[SHARE YOUR STORY] What's good to be BULLIED?

[Kura]

Well in my experience... nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even if I can use it as a point of view plot point in my writing it becomes comical or a 'that wouldn't happen in real life' or 'you're over exaggerating' argument. Or some self righteous 'well that doesn't happen over here cause I grew up in a better place/area/country than you' my experience is nothing but a joke or alternate reality to a lot of people.

It didn't make me stronger, it made me doubt myself, it made me think that I was a bad person, it made me think that something was wrong with me, and when I fought back against it, I was the one being labelled as a bully and constantly getting suspensions from school because god fucking forbid the dirty skin kid beat the shit out of a white boy and get away with it. (granted though the bullying from the other kids stop if you beat the shit out of them, the bullying from the adults did not)

Incorporating moments like this in my writing is not easy, it's fucking hard. It's really fucking hard to relive some of this shit, but I do it anyway cause I think it's better to be told, so anyone else in my situation won't feel as alone as I did. No because I think it'll make a good plot.

[Ringarune]

I guess kind of... I was super lonely when I was younger, not that I was bullied, just kind of an outcast, and I got super paranoid about what people thought of me and if what I said was relevant or not. I have a character in my story that has a similar experience, and honestly, I don't think i could write her if I hadn't gone through that.

[kkitty]

I loved getting bullied because I had some extreme anger issues as a child. It was this weird thing where anger increased my dopamine levels as well so I'd find any excuse to get angry because it felt really good and made me happy. I was a weird child. I bit this kid's neck and left about three bruises on another because I had the excuse that they bullied me. ...And probably a lot more that I forgot.

But then as I got older it started to really hurt. When middle school began though, I started caring less and less about it and nowadays it does kind of suck but I'm kind of used to it. I'm glad I got out with little to no psychological issues, and I finally slammed down on my anger issues around two years ago because it seriously damaged a good friendship I had.

[SpavVy]

Back in high school, I was bullied by this girl but we'll call her Cathy just to play it safe. She used to bully me and my boyfriend a lot as well as my other friends. She and I just did not get along, I'm sure if we were put in a room alone we'd more than likely try to kill each other.

One day she actually tried to poison my former step-sister's milk with eye-drops which can get you very sick or even be deadly depending on how much you put in. One of Cathy's friends fessed up to my step sister and said,
"Don't drink that Cathy did something to it!"

Later on that day, Cathy got into a lot of trouble with the police and was expelled from school. My boyfriend's mom worked at the school and so happened to be passing by when she witnessed Cathy bawling her eyes out while the principal was yelling at her for attempted murder.
I was livid when I found out and she's lucky that she got expelled because if I got to her it would be a lot worse.
In the end, karma finally bit her in the ass but I'd be happier if she were in jail, my step sister did end up getting a restraining order on her from what I've heard.

Honestly, I hate her so much that if I was given a gun with two bullets, and was stuck in a room with her, Osama Bin Laden and Hitler then I'd just end up shooting her twice.

The only good thing that came from being bullied is I eventually I stopped taking crap from people and karma caught up with all of them. The people who bullied me either became drug addicts, went to jail and one even became a registered sex offender.

[AlkseeyaKC]

I was in Special Education so I was a good target for everyone. I got called stupid, dumb, retarded and everything. I also talked a bit odd because I grew up with a hearing problem.
I remember kids teasing me with math I hadn't learned yet. I once asked a girl, why she like picking on me and all she said, "because it's fun."
It was really bad in middle school, I felt like killing my self. But I'm to chicken to hurt my self and I felt like maybe things would get better when I'm older. I'm still telling my self things will get better, They have a bit but, meh. life sucks.
In high school I tried to ignore them more and not let them get to me and it was slowly working.
I think what kept me going was chatting on line. No one online was making fun of me or teasing me. so I realized that people were putting me down for Special Ed., looks, or how I talked.

Was any of the bulling good? I think it helped shape me a bit. But really. I wish I could have learned confidence and how to be social with people better. I think my disconnect to talk with people has made it hard for me to get jobs. So over all I think it was a bad thing.

I really hope that bullies get punished in schools more.

