Is it pathetic that I can't get over some bullying that happened over 4 years ago?

OK, thanks. I'm really nervous to make an appointment though as I am really shy and not good at talking to people about these problems of mine

it isn't pathetic at all.

bullying and the school environment in general can affect people well into their adult lives and this makes sense because you go to school during your most formative years and as a result, you can end up with your head feeling confused, angry, sad, anxious in later life because of it.

for what it's worth i left school at 18 to go to uni and from about 19 through to 23 i have had on and off counselling for the past 4 years. this has made a massive difference.

i think a lot of the difficulty can be in trying to forgive yourself for not standing up for yourself and believing the **** that other people can put in your head at that age. i have always struggled with self esteem and there are grey days where i still get really pissed off about how school played a fairly sizeable part in this.

so no, you're not pathetic at all in how you feel. i would say that your feelings are a very normal reaction to an unpleasant experience. it can take years to get over a substantial ammount of bullying.

i strongly recommend some counselliing. i think the best thing you can do is not be mad at yourself for feeling how you are because you're gonna feel what you're gonna feel and then hopefully, counselling will help you to work with that.

best of luck to you!

exactly the same. Are you still at Uni if you are you could always go and see if the uni provides a mentor or coucellor?

I can't honestly say I've been bullied properly although I have been the result of constant whispering and staring.

It really was annoying back in my old school when girls were just being bitchy. If I answered a question wrong there would be s*******, if I tried to join a conversation I would get looked at strangely or be told rudely to go away. Plus I remember I dreaded music as this girl would constantly watch me and make comments with her friends and then just laugh in my face.

Kinda irritated me when I got facebook that she friend requested me and then decided to act all nice and stuff. Seriously.

Now I don't have anyone and she came to the same college as me. She's clearly changed but I haven't. ;/.. wish I could just show them what I could have been given the chance but no still feel the same, still feel afraid ;//.

anyway it's not pathetic.. don't know what else to say.. but good luck in getting confident

No I'm not in uni right now. Bad grades and loss of passion unfortunately stopped it form happening. I do know of a free counselling service in my area though that I could go to. If only I finally had the balls to, that is.

Thanks for the reply. So annoying having these awful people in the world to ruin things for others, isn't it? Urgh.

I'm a female and I'd always been bullied or isolated in one way or another through most of my childhood for all sorts of different things. I've actually gotten over most of the bullying now, but there's a particular type of bullying that happened 4-5 years ago. It was when I was 15/16 years old, a few people were picking on me for being rejected by a guy I liked and saying that it was pathetic of me to try because I was apparently too unattractive to date. They were always saying it behind my back though instead of to my face, but I still heard it and it still hurt. I just didn't understand why they were thinking like that and saying that. Why was it so wrong of me to want a relationship, yet it was perfectly fine for other people? Am I meant to be forever unhappy and alone then?

To make things a bit worse, the main ringleader of the bitching was a girl who actually used to be nice to me, but suddenly turned on after this small incident with this guy. And I still really don't even know what I did to her in the first place to make her start this. She herself was dating at the time (had been since early teens) and even claimed to be bisexual, so you'd think she'd be even less likely to be stupidly discriminative like this . And other people ganged in and joined in the bitching with her, including another particular guy who I (ashamedly) used to fancy in the past (before that time), and it made me realise that he really must have been joking about his flirting with me in the past.

The cherry on top is now that I'm 20 and left the school nearly 2 years ago and don't see these mean people anymore, but I still think about these things a lot and get very down about it. Especially because I still haven't been in a proper relationship before (even though I've always really wanted to be) and I hardly get chances to date, so it is quite upsetting not being able to prove those bullies wrong. It's like they were right or something, and I really can't stand it

Is it pathetic that I'm not totally over this? Has anyone experienced something similar?

It's not pathetic.

It sounds like you've had a pretty rough time. I'd reccomend making some guy friends, and asking some out on a date (realize that them saying no could be due to over a 100 other reasons than something to do with you specifically). Once you've gone out with someone a few times, you'll probably get over it quickly.

The bullies are certainly not right, they were just trying to get rid of their own insecurities by aiming them at you and thinking that picking on you somehow made them more popular. That means that they have no reason to have been right.

Also from a logical perspective, they're not right. People are don't fall into two categories (those who can date vs those who can not). That would never work, as people in the second category would just start dating with each other. Thus they are wrong.
(I don't believe people fall into 2 categories though, as attraction is in the eye of the beholder. That means there is no sliding scale in terms of attractiveness, and you'll appear much more attractive to some people than others).

It is probably best to live and forget though.

I'm quite struggling to make friends with guys. The places I work and volunteer, I don't really meet guys my age, and I don't go to uni or college either.

I did actually go on a date last year with a guy I'd met online, which was a little glimmer of hope in my life, but that ended up not working because of long distance . I'm just really fed up with all the constant disappointments.

That sucks. The standard answer is to join some societies/clubs, but if you're not part of uni I don't know if that's possible. I'd just start talking to randommers in a que, but you need both confidence and long ques for that.

