Who else was bullied in high school?

There's a couple at the bottom of the page. I only had it for a few months when I got to secondary school.

I'm 56 and I don't regard any part so far really as that good. It has all been a struggle mostly on my own. I don't want to repeat any of it.

For the first couple of years of school, I was non verbal and unable to understand speech.  The teaches didn't understand. 

I wonder if there's any of us who weren't bullied?

I remember adults telling me that school days were the best days of your life! I thought if that were true then I wasnt' sure how much life I wanted if it was going to get worse.

I'm sorry. How awful to be bullied but other children as well as teachers, some people can be horrible.

I was bullied from the start of school to the end. I looked different and thanks to speech difficulty I also sounded different, and I was slower in class–Made me a prime target for any bully and the other children never tired of bullying me. I told the teachers numerous times but they either didn’t believe me or more likely they couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.

The sad thing is I enjoyed learning and still do but the school environment was horrible. Definitely one of the worst times of my life, one I would never repeat.

Are you living in Germany? Are you German? Sorry for the question. I’m living in Germany six years already. 
I’m in my late thirties, but I remember very long time, as adult too, I cried in situations when it was too much going on. For example at work if it’s too much changing, new colleagues, new procedures, office rearranged etc. I had this problem even recently. I hide in the toilet and cry there to not let anyone see me like this. I always thought I’m stupid, crying for no reason, inferior to others, who are simply doing well and all this does not affect them. Only since the suspicion of me being autistic and comparing my symptoms and problems to the ICD11 criteria it suddenly start making sense. I’m not diagnosed either and I’m not sure if it ever happens. 

Bullied all the way through school and not just by classmates but also violent teachers.

Like most people on here (unfortunately) I too got bullied. It started during elementary school (there were a few incidents before that but I tended to not recognise bullying immediately so that was fine). There were mean comments about my crying (I had meltdowns even though nobody recognised them as such) and awkwardness, comments about everything and even some teachers that didn‘t have anything better to do than to make fun of how I just couldn‘t cope sometimes. There was an incident at my after-school-facility when two boys were bothering me constantly. I told on them (well… extreme sense of justice I guess) but nobody interfered. It got worse and worse up to the point of physical bullying. It ended when the situation escalated after I hit a wooden plank with the back of my head (I was okay, but out for a few seconds… Not worse enough for the people responsible to actually get me to a doctor). They never informed my parents (probably embarrassed) and turns out, I never told my parents either. Not because I felt shame or fear but because I wasn‘t mentally effected by that. They never had a reason to bully me because they didn‘t even know about my constant meltdowns or anything. They were just being idiots and somehow I felt bad for them being stupid instead of sympathy for myself.

"Highschool“ (or for me a German "Gymnasium“ I‘m currently graduating from) was mostly psychological bullying. It started when I had the first meltdowns in school triggered mainly by the big transition. I excelled academically just like before, but I struggled to keep up socially and mentally. People started spreading rumours and excluding me. It was worse than ever before because know I felt like I deserved it. For being weird, different, a crybaby… just for being myself essentially. The teachers didn‘t know what to do and of course nobody considered autism because… well, I‘m a girl, I speak (technically I didn‘t speak most of the time during band practice and first aid club until about 10th grade but hey…), I do well in school and extracurricular activities… (just a disclaimer: I‘m still not diagnosed so I might as well not be autistic, but people should‘ve at least considered it before considering sending me to another school despite excellent marks. Fortunately that didn‘t happen.)

With time I learned to care less, figuring I couldn‘t do anything about it. I still cried from time to time when people discussed birthday parties in front of me while I was the only one who didn‘t get invited or I came to know that someone talked *** about me, but I learned to manage that. 
I‘d love to say, it made me stronger, but that’d be a lie. Bullying is awful and does not have a positive spin to it.

Too much info? Sorry… It‘s something I was thinking about a lot recently.

Yup. Mostly psychological bullying, ridicule and exclusion from groups etc. All the way through primary school and into the first half of secondary.

It's meant that I've never felt like I truly belonged anywhere and I'm always expecting to be excluded wherever I go. I seek validation and connection constantly, but at the first sign of anything I perceive as negative or not 100% positive and accepting I will bail out to protect myself, often cutting people off, blocking them etc. 

I'm currently in therapy and working through this. A lot of it also comes from my mother (due to her upbringing and never knowing that she was probably AuDHD) but very much is due to school.

It's sad to know that this is still going on and feral kids are still allowed to prey on other kids who are different or don't fit the neurotypical mould. Schools don't tackle bullying, and when they're called out on it they list a load of beaurocratic BS things that they've 'put in place' or are 'following up' that means absolutely nothing to the child unable to sleep at night or the parents sick with worry. 

I did well in the same subjects. It was uncool. Fortunately I chose to be uncool rather than do less well. I am not sure where it came from, I think it was my parents and a desire to get praise from teachers, i.e people pleasing. I didn't do any of it for myself. I am not sure why seeking approval from people in authority mattered.

