Comment by PaulHoule
3 days ago
Bullying is not just something that one does to another person. It's the social destruction of self that is mediated by a group:
https://www.amazon.com/Bullying-Social-Destruction-Laura-Mar...
Bullies couldn't do what they do if they did not have the support of the other students, teachers, administration, etc. As late as college I was harassed by criminally minded person who led a criminal gang that was not held in check until they finally smashed somebody in the face with a rock in front of many witnesses. Two people were driven to suicide.
The leader has been to prison and if he got out and went straight I could forgive him, even celebrate him, because it is so hard to get out of being justice involved. I'm still angry at the college administrator who told me "my hands are tied" who many see as a hero because he really did a lot of great things for our school -- but I wonder who else was driven to suicide and I fantasize about going to his funeral and dumping over his casket. An apology from him would go a long way, I've asked for it, I never expect to get it.
If you're being bullied in elementary school you don't get friends. It could be that the bullying drives away friends, or if you had friends you wouldn't get bullied, or the same deficits that cause you to get bullied also cause you not to get friends. Just being in a safe environment is a basic human right.
I guess you are answering to the "you also get friends" part of my comment.
What you suffered was horrifying, I hope you have recovered. There's degrees in bullying. Mine was not that bad in comparison to yours. The kid who was a bane of my existence would not attack me every single day, at every single hour. I was not important enough or "fun enough to mess with", I suppose. It was more like a "once per week" kind of thing.
I was not very successful at making friends. But I did make a couple. The first one was the other guy who was also regularly bullied. He had clear developmental issues, I don't think teachers could turn a blind eye on them like they could on mine. We talked about videogames, almost exclusively. It helped, somewhat. Then he (I think) became romantically interested in me and I had to cut it off.
Then there was another kid who regularly came to my house. We played with legos, which I had many. Then he stopped liking Legos. (Children...)
My school did give me many more opportunities to make friends. Retrospectively, I know I could have made more. I just didn't know how to. In my case it would be "the same deficits that cause you to get bullied also cause you to not get friends". I only managed to make real friends in highschool (and even then it was just 2 or 3). And that was after I decided to make a conscious effort to understand the social rules that seemed to come naturally to others.
I think my problem was more a "me" issue. The bullying didn't help but I suspect I would have made very few friends independently of it.
> Just being in a safe environment is a basic human right.
I do agree. Unfortunately many children's homes are not safe environments. Homeschooling for them is worse than bullying can ever be at school. Imagine 24-7 with your bully, who is way bigger than you and from whom you also depend for food, water and shelter.
Wow, that is tremendously messed up! I'm sorry you had to experience that. Kind of makes my young adult life sound like a cake walk.
Ironically, it was the jocks and the gang affiliated kids who always left me alone. I don't know exactly why, though I figured the jocks were popular enough to not waste their energy tormenting someone socially beneath them.
Anyway, I completely agree with what you've said. Whenever I experienced bullying, it was in close correlation to how callously indifferent the overall system was. The couple of schools I went to where I didn't experience trouble had empathetic teachers and administrators whom actually built trust with the students. The earlier schools I went to were mostly run by selfish teachers (whom I later learned were even more selfish than I realized at the time!) and administrators who would punish the bully and the victim equally out of laziness/callousness/stupidity; or look the other way entirely! Guess which ones I suffered under and which ones I didn't.
> If you're being bullied in elementary school you don't get friends. It could be that the bullying drives away friends, or if you had friends you wouldn't get bullied, or the same deficits that cause you to get bullied also cause you not to get friends. Just being in a safe environment is a basic human right.
I know you're referring to elementary school here, but I think this dynamic you're describing also explains why so many kids have a rotten time in middle school. Usually, middle school lasts only a few years, and can easily mean being separated from any sort of peer group you have for multiple reasons. If your friends are even slightly older or younger than you are, then one will have to face a year of middle school without them. Depending on where your friends live, they might end up in a different middle school even though you both went to the same elementary school.
Even though I did have one good friend in elementary school (we are still best friends today), he is a year older than I am, and even though we went to the same middle school I had to spend at least 1 year in elementary school without him and then another during my second year in middle school. And I know he had the same problem in reverse. When you're seen as having "no friends", even though you actually do, everyone treats you like you have the stink of death. Those were some of the worst years of my life.
I hate the stereotype in movies that jocks are bad.
There must be some bad apples but mostly they are focused on their sport and the team and don't have time or energy to make trouble, and if they do make trouble, they are off the team.
The time some people attacked me at my dorm I ducked into the room of the captain of the rugby team and that was the last time they came to my dorm. The captain of the football team at my high school was popular because he treated everybody well, I'd say the same about kids who were stars in youth soccer. In fact, even though I didn't feel terribly engaged with it at the time, youth soccer is a precious memory to me because it was one place where I was never mistreated (a group photo shows me standing next to the coach who probably gave me just a little extra attention because of my neurodivergence.)
Yup, I agree. I'm sure there's bad apples out there, but I had the least issues with jocks and popular people. Even in America, they didn't pick on me, and I was always confused by how vilified they were in popular media. Looking back, it was always these sort of middle of the road kids who were the problem; neither particularly popular nor at the bottom of the totem pole. Completely unremarkable, and with incredibly fragile egos.
Your analysis is on point. With some exceptions, popular people are usually popular for a valid reason.
There was this one guy I remember who wasn't exactly a jock, but sort of overlapped with them I guess. I'm pretty sure he played rugby. He had a great physique for a high schooler, was charming to everyone, and had the sort of look about him like he would become a "dreamboat doctor" as an adult. Anyway, I was doing miserably in chemistry class, not necessarily because I was bad at science but I was just having a tough time in school in general which made me unfocused. Without even asking him, he offered to help me study for my exams, and I took him up on it even though I did feel ashamed for needing help. With his help, I passed that class with what was the equivalent of a C grade in New Zealand. He became class president, and I know he was the one to deserve it. I'm grateful to this day that he was one of the few people during my school career who actually cared. And yeah, he was probably the most popular student there.