Furry-Within

I looked around in the forums and I decided I wanted to start talking about a topic that is very sensitive, fragile, not many people like talking about it, but I love to discuss it, and that my friends, is.. bullying. Whether it's online bullying, IRL bullying, intentional bullying where you go up to someone and shove them and say "You are ugly in your face!" everyday of their highschool life, to unintentional bullying where someone responds to a text message you sent and you think that it's very grave because there's a certain lack of smileys and it ends with a ..., so you take it all wrong and everything blows out of proportions over absolutely nothing.

It can be anything from a certain someone pestering you when you're at school, only to write mean comments about you on Facebook when school ends, to how your parents are going through a divorce, and you feel burdened by it but when talking to them they don't seem to recognize the weight you feel, but rather seems to not even take you seriously. Or maybe they Do take you way too seriously and start harassing you about everything just to make sure it's ok, but the reply "Don't worry about it mom, everything is just fine!" doesn't strike them as a good sign!

I want This thread to be a place you can bring up any examples you want, discuss them, the problems and solutions they bring and everything that can cause and affect them. I want to start this thread by saying what I believe personally is the greatest solution of them all (if you haven't guessed yet, this is going to be a big post!).

Discussing! Just like I want you to discuss scenarios and different kinds of bullying, I believe that they best way to solve hard feelings, and harder words, is to discuss! Do you feel harassed, betrayed or just weighted down because someone acts towards you in a way that makes you feel hurt? Take it up with that person, discuss and resolve the problems!

Do you have your own thoughts? Maybe they don't align with mine and you feel I'm horribly wrong? Then post here and discuss and write your own thoughts on here!

And now, the hardest part of the post. The part where I have to write down that I'm not aiming this at anyone, and even though I mean it through and through, I would not at all be surprised if someone felt hit by what I've written, felt like I've aimed it at Them personally. Then please, tell me so personally, and I'll discuss and resolve it with you, and hopefully we shall both come out better and more knowledgeable people from it!

I will end this post by saying that while I encourage you all to discuss this very delicate matter in this thread, I will remind you all to not take up personal issues here. Do not drop names of people you dislike here, or people that you feel have wronged you. I want this thread to be drama free, and just a place of discussion. So while you may discuss the feelings one can have about any sort of bullying, if you have the feelings about someone you know, then take it up with them privately, either by confronting them at work, at home, by phone or email, by your preferred program of chatting, or any other means of communication.

That's all I have to say for a starting post, and once again I apologize for it's length. I hope everyone are willing to share their thoughts (Although I understand if you wouldn't), and hope this will be a very interesting thread to follow.

I guess I should contribute to this because being bullied was more or less of a life story to me. Considering I was bullied for most of my school years, (now that I think about it, I just noticed that there was at least one instance of bullying for every school year of my life... Huh...) it hits me right in the feels whenever this topic comes up.


Anyhow, I think I'm just going to spill out all the instances I can remember. The first one was just a big misunderstanding in first grade. There is me, sitting at my desk being the little kid I am. I remember the discussion being about how there was bits and pieces of dust in some girls attic and I said something about "bits of dust". APPARENTLY, everyone else heard it as "bitches of dust" and everyone starts to flip shit in the middle of math problem time. Now for a little back story. I was just a sheltered little boy who thought that the sky was always blue and that candy could be consumed everyday without consequences. So I'm just sitting there, wondering what the fuck a "bitch" is. Despite my pleas of telling everyone to calm down because I clearly remember me saying "bits" instead of "bitches", (fucking first graders and their perfect context.) the entire table calls me out on the teacher and I get sent to the desk while the teacher calls my parents, whoop-de-fucking-do and thus here comes the trust issues.

Bunch of stuff happens after a while, me doing something that is either threatening someone else or cause some disturbance in the class because of the bitching I did. Didn't help that my younger sister was being a total asshole to me as well back at home and that she used the parents card. I really did want to put her in her place, but that's "ungentlemanly" and "boys aren't supposed to hit girls". The feeling of helplessness was grand. I really couldn't tell anyone about this because people would be all "stop being such a wimp" or "you'll be stronger than her when you're grown up" and it really melted me from the inside out to keep it held in like that.

People didn't change when it came to dealing with me. It was usually the same treatment everywhere. I'd be the weird one and I'd most likely usually get picked on. Not physically strong at all and not that particularly sociable, I'd be the kid that would be picked last at the playground for a game or left alone to do my own thing. Guess I should be glad they didn't go for my lunch money. Heh. Growing up inside a religious family did not help... At all. It basically felt I was at school except for another subject. Sure there were times when other people and I got along, but it was only sometimes.

So eventually at 8th grade, I just decided to snap after all the days of people of being a constant asshole to me (In my opinion. Of course some of them were just joking around, but it really pissed me off). I took out a post-it note and think of a list of people that I would like to erase from existence and just kept that list to calm myself down for a little while. Though, during my morning science class, a guy sitting in my group took my binder and opened it. What did he see? A mysterious list of names, but he couldn't read most of it as I took it back right after. He did question me about it which I broke once more and told them about the plan where I was going to kill everyone on that list and possibly myself. The reactions on their faces were priceless and I feel nothing but a messed up feeling of content when they heard me say it with a straight face. Now, the funny/messed up thing about this was that the Virginia Tech massacre had happened a few weeks prior to my little out burst so the school didn't take it kindly when they got phone calls from the parents of the 3 kids I told about my little plan to. Blah blah, got kicked out of school, blah blah, ultra long vacation, etc.