Were you pushed by your parents?

Perhaps for girls peer pressure and the psychological games they play means fitting in exerts more influence.

I so feel this! My whole life I've fallen into that category of thinking people were my friends just for them to turn around down the line and say they want nothing to do with me. There was always a reason I didn't know about: an accidentally rude comment, an embarrassing behavior, etc. It took me a long time to realize I wasn't an unlovable person--I was autistic and needed social accomidations for my lovely personality to shine! I still feel very insecure in my friendships because I don't have the social skills to tell if people like me, want to be my friend, or are bored or offended. It can be exhausting sometimes never really feeling safe. Luckily I've found a neurodiverse tribe who I trust, at least partially. It's been a journey but I'm getting there!

I was bullied in high school, mostly because of my strong academic performance in certain subjects. My classmates found my abilities in language, mathematics and physics unusual, and as a result they made my life difficult.

In order to escape, I felt I had no choice but to downplay my abilities. My grades dropped, and my behavior worsened - while trying to fit in I started spending time with the popular students, many of whom didn’t have the best influence.

This experience led to a significant loss of potential which had a lasting impact on my future. If only there had been proper school counseling back then, things might have turned out differently. I’d like to believe that the situation in schools has now changed for the better.

Once I was laughed at by a teacher who said, that I grew up in communism era, or in a cave, because I didn’t know some very popular band. I don’t remember now, which one was that. But feeling a pressure to get interested in everything around me caused me a lot of anxiety. I always have one my favorite thing and everything around does not exist for me. Of course my peers joined that teacher in laughing at me, it was so funny for them all. For me it was the message like always: “there is something wrong with you”

Lotus said:

one lesson a teacher threw a blackboard rubber at the head of a pupil who was misbehaving

I was pulled out of class by my hair by a teacher in juniors.

Secondary school was absolute hell, there was very little positives for me. I for the most part I managed to stay out of the worst of it by a combination of luck, chameleon abilities and being fairly ok at sports. Unfortunately my luck ran out in the final year of school when I was bullied by a gang of boys. It’s something I am still ashamed of really and very rarely speak or think about it. 
Masking has been a massive thing for me, so much so now I am aware of things I am very lost. Spending a lot of time rebuilding who I really am., now being in my 50s. I am still occasionally thinking about how things could have been different if I would have known….

Infant school was okay, Primary school was when the bullying started. Secondary school was complete hell, I learned that whatever answer I gave in a situation, it was the wrong one.
PE was the worst parts of a week. I was the child who was always picked last for team sports. Turns out my coordination is poor to say the least. The last year of school I was actually excused PE.

The library was the best place to hide at lunchtime. I don’t hate the bullies anymore, some of them didn’t have very good home lives.  Years later one ended up taking his own life, another drank himself to death and another is well on his way. Bullies hunt in packs because they are themselves often very insecure people. I’ve processed most of school life and won’t let it define me anymore.

Just spotted this on twitter https://x.com/NoNonsenseND/status/1928506836459860178?t=utmd3t20rQXjd1GFr3FFQg&s=19

It seems appropriate for this thread.

I was a bit of a bully magnet as a child. Not just at school, anywhere I went that had other children really. 

I stuck out. My hair was different, I wasn't girly, I dressed differently, my interests were often different, I was obsessive about them, the list goes on. The funny thing is I would say I did mask in school so they didn't even see the true me really. But I wasn't someone that masked to the extent of pretending to like the clothes and make up etc that other girls liked so it was pretty rubbish masking really.

I was also really easy to wind up so people got the big reactions they wanted from me. 

Even people that could be nice to me or even get on with me would inadvertently add to the bullying at times. Didn't want to be seen with me infront of certain other kids, that kind of thing.

Adults around me didn't get it. They didn't try to help or deal with the bullies. They basically blamed me as well. I just needed to try harder apparently. 

Not really any wonder that I'm not very comfortable with myself as an adult or that I find any kind of socialising or criticism difficult.

I have talked about it in therapy before but it didn't really help me. I'm currently doing therapy again now but I haven't felt comfortable enough to bring anything like that up yet.

Though I was very often in a state of high anxiety at school on the inside, on the outside I mostly appeared to be calm, easygoing and affable. I have no idea how I managed, and still manage, that trick. It helped greatly in avoiding bullying, as I usually had a friendly relationship with at least one of the larger and more intimidating lads in my class. To paraphrase the film 'The Commitments', "He's a savage, but he's my savage."

They laughed at me even more then, saying that I’m psychically sick and then they finally left, because I guess there was nothing more left to do. Some girls followed me on my way home and from what I overheard I know they wanted to beat me. But I was lucky, that there was one almost two-meter-tall guy on my side. I earned him by helping him with geometry and also saw him kissing one girl from our class, they saw me too, and I didn’t spread the gossip. Since then he started saying ‘hi’ to me, which was shocking. And he saved me from being beaten.