What to do about the past...

[fawn]

First off let me say, hello, I'm new here, and i hope i can help, but first i need help.
I don't trust myself or my memory and the way i relfect my story is going to be different from what really happened but i'll do my best to be realistic.

When I was ten i had a girl who i wanted as a friend nad she became my friend, or rather she contacted each other and she spent a lot of time at my house. I wanted her as a friend because of her status. She was pretty damn horrible to me. I wish I could explain in detail what she said and did to me but i can't get any specifics through my head. There was a lot of lying though, a lot of bull shitting about drinking and pot and sex, she would use me by pushing me (this was half my fault for ageering to it) to buy things for her, she would constantly imply about how her other friends were better about how i behaved like a "social retard" she would ignor in me school around her other friends. I though she was soo cool. I had trouble getting other people to like me, there are serval reasons why, but i won't go into that. We grew apart when i turned eleven (we were in different classes), i became a loner. When i turned thirteen, fresh into highschool, she was in a lot of the same classes as me and we became "friends" again. There was bullshitting. I got badly bullied, some people called me a loser in front of class and no one did anything, she was in that class and she didn't do anything. i got mad at her after the inccedent and asked her why she didn't help, she basically yelled at me, blaming me for being bullied, the jist of what she said was obvioulsy i was acting weird, i deserved it. It's was like saying when if woman dresses a certain way she deseves to be raped. I felt like ************. I stopped talking. I just stopped.i kept it inside because i was just trying to be big, to move, that's what everyone says you should do, move on. I stayed in school for the rest of that year, running away into washroom so i could cry and really, really hating myself because i had no friends, because i reacted too much and because i was weird.One of the worst things i did was keep in contact with the girl.Half way through my fourteeth year of life, after my mom and sister started fighting i just quit school. I couldn't take it anymore, there's no point in going to hell when you live in it. When i turned fifteen my mother and i moved. In the new town i thought things would be different but what happened was that i was scared of talking to people, meeting people, i still takled to people and the same thing was happening again, i was being bullied, i quit after two weeks, i became afraid of school. The high of my summer was spent in a mental instatute and interestingly enough, right before i went my mother tried to stage an intervention. Which was stupid because i wasn't on drugs, it was three ************ing days before i left for that stupid insatution place and she got a group of adults together to say, "we care and your mother needs a break from you" three goddamn days before. My mom liked to ************ with my mind. This year I'm living with my dad now and it's been better, i still don't talk with people much but i'm okay with spending time alone. I feel like i've missed out on a lot. But what exactly? Now I'm tring to go back to school full time next year but i'm afraid i'm in a cycle, where i attract people to abuse me, both in a board social setting (the bullying) and in "friendships".

I'm freaked out because I'm in a cycle that's not breaking quick enough. I kept telling myself that "i'm just going though my awkward teen years" but i'm almost an adult now and i feel pathetic.

What should i do about the people who have bullied me? I know i can move on, but the memories are cemented in my brain and i believe that i can do something, repair, overpower or contact them, to better heal myself, to help break the cycle of victemisation. Do anyone have expirence in this sort of thing that they can share? If you do give me advice, may i ask what you get from it (i don't mean to come off as snarky but it's been my past expirence that i should do as you do not as you say...)

should i write a letter about how they've hurt me? should i play victim or be assertive? should i try to get them to a see a couselor because they obvioulsy have problems...

should i do something really horrible like get naked pictures of them and post them all over the internet?

should i beat the crap out of them?

And what should i do about the basic bullying? Should i role play to be more "normal" and get more positive? Does anyone have any realistic, you can do this at home, advice?

[ellie]

Obviously this has been a very painful thing for you Fawn (love that name).

I wouldn't revert to abuse or nasty retaliation tactics. I probably would suggest you see a councillor as you sound as though you're a suffering. A councillor if good, will help you deal with your fears as well as giving you some practical tools to handle yourself around people that intimidate you.

If you’re going to start university, or high school they usually have a counselling service available on campus. Perhaps that's something that might be accessible for you.

I hope things get better for you Fawn. I'm sure there are people on this forum that have words of wisdom

[Freelancer]

I've been in a very similar situation for a long time (pretty much my entire adolescence period) I don't know how to best help you but I'll atleast give you this little story about how I dealt with it...

Background;
Bullied for about 4 years across two schools
People I considered friends bullied me both socially and physically

Something happened (don't want to go into that) which changed the entire situation.

From that point on I refused to let them controll my thoughts and emotions in any way. I decided that I was above them and I refused to hang out with them. Slowly I removed myself out of there presence, not in a nasty way but more like we grow out of eachother. It was almost magical in a way, before I used to be affraid I'd be alone if I left them. But at this point I was done, I decided that if I had to be alone than so be it.
Turned out the exact opposite happened, I made new friends easily without trouble and I never got bullied again. I now know that nobody will ever be able to do anything close to bullying me simply because it doesn't hurt me anymore.