[thesisterscomic]

It is sort of perverse, but it kept me alive. I went through some real dark Lifetime Original Movie got nothin' on me bullcrap once upon a time; and bullying was cast on top of that. It conditioned me to be a very patient, cold, and calculating individual because I was faced with constant situations in which I could not react. And while that is primarily negative, it kept me alive and taught me how to play the game of life. I had no illusions about how predatory society was at an early age. I could think logically rather than emotionally because emotions did not allow me to progress forward.

Obviously I wish it never happened, but it put a fire in me and it allowed me to survive. Especially one 9/11 happened and people got violent on top of the usual minutia of pain. It all stopped eventually, namely because I snapped and I had a situational advantage. Beat the ever loving fear of God into a few people, put a black mark on some others relationships, and went out of my way to put one of them in the cat bird seat. I ceased to be myself, and just acted as an apex predator among lessers. It wasn't a moral ideal solution, but it was retribution and it felt like the dirtiest of highs.

I think it helped that eventually they came to see I was not a half measure; that they had removed the rock bottom. If you've ever made a man cry because he's too scared to really hurt you while you're fighting; it's one of those moments. You assert this psychotic dominance because you came here to win or die; and you'll not accept anything but those two options---whereas they just came to inflict minor pain and walk away like they're big.

I don't think bullying made me stronger, I think it made me aware of my limits and my lackthereof. I'm very much an adult now; I have degrees. I also have a clean bill of mental health from a couple therapists, one of which who just said I'm "exceptionally but understandably jaded." I'm really happy I'm not like, a psychopath. That'd make all of this scarier.

It is a good thing to know what I am capable of. It prevents me from acting on it. That amount of hate requires effort, tactical thinking, a budget, and the willingness to put yourself on the line. It is pretty much never worth that. I only went into that prior because I was legit getting targeted for murder.

But, once I got all that done with and showed myself for what I'm capable of; High School stopped being this tribalist warzone and just became work. It wasn't worth trying to get a pound of flesh out of me, because I'd escalate and scorch the earth. I think it helped that I never projected this sort of violence, I was just me; until I was made not to be. It was just a cold comfort I could slip into if I was pushed to far.

I mean, I wouldn't wish the myriad of trauma I went through on anyone in the world; but it has certainly given me a wide deep pool of experiences to draw from.

[zoonland]

Yes, I've been bullied when I was in middle school. Some girls in my class started to show their ignorance with childish jokes and other pranks on a daily basis. Teachers saw what they did to me but didn't say anything.
I was pretty shy and that was the reason I was bullied, probably. This made me even shyer than I was, and I completely changed my way of interacting with other people. Changed my idea of "friendship", making my standards higher than they were before.
I had some kind of bullies (always girls) that try to bully me in high school for a while, but I manage to shut them up pretty quickly (but they weren't mean like the ones from middle school, just stupid asses with nothing else to do).

Were those experiences good to me? Of course not.
There's nothing good in bullying, or being bullied.
I am still shy like I was in middle school, I have zero self confidence and it's difficult for me to build healthy or long-lasting relationships (all kinds of relationships). I'm distrustful with every single person that tries to approach me, I spend a lot of time studying them before getting closer, and most of the time I don't even start to build relationships so I can't get hurt.
And I don't tolerate pranks on me (I don't tolerate pranks on other people, too).

In my comic there's a guy that is bullied by other guys, but he has also some friends that helps him to give them what they deserve (or at least they try ). But it's told in a very soft way, and almost completely unrelated to my experience.

[kazukitakamura126]

I remember going up I wasn't bullied per se but, I had difficulty socializing. Whenever, someone would talk to me it would be so hard to find the words to say to them almost as if I was afraid of them. This resulted me in having very few friends in elementary, and middle school. Though it was the worst in High school because no one reached out to me like they did in elementary and middle school. So those years were some of the loneliest years of my life.

I did have a small ray of hope though, one of my brother's friend told the girl I had a crush on in freshman year that I liked her. That next day my brother's friend gave my her number to give to me. She did call but, her parents were overprotective so we contacted through email. Then one day her parents decided to pull her out of the school and started home schooling her. We did email each other briefly after but out of the blue she stopped sending me messages.

