. half Chinese, half Caucasian) and throw them into the boundary of those communities. I'm a "half-breed", Chinese/White, and experienced this briefly. I went to private school till 5th grade and lived a bully-free existence. When I got to 6th grade, my parents moved me to a public school so I could make friends before going to middle school. As expected by the nature of this thread, I got bullied specifically because I was a mutt. The white kids and the Chinese kids both gave me poo poo. Eventually, it escalated to a physical thing. Some shithead decided he would demonstrate his fighting prowess and kick the poo poo out of the half and half kid. I handled it. Being a husky kid that had done Judo and TKD since age 5, I had the self confidence to handle myself. Nothing spectacular and I'm not scarred by this experience. That was the end of physical bullying, but the name-calling persisted until I went to a high school that most of the kids didn't get filtered into (this school got split depending on where you lived for High school). Sadly, an acquaintance was not as lucky. He's half Black and half Caucasian, which is another target for bullying. He did not have the means to end it early and suffered it throughout high school. I recall him getting the piss knocked out of him when we were in 8th grade. I recall asking if he'd talked with anyone about this (school teachers or w/e) and he indicated they basically told him he was on his own unless they caught them in the act. Last I heard he's doing drugs (both legal and illegal) and is pretty much in the shitter. My story isn't particularly noteworthy like Cymbal's or Spacedad, and I am grateful it never went that far for me. It easily could have, I was just lucky to get a big growth spurt at the end of 6th grade (after the initial bullying). After that growth spurt, some of my features that made me look half-and-half faded and I looked something more like non-specific European/Mediterranean. Weird, I know. EDIT: Cleanup iPad typos and poo poo. rufius fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2013 around 23:25 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:21 |
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Spacedad posted:This is partly how broadening education about bullying helps - there are very often kids who don't realize that what they are doing is bullying and hurting someone else, and then feel devastated when they understand how they were hurting another person. If I had known that in high school I probably would be dead by now. I was thinking for a long time of basically using suicide as a final strike back. I had it all planned out, I was going to write a letter explaining why I had killed myself and include names of people who drove me to it. I was also going to make a will that expressly requested that this letter be read out at a school assembly and sent to each of the people named. The reason I didn't was because I didn't know if any of them would care or indeed if they could feel at all. If I knew that they probably can I would have absolutely killed myself.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:27 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 07:40 |
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If Australia knew anything about the nature of bullying, they'd know that so many loving kids are going to get bullied today.
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| # ? Mar 14, 2013 23:28 |
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