The Student Room Group

Share your experiences: Anti-Bullying Week 2014

Anti-Bullying Week 2014 runs from Monday 17th November.
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The first step to tackling bullying is to break down the boundaries around talking about it whether you have experience it personally or been an onlooker to someone else being bullied. By discussing our experiences and giving others help and advice we can work together as a community to stamp down on bullying!!!
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As someone who has been bullied myself I know it can be hard to talk about so please post as anonymous if you like. It seems to be that the majority of us ensure bullying at some point in our lives, whether this is at home, school, uni or work, so share your stories in this thread to start making a difference.

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My experiences were fairly mild, but I was often made fun of in school and it caused me to become quite shy. I was made fun of because I was interested in things no other kids were. In school PE I would often sit out if I thought there was even a remote chance of doing something wrong and embarrassing myself, because I was worried about being made fun of for that as well. How I got away with that for at least half of my primary school years I don't know.

In secondary school I had a similar problem, but in year 8 the uniform changed and we had to wear clip on ties as part of it. I had mine pulled off me numerous times and would end up running after them to get it back, so did many others.

In secondary school I told teachers a few times but it was always hard to enforce stuff. In year 9 it began to die down on its own.

I'm sure lots of people will have much worse stories than me though. For me it never really got physical.
I have no self confidence because of constant mild psychological bullying throughout my life.

Snide comments about my looks, people "back chatting" within earshot. People saying I'm weird, that I don't fit in (of course I dont). That I'm a tomboy, a gay girl (nothing against gays, but I don't like having my sexuality challenged like that if anyone relates). People leaving notes in my locker with random swear words on, and a couple of times images of me going about my daily business posted on Facebook, for goodness knows what reason.

What stopped it from bothering me more than it did is that they targeted quite a few of my friends as well, so at least I had someone to say "hey, this is really dumb" and try and laugh about it
Reply 3
I got bullied for three years because of my ears which was obviously annoying because I couldn't exactly change them unless i got them pinned back but now I can stand up for myself a bit more and I learnt to just make a joke out of them too, but it can still get upsetting at times.

Other than that I've had the usual sort of stuff, for being loud and annoying I'd usually get some sort of insult on my laugh or something, I don't usually think much of it..

Bullying is so horrible but it only makes you stronger :smile:
Original post by RFowler
My experiences were fairly mild, but I was often made fun of in school and it caused me to become quite shy. I was made fun of because I was interested in things no other kids were.


Same with me. I have a feeling this is why I got bullied - because I was seen as the nerd and never had any interest in things people my own age did.

There was someone who did harass me in year 11, I think it was. She kept accusing me of writing letters trying to split her and her boyfriend up. The teacher was useless. Apparently, her behaviour was fine because she has a **** home life.:rolleyes:

I have been bullied by others who were in my tutor group / classes. In the end for one of them, I was the one who was made to move. With the bullying in the tutor group, I moved tutor groups; but that wasn't bullying related.

The teachers did nothing. They did once claim they'd do something if I did turn up and go to school. They never did anything.:angry:

Bullying, etc. is never acceptable, imo.

I have also been cyber bullied. (I have mentioned this on another thread; but for those of you who haven't seen it)

I joined a disability website some years ago and a few years later, someone else joined. She claimed she has a severely disabled daughter and the rest of us are just faking it. She'd accuse me of lying at every given opportunity. She was even questioning whether my sight was really as bad as I claimed. I wouldn't show it to her; but I do have the paperwork to prove this...

Anyway, that website closed down and the majority went to another website set up by another user. She kept stalking / harassing me there and after having had enough, I ended up reporting her to one of the mods. The mod then publicly told her to either piss off or grow up. She left the forum.

She did (or does) post on another forum I sometimes go on and was just as bad there. She was even sad enough to get her mates to gang up on me.:rolleyes:

I do believe that a lot of the reason why I was bullied, is because I was an easy target and because I had undiagnosed Autism, which meant my social skills and other stuff is rather poo.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 5
I don't think ive ever been bullied but i do remember that back in primary school there was this one girl who would tell everyone that "fancied" my cousin brother and would tell everyone she met exactly that.. And whenever my work got read out or if i ever got a gold star for my work (this is year 3) she would go and tear it off :frown:(( She made me cry idk if she was a bully or im just weird but i met her again in secondary school (she came to my secondary school in year10) she ended up leaving at the end of the year and her mum took her to Egypt and got her married.
Hello I was bullied throughout school until the age of 15, I was a high achiever A* student In year 10 the bullying got unbearable I was called every name under the sun, sexually harassed, a group of girls arranged to attack me in a park a so called friend of mine arranged it, all the while I was being physically & emotionally abused at home by my mother. School did nothing they put me in the inclusion unit then told me to go outside on break & lunch where the bullies were waiting for me, it ended up with me trying to end my life, Luckily I was saved, had my stomach pumped spent 2 weeks in hospital then 6 months in a pysch ward I moved school, my gcse's were affected but now I'm doing really at the age of 21 it still haunts me what I went through but I've moved on with my life & on the whole much happier :smile:
My ex boyfriend and his gang of friends kept harassing me and ganging up on me only I couldn't do a thing as he's a school prefect and the teachers believe he would never do these bullying kinds of things as he's also on the anti bullying and mentoring student council.
Original post by Anonymous
My ex boyfriend and his gang of friends kept harassing me and ganging up on me only I couldn't do a thing as he's a school prefect and the teachers believe he would never do these bullying kinds of things as he's also on the anti bullying and mentoring student council.


