Comment by Retric
4 days ago
That may be your memory, but in the typical day it’s intimidation and emotional abuse. Especially in terms of girls who make up half the population, they rarely get punched in the face but arguably have larger issues to deal with.
I’m not accusing you of misrepresenting the situation, just trying to convey what’s objectively going on can feel very different from what people’s lived experience is. Someone with older siblings can barely register being bullied in some situations that really are traumatic to others.
In elementary school I had a girl in class who the other girls made fun of. There was nothing physical. Boys kind of made fun of her as well, but what really stuck to her was the other girls. She did therapy, but even her therapist told her that she is a hopeless case. Which is obviously extremely unprofessional and terrible. She ended up taking her life in her 20s. It was just mental bullying by peers. It is very sad to think back at the time. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her to deserve this bullying, and peers did it as some sort of self esteem popularity type of thing.
I do remember school being this survival of the fittest type of thing as well. Some were naturally good at it, others not so much, different people handled it differently.
Certainly it was the most common for me (also California public school). That does not mean I would not bring up the physical violence as the first item in the list! It's the one least open to interpretation.