Yup, since leaving highschool I've had multiple occasions where people who bullied/harassed/or hurt me have tried talking to me as if they did nothing wrong. "No hard feelings", seems like a pretty rude thing to say when they were the one who hurt me.

I had a bully-scumbag, come into my workplace with a group of drunkards, it 8pm at ASDA and I didn’t recognise him until I was surrounded. 
I made a fist-bump motion after taking a moment to constitute my mask, and he punched my knuckles as hard as he could. But I’d finished freezing when I lifted my fist up.
So I engulfed his face in my hand and repelled him backwards, I strode over to my manager to even-out the numbers, and the five of them ran out of the store.

You’d think that a 21 yr old would’ve grow up since 14, but people don’t change, you should’ve charged that guy triple..!

Nope - that one is on me mate.  I am posting too much - not allowing my brain time to think.  I'll be cutting back my time in this place next week - I'm beginning to feel like a pest and busy body = I hate that feeling.

I am still pleased to see you back in any event - a distinctive name and lovely photo of you sitting on your grandpa's knee.  Lovely !

And yes - I am joking.

It was an appropriate response to my not well explained post. Not nonsensical at all.

I did wonder.......thank you for clarifying......and just ignore all my nonsense above......unless you do feel like learning a building trade.

Apologies for not explaining things adequately enough . 'Bricks and mortar' as in 

Hello Firemonkey.

Nice to see you back.  FYI - If you can manage a "bricks and mortar" college course, I can assure you that it would bolster your "fragile self confidence, esteem and worth".......because the building industry is crying out for people with those skills at the moment.....NT Builders would love you and make allowances for you as well, I suspect (from what I gather of the building trade these days.)

Brick laying and helping on building sites is the type of activity that you can do on your own terms too...ie when you feel able to work, you work....when you don't feel able, you don't work.  You don't need to be able to compete with younger more experienced people - anyone who can do a trade....is welcome and respected...from what I can gather.

I'm not preaching here....you also talk of "avoidant".....and that is something I know extremely intimately !

It is good that you are now facilitated to talk about your school experiences....they can be unsavoury for many, so its good for you to let those demons out of your mind at this stage - I would imagine?

Best wishes

Number.

I've talked online quite a lot about the bullying I was subjected to at boarding school,especially public school . I'd not discussed it much with any MH professional until recently. My care coordinator/depot nurse was quick to describe it as 'bullying related trauma' . Nearly 50 years on I still struggle with the effects re fragile self confidence,esteem, and worth . It's made me very avoidant re several attempts to persuade me to do a 'bricks and mortar' college course.

I can understand you wanting to use strong language about those guys but there’s one word in there that’s generally seem these days as a derogatory term for Down Syndrome and I appreciate you may not know this (it’s a word that has had other more ‘nerdy’/anoracky nuances too so maybe that’s more what was in your head?) so it’s just to ask that you maybe consider jettisoning that one from the old vocabulary bank.

I wish I could say the same. In relation to your general point. My sort-of bully was and remains much better looking than me - but then so does just about anyone!- though he did have the kind of smug face that betrayed his narcissism and I’d rather have my Halloween mask features than his entitled sneer any day. 

That's horrible. I've only ever been beaten up once. I was walking home from school aged about 15 and these boys from another school had singled me out as (I assume) a sectarian target. So, I'm about to turn the corner into my street and one of these chaps says to me 'Excuse me, have you got the time?' happy to oblige, I did the standard thing of lower my head, raise my wrist. And in that off-guard moment I was set upon, bundled across the street, and pummelled relentlessly. Thankfully the hedge I got thrown into was ludicrously overgrown (still is - I always give it a wee nod of thanks when passing)and it sort of absorbed me like Homer Simpson in that meme, shielding me from a worse battering. They scattered after about a minute. I never did mention it at home, not until many years later. It felt unseemly somehow. Not really sure why. You don't want an embarrassing fuss at that age especially I suppose.

i met a few.... its funny they are physically less attractive than me now and look weaker... they have all lost any physicality or muscle tone while i am more youthful and muscly than them now... it took me a year of work to surpass their achievements of 16 or so years of work... i guess i have the last laugh.

theres one particular nasty one who always dealt drugs, he got arrested for stabbing someone and got out in a year despite the horrific injuries he caused this other guy. i saw him a year back and he looks like a mong, he saw me and crossed the road hoping i didnt recognise him as he looks a disgrace and if i looked in the mirror and saw that id wear a bag over my head lol anyway hes in jail again now for dealing drugs.

the people that bullied me all prove themselves to be wrong, and the trash of society.