This hit me pretty hard, I felt so lonely like I was abandoned. For the rest of the time I spent in high school I was alone with no friends. Fortunately, after this incident all the way to the present my family has supported me I was able to move forward.

Well, the good news though is me and the person I had a crush in high remet on Facebook in recently and started talking again. I believe I know her better now then the little time I talked in high school. I apologize this has nothing to do with bullying but, I felt I needed to share if you don't mind.

[demthorshie]

Oh yes, I was bullied in virtually every grade to be honest with you! It's not something I like to think about either and I believe that i've probably become the person that I am because of bullying.

I was primarily targeted in almost all of my schools because my family was dirt poor growing up. I developed a lot of social anxiety because I was almost always worried about when I would get bullied next. I think the one time in my life where the bullying stopped was during my sophomore year of highschool, I'd gotten in to a string of lunchtime and after school fights, all of which I had won and all of which I had been suspended over (despite the fact that I was only defending myself in all of the fights! xD) People were literally too afraid to pick fights with me after that.

I won't even go in to what I think should happen to all bullies worldwide, I won't even go there! xD

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

I was bullied practically the whole time at school since I was 9 years old until I finally got away from school when I graduated at 17.
If you ask why so many time? The bigger bullies were with me until I was 15 and my family never understood what I meant by bullying, they took the typical "just ignore them" which is the 100% of the time wrong and not the solution. for my 16 I went to other school but I had classmates who were also bullies but left the school, and in the last year I went to other were also were old ex-classmates who bullied me so yeah, I should have moved from the city cause it's a small one.
I was targeted by... a dude, he kinda had a crush on me (I know this cause my classmates told me when I used to have friends), and like I didn't accepted it (c'mon, we were 9 years old, I was still thinking in go back home and play with my dolls.) he started to bully me because of my physical stuff, I was very chubby so I was called fat and many other stuff, also because of my hair. But then it wasn't just that, this kid started to get jealous because I drew better than him, he always competed with me even with grades, so he started to make others also bother me and so it started to increase, started to create rumours which were never real and in the end I had around 50 people bullying me, sounds exaggerated no? But sadly it's true, my classmates were like 30 and the rest were from the other class but same grade, here in Chile is normal that a classroom has so many students. This kid started to bully me less with the pass of the years but the rest didn't stop, the female classmates bullied me even more and then everyone were just ignoring me or making like I didn't exist. If you ask if I ever did something, I tried to speak but eventually my teachers started to ignore it and even some of them joined cause if they say rumors must be true huh? I was always quiet, never got in trouble, my grades used to be good but eventually they went to hell, specially math cause the teacher humilliated me everytime he could whenever I didn't know how to solve a problem and this, yes, it increased the bullying. To the point my classmates every day started to tell me to die.
Then at 15 my mom finally understood or actuall had the time to care about it because we had problems with my sister since she got pregnant and the constant domestic violence, so yeah, practically I was completely in my own.
I never got punched, but it affected me a lot in my mind, also affected to my way of communication, I couldn't talk to anyone and I was always motionless. In the second school I went, it was some kind of "high school", in this I mean my classmates were of higher social status so they had more money, my mom put me there because she knew the director and i didn't even had to pay for the uniform. There were old ex-classmates in my class, and I got more bullied by girls than the boys, the boys picked on me because I like anime and I was chubby, and also because well... I've always been very poor.
Girls picked on me because I refused to wear make-up, listen to the same music as them, go to parties and during that time it was "IN" to go to the disco and make out with every guy you could find, I just found it gross, it's still IN and I still reject it. Later on they just ignored me. Funny thing though, one of the girls who bullied me once was caught by her boyfriend, and he didn't agree with the way she treated me. One day he broke with her, like instant Karma, of course, she hated me but eh, it wasn't my fault, I was just one of the reasons probably.
Then in my last school I just didn't care to make friends, I just gave up, but one day I snapped when I classmate was bothering me while I was trying to study so I threw to him my book and told him to shut up. Of course my action was wrong, but he was also wrong. Then he didn't bother me but he hated me forever LOL.

