A real story - bullying in an uncaring school (Bullying in Schools)

Member Name: mr_shagwell23

Product:	Bullying in Schools
Date:	19/03/01 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: no advantages to bullying

Disadvantages: evrything about bullying

I would like all readers of this opinion to know that I am not writing this as an opinion, but as a personal experience with bullying.
I was bullied quite considerably, from about the age of 8 when I moved back up to the Lake District from Warwick. The bullying stopped for me when I was about 14, but the memory of what was happening to me because of other peoples actions still rests with me today.

There was nothing wrong with me – I was a happy-go-lucky kid. I enjoyed sports and socialising, playing with fellow kids (remember I was about 8). Other kids my age, the ones who thought they were more mature or ‘hard’ would laugh and make fun out of me and my friends for what we were doing, even though we were having a good time.
The thing is though, it has a huge psychological effect, and would make me wonder what was wrong with me and why other kids were laughing. I now realise that the people weren’t any more mature than I was and in fact were more immature if anything.

That was at primary school. I moved on to secondary school in the same town, which I didn’t mind because I was with my friends but did mind because the bullies were coming with me.
Even at the age of 11, the boys who bullied me and other people could silence a room by just walking in. I found this pathetic, but any rebellion against these people would result in a good hiding. Nobody wanted that, so everybody stayed quiet. The bullies then knew they had the advantage because they knew no-one would speak up against them, or that person was cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

The school I was at was a let down, failing to notice what was happening. I know you only really see it in cartoons or movies, but there really is playground bullies, who manipulate others without an army of friends.
That is the thing that I thought made these bullies weak – as individuals they were nobody’s, but with friends, and the amount of fri
ends they had, they were an unstoppable force.

I was on the receiving end of a beating when I was 11, which is still in my mind today. It was because some girl had said I kissed her when I didn’t and her boyfriend didn’t take it too lightly.
He was with all his friends which made me think I was going to get a good kicking. He hit me twice, leaving a bruise on my face.
The school that I was at, and still am today for this matter were deeply unhelpful, and no punishment was brought upon the boy who hit me.
This went against the school’s anti-bullying policy, which is a sort of no-tolerance for bullying kind of thing.

The next day the bully assured me that he’d ‘hit me once and wasn’t going to again’. Erm, thanks for that I thought as all the physical and emotional pain he had brought upon me the day before came back.

Though nothing happened for a while, I was always living in the fear that the bully might strike again. The bully, and his ‘gang’ would hang about at the bottom of a flight of stairs during lunch and break times, and I would force myself to sit in a room and not eat, rather than going through with the stress of coming face to face with these bullies.
I was always thinking that this would be no way I could spend my life. However, I always knew in the back of my mind that as I grew weaker and became more scared, they became stronger and knew I was at their submission.
This became evident when, though I know it sounds perverted, they made me touch girls which would land me in trouble. Though I didn’t want to, as I had little interest in girls at that age, it was either that or another beating so I would always be in trouble at the expense of another beating.

The year went by. Summer came, and I spent it at home, too scared to face them at the river where everyone would go in the summer.

It soon went on into year eight, where matters on
ly became worse. Teachers failed to understand what I was going through and failed to recognise the bullying that was evident nearly every minute of the day.
I was so paranoid about another beating that I started to think things. I thought the bullies were targeting me, and they would soon catch up with me.
I started to leave school early which landed me on school report and in numerous detentions.

I found this deeply unfair as I was the one receiving bullying. Or so I thought. The reality was that I was paranoid about being bullying and would regularly tell teachers that I was being targeted.
No one offered any help. No one seemed to care. I felt like I was alone, the only help coming from my parents who would come and see me in bed when the heard me crying myself to sleep on numerous occasions.

The bullies didn’t take too kindly to being told on, and as they believe the first thing they hear, there was no explaining that it was my last resort and that they shouldn’t bully me. I stumbled across a plan to ‘fill me in’ after school. That means hospitalisation.
Overcome with fear and emotional trauma, I collapsed in tears and was subsequently taken to the school nurse to find out the problem. In broken tears, the truth came out, the bullies got suspended and I was free at last after about 4 years of relentless bullying.
A few of the bullies were expelled later on in the year for cannabis related offences.

I find it increasingly hard even now, seven years after the bullying stopped, to forget about what I went through. I just thank God that it stopped then.
The bullying was one thing, but the lack of understanding from the school was another. Like I’m sure many other victims of bullying have felt, there seems no escape.

If you are a victim of bullying, tell someone as soon as it starts. That is what I was told, and it is what I should of done. Bullies are weak people, and they mak
e the victims weak as well. I have been fortunate enough to obtain some good friends and I feel I have rose above the bully and am in fact now stronger. Stronger, than the weak, inconsiderate people that are to this day ruining many lives of young people everywhere.

Stop bullying. Stop it now, before too many more lives get ruined.

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