29th April: Bullying - have you ever been a bully or been bullied?

On this week's Surgery we're talking about bullying. In real life or online: have you ever been a victim of bullying? Or have you been a bully? If you've got any problems, questions, comments or stories that you want to share on bullying, put them here, and we'll try to mention it on Wednesday night's show.

If you want to be involved in the show, send us a message and we'll get back to you!

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Sigh.

Yes, they were called teachers.

There's been a thread or two already detailing the insane amount of physical, mental and sexual abuse that's common in seemingly every school, primary and secondary. Hundreds of individuals in a matter of hours sharing their encounters. I myself have seen or experienced instances of all the above in every school and college I went to in Oxfordshire and West Sussex.

Now to lighten things up, next on Radio 1 we have Shake It Off by Taylor Swift.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

Deyesy

Oh God. I've suffered from all 3 main types of bullying; physical, emotional and verbal. Suffered bullying at university - at the university I'm at; said I had about my mental health and I've experienced cyber bullying too. You name it, I'll have experienced at some point or another.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

LaughingKitsune

Yep, all three main types of bullying, all throughout primary school, secondary school and college.

I've had vicious rumours, death threats, physical attacks, even sexual abuse.

Reply 5

whatisthis47

It never ends. The earliest memory I have of it is my aunt telling me "you must be warmer than me and my son because you're fatter than us." I must have been about 6 back then. When I was 10 I was told that I was "too fat" to hang around with my friends so I eventually left them for new friends. Teachers didn't do anything about it because how could they be angry at their golden students? In fact, our class teacher was on their side and even she made me cry at the peak of the bullying! Random people, family, friends, etc. didn't stop with the comments over the years. At 16 I finally broke and developed an eating disorder (700 calories a day, huge fear of refined carbs and sugars) and exercise addiction. I tore or strained or did something really bad to the muscles of both my calves yet still I forced myself through about 30-60 minutes of HIIT every single day along with aerobics which we did in PE twice a week for my GCSEs. I didn't think twice about the pain. I just wanted to be thin so that all the comments would stop. It was almost a high I felt when I was exercising whilst being in so much pain. Christ. As I'm writing this I'm realising that that period might have been my first ever experience of a manic episode. I'm bipolar. Events in my life have been like a set of falling dominoes, and that was a major one.

Anyway, Between 16 and 18 I lost a lot of weight. I'm 20 now, currently the smallest I've ever been (127lbs, I'm 5'1) and still I struggle. I blame my brother-in-law. I know it's not fun to play the blame game and I'm an adult now so I should take responsibility and seek help and blah blah blah, but, there's no way in hell I'm taking responsibility for something I actively tried to stop. The man is in his 30s, he should know his boundaries. He came into my family's life when I was 16 and at the peak of my eating disorder. He managed to manipulate everyone into thinking that he's doing me a favour and making me a "stronger person" (his words!) when he calls me fat. He got my sister (his wife) on board and to this day, even though he's stopped the weight comments, her nickname for me is now "fatty". Every time I hear it or think about it I feel this mind burning rage. I actually feel my brain burning up like it's literally on fire as I'm writing this. She genuinely believes she's doing me a favour and she's convinced herself that I don't care about my weight anymore because I don't talk back when I get called fat. The reason I don't talk back is because every time I used to I would get told off for being "too sensitive" (everyone's words). Master manipulator (brother-in-law) has her eating out of his hands. She has no idea that I'm at the lowest I've ever been. Just yesterday I had to force myself to eat a total of 600 calories in the day. I just wish she'd shut up. She's the one who used to fight my bullies for me, never in my life did I expect her to become one! I jumped from a size 16 to a size 8 and yet I'm still struggling.

Excuse me while I go stick my brain in a freezer. :rant:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 6

Maradiah

127lbs isn't bad for someone of 5"1" tbh. :erm:

You could be anorexic.

Reply 7

Maradiah

Original post by BBC Radio 1

Is this really BBC Radio One? :yikes:

Could you holla my name on your show? :flutter:

I'd really appreciate the favour. :hippie:

Reply 8

Maradiah

There There now everything is going to be ok. :hugs:

Here have a cookie. :cookie:

Reply 9

Captain Jack

Original post by Deyesy

Oh dear Deyesy :frown:

if you don't mind me asking, what types of bullying have you faced at university?