I would like to say it stopped there, but then in college, I had to live with my sister and her husband in other city so I could study, but her husband usally picked on me, he started bullying me everyday I was in home, sometimes it was because of my physical things, other were just sexual harrasment, so my choice was: leave the house or go to the police. A friend paid to me tickets to my hometown and I came back with my mother.

Okay sorry, I'm kinda tearing up so my writting sucks greatly xD But I wanted to write more or less what happened, and this is resumed version even.
In college happened something else but that has to do with something else so it's no point in mention it and, some people on internet but it's not worth to talk about it.
What's good of all of this? During 2015 I kinda got up from my severe depression from all of these and other things, and thinking about it, it's good it happened. Sure, it sucked, I suffered and it still hurts, but the best way we can learn about life is with bad things. And I learned whenever something bad happened was because of something, if I had a fight with someone for example to the point to not talk anymore it's because life tells you "you weren't meant, let that person go away, more people will come", sometimes life is hard but if everything was easy and peaceful, then we wouldn't learn anything.
When you're exposed earlier to the bad things, you understand better the world, at least is how I see it. You learn to enjoy the small things life gives to you. There are things I will never recover from, or maybe I will just need more time. But frankly, it's fine, and I don't hate any person who made me suffer, instead I feel pity for them, because they had to make fun of someone else just to feel better with himself/herself instead of look for ways to feel satisfied by your own merits.
Probably I'll never recover from some things, I've tried to kill myself 5 times, the last one was around 2 years ago and I almost succeed but my mother stopped me.
My point is, even though all of this hurt, it helped me to understand better how life goes, and if someone one day comes to me asking for help I won't refuse it, because I know what it feels to be abandoned and have none to talk or ask for help.

In writting it helps you a lot, all the experiences you've lived serves well when you want to describe a character with a sad past, I kinda want to do that with my Main protagonist in my comic, in a little different way, if I know something, I can describe it better. For example my gurl in my comic is shy, lonely, her parents are in a unknown place, and from my commenters I see they understand perfectly her attitude, for when I get to show more about the protagonist ('cause I show slowly about her life) people will be like "so she had to pass for this to reach to this" or something like that xD In my mind works tho. Also I'd like to show in the comic like if the protagonist was bullied but shown from "what I didn't" or "what I should have done instead of what I did".
I hope I didn't go too much offtopic, the title said share your story after all ( ; v ; ) hhhh

[kazukitakamura126]

I'm sorry all those people gave you so much grief. I'm glad your experiences made you a wiser person because life is too short to let negativity control you.

I personally never went through what you went through but, I know what it feels to be alone. It was mainly in High School I was so lonely I didn't even have a single friend there. This is a common problem my protagonists face is the fear of isolation. Zethero from "Seishin Patona" doesn't want to associate himself with the terrible Humans but, he feels like he has no place he belongs so he helps the Seishins. Sikaru from "In The Midst" pacifies her mother's alcoholism and does whatever she asks without question because she doesn't want her mother to abandon her.

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

Yeah, but took me too long to realize what all meant though, just now I'm aware of everything and how things works.
I try to put something like that with Hikari from Final Light, she tends to talk like "I-I could say s-something but....", it's shown in later episodes though, and she can talk perfectly fine to little kids (which is why she can talk to Telmo freely) and she keeps her distance from all the characters except with Angie and Telmo. Since she has no friends and was "abandoned" she doesn't know how to associate, but it will be shown clearly when she has to face to her future classmates xD

[Aspie_Gamer]

In my experience, if you have to constantly talk shit about anyone whom you deem inferior, then that probably means that A. you aren't better than said person and B. you also probably have skeletons in your closet. The few people who did try to fuck with me in school learned the hard way not to fuck with an autistic person real quick whether through a physical confrontation or by destroying them by looking up some personal shit about them on Facebook/Twitter and using it against them. (i.e bully the bully)

[elixiadragmire]

