What can I tell you about being bullied, except it happened to me. 14 I was at school and in the end it became to much, I remember that final beating well, it was the day that I ran away from home never to return.
Yep 14, no money, no food no nothing, shit I got into loads of trouble, prison, Police even lived with a convicted Murderer, but nothing not howver bad was as traumatic as your so called friends turning on you, that the mind has never been able to work out
It screwed my exams up, sure its ruined my Mums time with me and I am sure it has runied a great deal of my life, and here I am 50 years of age and it still hurts, sure I have had a fairly good life in between, but the knowledge and misunderstanding of what happened just seems to linger, and its only now that I am seeking to deal with it with the help of counselling, I wonder if anybody really knows how much harm they can afflict
Anyone want to share then please do
Yep 14, no money, no food no nothing, shit I got into loads of trouble, prison, Police even lived with a convicted Murderer, but nothing not howver bad was as traumatic as your so called friends turning on you, that the mind has never been able to work out
It screwed my exams up, sure its ruined my Mums time with me and I am sure it has runied a great deal of my life, and here I am 50 years of age and it still hurts, sure I have had a fairly good life in between, but the knowledge and misunderstanding of what happened just seems to linger, and its only now that I am seeking to deal with it with the help of counselling, I wonder if anybody really knows how much harm they can afflict
Anyone want to share then please do
Your story is just so sad and has just brought so much stuff up to the surface with me.
Reading your story brings me relief in a strange way. With my parents and later even with my wife. They kept telling me all that is in the past, it can't possibly effect you now but reading your story I realise that it did and it does.
I am now thinking that in this respect I was right and they were wrong.
The bullying of me screwed up alot of things:
1. My self esteem
2. It caused me to develop alot of bad habits
3. It made me feel insecure and afraid
4. Gave me massive problems when dating women later
5. Made me prone to stress, worry and anxiety
6. Made me prone to depression
Basically ruined many aspects of my life long after I had left school.
I told my story in the Bullying support group 'Learning to Accept Myself' so I won't go into it here.
But 2 aspects resonate with me.
In my case my worst abuser never hit me it was more like a psychological torture. The guy actually considered himself my friend, I could never understand why somebody who despised me, shich by his actions he must have, wanted to hang around me.
The other aspect is that years later when I told my father that I wanted to talk to him about how I had been bullied at school, he said I should just put it behind me and refused to listen.
Now in the case of my wife when she tells me that how I act now cannot be affected by the past at least she can be forgiven beacuse I have never really told her in detail what happened to me.
My father on the other hand I felt should at least be prepared to listen. My mother unfortunately just fell into line with my father, now I avoid them, particularly my father whenever I can.
I have been working with a group called Developing a Positive Attitude DAPA which I founded specifically because I wanted people to help me explore my problems and help me feel more positive about myself. There are some really great people together and we have achieved so much together.
One of the things that has come out of it for me is that:
YES you have to let the past go
but FIRST you have to go through a type of morning process where you understand what happened to you and how it effected you
Thank you, you have just given me another opportunity to start the process of letting these feelings go.
We know it was horrible, traumatic, life destroying and we know they had no right to do it. But we probably never understand why they did it.
What is important for us now, is for us to understand we are not to blame, what negative thinking habits have been put in place because of what happened and how we can find peace with ourselves.
Sorry I have been away, but of course these things don't truly go away, as much as we wish they would.
I am now very late in life discusing all of this with a Counsellor which to me is strange but to her is not
Am I a nut case, I have 2 great Sons both now grown up, they both respect me,but I have this under lying fear that they shall find out about me being bullied, so I continue to hide and surpress my anger, a fear and anger that should possibly not be there, but there its.
SimonM all your points from 1-6 made sense, as of course I experienced them all, my counsellor said recently that its people like me that are brave enough to face it can later reach out and help others better than anyone else, I hope she's right.
To the outside world I believe they think I am reasonably confidant and succesfull, as this is the image that I project, deep down, I am unhappy with my past, I am unhappy that I still carry it, and surprised that I still do.
A bully can never really know the true depth of the damage that they may be doing, I am just so glad that it is being more dealt with now, as it was brushed under the carpet in my day.
I have decided that I shall work through it, I hope to make sense of it and at last begin to put it behind me, I am told that I am brave to be facing it now, I am told that my running away as a teenager was a sensible thing to do, given that I was in a life threating situation.
And I know its true, but when your bullied and you feel the world turn against you it don't feel like that
SimonM, your good words got me back here, thank you, not just for me but for all out there that may be affected
I really recommend that you join this group also.
http://dailystrength.org/groups/developing-a-positive-attitude
There are some really wonderful people there that have helped me achieve inner peace and turn my life around.
You have so much potential to help people like yourself on the road to enlightenment and working with other people on DS and your counceller you will have the courage to face all your fears.
One point, very few people in this world are on the true path to inner peace and if it means anything the people who abused you are probably suffering from trying to live a life where they are lying to themselves every day because they think it is the only way they can live from day to day.
I believe you are on the path to self enlightenment and inner peace.
I will follow your link thank you, the path to self enlightment I think is long and hard, I have progresed with some of it since I stopped drinking.
I would use drinking to bury my faults and feelings, to hard my pain, my fears and to show just how big, strong and brave I was (superman when drunk), however I have now chosen to face life sober, however painful it may be.
Strangely I am enjoying my new journey, I am dealing with things now that through alcohol that I could surpress. a habit that near killed me, which gives further thought to those that are bullied, we hear about those that take thier lives quickly, but we do not hear of those that may just follow a path of self destruction as they have never been able to discus the trauma, they die from one addiction or another in solitude.
Since I reached out for help, I have found so many caring people, at first I was shocked, as I explained that I have not been used to people caring, but care they do, there is a whole world of caring people out there, but the first thing to do is to reach out and find them, they will come, believe me
Till next time
Tricky7