Tag: trauma

Adult Survivors of School Bullying: 19 Things They Do Differently

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‘Want to know how adult survivors of school bullying differ from other adults? Here you’ll find way just how differently they handle people and what they do that most others don’t.

adult survivors of school bullying

Targets of school bullying often learn tough lessons- lessons that they carry into adulthood. Bullying shapes their personalities, and the ways they do things once they leave school and move away from their tormentors.

Therefore, in this post, you will learn how adult survivors of school bullying differ from other adults. Moreover, you will learn their attitudes and how they handle social situations.

Once you learn all about these differences, you will be able to tell if you fall into this category and why you should be proud that you overcame and come away from it stronger than ever.

This post is all about adult survivors of school bullying and how they differ from adults who weren’t bullied as kids.

Adult Survivors of School Bullying

School bullying can teach you some hard life-lessons, things you carry into adulthood. School bullying changes you. It changes the ways you do things. Also, it changes your attitude and the way you handle people.

So, if you were bullied in school as a kid, how do you differ from other adults?

1. You Watch others Closely.

Your experiences with bullies during school sharpened your emotional and social intelligence. Because you learned very early on how evil people can be, you know how to watch others without looking like you’re watching them.

You notice body language, facial expressions, micro-expressions, tonality, delivery, and demeanor. Your people-sense wasn’t fully developed during school years. Therefore, back then, you often let those in your life who were only there to do harm you.

Moreover, you paid dearly for it. Therefore, as an adult, you watch closely and avoid such people.

2. You no longer fear saying “no” and will sometimes say it simply because You can!

When you were a schoolkid, bullies violated your boundaries to such an extent that they silenced you. As a result, no one allowed you to protest when something didn’t feel right.

People forced you to take a lot of abuse. However, now that you’re an adult, you get to decide what you will and will not tolerate. Moreover, you exercise that freedom and autonomy every chance you get!

Why? Because saying no and setting boundaries gives you a feeling of empowerment.

3. Adult Survivors of School Bullying:

You’re a no-nonsense adult.

You learned, early on, the games people play. Therefore, manipulators can’t dupe you so easily. You live by the old, “fool me once…” saying and hold it close to your heart.

4. You Solidly refuse to take any crap from anyone.

And this goes no matter the consequences you face. You took enough crap from classmates in school. And you took even more of it from a few rotten apples, who called themselves school staff.

 As an adult, you’re even more determined not to let others violate your boundaries.

5. You don’t give people many chances.

To you, first impressions are important, so anyone you meet had better make it count. These are your mottoes.

  • One red flag, I’m gone!
  • One bad vibe, goodbye!
  • Any attempts to bullshit, see ya!

In the past, you were too forgiving of others. Therefore, others took you for granted and mistook your kindness for weakness. They then exploited your kindness. Moreover, they did it much to your humiliation.

Therefore, you refuse ever again subject yourself to such abuse.

6. Adult Survivors of School Bullying:

You Work Your ass off!

Why? Because you’re tenacious when it comes to getting what you want. Therefore, you’ll stop at almost nothing to reach success.

You had enough of what you didn’t want while in school. Others called you a failure many times back then. This lit a fire under you. In other words, it made you that much more determined to succeed at everything you set out to do.

In fact, you may do it for no other reason than to show the haters and naysayers that you can! Show them up and shut them up is another motto you hold.

7. You like having control over You own life.

 Moreover, you will do anything to keep that control.

You had enough of others taking control of your life long ago. Therefore, you will shut down the first jack-weed who tries to take away your personal power.

8. You can spot a bully a mile away.

… in the dark! Yes! You’re that good! For years, you dealt with bullies in school on a daily basis. Therefore, you know the signs by heart.

This makes you nearly expert, at pointing out the troublemakers.

9. You either avoid bullies like the plague or take extreme pleasure in putting them in their places.

You’ve grown to looove standing up to bullies and they will call them out every chance you get. Moreover, you love to make bullies feel like the losers they are.

Understand that you do this, remembering all the times you didn’t or couldn’t defend yourself in school.

10. Adult Survivors of School Bullying:

You have a thick skin that has become difficult for others outside your circle, to penetrate.

That’s your power. You love being unpredictable and keeping others on their toes. In other words, you love making them try and figure you out  because it’s fun.

11. You can’t stand to watch others being made fun of and will rush to their defense.

You’re not afraid to get nose to nose with a bully if you must. Moreover, you defend others from bullies not only to help them. Subconsciously, you do it to make up for all the times you felt helpless.

