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Is there a bully you wished you fought in high school


If someone said you can go back to your school days for--say a week--but only if you confront your biggest bully, would you do it? I think most people would say yes.

I never got into that many fights, but I did stand my ground with a minor bully. He kept bugging me during math class. So I told him that I would meet him after school to fight him. He never showed. Would I have won the fight? I really don't know.

When two kids really get into a big fight in school, it somehow does something to each of them, transforming them into equals--not really friends--but acquaintances. From that point, you will leave each other alone. Think about your school days. Did you see some guy getting his ass kicked routinely by the same person? Probably not. If you stand up to a bully, you may lose, but 99 percent of the time that ends it. The phrase is "Never Let Them Take Your Lunch Money."

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I had a friend of mine in high school during 9th grade who got caught up in the wrong crowd the following year. When we were freshmen, we weren't buddies but we got along. We were both very short and small which made us targets. The next year, though, he had a growth spurt and towered over me. He also started hanging out with some really bad people and began picking on me. He wasn't as bad as Moody was in the film, but even after high school he was a customer at the store I used to work at and he'd continue to harass me.

Flash forward about 20 years later and our 20 year high school reunion is about to come up. I always wanted to confront this guy about his behavior, but couldn't find him and when I did he was on Facebook. I sent him a long email basically telling him how I felt what he did was wrong and I didn't hold back. A few days went by and I got no response. Finally, he responded and sent me back an even longer email. He told me that he showed my email to his wife and she started to cry because she couldn't believe that he could be that mean. He then told me that a few years prior he was in a car accident that left him permanently brain damaged and wiped out almost all of his long-term memory. And he was extremely apologetic and remorseful for what he had done and how he behaved even though he said he couldn't remember anything. I took him at his word and believed him because the guy that I knew would NEVER have apologized. So I forgave him and told him let's start with a clean slate.

Slowly but surely we reconciled our friendship and he was going to visit some family in my area and he really wanted to meet me face-to-face and make the peace as we should have done a long time ago. Throughout this time, he was going through a major depression and he was in a lot of pain. I told him that if he was ever in any type of desperate situation and needed to call someone that he could call me. He appreciated that, but I never got the call. A few months after we had reconciled our friendship, he was dead. He was only 37.

I regret that we never got a chance to make the peace as we both wanted to do, but I'm glad we were able to reconcile our friendship. He didn't remember a lot of the things that he used to do to me and I had to tell him. He kept apologizing profusely and telling me how he was a devoted father and husband and couldn't imagine being that way.

One thing I've learned as I've gotten older when it comes to bullies is that karma eventually will get them. All the ones who bullied me including some of my friend's buddies, the ones in the wrong crowd, they're either in jail, prison or a cemetery. My friend told me that maybe it was karma that he got into that car accident. I told him that I'm sorry that it happened, but the only good thing that came out of it was that it did make him a better person. He was a very loving, caring husband and father whose wife and kids adored him. And, despite what happened in the past, he and I became friends again.

All of us are bullied in school. It shouldn't have to be that way. Kids got enough to worry about.

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Thank you for sharing that. That is some story. Very sad too that the guy died

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I lived in a group home and went to a special school for emotionally disturbed teens but took some classes in a regular highschool as well.

There was a punk named Jeff who kept goading and trying to pick fights with me but this was a VERY different situation than normal bullying because I was way tougher and way stronger than him and he KNEW I could easily beat him up but what he was trying to get me to do was beat him up so that I would get in a $hitload of trouble including losing the extra privileges I had earned (like taking classes at a public school). This angered me MORE than it would have had he been tougher than me.

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Dude, even though your life story with bullies is way harsher than mine IMO, I think it is very relatable. Somebody I love told me once that our brains need closure to get over things like this. Its something that have been studied for years in psychology academia.
What happens is that we revive those moments and feel like they are happening again and we are there. We should really focus in making peace with those moments, we are no being fair to ourselves: it happened a very long time ago and we are not the same, even if we think otherwise.

