Published on 12, July, 2020
Were any of you bullied as children/teenagers? I was subjected to mild mocking/teasing at prep school, but that was nothing like the severe verbal bullying I was subjected to at public school. I was introverted,shy,badly coordinated and socially awkward/naive. In other . words, not like the usual brash and extremely self confident people that went there. Nearly 50 years later and I still struggle with the psychological effects of it. I've never been able to pursue further education in a bricks and mortar setting for fear of being bullied and mocked My 1st psych admission was at the start of my last term at public school, the A level term.Hence no A levels and no degree.
My self belief and sense of self worth is gossamer thin. Ditto my self confidence. If I do well at something my mind says 'everyone can'. If I do badly at something then I'm stupid.
I was bullied through every stage of school from pre-school.
Like yourself, I didn't pursue further education at the time - my thinking was, I survived the "mandatory" school period, and I wasn't going to subject myself to sixth form/college/university and endure the same.
I have always been shy/introverted, and I'm no good at making friends. During school years I have had a total of 2 proper friends across the entirety of my school time with no overlap, and things have not really improved socially speaking from then.
I have studied with the Open University and I can recommend that - they're geared toward people who have no further education experience and/or returning to education at a later stage in life
Despite your horrific experience which matches my own in many respects, to me a far more “positive” outcome should have been that when the bullying was discovered, the bullies and ringleaders should have been found by the teaching staff and the police should have been called in - the parents should have been arrested and charged with bullying as it’s often the kinds of things they say unchallenged and the corrupt attitudes that they hold that leads to bullying, where the bullying children soak up this bullying mindset - the parents should have done jail time and the child bullies should have been sent to a residential child psychology facility to be cured of their bullying behaviours while the targets of these bullies should have been given the support that they need in school to help them recover from such a horrific experience at the hands of bullies - until our supposedly civilised society finally accepts and realises that bullying is a serious criminal matter, with serious long term effects and consequences for targets of bullying, until we drop the victim blaming and victim shaming, targets of bullying will always be seen as victims who need to be silenced and punished for being bullied and the bullies and thier parents themselves face no consequences, the cancer of bullying in our society will continue to destroy the lives, mental health and future prospects of so many innocent people
I'm the same when it comes to making friends. A major factor in developing a SMI for me was not wanting to let my parents down, whilst being fully aware I'd struggle to cope with the non academic side of university life.The 20 or so months of acute anxiety and worry had a long and devastating effect on me.