I read threads about bullying, I hear about bullying online or in the news.

Can someone actually describe something that happened to them that consider bullying?  When I was going to middle school, in the early 90s, you'd get punched in the back of the head and a bully would take your money and throw your backpack on the roof of the school.

What is bullying now?  I've read enough threads and heard enough people say they get bullied. 

What happens?

That's a hard question. The definition of bullying changes for whoever it is. Some people say they're being bullied all the time when there's someone that perhaps just calls them a name or two, but I don't really think that's bullying. I'd say it turns into bullying when it gets physical and someone actually gets hurt physically, but that's just me.

I would say being abused mentally and/or physically repeatedly.

I used to be a victim of bullying a few years ago basically, there were 2 girls bullying who constantly went out of their way to make fun of me and even got other people to do so as well, I tried to avoid them but that didn't work since they just went even more out of their way and when I tried to get them to stop they started threatening me instead and how they were going to beat me up if I said anything to a teacher. They also hurt me physically like slapping me, punching me (while teachers were present) and stealing stuff from me. I one day decided to hit them back
and everyone started calling me "that one guy who hits girls". 

There seems to be this belief that you can't call it bullying unless it's physical. But as someone who has experienced both, I actually think the mental abused I face hurt the most. It made me depressed, and ruined my self esteem because I sincerely started to think I was worthless and it was somehow all my own fault causing me to pretty much shut myself from the outside world losing the few friends I had and after a while I even started having suicidal thoughts.

Those who don't believe it exists are probably people who have never experienced themselves and simply it by thinking it's only when you call someone a few names once or twice. With that said there are probably people who say they get bullied just for attention but there are a lot more people than you would think who are actually getting bullied for real.

I would say getting abused on by an individual or a group of people repeatedly. I was bullied when i was 3. She used to try and annoy me and would throw water balloons at me,call me names and try to get the other kids in the area to join in etc. I then did eventually snapped and punched her square in the face. It is the only time I can say I hit a girl but I have no regrets doing it and my parents didn't get me in trouble for doing so. It has some sort of a mental effect on me. I felt useless and weak but I didn't have suicidal thoughts. I didn't know what that was back then. the bullying I faced was more physical than mental really.

I am rambling here but I think it just depends really on the person as said earlier.

warmaker :

Do you really think it so much different these days? The feeling of getting excluded might for many be much more than getting donkey punched.

It's anyone constantly going after you to diminish you. Be it with words or physical interaction, it's meant to put you down and claim that you are worthless.

I've been bullied from K to 11 (that's how it is in Quebec) and it was a pain. I'm no saint; I did induce some of it by violently hitting people for bits and nothings. But it left me without real friends for most of my life

Well....for me wouldn't be physical it would more like be words. And even if that may not be bullying to you I got that type of treatment and body language. It got worse for me in primary school. When I moved schools I mean. Boys called me ugly, worthless. My appearance was mostly bullied for. All I asked was why. because...they said I have something special that they don't have so....they were all jealous. All I wanted to do is fit in and make friends that I couldn't do. I hated secondary school I went to  a school with girls only. And these girls...also looked down on me and use their body languages. Whatever did I do wrong? I got picked on because I was different....words do tend to stay within you if you constantly got bullied everyday of you life which I got. People might say. Oh that's is nothing, that's not bulling. Trust me it is if you were in my shoes. now...its different.

Bullying is not having a problem with someone and then approaching them about it.

It's constantly coming back and putting them down unnecessarily.

Bulling is anything done on any level with the intent to harm or discredit someone by choice. It can happen once or multiple times one person or a group can participate. It can be social, religious, financial or just about any way a person can be offended. What makes it bulling is you know its wrong and choose to do it anyway. Like in school when you got punched in the head if there was no one to take your money and throw your backpack on the roof it was probably an accidental bump. 

I think Janus said it nicely... bullying is seeking to diminish a person's self worth either through words or actions.

When I was a kid, I was bullied constantly for being fat. Some of it was physical, but a lot of it was emotional. Name calling, insults, actively isolating me. Not one or two times, but constant and unrelenting. To be popular at my grade school, you had to make me cry. So they put gum in my hair, threw my backpack and lunchbox over the fence into the park, pulled chairs out from under me, called me names  mocking my weight, name, skin color, heritage, family members, etc etc. Verbal actually became more common because it was easier to hide. I could prove they put gum in my hair, I couldn't prove that they called me a "f***ing fat white girl who should just die."

When I got older it was for being a witch. Again, mostly verbal. The particular kid that did it would call me "cat killer" even though anyone that knows anything about Wicca and Paganism would know that hurting any animal is against all we stand for.