The strategy to solve this is to write about a possible resolution or closure, with many details. It will work, even if completely fictional or violent; the more detail and dedication we put into it, the better. Our brains will make peace with that part of our past. It will remain in the paper and the intensity of the memories will fade away over time.

I'm actually about to write mine. I'll do it about every high school bully (and post-highschool, they are the same) I've ever encountered, even the ones that I merely had a one-time violent altercation in the subway. Bullies are simply violent people with lack of self-control, they are not worth more time in our memories, making us feel anxious.

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I forgot to add... sometimes I see bullies from my past on the street. I live in a fairly big city so I can have my own life away from them, but there are not many places to go out here, so they appear. Some people get out of their hometown and try to forget what happened. I think you should make peace with your past instead of burying it for years. It is way healthier.
Imagine if I hadn't. I would have recurrent PTSD every time I see one of those entitled assholes.

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I could fight, but I couldn't win. I figured if I took a few beatings, the bullies would respect me enough to leave me alone. I did. But the bullying didn't stop. After sophomore year, the redneck kids still thought I was pretty weird, but we'd all matured out of physical combativeness. That is, they'd fight each other over a girl or a grudge, but they wouldn't hassle me. In fact, I got to be friendly with some of those guys by the end of HS.

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I had a bully in 2nd grade and one in 3rd grade at two different schools, we didn't move they just built a new school so boundaries changed. The kid from 2nd grade was really tall, guess he picked on people because he was so much bigger then us. He got on top of me once coming in from recess, he was lifting his hand up to punch me on the face, all I could do was grab his face and I scratched the hell out of it. He ran in the building crying, he never bothered me again, we kind of became friends by Jr High & High School but not really. He ended up dying one day just sitting on his couch at home, he laid his head back on the headrest of the couch and closed his eyes. They thought he was just falling asleep but he never woke up, to this day I don't think they know what caused his death. He was 6'7" though and I've heard some tall people have interior issues.

My 2nd bully was 2 years older then me and he'd pick on me so one day I hit him in the stomach and tried to run away but he caught me. He was yelling at me and throwing me around, he never punched me but was basically just being a dick. It was about the 30th time of him picking on me that I finally hit him. Eventually he only stopped picking on me because he moved on to Jr High, by the time I got to the same school he didn't bother me. Maybe he grew up a little but I had such a resentment for him that I just ignored him. By the time I got to High School he was a senior and he would try to talk to me but I still hated him so I would basically ignore him. He had a friend who was a complete douchebag who would be a dick to me and I'd try to just ignore him too. If I ever saw those two today I'd remind them of just how big of dicks they were and how I would always think of them as complete douchebags. Their legacy in my mind is 100% dick. (Guardians of the Galaxy) LMAO

Bullies are such pricks. I never feel bad when a bully gets whats coming to them.

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The truth is, the biggest bully that I have ever faced in my life is me.

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I'd sneak behind them and beat them with a baseball bat Al Capone style because he was too strong for me to beat up which is why they're bullies in the first place. They KNOW they can kick your ass and you can't. This is why Columbine happens.

Screw the ni66ers. - slouchypaul, racist troll

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I wouldn't want to fight anyone who personally bullied me. I'm over that. I'm not over something someone said about someone else though. If I could go back and punch him then I would.

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I did beat up the neighborhood bully, but he was smaller than me. He was actually smaller than a lot of people he bullied, and got beaten up more than once for his sins.

Looking back, I think he just had a lot of attitude and was bossy. He came off as a bully because we didn't know how else to deal with him than either do what he said or beat him up.

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There are many guys like that all around the world. I think if he made you guys feel uncomfortable and was persistent, he WAS a bully. Even if some of you guys could beat him up on occassion. Its cool you reflect on that. He was a sad individual and I hope that nowadays you can forgive his lack of empathy at the time.

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In Grammar school I had a bully. But he never approached anyone alone. Always brought backup who were more than willing to step in if you got the upper hand.

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I actually saw him walking up the street when I was eighteen. I almost jumped out of the car at him. Then realized: what the heck am i doing?

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