All it takes is a change in mindset, a change of your perception. I'm NOT saying that this is your fault in any way, I am saying however that you can cope with it and change it IF YOU WISH TO. Ultimately bullies come from a place where they have no power and the only way to get power is to bully. The strange thing is that you'll never see this unless you step out of your victim frame of mind. What I did was accept them for who they where and move on since I couldn't help them. After that they reacted different to me and so did everybody else. Changing your perception and your frame is so unbelievably power, you have no idea.

An excersize I want to give you;
Ask yourself atleast 10 times each day with different actions the following;
How would a high self-esteem person perceive this?

A good example of this is;

Originally Posted by RSD newsletter

Have you ever been in a situation where you were talking with
somebody and you took something they said the wrong way? In
other words, you misinterpreted their meaning and got upset, only
to find out later that it was all in your head?

An example: guy 1 says to guy 2, "Wow, looks like you got the
short end of the stick on that one!'

Guy 2 has some issues and insecurities about his height, and he
responds, "What do you mean, short end? What are you saying, I'm
short? Who cares, why do you have to be such a jerk?!"

Guy 1 is left scratching his head and explaining that, no, that's
not what he meant, he was just saying blah blah blah...

This is how I'd often react about things, even if I did not actually say it out loud. A high self esteem person would take it as a joke and laugh about it, in turn it will turn into a joke. Your perception changed reality.

[MartialDev]

Originally Posted by fawn

What should i do about the people who have bullied me? I know i can move on, but the memories are cemented in my brain and i believe that i can do something, repair, overpower or contact them, to better heal myself, to help break the cycle of victemisation. Do anyone have expirence in this sort of thing that they can share? If you do give me advice, may i ask what you get from it (i don't mean to come off as snarky but it's been my past expirence that i should do as you do not as you say...)

should i write a letter about how they've hurt me? should i play victim or be assertive? should i try to get them to a see a couselor because they obvioulsy have problems...

Judging by your comments, you're not in any position to solve other people's problems.

Originally Posted by fawn

should i do something really horrible like get naked pictures of them and post them all over the internet?

should i beat the crap out of them?

And what should i do about the basic bullying? Should i role play to be more "normal" and get more positive? Does anyone have any realistic, you can do this at home, advice?

You should forgive them.

[uberinquisitive]

Fawn, I haven't been bullied, but I have had an abusive childhood. Letting go of the past is very difficult. I am 28 now, and I find that time and just "growing up" helped a lot.

In your situation, I recommend you read "Loving What is" by Byron Katie and "Self Matters" by Dr. Phil. These will help you get out of your current mindset, which seems to be attracting these awful situations. You will also want to watch "The Secret"

After you do all the above, and really study them and take about a week to digest things...tell us if your situation feels any different.

Good luck.

[medaille]

I would do as freelancer suggests. I would decide that I am done being bullied, especially by friends and that there's no room for those type of people in my life. I would switch mindsets to become the chooser. You can choose which people you hang out with and I would choose only the people that were good to me. This might require trying to acquire a lot of new friends to weed out the bad ones or it might just switch once you decide not to tolerate it anymore.

[Love]

Hi, Fawn.

I can see that there have been some hurtful times. I also agree that it takes work to leave the past. However, it can be done when the future looks so darn good you can't take it but to take steps to lead you there.
So, where do you want to go?

[The Adventurer]

This is a difficult situation. You can get through it, but it will take time and it will not be easy. Keep that in mind especially through the horrible times that will happen many times before things and you change.

One thing I would say that you need is to build confidence that you are capable, and that you control what happens to you. This will not happen by itself, any confidence that is not based on actual skills is an empty one and does little good, so the way would be to learn to deal with your surroundings successfully in small steps. As you become more fluent in this, real confidence will also come, and that will be a turning point.

How can you do that? It will be difficult by yourself, so try to open up to and spend time and do things with mature people you admire, these would generally be older, but you may know some who are exceptionally mature for their age, they would be good too. It would be particularly helpful if they see what you need and are willing to give you a little aid in getting there. Also, try to experience new things, and to undertake any challenges that you feel you can handle - both of these will help a lot.

When this happens, you will find that bullying, or bad relationships will disappear - you will find ways to deal with them, and at the high end - to never even create the conditions in which they can appear.

The past does not matter in any other way that you choose or allow it to matter. Some things can be difficult to get through, but once you learn not to allow the past to influence you, you will be a much stronger person. For the moment build your confidence, and at some point you will either feel ready to confront these issues or you will find that they matter no more.

Regarding the others - leave them alone and focus on yourself. That is what you need to develop to become happy.

[Sleeping Dude]

Go to the gym or learn martial arts. Start improving your body, at your age it should go fast, and improvement of your mentality will follow. That may sound rough, but once you feel physical power and realize you can kick their a$$, people will feel it and change their attitude to you. Everyone can bully a weak one.
If you go this way you can also meet people doing same stuff who could become your real friends.