Not to me thankfully. I’m a lot stronger than I used to be and I don’t know if I’d be able to control my own actions. 

my school life was hell. Partly because I didn’t know anyone properly because I was moved schools. Also because I was the “weirdo”. I remember one day I was flung into the lockers, it happened so fast, then surrounded by 3 larger boys, I withdrew into a small gap between the lockers (natural instinct was to hide away from my violent father). I can remember seeing a crowd of people along the corridor and there must have been 100 other pupils just watching, no one helped and everyone left after it was over. I ran through the quiet corridors distraught with not anger and anxiety. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Afterwards, I consoled myself and returned to class. I met my friends later on a break only to be asked why I was there, I said hanging out with my friends, they said what friends we don’t see any friends here. I could’ve ran all the way home but decided to keep a stiff upper lip (a stupid term used by the British to say carried on regardless), I replied with ok whatever and walked off.

I take it that you made those names up to cover the real ones? Because if not, Billy Biggs sounds like he was himself the victim of something adjacent to nominative determinism - his hname sounds perfect for the role.

To be serious though, that's a really heartwarming tale and restores a little faith in humanity

A truly lovely story, thank you for sharing it

That’s really nice to read, I think if someone shows true remorse then we have to forgive them. It sounds as if you now friend feels guilty for what he did to you. My school was a boys school and a very violent place. I bumped into someone from school about a year ago, he was quite a decent person and quite like me, I had facts still stored about him so asked about his twin brother, his twin was one of the bullies. He told me that his brother had died about 4 years ago, he had drank himself to death, he blamed the culture at school. It wasn’t unusual for boys to come into school with bruises, the fathers would drink and then ‘take their belt off’  to the child, it was often I think because they were damaged and so it carried on to the next generation, I wonder if they thought, “ no one is ever going to hurt me again.” The hunted become the hunter.

At secondary school there was a Charlie Granger in my class. He and his friend Billy Biggs were horrible to me from the very first day to the last. I was called names, laughed at, books stolen, it was a bad time for me.

It would have been about five years ago, I was at the local garden centre with my sister, she was inside and I was sat in the car park as it was too busy for me to go in. I noticed a Ford Capri was parked on the other end of the car park, classic cars are my special interest and hobby, so I got out my phone and went to photograph it - as I was a man walked over to me, he said "She's a beauty isn't she?"

even though it had been years since I was at school I recognised his voice. I looked up and it was Charlie Granger. He looked a little older, hair was thinner, but it was him. He quickly recognised me and there was what I think was an awkward moment.

And then he surprised me. He apologised for how he used to treat me at school. He said he had difficult times at home growing up with a drunk and abusive father, he said he understood if I didn't forgive him but he wanted me to know it wasn't personal and he felt bad about it.

I stood silent. Trying to process everything. A woman walked over with a small girl, his wife and daughter. He introduced them and said I was an old school friend - "friend". He gave me his number, said we should keep in touch and off they went.

My old school bully actually texted me that night, rang me the next day and we've been in touch since then. I've met up with him and his wife. They even visited me when I was sectioned.

I forgave him and now he's my best friend.

This is a true story 

battybats said:

things got easier later on, especially once I'd left school

To be completely honest with you all, things didn’t get easier until I was well past technical college.  I Don’t allow it happen now, 

Not had this, but one former bully became slightly famous and on TV as a singer and actor, which was awkward, although she seems to have disappeared again now. Given that she accused me of bullying her, I now worry that she just misunderstood my autistic and socially anxious reserve for disdain and did genuinely thought I was really bullying her. I can beat myself up a lot if I go down this path.

Oh Askimet strikes again I think. 

Think I just had a post deleted from here? Sorry if any rules were broken.