Hi, Lucas,
Thank you for the courage to share your story and to heal your heartaches. Your questions are difficult, for the answers will be unique to each and every one of us and for each and every situation we face.

I, myself, once spoke up to an adult friend with whom I acquired much personal growth through our personal exchanges. That said, I also endured a number of hurt feelings because she would often resort to name calling and once when I gave her a gift that somehow touched a bad memory for her, she snarled at me “What the hell am I supposed to do with THAT?”

I finally realized how silent I’d been when she was acting in hurtful ways, and when I finally did choose to talk to her about it, she became defensive and didn’t want to accept what she was doing. For me, I chose to allow that friendship to shift. We are still friendly toward one another and I am grateful for all the time we had together, but I no longer choose to spend much time with her. That has been hard in some ways bet very freeing in others.

I have heard of people who, as adults, confronted middle school or high school classmates, who had no recollection of events that were hurtful or some who felt badly about the way they acted toward others. Only you know how your relationship is with your current friend. Has he changed? Is he now acting in supportive and kind ways toward you? If so, he may have matured and not be aware of how his actions impacted you. If he is still acting in hurtful ways, only you can decide which way you want to move forward.

As to how to rebuild your sense of confidence, you do what you are doing: reaching out, researching, and reflecting on the things that you want and those that are important to you. And then you act in loving ways toward yourself.

All my best, Journeyer,
Yours in hope, healing, and happiness,
~Annah Elizabeth

Dear lucasgreen:

I am still overcoming bullying. The way I do it is by asserting myself, using that skill I did not have and did not practice when bullied. Stand up for yourself in small ways and big ways.. no way is small when it comes to you being assertive, standing tall, rejecting abuse.

Of course, it first took the noticing that someone was mistreating me before I was able to reject it.

anita

Dear lucasgreen:

You are welcome. About proving to yourself that you can do the things you were taught you could not- I hope you attempt the smaller things first and give yourself credit for doing those, every thing that builds your confidence, every thing that operates for your well being, however small, is …big.

anita

@lucasgreen

Thank you for sharing your story. You’re right, there are a lot of people who didn’t really have great experiences at school and some things just trigger not-so-good memories.

A few months ago I was listening to my local radio station about a man who was faced with the prospect of going to his school reunion but he was unsure about whether to go because that would involve coming face to face with somebody who had tormented him, and the thought of going to this reunion brought back so many painful memories for him. A lot of listeners called in with their reunion stories and how they were reunited with their bullies but surprisingly, their former bullies apologised for their behaviour.

I also remember watching a YouTube video about somebody who was bullied at school, and he actually ended up phoning one of his former bullies – not as a means of calling him out on his behaviour or confronting him, but rather to seek some kind of explanation as to why he was tormented. The bully was remorseful, he did say he didn’t hate the person but he just ganged up on this person with his other friends just because he was there to be bullied, because he was “different”, that’s just how it was. I don’t think this was a particularly good excuse for justifying his behaviour but it sounded like that this person had since changed. I think what irked me the most about the former bully was how he thought it wasn’t a big deal for him back then, he wasn’t aware of how horrible he was making this person feel. “It was just a joke, we were just having a laugh, it was just banter…” If I had a pound for every time I heard that from somebody, I’d be well loaded!

I wasn’t exactly popular myself at school – the cool kids were all about rap music, watching the latest reality television shows, wearing the latest Nike Air trainers, blasting their music on the latest mobile phones, having the most friends on MySpace and Grand Theft Auto. They were quite relaxed in their approach to school work and they liked to have a laugh. They would talk and laugh in class about going out the weekend before and getting drunk and stoned at the park. I think I was the complete polar opposite of all that! I only knuckled down with my schoolwork because there was nothing else to do and I just wanted to be done with it, but for some reason this makes a person a teacher’s pet, an apple polisher, or a “keeno” as we like to say in England. Because I wasn’t popular, trendy or outgoing, they would shout “freak”, “weirdo”, “loser”, “emo”, “fat b*****d”, “why don’t you slit your wrists and kill yourself”, “scruffbag” and a variety of other names I best not repeat on here. It hurt being the constant object of ridicule, or made to feel like they were drawing all of their attention on me, going out of their way to make me feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t even going out of my way to “be different” or draw attention to myself, I just wanted to not be noticed (well, actually, I wanted telekinesis after reading Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ to obliterate them with my mind in excruciatingly painful methods, I was silently twisted and vindictive back then!!!) Looking back, I just attribute this to the fact that there is huge pressure on children and teenagers to conform to what is cool or trendy.

I also remember the torment only ever happening in gangs or packs as well. On their own, the cool kids would just say “hello” and they wouldn’t even try to be mean, they were only ever mean in front of their other friends. Some kind of need to just show off, I guess…

I don’t stay in touch with anybody from school these days but I do hear reports of what they are doing occasionally. Most of them are now parents. I think they had to grow up and take things more seriously when they were faced with these responsibilities – jobs, families etc. If I’m honest, I have no desire to reunite with them – I’m not the same person I was back in school and I don’t think the other’s are the same people either. We have all changed and grown up. I’m not giving any justification for their behaviour towards me but some people just pick on somebody for being different, or just because they are there as an easy target.

The point I’m trying to make here, I guess is that people change – bullying, name-calling, spreading false rumours and abuse is not okay at all and there is no justification for it but after listening to that radio station and realising that people don’t stay the same from when they are at school, it was hard for me to remain bitter or fearful of the other people from school. I’m not saying school hasn’t affected my current outlook on life or that I’m completely over it, but I have to tell myself occasionally that “they were wrong.”

Joe