That must have been so frustrating, sometimes it is hardest to deal with people bullying you when they can hide behind these positions. How do you deal with the situation in the end?
I was bullied when I moved to secondary school in year 7 - it was a girls boarding school, and the year group was very small for the first 2 years (about 20 people). I had come from a very small primary school (only 15 people in the year), so I was new to the whole clique thing, among others, and so they were quick to identify me as 'the outsider'. It's true that I was different to them - I didn't wear make-up, our clothes were different, I loved books and video games and other things considered 'loser-ish' by them, etc.

They isolated and excluded me, messed around with my stuff when I wasn't there, spread rumours that weren't true, talked down to me and ganged up on me in conversations, and I knew they talked about me behind my back too. The worst thing they did was when they set me up - one girl suddenly started acting friendly, and so, being naïve, I eventually started to open up to her, but I didn't know that she was feeding back everything to the others, who thought it was the funniest thing ever. I felt so humiliated when I found out.

The worst thing about all of it is that I couldn't get away from it until I went home at the weekend, and the whole year was in on it, so I had nobody to laugh it off with. I spent those two years with absolutely no friends.

I know it's fairly mild compared to other cases, and so I've never really talked to anyone about it, even my parents. I'm worried that if I do, they'll just say it wasn't 'proper' bullying, and that I was just too weak to deal with it.

And as for all the people who say 'bullying makes you stronger', I completely disagree. My experience took away the important chance for me to develop socially for those two years, and even though I'm nearly 18 now and have moved on, I still have huge trouble making friends, largely because of what happened. I retreated so far into my shell that I don't really know how to come out any more.

I am not proud or thankful for the experience in any way.
Haaa where to start :/

When I started secondary school I fell in with a crowd of girls and we were pretty good friends for a couple years until the end of Year 8 when one of them took me aside to tell me that we weren't friends and that I was a loser. From then on, her and a few other girls took every opportunity to mock me and take the piss both at school and online (I found my old social networking profiles recently and seeing the messages I was sent really made me sad that someone could be so nasty). I still had friends in that group until one day they organised a shopping trip with the explicit purpose of ditching me in the middle of it and turning off all their phones. After that they spread rumours about me through the whole school and made it so if anyone tried to say something good, they'd be cut off for a week or so. I ended up leaving that school a few weeks later and even now I find it difficult to remember anything from that year but the basic story of my bullying because it was so painful.

At my next school it was super cliquey and all the girls were really snobby and up themselves. They were shallow and treated anyone different as lower than them. They used my highly autistic friend (the only friend I had there) for her money and then tried to avoid spending time with her in any other situations. They bitched about everyone including their friends. They were mean about me to my face and made fun of me for my hobbies, excluded me from anything and everything and I couldn't do anything because the teachers were in on it too. They didn't let the class know about my noticeable disability and didn't allow for exam preparations to be made for it, they blamed it on me when I failed my mocks due to them. The head teacher singled me out to shout at me in his office when there was a whole class of people at fault and called me a wimp and a loser. The majority of the staff were willing to let things go under the radar because it was just easier to have one clique of girls who could be paraded around in sports teams and to inspectors. It was easier to blame it all on the people who stood up for the corruption that occurred within their school. So in that case I was bullied both by pupils and to an extent teachers. I ended up missing about a month or two worth of school and leaving after Year 10. I was only able to take 8 GCSEs when I was set for at least 12 and I did it all in a one year course, meaning that mine were much lower than expected.

In the end I think it has made my personality stronger because I realised that they were in the wrong and that I didn't have to conform my tastes or appearances to their standards. However, when **** hits the fan, I am still sensitive to the things they did and if my situation starts to feel like it's heading in a similar direction I get really upset still.
I am however, by no means thankful, and I do believe that even without the bullying I would have properly settled down and 'found myself' in the end.
I'll keep it brief and only mention one thing, I know no-one reads TSR replies if they end up looking like a Shakespearean play.

Throughout primary school I was bullied for being a troublemaker. I was unfairly picked on by teachers for things I didn't do, and by students and their parents who firmly believed me to have ADHD, autism, or similar issues due to my constant rule breaking. The parents often remarked to mine how they thought I was idiotic, and after 11+ where I was the only boy to pass in my class, and received the highest score in my class by quite a large margin, they thought my parents were lying when they were told what I received when their own precious little darlings had failed. It was especially bad when teachers singled me out for years, leading me to drop out of primary school for the second half of year 6, a time I was supposed to spend preparing for secondary school (I actually just wasted it playing Runescape for unhealthy periods).
Lots of stories

When I was in year 8 someone fly kicked my head into a brick wall while I was fighting 4 other people. That was scary.
Original post by Mrcuddles
Lots of stories

When I was in year 8 someone fly kicked my head into a brick wall while I was fighting 4 other people. That was scary.


Are you Captain America or something? How did you manage that?
I didn't manage anything, I got my head smashed into a wall.

Even if the guy hadn't kicked me I would have been beaten into the ground anyway.
Original post by Mrcuddles
I didn't manage anything, I got my head smashed into a wall.

Even if the guy hadn't kicked me I would have been beaten into the ground anyway.


Did you get into an argument or was it just a pack of wild knobheads picking on you randomly?
Bullying that went on for ages, it was my fault for being weak and an easy target.
Original post by Mrcuddles
Bullying that went on for ages, it was my fault for being weak and an easy target.


It wasn't your fault. You were the victim.
Original post by Nicholas Nelson
It wasn't your fault. You were the victim.


And they were the ones who chose to act the way they did.
Original post by OU Student
And they were the ones who chose to act the way they did.


Who the victim?

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