I was bullied when I was younger and it gives you scars, its not pretty. I became a 'entry level victim' to the popularity ladder. I was an easy target primarily because I was introverted, on the fringes of social circles (thru choice due to maturity levels and seeking isolation due to bullying) it only stopped when legal actions was threatened by the school, my head of year made a girl a prime example of repercussions I was very thankful and a little evilly smug (she cried ... a lot)

Due to this, I actually severed ties to all my friends when I started college. I didn't want my old life. I wanted the one I wanted and not one bound by previous experience, instead I could mould and create. i made an extroverted version of myself. this of course pissed off a few friends whom I've not spoken to since (but hearing what they said behind my back I didn't care at the time)

I hated the experience, would never wish it on anyone, my actions in response weren't great but I did meet my husband due to my strength to take control over my own life. But I wouldn't be proud I was bullied, or thank my bullies, or make excuses for them. Everyone needs to be responsible for their own actions, the good the bad and the ugly.

I can see most have a way of rationising bulling and bringing closure via acceptance. its a common defensive mechanism, but I would urge to be strong than that. never to praise evil actions or even appease them. be brave and continue to strive for truer actions

[SirHellsir]

My best friend was nicknamed dwarf for been short and another friend was nicknamed egg for been fat. A girl in class once told the teacher that she was low on pothassium and she got nicknamed pothassium. I don't really see that doing anything positive for the person. I was lucky I had this invisible presence and people just didn't notice I was there

[RewindLabs]

I used to be bullied but i didnt feel bad about it. Actually i didnt feel a thing. I saw myself as intellectually superior to them and alienated, so I embraced that.

As for the bullying, i just decuded to rationalize their need for bullying. I asked my friend to videotape me getting beaten up and passed it to the discipline master.

We all went to detention where I wrote out a 30 page long essay on why bullies exist and the discipline leader got them all to read it out loud during school the next day.

We all became friends after a while.

[kazukitakamura126]

Yeah, I agree negativity is hard to look past. However, its like what my high school art teacher said, "If something is getting to hard, look at it with fresh eyes"

I think applying personal experiences to a character makes that character feel more alive and relateable. Some of the best characters in anime and manga were probably based of their creators in some form.

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

It's difficult but there are lessons in there that shouldn't be ignored
I agree, it's not only my protagonist the one I put part of my experiences, my other characters who are also more important for the plot have things about myself, I was surprised when I found out my character Telmo had many things about myself and I didn't notice until I started to analyze him.
Some people don't seem to agree because inmediately they put it like "it's a self-insert, so is Mary/Gary Suee!!!one111!" even though the character has clear differences with the author. I think using real experiences makes the character more relatable and more human than creating too forced things. I will make a little spoiler but I won't mention the character, one of y character suffered in the past from domestic violence, yeah I did too but this will be different level since I know some people who suffered that one in the level of getting punched and such. I also try to use what I see or heard, my uncles are a good source from the times they lived and kids didn't have that many rights like nowadays so most of them were forced to work and other things.

[kazukitakamura126]

That somewhat seems to be the trend with many writers when they are first starting out, its either a self insert or an idealized version of themselves with almost no flaws. All the characters I make all have some part of me inside them, some more than others. Of course sometimes I do make characters who are not very similar to me but I always ask myself questions why are they this way so I know how to write their character.

[plunatastudio]

Sorry for the late response from me.. since i'm starting this gloomy conversations of you guys.. and i'm really really much appreciate for you guys to share this topic with your bad experience on bullying.. I know its hard to forget or erase bad experiences in our life.. but we have to fight it.. really fight it.. and it started when you started to face again you fear..

In my , experience when i've got that bullying i'm drawing bullying myself as the guy who beat the bullier... PUNCH, KICK, SMASH and KAPOWW things filled out as the action effect on my first action comic.. i know it looked bad (hey at least i'm bad just inside my head).. do the fight to solve the problem (but hey i was so naive when i was kid).. but honestly it was helped me.. help me so much to let this fear out my head (slowly)..

these IMAGE is not my draw in childhood but it seem like i felt when i was bullied..
LET your Imagination fight back on your fear guys... cause Once there is FEAR called BULLY it always there, out there.. and it still exist today.. since we let it exist.. unless we don't made it.. and recreate the BULL as new word called MOOChachos..