• Question: Did you ever get bullied bullied whilst at school?

    Asked by anon-289418 on 12 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Alex Baxendale

      Alex Baxendale answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      I got bullied pretty badly, every day I wanted to avoid going to school, but by the end of high school things got better. I never had to see the people who bullied me again because I decided to go to a college they didn’t go to. In the end i’m really glad I didn’t skip school because it would have stopped me from being where I am today. I’ll never forget how horrible the people who bullied me where, but now I try my hardest with my work so that I can show the bullies who the real winner is!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      Hi Mrs Bolawole

      I was bullied, yes. This is quite a hard answer to write acautlly, a lot of emotions.

      I used to spend a lot of times by myself (even hiding in the school toilets) because I didn’t want to be seen. I was labelled as the ‘weird kid’ and I am still a bit eccentric, but that makes me who I am and a trait that I am proud of now and whole heartedly embrace.

      I would like to say that things do get better. People mature and the older you get in life the more tolerant (most) people will become. But don’t suffer in silence either. Reach out for help from a teacher or even a trusted friend, you don’t need to go through this alone if at all.

    • Photo: Dennis Relojo-Howell

      Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 15 Mar 2021:

      Hi Mrs Bolawole. I wasn’t bullied but I just felt I didn’t fit in, especially during high school; I usually just sat at one corner and was very quiet. As an adolescent, I felt a sense of inadequacy because I was wearing shabby school uniforms and worn out shoes. That’s all my parents can afford, so I try to compensate by being a hard working student.

      Sadly, bullying doesn’t just happen at school; adults can experience it too, in the form of workplace bullying. If you know someone who is being bullied, there are charities in the country who are doing fantastic work such as Bullying UK.

    • Photo: Harry Piper

      Harry Piper answered on 15 Mar 2021:

      Hi! Unfortunately I did and it was a bit of a nightmare. As people grow up things tended to get better I think but when exactly this was for particular people I don’t know. It would be much better if people could be friendly to one another and always act with compassion and kindness.

    • Photo: David McGonigle

      David McGonigle answered on 16 Mar 2021:

      Yes, although I certainly wasn’t the only one. I was lucky enough (or not!) to be at school where social media was part of the far-off future…having said that, social media doesn’t need electronics. You could be sure that if you’d done anything embarrassing that it would be seen in graffiti in the toilets or, if it was particularly bad, spray-painted across a wall somewhere…!

    • Photo: Anon

      Anon answered on 16 Mar 2021:

      I was teased a lot. I didn’t think of it as bullying at the time, but it definitely had a very negative impact on me. If it happened today maybe it would have been picked up as bullying.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 17 Mar 2021:

      Luckily, I was never really bullied, and was only briefly picked on by some girls in the year above (over something very petty!) but bullying is something that really upsets me to think about, and I always made a point of calling out behaviour like that when I saw it and would never be friends with people who thought that was an appropriate way to behave!

      I know it is a cliche to say things get better, but they really do. As you get older, typical things that people get bullied for tend to be the things that people appreciate – where I work and in my friendship circle now in my 30s, it is a total mix of people from every walk of life, and people are appreciated for being smart, ‘nerdy’, quirky, or just for being different in any way. We have so many nationalities, ethnicities, religions, genders, sexual orientations, hobbies and interests – it’s just a shame some people can’t recognise the positives in that, because on top of the hurt they cause to others, it will also end up being their loss in the long run if they cannot appreciate and enjoy all of our differences!

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