Do schools REALLY do anything about bullying?

No. Hence why kids need to learn how to fight. Guaranteed end to bullying in less than 10 seconds

Or do what I did. Man up and ignore it

Posted from TSR Mobile

I've just recently joined up, so I have no idea where to post this thread. Feel free to move accordingly!

I'd like to start by telling my story, but you can just skim through this and answer the question, if you're too lazy to read it. I just want to highlight my own VERY EXTREME experiences with school/bullying, and I'd be happy to hear other people's too.

I come from a privileged background, so my school was a private boarding school, though I was a day student (not sure if this could have impacted my experience.) I went to this school from nursery until around year 7-8 (when the bullying got literally TOO much, see below.)

I never really had any friends there, even when I was younger. I didn't really want friends either. I was happy being alone and I know it sounds strange, but from an early age I was really interested in my studies, especially maths and science, so I tended to spend more of my time studying. People tended to just ignore or avoid me, and I liked it that way...But that didn't last long.

A boy started associating with me, and although I didn't really want friends, it felt good to actually have one. For once, I didn't feel so abnormal. I felt like I had someone to talk to. Though we didn't hang out a lot outside of school (he lived there, I didn't), I confided in him quite a lot and actually saw him as a friend.

But then for some reason, he turned against me. I have no idea why he chose me. One day, I just walked into school, and the whole school literally started laughing and calling me names. He even went as far as to tell them personal things about me that I'd trusted him with (how insecure I was about my skin - I had mild acne, how I loved my studies, how I lived in an area which wasn't as wealthy as where they'd come from - though still wealthy, etc.) He also started spreading rumors about me. This only gave everyone more fuel to bully me with.

At first, I didn't say anything to anyone, as I assumed it would blow over. It didn't. It just kept getting worse. I couldn't walk down the corridor without someone making a comment or tripping or shoving me. They called me every name under the sun, and this obviously ran into the classroom. Every time I'd get called on to answer a question they'd laugh and mutter stuff. Teachers obviously must have taken note of it by this point, or they'd be too dense to be teachers. All they did was discipline them briefly in class.

Everything I did was criticised. I had social networking sites at the time and the bullying extended to this. Every time I uploaded a picture one of them would comment saying something like "Lol Charlie thinks he's so good-looking." When I liked people's things - "Lol Charlie thinks he's actually got friends." When I posted things - "Lol Charlie thinks he's so hilarious." I was probably around 12-13 at this time. It got so bad that I had to disable wallposts and comments.

One day, I just couldn't take it anymore, and I came home crying. So I was forced to tell my mother everything. Obviously she visited the school, and they said they'd take care of it, that it wasn't tolerated, blah, blah, blah. But I couldn't even name names because it was LITERALLY the whole school. I told them about the guy who'd pretended to be my friend. He got punished for a week, made to apologise to me, but it never stopped.

My brother saw their posts on my account and threatened physical violence against them. It never stopped. They retaliated by threatening me. I just lied to my brother and pretended it'd stopped because I got a threat everyday, and they never followed through with it. It just became the normal.

I started self-harming (but that's a different story.) One of them must have saw in P.E. or something because the next story was "Charlie's slitting his wrists for attention." Again, I cried at home, and again my mother came to the school. She actually came to the school around three times, but the same process as above always happened.

After one of the times, they threatened me again. All of my texts were threats, so I didn't believe it. I went to the bus stop that night and four of them jumped me. I was in the hospital for months. My mother filed a lawsuit (she's an attorney) against them. The headteacher got fired. Three of them got sentenced, but since there were no witnesses it was hard to build a concrete case (and they were minors.) The doctors saw the marks on my arms and assumed I was going to kill myself, so did my family. I wasn't. I got involuntarily confined to a mental hospital for adolescents.

Is this seriously how bad it has to be for schools to take notice?!

I lost around a year of my life in hospitals alone.

However, my life did get better after this incident.

I went to a new school and actually made friends. Then I went to college and my life picked up even more. I met my best friend and my girlfriend last year Even though my brother had actually told people to be my friend, I made my own friends. (That made me feel awful.)

I changed myself completely. People now describe me as "confident", "popular", "attractive", etc. But I feel horrible whenever someone calls me any of these things because I'm not...I fake everything. I fake confidence. I just talk to anyone and everyone (I literally never shut up), and for some reason people take this as confidence. I'm "popular" because of my brother and because I'm "like him" in that I talk to everyone and anyone.

I'm not attractive. I've only ever told the people closest to me this, but I still have horrible skin and freckles. I actually wear foundation and concealer...Not even joking. I also really, really straighten my hair. It takes me three hours to get ready. Only my girlfriend and my brother and my now closest friends have seen my natural, horrible skin and hair. I cover up my arms at all times with bands and bracelets. I have a gym in my house that I use constantly. Now I say everything bluntly...Like I don't even care if I offend people. I just tell the truth, which is why everyone seems to for some reason like me and my posts. People also hate me because of this, but not as much as before. I actually just laugh about these people hating me now when I would've cried before last year.

So, yeah, this whole thing still haunts me, even to the point where I can't go out in my city because I'm frightened I'll see one of them. I actually saw one of them in my college (I purposefully went to a non-private college, so I wouldn't see them), and I started having a panic attack. I told my girlfriend and friend everything because they kept asking why I wouldn't go out. They've been really supportive, and with them I do go out, but I still get panicky.

We actually had a conversation about bullying. My girlfriend said she was bullied, called ugly, etc, by a group of guys. Her parents went to the school, too, and nothing was done about it. Luckily they grew out of their bullying. My other friend was bullied for being gay throughout secondary school, and again nothing was done about it.

Anyway, I guess you could say I now have a good life? But my point is that this thing has totally scarred me and I'll have to live with it forever The whole thing could have been resolved if the school had just done something before it'd escalated.

Tl;dr - I was bullied at a private school to the point where I was beaten up and hospitalised. My mother had gone to the school three times and nothing was done. Now I have a good life (?) with friends and a girlfriend, but I'll never recover from this. My confidence has been shattered beyond repair.

So...As the title states, do schools really do anything about bullying? Do they seriously only act in extreme cases like mine? Have you been bullied? If so, did your school do a good job in tackling it?

It just isn't as simple as that when you're a kid though. It can be very hard to ignore.