TL;DR: I felt safe nowhere. Not home, not school, and not even church.


What have I learned about bullying? It's a really easy thing to do accidentally. I know that some were just light jabs at myself, but the mentally back then was "everyone is either against me completely or not willing to help". It became the point where I would only accept "help" if "help" meant exacting revenge upon the others. All my parents and relatives did was pray for my well being which seemed like they were completely ignoring me instead. In fact, it seems like anything that one does to another seems like bullying if it has a negative affect.

Anyways, bed time. I guess it was a rant, but that's how I feel about... All this. *Does weird hand motions towards the wall of text.*

-Sigh-

As for me, I guess I've been bullied most of my life, but I've often prided myself on how I've managed to get out of it now and then. Let's listen, shall we?

In early elementary school, I was picked on a lot for being the 'new kid' starting in second grade. Every time I made a new friend, the old friends of that friend would hate me and pick on me until I gave up. (This happened all through school for some reason.)

One of my early memories of second grade was me flirting with some girl for some dumb reason or another. Everyone caught onto it and things went to crap. I was always on the outside after that. Plus, it never helped that my mom always dressed me in big baggy clothes despite I looked like a stick.

Somewhere around third grade, I was pinned down on the playground by four or five other kids led by our class bully. He went to punch me and I kicked a field goal right into his groin. Guess who got detention after that. By the time the bully was ready to beat me up again, I had a cast on my arm. He was afraid I'd hit him with it, so I got off okay there. Only I was in trouble for threatening another kid. (Yes, like it was said earlier, this shit goes both ways.)

In middle school, I was bullied a bit and it didn't help that I had a half-retarded smelly kid as a locker partner in 6th grade, or a thief in 7th grade. Still, in 7th grade I made close friends with the biggest kids in my class and everyone pretty much left me alone after that.

In highschool it seemed like I didn't know anyone (aside from those other two guys.) I kept my head down. Determined to get through the years without incident. I hung out with the other picked on kids and such until the fateful day in 10th grade in which my math teacher butchered my last name which officially became my nickname. I wore it like a badge of honor as best I could, until some assholes can up with this ridiculous back-story that because the name (very vaguely) sounded like a pseudonym for marijuana, that clearly I was dealing. I got in trouble twice for that. Teachers thought I was the one spreading those rumors! 

After high school, all the friendships I had were over for some reason. I never discovered why. Didn't matter though. I became close friends with the other like-minded people I've met in the years since and through the miracle of Facebook, I've noticed again and again that I'm not really missing anything.

In later years I would get into a one-sided relationship with someone who pushed me to be a better person, and then ended up bullying me over who I was inside. It took a long time, but I stood up to that bully. Thankfully (and thanks to the timing of the universe) I can write this knowing that everything is settled and she is gone from my life forever (at least that's my intention.) But the bullying I received from her is another story.

jeepers we are all going into our stories about being bullied hm well let me weigh in a little.

well even when i was little i was a very hyper feminine child, this is something that I could not avoid really and oh boy did it make me a target. I never really made many male friends and even the few male friends that I did have, I had very little in common with.

With me people pretty much picked up on the gay thing when I was in 1st grade. Even then I knew it was true but it wasn't something I was about to admit. I didn't really make friends with my elementary school classmates, most of my friends where the kids in my neighborhood. But at school the bullying was pretty bad, I recall a day when a group of boy's circled me and threw rocks at me calling me horrid thing's. this was at around grade 6 one of the worst parts of my life really, the bullying had really escalated and i was having a teacher that was physically abusive to me as well, though the teacher thing was fixed when my dad demanded i be taken out of her class.

it got the worst when a boy who lived across the street from me asked me to go out to play. I remember his name was Johnathan Bradley, his dad worked with my dad and I thought he was my friend. When we were in the woods deep enough no one would find us, well let's just say it's pretty dark. I had to tell my parents some boys ambushed me in the forest and beat me up though the truth was much worse. After that I only ever left the house to go to school, I became more reclusive and got very depressed. My mom had to send me to therapy after a failed suicide attempt, I was 11 years old at the time.

Then I moved far away new school new people in grade 8 but I just could not deal with what I had dealt with in the past, I couldn't the wounds were far too deep. I made one friend in that school but we never remained close. High school was were I shined though! The big step being that  at 14 years old I came out of the closet, at that time I had a decent pool of friends and having them accept me was amazing. when grade 11 came around I had many many many friends, almost like coming out had made me feel more myself. I had confidence now, though admittedly being a part of multiple social groups I was often pulled away and it was a little stressful but from then on really everything turned out fine!

Ever since then I really have no problems making friends <3 so this story has a happy ending!