Bullies like to provoke reactions. They love it when you get angry. I gave them that in spades. I would run after them, but couldn't catch them. I would tell the adults and be ignored or told to "just ignore it". The kid that harassed me for being a witch was the only one that was forced to stop because after he provoked me enough to get us sent to the office, I mentioned the magic words "religious discrimination" and the Vice Principle shut him down to avoid a lawsuit.

This was all before the common usage of the internet. I can only imagine how bad it is now with cyberbullying.

My definition of bullying is when a person (or multiple people) makes another person feel helpless. In my experience, the only times I've ever felt completely helpless were back in elementary school, where other kids used to physically push me around and throw me on the ground for no particular reason. However, though I myself have never been very affected by words, I do believe that different people have different thresholds and that some may actually feel more helpless when they're under verbal abuse than if they were hurt physically. It really depends on the person, and what affects you more.

Physical bullying is using physical strength to hurt someone, sticking out the leg to trip them when they go by, sitting behind them in class and pressing the shoe into the back of their buttocks or throwing objects at them during recess or before school to hurt them. Throwing ball at crotch during PE. Pushing opponent headfirst into gym wall during PE floor hockey. Throwing ball at head when you catch someone not looking in a multi ball exercise. Slamming a shoulder into a particular schoolmate whenever you pass in the halls.

Social bullying is not passing to one particular guy ever in team sports. I was that guy. I got really good at moving without the ball.
Social bullying is giving one particular kid a flat ball every day because he's new when one is in charge of the ball supply during recess. One of the few kicks those jerk kids ever got when they did that duty. Social bullying is excluding one particular kid from everything you and your buddies do in class, out of class and anywhere. One of those in class things was a group project that I needed to pass math. Thank you, social bullies, for making it impossible for me to pass math for the third year in a row. Social bullying is telling all your friends that one boy stalked you when he did no such thing but everyone believes your lie because you are a girl. Your friends will make sure the whole school knows you said that and you won't be able to take that back. The boy's junior high existence is now ruined.

Mocking others is a more direct verbal abuse. It can be very ugly. Say you butt in line and then when the guy you got in front of confronts you, accusing him of trying to kiss you. You loudly proclaim that he is puckering his lips to do a boy-on-boy kiss. The mockery doesn't stop there. If someone says something, you repeat what they said with incredulity in your voice and then burst out laughing; your friends join in to laugh at this poor person who dared to speak in front of you and is now being mocked for saying something perfectly ordinary. Jerks!


I was subjected to all these abuses. It really wore me down as the years dragged on and got me depressed in my mid- and then later teens. I always knew, even then, that somehow I was better than these jerks; it just didn't feel that way at the time. My emotions would boil over and I would give in to tears. I spent a lot of time crying about how I was treated. I was infuriated all the time and I tried to look even angrier than I was so that people would think twice about messing with me. My stern front didn't win me any friends. I was more alone than ever. My pop forgets what it is like to be bullied. He thinks you can just ignore it. Yeah. Ignore that I was alone and the only people that wanted to talk to me were my tormentors.

What might have helped would be having less self-imposed self-control when the incidents happened and just go all out and pummel anyone who physically, socially or mockingly tormented me. That would show those creeps!


P3

Bullying isn't really the same thing now as you see. Well, there are many types of bullying, not just physical. There are other different kinds, such as: Emotional bullying, cyber bullying, and there are many others but that's what  I can think of.

Emotional Bullying is when someone bullies you by emotions. He/she hurts your feelings. Believe, this hurts so much. In life, 99% of the people you'll encounter will hurt you emotionally. That's emotional bullying.

Cyber Bullying is basically bullying on the internet, but that's not just it. Maybe someone hacks your account, and it gets banned forever. Maybe someone posts fake pics of you, and then you get embarrassed on the whole internet. Cyber Bullying is a very disturbing thing. Because, once you've posted something on the internet, you can NEVER delete it. Everyone will see it.
 
Physical Bullying, the usual bullying from the very early years. Basically, it's when someone beats the other up. Break your arm, injure your leg, and all that stuff.

Bullying causes a lot of pain, and I do mean by a LOT. Even your friends will bully you one day, believe me. In life, 99% of your friends will talk behind your back. They will bully you, so don't consider them as 'friends'.

Bullying means to me basically when a person hurts the other. It can be physically, on the internet, emotionally...

Everyones got an opinion on what bullying is, some presenting information based on memories, some off their own experiences, and others act as a guru to others with the belief that they know the answer and that they can help. It's not important what is right or what is wrong, but that it happens.

