cannot move on from childhood bullying

LegacyUser

I grew up in rural Ireland and loved primary school, best time of my life. Then I moved on to secondary school and being the quiet, shy type with zero skills at sports and wearing thick glasses I got a hard time but I got over it and later become friends with just about all my class.

My younger brother was built like a rugby player, loads of friends, popular with girls and got on well with life. Himself and his friends make my life hell. Had no reason to do it but just did it anyway.

I'd sit on the school bus and get pelted with conkers and bottles and stuff and never reacted. I could walk down the town at lunch and get laughed at. Singing chants at me on the bus. I was 16-17 at the time and never reacted "If I ignore it it'll go away". They once stood outside my bedroom window laughing at me and I lashed out with a golf club when he came home from the pub but the mammy didn't believe me and somehow it was made to look I was imagining things. But yes, it stopped for a time so I guess lashing back worked.

Then I moved out to a houseshare with a friend in the local town, went working in a factory and made new friends and the same continued. Would get jostled in pubs, laughed at on the street and when I did some barwork in the hotel they'd come in and pull my tie as I was glass collecting and just laugh at me.

Said this to the parents and was told "sure you're worse to mind them".

I then went to college at 18 and when I came home at weekends and would be out in town with friends the same continued. His friends would roar abuse across the street at me but I didn't even know them, don't know their names?? If they were driving down the street the same happened. I got jostled in nightclubs.

Again the parents just said "worse to mind them"

I shut down emotionally and while I had friends in college I withdrew into myself. I then start convincing myself maybe it's all my fault and I deserved it. Over a decade later even today if a gang of skangers in a car drives down Ballyfermot road and shouts something I say "that's aimed at me, I deserve abuse, I'm nothing". If someone asked me for a smoke, I say I have none which is true and then he calls me a prick I don't react, I say "what's wrong with me that randomers just abuse me". When a supervisor in work gave me an awful time I said "I deserve this, I'm nothing, everyone is better than me and I deserve to get bollocked in front of everyone"

I am now 33 and haven't gone to the parents house in 6 years. I have not spoken to the my brother since 2003 and I doubt I ever will. I learned recently he had a baby son and I'm an uncle since January. He's getting on well in life and I don't think I ever got over this ****. Told some girls in work about my nephew, they asked for pics and I had to say no but didn't say I cannot ask for pics.

My parents probably think I'm cold and I don't care for not visiting. I do talk to them on the phone some weekends. I also daydream sometimes about why I didn't batter the daylights out of these lads and it's over a decade ago and I think about these things daily. I saw a British gang film about a guy on an estate who lashed back and starting thinking why didn't I do that.

Ever hear about the meek quiet guy, wouldn't say boo to a goose lad who once day snapped, does something violent and everyone says I'd never had predicated that? I'm afraid that would be me some day.

I'm 33 and I think I'll be the same when my brother is married in the next few years and I'll still be held back by this. How do you get over something like this?

ongarboy

Hey OP, can you afford to get counselling or psychotherapy? I really really feel that discussing this with a trained professional in a safe, non judgemental and understanding environment would benefit you greatly as it would allow you to delve deep into your past and confront all those pent up issues that are making you very sad, angry, afraid and unhappy. This would probably be quite difficult and emotionally draining at first but you would eventually learn to understand that what happened was not your fault. This realisation should then greatly help your self esteem and enable you not to feel you are being bullied over and over again in the adult world in perceived or imagined contexts.

Your quality of life can and should change so much for the better after a significant period of therapy and you can start living for the liberating and happier present and future rather than in the painful past.

MrWalsh

You cant change the past.

You can only take responsibility now, as an adult, for who you want to be. You are the pilot of your own life here, how you want to be perceived, who you want to be - its all in your hands.

I think you need to let go of the past, its not helping you to hold onto the bitterness.

Neyite

I had a similar experience, so I do understand the anger you have inside. I distanced myself from my bullies as soon as I could. The two worst ones, at different points in my life, approached me and apologised for what they did as kids, and it helped a lot - it helped validate my feelings, but it didn't really fix me inside.

Counselling helped me recognise that the bullying had impacted my life in many other little ways and continued to impact on my life. So I worked on putting it behind me, repairing the damage that others did, and moving on. The bullying is still impacting on your life, decades after it happened, you can either choose to continue letting it impact you, or deal with it and leave it in 2015. I'm not going to say that you will ever forgive and forget fully with counselling. Right now its like you have an open wound. Counselling will help you to heal and repair it. You'd still have a scar to remind you, but it wont hurt any more. You don't deserve to have this still hurting you after all this time.

Rubberchikken

i'm sorry it was your brother that was part of this. he sounds like he and his pals were a bunch of immature idiots who truly didn't know any better.

while he may have seemed to have it all going for him, i'd bet there's some jealousy at the back of it all.
you did well in school, you had friends, you went to college etc. look back at his life and see what he has actually done.

and i agree with others, you can't change the past. but you could do something about the future. only you can decide if you want to renew your relationship with your family/brother/nephew.

maybe look into some counselling to see if you can get past these memories and start fresh. good luck

santana75

As someone said already, you cant change the past and yours is eating away at you every day. And I think thats why things are still happening to you. When you have a particular mindset and thoughts it will shape your body language and the vibe you send out to the world. You're body will literally be folded in on itself in an attempt to protect you from perceived threats. When you walk around like that it actually draws a certain type of person to you, people who will literally attack you. And its because they read your body language(not on a conscious level)and they pick up the signal that youre an easy target and wont stand up for himself.
You have to let go of what happened and take responsibility for yourself and the way you act and think now, in the present. You can create a whole new vibe but it starts from within. You have to develop a healthy self image, hold your head high when you step outside, pull your shoulders back and look people in the eye. Dont look at the ground or hide yourself away. Dont avoid people or situations, throw yourself in there, even though it'll be scary at first. You have to place value on yourself because at some point in your life you learned to devalue who you were and its just gotten worse and worse. Life always throws the same scenarios at us no matter if we;re 16 or 36, if you allowed people to mess with you when you were a kid they will do so when youre an adult. You have to stop it and not let people mess with you, you have to stand up for yourself. Its a paradox, you have to expose yourself to attack, by making a decision within you that says, ok let them take a swing at me, its ok I can deal with it and stand up for myself. When youre willing to stand up for yourself, even if it means you might get hurt(physically, emotionally, mentally)the irony is, people wont mess with you. Its the people who are afraid of confrontation who are the ones who get set upon. The people who are prepared to fight their corner regardless are the ones who, by and large, wont be messed with.

Blue Iris

That was very prolonged bullying OP and it is extremely hard to get over. But as the others have said, it can be done. I agree that talking it out in counselling should be helpful as you have built up patterns of thinking about yourself that would be hard to change on your own.

I think it would be good to work at gradually finding your voice. Look for opportunities in daily life to give your opinion about things. Say what you'd like to say in conversations. Validate yourself when you're happy about a situation where you've used your voice as this will reinforce it and encourage you. Because your parents didn't encourage you to say no to the bullies you have to find a way to do this for yourself. The more you express your own opinions in all kinds of situations, the stronger you will feel and the easier it will get for you to stand up for yourself in an argument.

You are just as valuable and worthwhile as any other human being. It's just your deeply held negative self beliefs that tell you that you aren't. These need to be challenged constantly as they can really wear you down. They simply aren't true. They are masqueraders trying to convince you that they are representative of the real you!! Confront them, refuse to believe them. Look at it objectively, no human being is worth more than any other. Your value is equal to mine and to everyone else's. Best of luck.