This compensates them for all the times you didn’t or couldn’t defend yourself against bullies in school.

12. You Have a nose for horseshit.

If someone tries to feed you a load of hogwash, you know it instantly and instinctively. Moreover, you see it as an insult to your intelligence and become angry.

Why? Because you know that the liar thinks you’re too foolish to figure them out. Therefore, you won’t hesitate to call the creep out!

13. You can More easily pick up on the emotions of others.

You cannot stand the thought of causing emotional or physical harm to another person. However, only if that person isn’t trying to harm you first.

14. Adult Survivors of School Bullying:

You place extra value on your families and friends.

You take extreme care not to take those you love for granted. Why? Because you know what it’s like to be completely alone and have no friends at all.

Therefore, you cherish your family and friends and the time you spend with them.

15. You are, in some ways, selfish.

You put a lot of value on yourself and your wants, needs, and interests. Why? Because others didn’t value you as a kid during school.

Therefore, you make it a point to put yourself first in almost everything. The only people you put ahead of you are your children, spouse, and parents.

16. Words don’t convince You. Only actions and patterns do.

Back in the day, others duped you. You heard a mountain of empty promises and cheap words and paid dearly for believing them.

Therefore, you’ll be damned if you ever repeat that mistake.

17. You live by your gut instincts.

In other words, you trust your gut because you paid a heavy price for ignoring it. Therefore, you now have a sixth sense.

You’re excellent at picking up vibes (especially bad ones) and reading people and their intentions. If something or someone doesn’t feel right, you won’t hesitate to either walk away or tell the suspicious person to take a long walk off a short pier.

18. Adult Survivors of School Bullying:

If anyone tells you that you Can’t, you’ll do it anyway.

Moreover, you’ll do it just to show them that you can. On the other hand, if someone tells you not to do something and you’ll do it and take pictures.

You only see it as a challenge. Therefore, you’ll do just the opposite of what the other person says, just to show them up.

For example, you may work toward a goal and have naysayers who try to discourage you. Instead of listening to them, you only double down. You then reach your goal and end up living an enriching life!

19. You don’t send your kids to the same school you were bullied in.

HELL NO!

In fact, hell will freeze before you allow your children to grace the halls of the school.
What parent worth their own salt would subject their children to that kind of learning environment if they could help it?

You know that bullies tend to take jobs that give them authority (Teaching, Law Enforcement, Corrections Officer, Supervisor, etc.). Moreover, you know that many of your former bullies will probably be teachers by the time your babies reach school age. You also know that teaching is the second-highest profession for workplace bullying.

Also, you know the mentality of bullies. If they hated you first, they will hate your children even more.

In other words, if they targeted you, it’s a safe bet that they’ll would target your babies once the bullies find out that you’re the parent.

Therefore, you’ll send your children to another school or you’ll home-school them.

This post was all about adult survivors of school bullying and the things they do differently so that you can find out if you see yourself in a few or all of these characteristics.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. The Bullied Brain: 7 Ways Bullying Effects Mental Health

2. Bullying Tactics: 9 Subtle Moves Bullies Use to Avoid Detection

3. Bullying and Banter: 9 Differences You Must Know

4. The Effects of Bullying: 17 Negative Results on Victims

5. What Constitutes Bullying and What Doesn’t

6. The 4 Stages of Bullying

Othello’s Error: Why Targets Take the Blame

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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) on engraving from the 1800s. English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. Published in London by L.Tallis.

Othello’s Error often happens in police interrogation rooms and principal’s offices.

It comes from Shakespeare’s play, “Othello.”  In the play, the main character, Othello, assumes that his wife, Desdemona, is having an affair. The reason he believes this is because of her nervous response when he questions her.

In reality, Desdemona is innocent.

However, Othello  questions her in a aggressive and volatile manner. And this makes the poor wife nervous. Even worse, Othello takes her nervousness as a sign of guilt.

Sadly, his often occurs in real life.

many fingers pointed at scapegoated employee, concept of accusation

Often, targets become nervous when someone questions them aggressively. The questioner then misreads the response. taking it as a sign that the person is lying or hiding something. It’s how so many people have gotten blamed for something they didn’t do.

Just as nervousness is mistaken for deception, the show of confidence is mistaken for honesty and trustworthiness. As we all know, bullies are well-known for feigned confidence and false bravado.

Targets of bullying are always nervous, and rightfully so. Who wouldn’t be if they were constantly abused, smeared, shamed, threatened, and attacked?

