Todays ramblings..... bullying!

[wantscontrolofmyOWNlife]

Seemingly alot of us on this site are very similar in personalities. The way we are the way we react the way we think etc. Last night I watched a very talented man named TED in a video talking about bullying. He went into alot of detail about the way he was treated as a child by other children and adults alike... made me wonder if my childhood has laid pave for the way i am today and since i find myself believing i am some what similar to my friends on here that maybe you all had a similar childhood to me?

See even in my children now i see there is two types of personality the bully and the victim. for me i was very much of a victim. I suffered with bullying from an early childhood right into my teens. So watching this video last night brought back so many memories that i had tried to block out clearly without success. The biggest memory of all is at the age of maybe 9/10 being sat in the head teachers office (a man up until this point i actually respected) and him telling me that it was my fault i was bullied because i allowed myself to be a victim! We live in a world where we are told to be ourselves but then who we are is wrong and we need to change who we are because the bullies dont like us?? I spent alot of years not particuarly hating who i was but wishing i wasnt such a wimp. I hated the fact that i was passive i hated the fact that i cried everytime the other children said and did the things they did...i hated they saw my vunrebility. And most of all i hated the phrase "sticks and stones will break my bones..." because the names did hurt.

But growing up i learned who to trust i learned to chose my friends carefully and i learned not to allow myself to be in situations where i could be a victim. But even i had to walk out of the school gates at 3.15 to catch my bus home. And of course by that time alot of the damage had been done.

I cant go into detail about the things that hppened after leaving school those days really are in a box burried in a whole surrounded in concrete so not even i can go back to it. But by the time my husband came along and promised to take care of me i was DESPERATE for some security in my life and yet again i allowed myself to be a victim of a controlling man and an abusive relationship.

I know no two lives are the same but if we were all sat in a classroom now and the teacher asked how many of us had suffered at the hands of bullies in school or at home. How many on this site would raise their hands?

[Hidden]

Hi,I was never bullied at school,I was the one who went to the aid of people being bullied.To this day,I hate bullies, adults or children and I have never forgotten the bullies at my school.

So,no,I would not raise my hand but I am also here on this site,I am just like you suffering from anxiety,it is not a sign of weakness,you are not weak,you are just you.People can mistake sensitivity for weakness and take advantage.I am, I suspect like you,very sensitive,it is not a sign of weakness,it is a good trait,to care about suffering.Everyone needs some form of security,that is normal and remember this,bullies are cowards,they are the insecure, weak ones and they will be the ones left alone with no-one,take care.

[Hidden]

Great blog

You have really explained this very well indeed

I cant say I was bullied , I remember feeling threatened that it could happen , but like in everyday life now , I seemed to be good at avoiding nasty people (which they are in life )

I do relate to wanting to feel loved & why you picked the partner you did

My father never showed love as such , my mum did , but as always , we want love from where we don't get it , & I did pick my first husband , looking back , more because he was like the father I didn't have

Didn't work , even though he is a lovely guy & we have two fantastic grown up daughters & he continued to be a great dad & still is to them , but then the 2nd hubby , of 20 years , I went for someone the opposite ...after 20 years , it must have made a difference , going for the opposite

Cant put my hand up as such , even though I still relate to what you are saying & again , very well put

Love

whywhy

xxx

[Hidden]

Fantastic blog and perfectly right,,, I think...........

I was lucky enough not to be bullied, but it really was just luck that I hung around with the right kids.........

But I have struggled all my life with feeling inferior and running away from confrontation............

I was in an abusive marriage and I have let people treat me like crap............. and thats cos I dont feel like Im good enough................

Im really really trying hard now to be assertive, but still be a nice person and not let it make me bitter about life.............

Well articulated!!

lots of love............ youre doing so well!!

xx

[LadySaabra]

Really interesting...I've never considered myself to have either been bully or victim...BUT I can identify with the mindset in the Blog and comments because throughout my childhood I feared my differences (being really poor, single parent, special needs sibling, being a tomboy ect.) would make me a victim, despite it never happening...I think this might need researching more, the fear of being bullied...

well done btw, onwards and upwards

[hairyfairy]

You sound exactly like me. I spent my adolescence being picked on by people who had no business doing so, because the things that they called me, ugly, stupid, clumsy etc, went doulble for them, like a bunch of pots calling a kettle black! I was told by my parent to stand up for myself, but if I answered back it just made it worse, so I just became passive & ignored them. The trouble with acting passivly is that it becomes a habit, & inadequate people saw me as weak, & someone that they could bully. I would always attract losers, & would often wonder if I was cursed in some way, perhaps payback for stuff done in a past life? but don`t really believe in that sort of stuff. It`s only in recent years that Iv`e begun to understand that communication is mostly non verbal, & bullies will always look for someone who radiates self hatred & lack of confidence in their body language. If only I`d known that when I was growing up, it would have saved me so much misery.The trouble was that no-one cared enough about me to give me guidance in these things.

[Pickle165]

ive been bullied my whole life, at school, at work, siblings, boyfriends. there have been some times in my life where i have given a bit back and quite rightly so but i have to be in a good place emotionaly to do so. x

[wantscontrolofmyOWNlife]

hi sorry about the delay in replying to your comments I have has a pretty rough few days

sam I completely get the fact that you need to be in a good place emotionally to bite back. do you find that the more you bite back and actually stand up for yourself the better you feel?

hairyfairy I discovered as I was growing non the of the adults really know how to deal with bullying. it was always ignore them (because we all know how easy that is!) or stand up for yourself - so how do suppose I do that then? and just how many times to I stand up for myself just to be knocked back down before they will leave me alone? even as my daughter goes through the hell of trying to find herself and getting bullied at school, I as the 'guiding influence' in her life am completely lost as to what to say or do because I know from experience these things do not work.

ladysaabra the trouble with being different and constantly worrying about being different is the fact that no two people are the same. if people stopped obsessing about being the same as that confident kid sat at the back of the class making people laugh by making rude and suggestive comments to the teacher who clearly only wants to do their job. or changing the way they speak act or dress just to be in with the cool kids that actually will end up in dead end jobs because all they care about is acting and looking cool. if they just stopped and looked at these people and thought well actually I like who I am why should I change just to be 'normal' (which is the most stupid word ever) maybe they would realise they do have a mind of their own they are their own person and they don't need someone else to berate or congratulate the fact.

anne thankyou so much for your lovely words. someone said if you look in the mirror and you don't see how beautiful you are, get a better mirror or look harder. you really are beautiful and I don't need to see you to know that or to know you are in anyway inferior to anyone. you are share the same oxygen as me so in my eyes you are the same as me.

whywhy although you weren't bullied, you were always fearful of being bullied. was this because of your dads influence? the fact that you didn't feel loved made you feel inferior. im finding out more and more about human nature all the time, more because of my marriage than anything else. the fact that he refused to say he loved my it picked away and picked away at me, the fact that I always felt like I was bottom of the pecking order and the fact that I was never felt like I was apprechiated for who I am or what I did. and now looking back and people saying 'I don't know how anyone can be that controlled!' well when the biggest influences in your life make you feel like you aren't good enough eventually you are going to believe it, until you come to a period in your life when you stand up and say hang on you have no right to treat me like that!

castel again you are very right in saying that bullies are cowards. and yes I was a very sensitive person, still am in most respects. but I learned to help me to heal I had to become selfish as well which is what I did. I just hope my children one day will understand why I did what I did. you sound like such a lovely person supporting and going to the aid of the children who were bullied at school, they were lucky to have you xx

I hope all my ramblings make sense to you all xx

love -wantscontrolofmyownlife