That's probably my advice, to simply start making small talk with just about everyone you meet/sit next to on a bus/stand behind in a que (providing its long enough to have a few min of conversation). Maybe there are no nice guys around, and some people won't want to talk. But I still believe it is good practice (even from a general confidence building argument) and who knows, maybe you run into the same person 3 times, go do something together and she introduces you to het cute brother

I still feel the same about my secondary school bullies. I don't think I could look them in the eye - I tried to force my parents to home school me because I was convinced that I was such an unattractive horrible person I would never be able to escape it. The weird thing was that I was bullied for being a fat lesbian and, I quote, a 'frigid whore'. I am a) underweight b)straight, and well, the last one just shows the intelligence of the people I was up against.

Anyway - the way I got over it to an extent is to just better myself. I am now a lot prettier (I was an ugly duckling and did the whole emo thing) and trust myself a lot more. Try and improve yourself - even if there is nothing wrong with you actually, if you have a skill or something that you'd like to take part in, then do it. You'll feel like you're improving yourself. I really threw myself into drama and performing and it was truly my lifeline during that time and after. Plus I made some amazing friends. Just have something you can be proud of.

I would go to uni just for the social life, but I'm really crap at A Levels no matter how hard I try I just can't get the right grades and I end up feeling unpassionate about my subjects in the end. Plus the fees as well has to be worth it. I just wish there was a way of getting that same sort of experience and social life without going to uni?

I would go to uni just for the social life, but I'm really crap at A Levels no matter how hard I try I just can't get the right grades and I end up feeling unpassionate about my subjects in the end. Plus the fees as well has to be worth it. I just wish there was a way of getting that same sort of experience and social life without going to uni?

Ohh I can see where you are coming from. Those little experiences really do affect your self esteem in later life. I've never been 'bullied' but like many others, I've had a few personal insults and they don't just disappear. That's what's so infuriating, like you said, you are no less worthy of a boyfriend than anyone else, but those girls made you feel like that.

My sister used to be picked on for being overweight. She is now slim but she still has these issues with low self esteem. Like you, she has never had a boyfriend, but she is 22. And she is so pretty. But she just has these issues, and she finds it hard getting close to guys because the people who made her feel like **** at school were boys.

It's hard to give advice, but if you gain confidence in yourself, you'll learn to forget about them and forgive them.


And don't worry about not having a boyfriend at 20, a lot of relationships at 18-20 don't tend to last anyway (apart from a lucky few) and in your late 20s when people start to mature you'd find someone who is worthy.

No, it's not pathetic. Different people take longer to cope with things that may have affected them negatively. Often people bully because they feel insecure and wish to reassert their authority, if you like, in an obnoxious way. When I was teased and bullied a number of years ago, the girls had very little going for themselves. At the time people would say that they may be jealous, and reviewing them now it is amusing that they've made very little out of their lives (we're only 17/18, but they've failed to get to sixth form and are taking mediocre college courses ). Anyway, that's irrelevant. However, my point is that sometimes you can pick out positive things from a negative situation and build your character.

As for never having a boyfriend, who cares? I haven't had one either and it used to make me question my looks, though you should work to please you, rather than a bunch of bitches. People develop differently and if you've never had a boyfriend, all it suggests is that you have not met the right person. When you meet genuine people they won't care! If anything, if people rush off and do silly things with the opposite sex, this could lessen their self-worth. My point here is that do not rush into doing certain things because it's the norm.

Finally, you do not have anything to prove to these girls! It would have meant that they've won if you are clearly upset by it all. You will never see these girls again and just work on making you happy. Whether that's by success in university if you're there or work. Remember, revenge is best served by you being happy and not being affected by what they've done.

It is easier said than done, but I've more or less followed what I've written above and it has worked.

It think it's important to add here that being in a relationship shouldn't be something to aspire to as a means of making you feel better. I have been in relationships where I've felt good about myself and in relationships where I feel bad about myself. At the end of the day, it comes down to how you feel about you and wanting a boyfriend as a means of validating yourself won't necessarily help you in the long run. That said, though, go on dates etc for fun because there's no harm in that.

I think working on yourself will help more than anything because once YOU approve of you, whether someone else does (or not) won't matter so much and mentally, that's a very empowering place to be

Don't worry about it, these things happen.

Just get on with it, carry on being yourself, when you do that, it all goes away, the bullies aren't there now, as far as i'm concerned, none of them are my friends, any who decide to talk to me, fine, but they aren't getting any favours, if they're getting beaten up, i'm gonna just walk on. They're just a bunch of losers to me anyway, a couple are in prison anyway. Why should you care, do you think they care? Even if they did care, let them hold onto the guilt. Just be yourself and it gets better.

I went to uni for the social and it served me very well

How about college? It's a good way to meet a wider range of people from all walks of life. You could do A levels, BTECs, NVQs..wow! just loads of things. Also you might find that mixing with more mature students would be a good experience so many an evening course that would lead to a qualification would be good?

I'd say that at this stage, if you're not sure what to do just have a go at something that interests you whether that be having a go at a particular job or college course. You're still young so it's a good time to explore what might interest you.

True, you're all right. But I feel like having some decent dating experience in my teens and early twenties would have helped prepare me better for more meaningful relationships in my adult life. Now I feel like I'm going to get to mid twenties still frigid and inexperienced

This may be bad but I can find it hard to approve of myself if other people don't. It's like, what the point of living in this world yet you're always left unhappy and alone?