Be Excellent To Each Other

Hi folks,

I was wondering, on the back of another thread or two, if anyone had an experience of childhood bullying, on the bully’s side?

Either in primary school or secondary school, surely among our number here one of us would have been a bully or involved in a group of bullies.

I was wondering, if anyone was willing to say, whether bullies think about their past and regret it, or see that as a completely different time of their life that they don’t associate with their adult self.

Once, when I was walking with Darwin when he was about a year old, some kids (13-14) started being awful towards Darwin, as a baby. It was frightening. I often wonder if any of them remember that day and regret it, or if it wasn’t even an incident to them, and so much part of daily life that it never crosses their mind.

I’m sure that there are bullies that stay as awful people, but I think there must be so many childhood bullies that grow into good, kind people, and I wonder if that past affects them.

I never bullied anyone or was bullied but there's two distinct types I reckon. Them that instigate it and the ones that go along with it. The former are mostly irredeemable arseholes probably.

13-14 year olds being horrible to a 1 year old?!

WTF…

Yeah, he was just starting to say his first words, so was pointing at ‘bus’ and ‘mama’ etc, we were just walking into town and they were all hanging out through the bars of the school dance (so on school grounds) shouting at him saying things like ‘say “I’m a r*t*rd”’ and ‘say “I’m a gay boy”’, and the most ridiculous things.

Obviously it’s not bullying as such, as Darwin was oblivious, but I do often wonder if those kids look back and think ‘gee, I was an arsehole’.

I hope they do, because at least that shows growth and self-reflection.

(I did contact the school about it as it was on school grounds, but they were thoroughly unhelpful).

I was bullied a lot when I was at secondary school. I was the archetypal geek/nerd, before it was 'cool' to be one. I had a bad hairstyle, bad skin, awful NHS-special glasses, no social skills to speak of, and kept myself to myself because of all of that.

I was regularly picked on by the 'hard' kids in my year. Only rarely was it physical, most of it was just verbal abuse. Not just the 'hard' kids either, the popular girls in the year would also take the piss, and a couple of times towards the start of secondary did the whole "do you want to go out with me?" / "haha, I wouldn't go out with you, loser" type thing. Pretty sure that (amongst other events later in life, of course!) had a lasting impact on my ability to trust others.

The only physical altercation I remember was with a little shit called Daniel. He was about half my height, but he was a violent little twat. He did the whole "oi, what have you been saying about me?" thing as a confrontation tactic, and squared up to me (well, my chest) and then took a swing at me. The punch connected with the side of my head where my glasses were, and although it didn't break my glasses, it did force the arms on them to scrape all up the side of my face and left me with a couple of pretty nasty cuts.

One of the 'hard' kids in my year, and pretty much the only one that didn't ever do anything to me (and didn't really associate himself with the others, either) was a lad called Christian. He used to live just down at the end of my street when we were in primary school and we were good mates. He found out what Daniel had done (not from me, we didn't really stay 'mates' when we got to secondary and split off into our cliques), and kicked the shit out of him on my behalf. No-one ever messed with me after that.

I'd always wanted to do karate or some sort of martial art when I was at school (starting in primary) but my parents wouldn't allow it, mainly for financial reasons I think. Had I known then what I know now (in terms of TKD) I'd have just flattened him on the spot, but I had pretty much no self-confidence at all back then.