Triggering (Abuse) - bullying and emotional violence support thread
I've read the thread/s.
And I thought this would be a good thread.
I'm a survivor of both - bullying at school, and emotional violence at home. Right now I feel happier calling it 'emotional violence' rather than 'emotional abuse'. What do you think?
Anyway.
[yes, I'm sort of back here, for a while anyway...]
How has being bullied and emotionally violated effected you?
How has it effected your relationships?
Do you abuse yourself? Have you ever caught yourself behaving abusively towards others, as a defence?
How would you describe the particular kinds of powerlessness you experienced?
Has your experience contributed to your mental health/illness diagnosis/es in any way?
i was bullied at school. part of me feels like saying "it wasn't really bad, or anything, it's not like i was physically hurt" (aside from a few instances where one of them would grab my hair and just pull and pull) but i don't think it's helpful to think like that. emotionally abusive experiences are some of the most damaging and confusing of my childhood.
the bullying usually had one or two leaders, and a large amount of followers who used to bother me to a lesser degree. they'd basically just do what the bullies said, or agree with them. most often, they'd make a point of completely ignoring me, which i found very difficult. particularly in the earlier days (aged around 8) i was already quite good at dissociating, from other experiences that were going on, so i was blissfully unaware of a lot of the things going on behind my back ("clubs" that had been started against me because i was "weird"). i suppose being treated like this made me even "weirder". i spent a lot of my time playing elaborate and imaginitive games by myself, talking to myself and sitting on the yard just staring into space. i was extremely sensitive and seeking approval from my teachers a lot - but i never seemed to get this, and i remember those days as being very, very cold and isolated, kind of like living in a vaccuum, kind of like having a ringing in your ears. i barely ever spoke in primary school, and was more fierce about my individuality than i am now, which i guess maybe confused the other kids. i also believe i was very depressed at this age, unstable and irritable as a result of things at school and in my family life, which made the occasional communications between me and my one friend (who i never saw at school) quite volatile. it was at this age that i remember having my first panic attack. it was quite hard to hide what was going on from my parents, and to be honest, i think i hid a lot of it from myself. but my parents still expected these children to come to my birthday parties, which they dutifully did, but always with me knowing that i didn't belong, i didn't fit in, i was on the periphery and i usually ended up crying in the garage.
things seemed to settle down when i went to middle school. i made more friends, confidence grew and even the previous bullies gave up when they realised they couldn't get to me. my school life was fairly settled for about three years.
wow, i really went on there. sorry. i've never really talked about this before. i went to high school after this and a whole new bullying experience started, that lasted many years, but i'll leave that for now.
i don't think i answered any of your questions, but i will come back to that.
I was bullied at school. It started in my first high school and became progressively worse each time I moved home and had to start a new school. I think I began to expect it, and assumed it would happen at the new school, so it did.
I was a very quiet kid anyway because it was polite to be quiet right? Apparently not, apparently the other kids didn't like that. It was the second high school I went to that was the most vicious, and I was sent into a downward spiral that caused me to shut myself off from everyone and everything. It drove my mum mad because she had no idea what was wrong.
I was being very moody and very aggressive as a result of the way I felt inside. I couldn't snap back at the bullies so I snapped back at everyone at home, and became a right little b*tch.
When my mum did find out what had happened after one night of me shouting it at her and then fleeing up the stairs, she went back to see the Headmaster, but it didn't help a thing. I was so depressed I became a regular in the headmaster's office, all the staff knew me. But it didn't help. Just because people knew didn't mean that the bullies were going to get put off.
Finally I was pulled out of the school after getting them to phone my mum up because a splinter in my finger was 'agony' - far too sore for me to stay in the school that day. I never went back after that and we moved soon after. To the place I'm still in now, and this high school I was determined would be a new start, and I was going to talk to people and be awesome and bright and happy... no.
It seemed that the emotional abuse was just passed around from group to group. When the first group outgrew it (because they were in my year - they still considered me an outcast, just didn't say anything), another, younger group started. It made me feel worse because they were younger than me. And then when I realised she lived just down the road and was on my bus to and from school. Nightmare. I started skiving, completely aggravating my household. But I genuinely didn't care, as long as I didn't have to go in.
It was the help, and words of a pretty amazing Religious Education teacher who made me realise, right at the end of my schooling ironically, that I don't need someone else to validate me, I only need me. I'm still working on his words & advice. (and no, don't worry, he didn't try to convert me or try anything weird xD He was just a major support line for me at the time).
Ironically, I look back, and I don't remember any of the words that were said. Well, I remember the odd few 'witch', the usuals you know 'bitch' 'sl*t', etc... but I don't really remember...
Now, all I have to deal with is gossip. Man, that bites. I guess once you get into a cycle... it's pretty hard to get out of.
I feel I have rambled on a bit, albeit missing out many many points and details. Anyway, I'll stop for now =)
Nice thread
I was right in front of you Standing in your view
I had so much to show I was like an open book
You never even looked So much I wanted you to know
School was hell.