I wonder if bullying in uni is a more common occupancy than people realise, it's not talked about often. People mainly talk about bullying in schools, then there were campaigns around workplace bullying. It feels like uni might be an ignored area.

Reply 10

Captain Jack

Original post by LaughingKitsune

Yep, all three main types of bullying, all throughout primary school, secondary school and college.

I've had vicious rumours, death threats, physical attacks, even sexual abuse.

Oh my word. This thread is actually quite hard to read :frown:

how, who and why are questions that come to mind for you LaughingKitsune. Are things ok now?

Reply 11

CherryCherryBoomBoom

I've suffered emotional and verbal bullying in secondary school. I think it's what triggered my depression and made it hard for me to concentrate on my work, and I ended up with bad A Levels and not going to uni at 18 when I wanted. I don't 100% blame the bullying for my failures, as A Levels are just difficult anyway, but I think I could have done better in my studies if I'd been in an environment that was a lot less negative, and I feel a bit resentful of my time at school because of it.

I'm still depressed now at 23 and take anti-depressants, but I'm slowly trying to turn things around. I'm in college doing fairly well on my HND with potentially another chance to enter uni after this. I also have a wonderful supportive boyfriend who can see all the good in me that those bullies couldn't, and disproves much of what they said about how I was too unattractive for anyone.

Reply 12

Kvothe the Arcane

A bit here and there.

I suppose it's how you define bullying.

I've had the usual taunts and comments at primary school about my big forehead, lack of parents and femininity. But nothing particularly hurtful. I don't think anyone meant badly by it.
Someone in Secondary school used to squeeze and twist my nipples (something I could have countered easily but didn't untill I lost my temper one day as my faith based morals told me I should be a pacifist).

In college, some people cyber bullied me about my sexuality while I was in the closet. The thing is, I'm not even sure if they knew. But I was closeted so I was quite fearful at the time.

But beyond any experiences I've had (which were few and petty compared to others), what hurt the most was the fact that I didn't get on with others. I wasn't invited to things, people didn't want to be around me. On one occasion, I was included in a holiday group chat on fb and then asked to leave as it turned out they only added me as they thought it'd be funny. Stuff like that kept happening. And I suppose I don't have a great sense of humour so didn't find stuff like that particularly funny. But again, not bullying.

Reply 13

O.Ozz

All i would say is bullying ruined my life.

Now i can function in the day and it is getting worse everyday

My parents bullies me everyday because i have no friends

I want to self-destruct, i dont care if i end up getting sectioned

Reply 14

LaughingKitsune

Original post by Captain Jack

Oh my word. This thread is actually quite hard to read :frown:

how, who and why are questions that come to mind for you LaughingKitsune. Are things ok now?

It basically all started when I was pushed into a swimming pool, bearing in mind I couldn't swim, and nearly drowned.

Then I got acne, which prompted everyone to call me a transsexual (yeah, I don't know either).

I'd had death threats from bullies in secondary school, and following that, three attacks in the space of two years.

I was also sexually harassed by a group of guys a couple of years older than me, and even the teacher thought I was a clown because of it.

The worst rumours were that I'd killed someone's dad, had anal sex with a random lad and got pregnant with some other lad's kid.

I was also psychologically bullied at sixth form because all of my would-have-been friends became friends with my bullies.

In short, it was always the popular people at school. Being bitchy meant you were popular, honestly. I was simply an easy target.

Things are much better now, though. I no longer have anything to do with anyone from my old schools or sixth form. I still struggle with people and have developed social anxiety as a result.

Reply 15

Deyesy

Original post by Captain Jack

Oh dear Deyesy :frown:

It was more verbal bullying than anything else; I got called 'a psycho' by him and it got to the point where the individual basically said if my halls didn't have security that he'd of beaten me up. It's definitely not talked about at all and until the person who was in charge of everyone's welfare at my halls pointed out it was bullying, I hadn't thought it was.

Reply 16

samba

Original post by Deyesy

My nickname was 'psycho' all the way through high school due to my attitude on the football field and my flooring of a year 13 when he tried to 'sprog bash' me in year 7.

I didn't take it as bullying at all tbh; if anything, my reputation meant that bullies steered well clear.

I'm not sure what the guy did at your uni was really 'bullying' either; to class it as so just denigrates real bullying.