[agnostic]

Originally Posted by fawn

When I was ten i had a girl who i wanted as a friend nad she became my friend, or rather she contacted each other and she spent a lot of time at my house. I wanted her as a friend because of her status. She was pretty damn horrible to me. I wish I could explain in detail what she said and did to me but i can't get any specifics through my head. There was a lot of lying though, a lot of bull shitting about drinking and pot and sex, she would use me by pushing me (this was half my fault for ageering to it) to buy things for her, she would constantly imply about how her other friends were better about how i behaved like a "social retard" she would ignor in me school around her other friends. I though she was soo cool. I had trouble getting other people to like me, there are serval reasons why, but i won't go into that. We grew apart when i turned eleven (we were in different classes), i became a loner. When i turned thirteen, fresh into highschool, she was in a lot of the same classes as me and we became "friends" again. There was bullshitting. I got badly bullied, some people called me a loser in front of class and no one did anything, she was in that class and she didn't do anything. i got mad at her after the inccedent and asked her why she didn't help, she basically yelled at me, blaming me for being bullied, the jist of what she said was obvioulsy i was acting weird, i deserved it. It's was like saying when if woman dresses a certain way she deseves to be raped. I felt like ************. I stopped talking. I just stopped.i kept it inside because i was just trying to be big, to move, that's what everyone says you should do, move on. I stayed in school for the rest of that year, running away into washroom so i could cry and really, really hating myself because i had no friends, because i reacted too much and because i was weird.One of the worst things i did was keep in contact with the girl.

I'd say you have been too much of a nice guy so she didn't respect you and, to say it bluntly, exploited you.

Originally Posted by fawn

Half way through my fourteeth year of life, after my mom and sister started fighting i just quit school. I couldn't take it anymore, there's no point in going to hell when you live in it. When i turned fifteen my mother and i moved. In the new town i thought things would be different but what happened was that i was scared of talking to people, meeting people, i still takled to people and the same thing was happening again, i was being bullied, i quit after two weeks, i became afraid of school. The high of my summer was spent in a mental instatute and interestingly enough, right before i went my mother tried to stage an intervention. Which was stupid because i wasn't on drugs, it was three ************ing days before i left for that stupid insatution place and she got a group of adults together to say, "we care and your mother needs a break from you" three goddamn days before. My mom liked to ************ with my mind. This year I'm living with my dad now and it's been better, i still don't talk with people much but i'm okay with spending time alone. I feel like i've missed out on a lot. But what exactly? Now I'm tring to go back to school full time next year but i'm afraid i'm in a cycle, where i attract people to abuse me, both in a board social setting (the bullying) and in "friendships".

Living with your dad now seems to have been a good decision. Judging from what you've said, you've improved because of it.
You got it right that you seem to attract people to abuse you by the way you behave. If you go there expecting to be bullied, you will most likely create the circumstances which will lead to the bullying. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy and I think that's the point where you have to start the change.

Originally Posted by fawn

I'm freaked out because I'm in a cycle that's not breaking quick enough. I kept telling myself that "i'm just going though my awkward teen years" but i'm almost an adult now and i feel pathetic.

What should i do about the people who have bullied me? I know i can move on, but the memories are cemented in my brain and i believe that i can do something, repair, overpower or contact them, to better heal myself, to help break the cycle of victemisation. Do anyone have expirence in this sort of thing that they can share? If you do give me advice, may i ask what you get from it (i don't mean to come off as snarky but it's been my past expirence that i should do as you do not as you say...)

should i write a letter about how they've hurt me? should i play victim or be assertive? should i try to get them to a see a couselor because they obvioulsy have problems...

should i do something really horrible like get naked pictures of them and post them all over the internet?

should i beat the crap out of them?

And what should i do about the basic bullying? Should i role play to be more "normal" and get more positive? Does anyone have any realistic, you can do this at home, advice?

You have a lot of piled-up anger inside you. The first thing I'd recommend is some sort of sports program to get rid of this. Regular exercise will make you more calm and at ease with both yourself and your environment. I

Second, you should work on your attitude, which causes the anger.

This is a bitter pill to swallow, but here you go:

By this I mean that you have to take responsibility for your anger. Other people don't make you angry. You make yourself angry by believing and thinking certain things.

This most likely makes you behave odd in a social setting, making others uncomfortable around you while displaying low status, which in combination is an invitation to be bullied, which causes more anger, and down the spiral you go.

This issue of yours with other people seems to be at the root of your problem.
It's not that girl, not your mom, not the other guys who bullied you.

As I said, it's a bitter pill to swallow. But he who takes the blame for a situation also has the power to change what he has caused.

I'd recommend to make some friends, to join a local club, talk to people. Build social skills deliberately. Read books about it and apply what you learn.

Also, I'd recommend some book by Albert Ellis on Anger (He has written two of them, so I'd recommend reading at least one) and Hauck's "Overcoming the Rating Game" for dealing with your hatred and lack of assertiveness. (Both tested and proven psychology that actually works, and does so pretty quickly)

That should help.

Oh, and don't beat up anyone or post naked pics online.

I've once heard the sentence:

"The best thing about the past is that it's over."

Thinking about it won't change it. All it does is it makes you feel miserable.
By thinking about it all the time, you are reliving the experience over and over and over again. Isn't it enough to be bullied and humiliated once?
Think about it.