In my first school I was sexually abused.
In my second I was just teased, constantly made to feel like I was stupid, out of touch... I had short hair and was fat and they said I was too ugly to be a girl.
In my third I was completely isolated. No one spoke to me. They stole stuff from me, pushed me around, laughed at me. They graffiti'd walls and said I had done it and I was almost expelled.
In my fourth school I made a friend. It was amazing. But she was bullied and so was I. At first it was just little things, people laughing after you said anything, being pushed into lockers, having things stolen... it was kind of bearable. It was worse for my friend, and eventually she left. I was there pretty much alone. I had another girl I thought was my friend, but decided not to be my friend and she told everyone else I was gay and then it really got bad. A group of boys used to push me into lockers, put their hands on my breasts or against my genitals, try to take my clothes off, generally try to make a show of me. One of the boys had forced me to take drugs a couple of times before, but I remember one day so clearly, when he pulled my arms behind me and slammed my face into the side of a metal locker and said he would break all my fingers if I didn't take the pill he was holding. He said the pill would 'cure me' of being gay. I took it because I was afraid. He'd forced me to take proper drugs before--coke, lsd--but this time I think it was just a painkiller or something. I believed him that it was a proper drug though, and I was so, so scared.
I left that school shortly after and went to another one, where things weren't so bad. People still teased me about my looks and voice and things like that, but they basically ignored me, which was much easier.
The bullying is hard to talk about. I typed it all out just now because I today has been a bad day and this room is full of people who are nice to me so I feel safe to type it. I've talked about the sexual abuse before, and the time I was raped, but never before the bullying or what happened in school. I don't know why. Somehow it's harder to talk about, even than the abuse, which is itself really hard to talk about.
Thank you for this thread, sincerely. It helped.
I read all the other stories--I'm sorry you guys had to go through this stuff too. I think you're doing really well to tell your stories and stuff here. I hope things will get better. Sorry I can't say anything more coherent or helpful.
I feel like I probably shouldn't post here as I post elsewhere in this section for abuse type stuff... but I was also bullied at school... and in my friends opinion my parents are emotionally violent, but I'm not so sure about that...
I have started a thread on bullying in this section... I started one on the effects of abuse and sort of help tips and am doing one on bullying too. it's very incomplete right now but thought I'd let you know it's there.
at primary school I was bullied by a group of lads... they used to chase me around the playground and trap me in corners... there was also a girl who would wait in the toilets and hit me or lock me in a cubicle... I used to walk out of school due to it or intentionally get detentions just so I wouldn't be with them at lunch breaks.
then at secondary school I got my ears pieced and discovered that I have a genetic tendency to keoilds... ended up with golf ball sized growths on my ears, I'm sure you can all imagine what that lead to... one group even had me convinced that it was cancer and I was going to die...
at college this continued... until I started to hang about with the goths, this seemed to scare the regular bullies off. but then I got the chav Vs goth wars which resulted in getting beaten up, locked in toilets, etc...
I like this thread. I really hope it helps people, and maybe that in time it encourages more people who have experience of bullying to post in this section. as it is an awful thing to experience and people deserve support and the ability to speak about it
I was bullied (in various forms), and I've experienced emotional violence through an abusive relationship.
It's affected me in a lot of ways, ways I don't fully understand and that make me feel very... isolated. It can be hard to find someone who understands just what an impact these things can have in all areas of your life. It's so lonely.
Sorry, I can't go into "details" of certain events at the moment... >.< I will try soon.
I've been bullied and abused in various ways, and it's still happening to this day. It's affected me in the sense I have trust issues, find it hard to open up and to make and maintain friends, involve myself in social situations (IRL and on the net) and have very low self confidence as well as other problems which probably helped develop my MH issues...
I'd write more, but... it's so hard, and i'm not feeling comfortable and stable enough to do so... not at the moment...
Thank you for this thread, though. I'm sure it will help a lot of people.
Last edited by Runa : 06-06-2009 at 10:44 PM.
Reason: spelling
My experiences of being bullied at school and emotionally attacked also at home were of being de-humanised. Made as less than human. Made as an object. My rights for respect, to have feelings, were taken away.
Part of the worst of it was more than being emotionally and physically assaulted every day at school, and undermined and belittled every day at home... the almost worst part of it was the teachers who blatantly ignored what was going on - for a whole decade. Who stood by and did nothing while all kinds of missiles - physical and verbal - were launched across the room at me.
But I am growing away from being the Victim now. It's a journey, but it's possible. I am claiming my voice, self respect, feelings, existence. It can be misinterpreted by others who don't understand. To get to the place where I am I have had to, and continue to do so, face my own shadow, my own tendency to abusive behaviour that both re-enacts but has also attempted to protect me from further attack. It was the role-model I had of empowerment, being abusive. That makes me feel sad.
