We're you bullied in school? What was the worst advice you got about bullying?

My own experience was that parents, teachers and other kids gave the absolute WORST advice about how to handle a bully.

Example: "Just stay away from him (or her).". Now this is just plain silly. Where do bullies thrive? In places such as schools or prisons, in other words, places where their victims are trapped with them and can't get away. Running away doesn't work in situations like that. Hiding doesn't work either; most bullies learn all the potential hiding places on their turf and take great joy in looking thoroughly and very quickly for their victims. Running and hiding also convey fear, a bully's favorite psychological food, and they become even more determined to engage with their obviously frightened fleeing and hiding victim. Then, when the bully finds the hiding or fleeing child and physically punishes him/her, and the child goes home and faces the parent who encouraged him/her to flee, the parent glares at the bruised child and says, "I TOLD YOU to stay away from him/her!" As if encountering the bully once again were the child's fault for disobeying the parent's impossible instructions.

What other examples of useless, or even destructive, advice were you given about dealing with a bully?

Anybody get any good advice about this? Anything that worked?

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BlueVeins · 22-25

I wouldn't say I was bullied-bullied, but I think the shittiest thing my school did in regard to bullying was define the term so such that the one doing the bullying must be more powerful than the victim. Like, the point of bullying is to feel powerful by making the victim feel weak; those morons were playing right into the bullies' hands. Besides, you don't have to actually be tougher to ruin someone's day; you just have to care less about getting in trouble and shit.

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@BlueVeins For 3 years I faced off every school morning with a bully who smaller than me. But her older brothers had taught her how to fight and she loved to practice her skills and brag about them. She was also good at verbally humiliating me with nasty remarks about how I dressed or the expressions on my face or anything else. She would make fun of me if I got an answer wrong in math class, my toughest subject. The teacher thought that was OK, and I was told I was being too sensitive to the gales of class laughter the bully would elicit toward me every school day. And she was SMALLER than me! It's not about actual size or power, it's about the bully's confidence and the victim's feelings of humiliation and helplessness.

BlueVeins · 22-25

@greenmountaingal Yeah, public schools are some of the worst with dealing with this kind of shit. That's absolutely atrocious. What ended up happening?

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@BlueVeins Actually, I attended a private school. I tried to run away from the bully and she complained to the teacher about it. And I got punished for running from her! I was not allowed to run away from her and I didn't have the skills to fight her properly. The punishment was so cruel that I plan to write a separate story about it here within a day or so. Today my punishment would be considered severe abuse, as it was. It scarred me mentally for many years and changed my self image and my attitude toward defending myself for the worse.

BlueVeins · 22-25

@greenmountaingal Yeah, I'm glad the public school system has at least gotten less bad since then. That's so ridiculous I can't even imagine being the teacher and making that choice. I'm sorry.

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@BlueVeins It was a private school. I'll have to write the story here soon.