To put it bluntly, and from thinking about it enough [Totally not contradicting the guru self-help talk here], bullying is a remnant of our ancestors instincts. For whatever reason an individual has, they pick on, poke and prod somebody else to make them feel better. That's what we've always been told when taught about bullying and its badness. That said, the attempt for someone to achieve that feeling of being better than somebody else is a competitive one, if not a vicious idea already. The bully wants everyone to know, for him/herself, the victim, or anyone else, that this person is not one to be trifled with for any reason, as he/she is capable of dominating another person for their own mutual gains. They continue to torment their targets, and they continue to revel in the feeling of dominating someone else. Kinda like the monkeys, except we as intelligent and advanced beings are trying to learn about these habits and attempt to prevent them from being used because we are that advanced and intelligent to know that we should not have to rely on the need to try and overpower someone else, since obviously, that ain't needed.

Bet none of you expected that idea did you?

Now, as decades have passed, its pretty clear that bullying has evolved itself. Theres always been the 'classic' bullies, where they take your lunch money, give you wedgies and dunk your head in the toilet and all that nonsense, but as technology has grown, so has the ability to move about. Now kids can bully others without having to deal with them face to face, and its even easier to have other people. You all know how thats been going. Its like a lazy kind of bullying, yet it wields so much more power, especially to those who frequent it more. I'm also gonna put in the fact that kids seem more prone to beat each other up due to the bullying, both bully and victim sometimes willing to duke it out to show that either the bully remains a bully or the victim desperately wants the bully off his/her case. It's just gotten worse really.

Bullying is the act where one does WHATEVER it takes just to make the other miserable, to ;prove that they are the superior over the other, and perhaps other humans around him/her, the feeling of being an alpha, when its clearly the wrong way of doing so.

Bullying is words and physical. I was hurt more in school by words but when I was in about 6th grade 2 guys punched me. I was always bullied because of my looks and weight. I mean I am for one a beautiful girl especially to my fiancée but when I was still in school I was pestered and bullied like there was no end. Some kids told me to go kill myself, others just told me I was a pathetic worthless nothing.

I had to transfer schools when I was in 8th grade because I was having family problems and moved to my dads which was the worse decision of my life. Not just at school but as home as well sense my father is an a abusive alchoclic who cares nothing about us . I have nothing to do with him at this point. On a different note the first day I went to school, I had seen that I was in the same class with one of my cousins. She was like hey that's my cousin everything was fine and good ... about a week less or more she started to be really cruel to me. I made a couple of friends who stood by my side but they were also victims of this cruelty. 

My cousin hated me so much for some reason that she turned the whole class against me. There was this one girl who told me to go kill myself and just begged me to hit her even though she wouldn't hit me because she wanted me to get in trouble by the teachers. Obviously I didn't hit her. There was a guy I was talking to one day and he literally just freaked out on me and said I don't like you you fat loser.. he even took it to the extreme to send me a hateful message on facebook. Told me how fat I was and how I should go die and blah blah. 

Really now that I look back on it, they were just dumb kids but I will never forget the way they all treated me. Bullying is a huge issue in America.. cyber wise and in real life. Girls make so called mistakes and those mistakes go around the whole school and it ends up ruining their reputation/life. They are bullied so much they end up killing themselves. There is many instances this has happened .. even in my state. I mean I have had depression problems my whole life but I haven't been so depressed that I got to the point where I attempted to kill myself. I couldn't imagine doing it. And now I'm glad I never did because I have so much to live for. A wonderful fiancée a family and friends and all those kids who bullied me well.. one got in trouble by the law.. one ran over a guy and killed him on accident but was drunk.. another got knocked up her senior year and the others I'm not really sure.

I guess it all amounts to all the horrible things they did and it just came straight back at them for all the cruel things they done and who knows that maybe not even their judgement. I am not one to judge them. Only God can but I feel like what goes around comes around. It always has and it always will.. and if it don't it will in the end.

Bullying is a serious thing .. I mean people are killing themselves over it just because they made a stupid mistake and everyone is bullying them because of it. I hope it gets better some day but all I see right now is it getting worse in our future.

Being called fat somebody would say is nothing but to me that's everything... it's hurtful it's cruel and it's just not a respectful term or remark. Big Girls are beautiful too. You don't have to be some skinny model to live a healthy life or at least try. Plus there is a right person for everyone I believe. I mean I quit looking for somebody and look what happened.. I found a wonderful man who loves me for me and me only. He respects me and treats me like I deserve to be treated. Even though I went through all the horrible things growing up.. it made me a lot stronger and the woman I am today and I'm proud to be me.

There is always hope but people just have to get through the rough teenage years first.. then things do start to fall into place. All I can say at this point is bullies are bullies and there is not much that can stop them except for them to grow up and realize what they are doing is wrong. I have nothing else more to say on this matter at this point. Thank you for reading.

People picked on me because I was small and weak, so I consider it bullying.