Victim Blaming word cloud

People tend to rush to the first possible explanation that fits what they want to see. Should it be any wonder why people blame targets and let bullies go scot-free?

After the abuse goes on for so long, targets learn to expect more of the same. And they usually get it. In other words, the expectation of such treatment brings more of the same. As a result, the target grows more nervous with each occurrence.

As the target grows more nervous, bystanders and authorities grow more and more suspicious of him.

The fact is that nervousness has several reasons, and the mistake often occurs in the decoding of it and not the observation!

With knowledge comes empowerment!

A Long Recovery from Bullying (Part 2- Graduation and Beyond)

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Graduation was bittersweet. Although I was happy to graduate high school, I was sad because I would miss my classmates and teachers from Roseburg High. I felt that it ended too soon.

My first five years post-graduation was full of ups and downs. I struggled with bouts of depression and didn’t know why. I was on the rollercoaster again and desperately wanted to get off but didn’t know how. Having babies and being a post-partum new mother only doubled the depression that was already there.

I lived, and I worked. I was a mother of two small children but only going through the motions and surviving- existing. It felt as if I was living on autopilot. But then, something amazing happened!

In 1995, I came across a magazine article while on my lunch break at work. The article was about a kid severely bullied at school. Like me, his bullies had tormented him so horrifically that he thought about suicide and eventually transferred to another school. Also, like me, his life changed for the better. He, too, had made a complete turnaround and finally gotten the chance to experience the friends, fun, and excitement that high school was supposed to be.

Reading this article was a turning point for me, and finding it was one of the best things that happened. This piece in the magazine answered so many questions and confirmed that none of the abuse I’d suffered at my classmates’ hands was my fault. The article was also validation that there was never anything wrong with me. It only cemented the truth I’d always known deep down inside- I wasn’t to blame for their abuse.

They were the perpetrators.

They had the issues.

I was being held responsible for problems that were theirs, not mine.

With this confirmation came my empowerment!

During those years, many people, including a few well-meaning family members, had often told me that the bullying I suffered was all in my imagination or wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. Many more had said to me that I brought it all on myself. Deep down, I knew better.

blame accuse pointing finger

In my heart, I had known the truth years before I found this article and held on to it. Maybe this personal knowledge was why I resisted my bullies and fought back, even if it meant getting hurt. And perhaps it was why I suffered so many physical assaults. Nevertheless, I needed confirmation- a second opinion of sorts, and the article was exactly what I needed.

At that moment, everything fit together like a perfect puzzle! I cannot express the relief I felt. It was as if the article had lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders. My heart began to soar!

For the first time, I was able to see the bullying for what it was- abuse!

I began to thirst for even more knowledge of bullying and the human predator/prey dynamic. From then on, I read everything I could get my hands on- magazine articles, essays, books, online articles, everything that pertained to bullying and peer abuse.

There were so many unanswered questions:

“What was it about me that made me a target?”

“How had my bullies been allowed to get away with their brutality?”

“What was it about my bullies that made them so charming and good to everyone else?”

The word Answer on a puzzle piece to symbolize the quest for understanding in answering questions and concerns

“What were the ingredients to their charm and allure?”

“Where had their intense hate, mean-spiritedness, and sadistic natures come from? What had precipitated it?”

“Had they too been abused, or were they just spoiled, coddled narcissists infected with schadenfreude?”

So many questions haunted me and increased my curiosity. So, I continued digging for information, like a police detective eager to solve a case.

During the late nineties, I came across Tim Field’s BullyOnline.org and hungrily read every one of his articles. The website was massive, and it took a while to read. I went through it with a fine-toothed comb. If I had questions, I emailed Tim, and he would always reply in a timely and courteous manner.

Sadly, Mr. Field is no longer with us. He passed away from cancer years ago.

It’s been 25 years since I found the article that changed my life, and I cannot tell you how many sources of information I’ve poured through. I can’t measure the truckloads of knowledge attained and how much just the knowing has empowered me.

Between experience and two and a half decades of reading, research, and study, I’ve gained insights that have empowered me even more. That article back in 1995 set me on a path to greater knowledge and a passion for helping other bullying targets through writing and advocacy.

I’ve found what I love to do, and it is so rewarding!

I thank God for placing that article in front of me that day at work. Otherwise, I might still be wandering in the dark and trying to find my way.

That magazine article truly changed my outlook on the bullying I suffered. I no longer see it as something that ruined my life. No.