For sure the emotional violence, which also had physical and sexual under-tones, has been the major cause of depression, anxiety, and complex PTSD. Dissociation. Irritability. Rage. Panic attacks. Low self esteem. Severe social anxiety. All of those. My psychiatrist said that my diagnosis was 'depression and anxiety and panic attacks and other problems due to things that happened to you in your past.'
I like this thread and I think everybody who has posted here, regardless of how much or how little you posted, is really brave to have done so. It's hard to open up about things like this, harder than people realise. I'm not certain why, but it is. And talking about it, whether out loud or writing it down, does help. For some it helps a great deal, for others only a little, but it does help most.
I find it much easier to write things down than I do to say them out loud, and this is down to the bullying I have experienced in all those different schools I attended in my childhood. I was the quietest one in the class, who sat up the back whenever she could so she didn't get noticed or so kids wouldn't throw things at her anymore, because they all laughed at whatever I said. They made me believe I didn't have opinions that mattered, that I was less of a person than them and I deserved nothing. I didn't even deserve to socialise or laugh or do well in my studies. It was terrible. Day to day being scared that they would say something else to me in the corridors, being late for class because I turned around to avoid them before they saw me and went the long way round. Even though I got in trouble I never said anything to the teacher why, I just kept looking at the ground and sat down in my seat, my face red with shame as all those eyes watched me take my seat. Why is she late, why is she rebelling? they seemed to ask. She's not like us, she can't do the things we do.
What I have noticed looking back, is that they never tended to say/do something when they were on their own. It was always if they were with somebody else or a group of people. Maybe if I had said something to them at the time, stood up for myself, snapped back, they would have realised how strong I am/could be. Maybe my life would be different, maybe I would be a different person. I wish I was. But now, that's going to have to be something I manage to do on my own. If I manage it.
I don't know why I'm posting here again, maybe I need to talk about it more. I have so much I never managed to get out of my system, and I didn't know how much it had affected me until I came back to RYL. Maybe, on some level, that's one of the reasons I'm back.
I was right in front of you Standing in your view
I had so much to show I was like an open book
You never even looked So much I wanted you to know
If I'm perfectly honest, right now this second, I'm not dealing. In fact I think maybe writing all this out has made me feel bad, I think it's unearthed all the feelings I had/have about it that I just...buried away.
Honestly I don't cope very well if I end up thinking about it. I'm still paranoid of everyone, I'm still shy/quiet/reserved, I still can't use the phone and initiate the conversation.
I'm not the best example. I don't feel like I have made any progress at all!
I was right in front of you Standing in your view
I had so much to show I was like an open book
You never even looked So much I wanted you to know
I'm working my way through finding balance with that. It's complex, as I make my way through pathological power enforcement issues, as I find a balance between the 2 extremes.
I'll add more later.
I was bullied at school, left out a lot. I suppose it could've been worse. but it still hurt. one time a girl pretended to throw up cause i came back from being sick.
as i got older i've experienced emotional abuse. a lot of people playing with my emotions, playing mind games on me, guilt tripping me. my mom also used to yell at me horribly and say really bad things to me.
and i can say that i always think well it's not that bad cause you weren't physically hurt. but it really is. words mean a lot. and so does people messing with your emotions. i now find it hard to trust people and tend to think everyone is messing with my mind.
How do you guys deal with how powerless bullying made you feel or continues to make you feel?
i think it made me feel the need for control. i think that's part of the reason i cut. cause i had no control in my life. (mixture of someone emotionally abusing me and my mom just being too controlling)
i don't get why bullies (including those that are like that in adulthood mostly) think it gives them so much power? I feel so much more powerful when I help someone! When I support someone, I feel so good about myself. Why did that need to feel good about yourself get so corrupted? I guess I just don't get why people have to find power from being mean and manipulative.
^ I guess everyone is different and everyone is in different circumstances.
I know that my past (bad) experiences made me a much less thoughtful and caring person. It made me want to make everyone hate me and fear me so they wouldn't come near me or want to touch me.
Though saying that I don't think I classed as a bully. I was still to scared for that. Ha.
But yes, I suppose it can depend on the person and the circumstances of their life.
How do you guys deal with how powerless bullying made you feel or continues to make you feel?
I didn't lol
according to my ex-psych I got "hooked on the idea of being controlled and inferior" I sort of started to (and still do) fear being in control, fear my own decisions and rarely have any confidence in my own thoughts/ideas. But I will go out of my way to try to please or do things for others, even to the point where its detrimental to myself
I was different to the other kids... daydreamer, not a girl or a boy, hurting from the abuse that was going on. Girls ignored me or gossiped, boys let me play football with them but were always saying I wasn't good enough to be human..
I'll come back to this later =/
For those doubts that swirl all around us
For those lives that tear at the seams
We know… we’re not what we’ve seen
For this dance we’ll move with each other
There ain’t no other step than one foot
Right in front of the other