I see the bullying as an event that gave me a fiery passion for speaking out about my own experiences and sharing the knowledge I’ve gained to help people who endure bullying today. It showed me my life’s work and, through that, gave me eventual confidence and happiness.

I do not need to hate my bullies, nor to take revenge. Turning abuse around to the benefit of others is how I turn victimization into power! And that, my friends, is the best revenge a person can ever take!

If you’re a target of bullying, know this:

What’s happening to you is wrong and it isn’t your fault. You never asked to be brutalized, you do matter, and you are enough!

With knowledge comes empowerment!

A Long Recovery from Bullying

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PTSD

First and foremost, I’d like to thank Amber, a friend and fellow blogger who inspired me to write this post.

The healing certainly didn’t happen overnight. My trial by fire ended during my senior year when I finally managed to escape my Oakley High School bullies through a school transfer. My new school, Roseberg High, felt like a paradise! Everyone there accepted me as I was, and I made so many new friends. I felt safe again and was finally able to relax and be myself.

I felt as if my life was finally beginning, and I could finally put Oakley High School behind me and move on. But it didn’t come without a few hang-ups. The last several months at Roseburg were the best of all four years of high school, but I didn’t realize that I was still carrying a lot of leftover baggage from the severe abuse I suffered at the old school.

Although I was in a much safer learning environment, there were afternoons during my first month at Roseburg when I’d have a long cry after I got home from school. Being four months pregnant at the time, I mistook the tears for the raging hormones of pregnancy.

Though I loved my new school and all the people there, I regretted that I couldn’t have transferred schools earlier than I had. I was grieving the loss of so many years- years that I could never get back.

My then-husband worked a twelve-hour graveyard shift, and I spent most nights at home alone. In the afternoons, he would be asleep when I’d come in from school. So, I had plenty of time to grieve.

During those times, I also suffered flashbacks of the bullying, and they would come automatically and without warning- flashbacks of being shoved to the floor, brutally beaten, cursed out, and yelled at. At night I’d have nightmares.

In these nightmares, I’d be swimming in a lake and enjoying the water. Suddenly I’d stop and look around to see that my classmates from Oakley High were in the water as well, and they surrounded me. One of them would push my head underwater, and I’d fight like crazy to come back up for air.

But as soon as I’d get my head above water and gasp for breath, they’d shove me back under again. Once more, I’d have to hold my breath and fight with my arms flailing in the water, trying to come up and get away from them.

Finally, I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and had no other choice but to give up the fight to live. Just as I inhaled and felt the searing burn of water fill my lungs, I’d wake up with a jolt. I also had another dream that one of my old bullies hunted me down and shot me. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, so frightened I couldn’t move a muscle. I’d only lay there, trembling in the darkness.

During my first month out, I also dealt with a lot of sadness and anger that didn’t show. Roseburg High was my happy place, and while I was there during the day, I didn’t have those emotions, nor did I have the flashbacks. The sadness, anger, flashbacks, and dreams only happened when I was home alone or sleeping, and I wanted so badly to forget about Oakley and live in the present.

During that month, I also felt a degree of shame- shame that I now realize wasn’t mine to bear. In my mind, I’d ask myself,

“What’s wrong with me? I’m out of that hellhole now! I should be happy about that! And I am, but why do I keep having these episodes of crying and feeling angry any time I’m alone?”

When I felt angry, I wasn’t as mad at my former classmates but myself for allowing them to tear me down and bring me so low.

I felt like a battered wife who’d just left her abusive husband!

I was fortunate, though. It didn’t take long for the raw emotions, the flashbacks, and the nightmares to go away, and I begin to focus on making great memories with my Roseburg friends and classmates. During that month, I had allowed myself to feel and to cry. I talked to a few of my most trusted family and friends.

I realized that I wasn’t wrong to have those emotions as they were signs that something was terribly wrong in my previous environment. I also began to understand that I wasn’t what was wrong. I’m thankful that I didn’t bury those emotions like so many survivors of bullying do. I’ve since concluded that what I experienced was the release of feelings that had, for a long time, been suppressed.

They were emotions that I wasn’t allowed to have in the old environment and was afraid to feel and show because I knew they’d punish me for it with more bullying. The only alternative had been to keep those feelings buried deep. And although my parents were well-meaning, there were times that neither of them could accept the emotions I felt.

Only after I got out of there did they begin to pour forth.

After a month of riding that roller coaster, I can tell you that everything finally subsided, and I felt like a new person! I didn’t get any therapy, although I should have. I was young, newly married, and expecting my first child, and everything was changing so fast I could barely keep up. So, I worked through it on my own.

Beautiful cloudscape over the sea, sunrise shot

And with the help of a new and nourishing environment, a few trusted people in my life, and new friends, I was able to get through the horrible after-effects of bullying and peer abuse. I began to set goals to learn about computers and make Honor Roll at my new school. As my grades skyrocketed and I achieved those goals, so did my confidence!

Sadly, most survivors of bullying aren’t as lucky as I was. Many take years to even get through the grief.

(Continued in Part 2)

What Are The Far-Reaching Consequences of School Bullying and Mobbing?

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How many lives could’ve been saved if we’d spoken up sooner?

For years, everyone saw bullies picking on and ganging up on targets- they saw it on the playground, the hallways, the gym, the locker room, the bathrooms, the classrooms, and on the school bus and the target was driven to act out in violence.

No one cared about any of the bullying until targets started taking matters into their own hands- more appropriately, until they started bringing guns to school and blowing their bullies away, committing suicide, or both.

It’s a shame that people had to die before we finally began to take bullying seriously. Being treated like an object for too long, instead of a living, breathing, and feeling human being can make one enraged enough to want to kill or desperate enough to escape the torment by any means (suicide).

Thankfully, not all who suffer repeated and patterned bullying and mobbing commit homicide or suicide. Most targets suffer in silence. They live depressed, isolated, bewildered, and confused because they’ve had their self-confidence stripped away. In that, they’re prevented from realizing their full potential and capabilities.

Many children and teens are terrified of getting on the school bus and many more stay silent for fear of retribution. Young targets endure torment others cannot possibly comprehend and much of the wounds and bruises are unseen. Just because someone isn’t bludgeoned, bruised, and bloodied on the outside doesn’t mean they aren’t they aren’t so inside. Physical wounds can be seen but wounds to the soul can’t.

Bullying and mobbing leave permanent scars. Even after time has gone by, the memories are still fresh. In fact, they’re so deeply entrenched that even decades later, targets can still remember the names of those who instigated the mobbing, those who joined in and partook in it, those who encouraged it, and those who pretended to be their friends but didn’t have their back and refused to help them.

As a survivor of school bullying and mobbing myself, I can tell you that I remember the names of every single one of my classmates who fell in the above categories, one of whom I thought was a close friend. I only recently stopped talking to this woman and was a fool not to have kicked her sorry butt to the curb years ago.

Every survivor I’ve ever spoken too remembers these things specifically.

Understand that when a child or teen is bullied and mobbed by virtually everyone, minor occurrences of ridicule, name-calling, and shunning may occur. However, things such as these build up over time.

What ends up breaking and killing the target’s spirit and self-image is the accumulation of so many incidences of so many classmates brutally bullying her and the fact that the abuse comes from everyone and from every direction.

But I guarantee that if you were to tell each of the target’s classmates what they were doing and tell them of the damage they had done to that targeted child, they would either deny it or respond with, “But all I did was…!”

Again, these “little attacks” come from many, many directions and over a long period of time against the same person- this is one of the biggest hallmarks of mobbing.

I’ve asked other survivors of school bullying and mobbing why they think their classmates mobbed them and not one of them knows why. Each one of these people, even decades later, wonder what they did to encourage their schoolmates to gang up on them and torment them the way that they did.

I always tell them that they did nothing to deserve that kind of treatment and that they should never blame themselves for their classmates’ atrocious behavior.

During my years of research on bullying and mobbing, I’ve learned that mobbing is always caused by a trivial conflict that’s not even personal but somehow, becomes personal later. The origins of mobbing can be anything- a potential target is a new student at the school, or the potential target says something that isn’t necessarily bad but rubs the wrong kids the wrong way.

Maybe the potential target is different, or maybe the child is highly intelligent to the point of overshadowing members of the top clique. It could be that the potential target brags about something and ticks off the rest of the class, or wears clothes that are out of fashion and the bullies use it as an excuse to torment the kid.

And long after the initial cause of the bullying is over and forgotten, the bullying continues.

Understand that if you were to ask bullies why they mobbed and tormented a certain individual, they either wouldn’t know the reason, or they would give an answer that doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Therefore, targets and survivors alike must realize that the mobbing and bullying they presently struggle with or endured in the past was never about anything they said or did. It was never about them. It was always about their bullies’ own mental health issues. It was about the bullies’ senses of self-entitlement, their insecurities, feelings of self-loathing, and intense jealousy.

And once they realize these things, their self-esteem won’t take such a big hit.

With knowledge comes empowerment!