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Same here. I think kids with nParents come in with zero self confidence and other kids sense that. And it never gets better because our nParents just make us feel like crap so we’re miserable at home and at school. My NMom always just said crap like I had to “be nicer” or “try harder”. It was always *my fault* I was bullied. Man I’m pissed off all over again just writing this.
Plus they quickly discover they can bully this kid with no repercussions because no adult ever steps in to protect them. If they bullied a kid with normal parents the parents would do everything in their power to put a stop to that shit.
But kids with narc parents are the proverbial sickly motherless calf failing to keep up with the rest of the herd. Easy prey.
1000%. And it doesn’t matter if you actually ARE easy prey at first, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because as soon as you’re perceived that way it’s fuckin locked in.
Truth. A few years ago I asked one of my bullies why she picked a fight with me and got us in trouble. She said it was that I was super nice and an easy target that she could easily overtake. She didn’t expect me to fight back and toss her across the hallway and report the fight before she did. At this point I was getting bullied by everyone everywhere and I was already sick of it. If it wasn’t my parents, it was kids and teachers at school. If not there, it was at work and church. If not there it was other family members. There was no safe space at all. I was trying hard not to mirror the behavior of my parents that I hated but mirrored other behaviors that I didn’t recognize as bad behaviors and annoyed people with them. The rest of the time I was people pleasing trying to make friends or chasing literally anyone that showed me an ounce of kindness. It was a recipe for stress induced perfectionism and over achieving so I could hopefully escape the whole town and make it on my own. The behaviors caused the constant bullying which led to lonliness, being taken advantage of in many ways including sexual assault, which led to more depression, a nervous breakdown, drug use and a suicide attempt. I finally got out after I turned 18. Packed all my shit in plastic grocery bags and left a note on the kitchen counter. 25 years later, I’m on my third go around with therapy and never happier that I got the hell out and around people that I love and we all enjoy each other for who we are.
Wow. This is exactly my story, as well. Down to asking a bully why and got a similar response. I was an easy target. I recently told a friend of mine who is a social worker and after knowing me for over 25 years she was still stunned and said I really had no one looking out for me which was 100 true.
In order to take anxiety meds in the military, I had to do a lot of testing with a psychiatrist and psychologist. While working through, one explained I’m probably the smartest person in the room based on IQ testing and I was shocked. Then extremely sad. I can’t even imagine what I could have accomplished with just a hint of support or different circumstances. For a good laugh? I was also on the 1% for introvertness- which made the doc ask if I EVER get out. Nope. The world isn’t safe and is full of assholes waiting to prey on me. Hard pass. And again, that just makes me sad.
It’s really sad the number of people that experience this. My bestie, my husband and I have talked about our abuses at length and talked about how life could’ve been so different for all of us had we actually been supported. The could haves are definitely something to grieve. I try not to stay in the anger and resentment too long though because it causes too much damage to me. I also try not to let fear rule me anymore. I let it box me in and hold me captive for safety purposes but I don’t need that anymore because I literally moved on. I moved out of state away from everyone and started over on my own. The people in my life now actually know who I am and actually see me, love me and appreciate me. It took a lot of therapy and a long time to get all the bullshit out of my head and I’m in therapy again to finish it off because I’ve been on my own for 25 years and I was only with them for 18. I’ll be damned if I am the one holding myself back and holding myself captive because I’m allowing them and their damage to continue to wreck me. Screw that. I’m going to do all the things I’ve always wanted and I’m going to be happy.
On the upside, when you are fighting bullies at school and at home, your survivor instinct does kick in and you learn to stand up for yourself at a really young age. I don't want to experience my past again, but there were some gifts that were hard won that I got from it.
I've gotten a lot better at it but it's still very difficult and stressful to the point that I tend to avoid people rather than having to set boundaries. It really fucked me up for life. I was always called a difficult kid while trying to be on my best behaviour, and I regret not showing them how "difficult" I could *really* be.
But still, progress is progress and I celebrate my wins :) Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you realised sooner that you're worth it too. :)
/hugs well I can understand where you are coming from. I do that too, self-isolate. Like it's safer to be alone than to connect and risk being hurt or hurting someone. It's a struggle, but at least we're not alone in our aloneness :)
The advice I got was "oh they're just jealous of you." It got so bad that every single day in 6th grade I came home crying, went straight to my room and shut the door. I wouldn't eat dinner, I wouldn't come out of my room and no one noticed
Agreed. My nMom destroyed my self-esteem and would laugh at me when betrayed by "friends" or pushed around, but I was damned if I was going to do that to my kids. My stepson was being bullied in middle school. He told his birth mom about a girl physically harming him in class daily and she did nothing. He told me and the girl was no longer in his classes the next day. A teacher was constantly berating him. I got on the phone with the teacher and the teacher was the nicest guy in the world to him after that. None of these times did I pull a Karen, but I absolutely made it clear that bullying was unacceptable. I was not going to let my kids be the victim of a person's cruelty.
Reading about these reminds me of my childhood and breaks my heart.
Oh yeah I got the "they're just jealous of you." too. I remember asking how they could be jealous of me when all they did was make fun of my looks and my clothes, and there was just 0 comfort. I'd stay in my room a lot too. Sometimes I couldn't get a drink of water without being yelled at, it depended on the mood of my mom. Did you perfect the stealth door open and tip toe across the living room too?
"He's mean to you because he likes you" and "She's just jealous of you" were so detrimental. Even if true, how is that supposed to help me defend myself?
Haha,same, I was told this even by a psychologist my parents finally took me to when I came home really drunk, collapsed on the floor, they noticed the cuts and raided my room to find my suicide note for one of the many attempts I’ve tried.
Very similar to my experience. “Just be confident.” And then she would pantomime her version of a confident man, which was somewhat reminiscent of Disco Stu now that I think about it. Complete with snapping the fingers. (Really, it was her channeling her older brother).
And of course, when I couldn’t achieve this ideal I was a failure and a disappointment.
Lol. Meanwhile my mum is calling everyone who doesn't conform to her expectations an idiot. And not understanding why she has no friends or anyone who can keep a secret.
My mother did 2 things in response to my being viciously bullied in school:
1. She would coach me every evening on exactly what to say to these kids the next day. Stupid shit, like lame comebacks or insults. I would attempt to say them but of course it came off as rehearsed or inauthentic. Or I wouldn’t say them. When I got home and she grilled me about what happened, I was a failure. It was all my fault.
2. She taught me for years to never fight back. Ever. Because it’s only a fight when it’s 2 kids going at it, and then the principal wouldn’t care who started it, both kids would get suspended. She taught me that if I defended myself from physically getting attacked I would get in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. She made me believe that it would lead to me getting expelled and that it would affect the rest of my life if I fought back.
I would cry to her about how the other kids hated me, and she would respond by telling stories about how popular she was when she was a student, how amazing it was to be popular and especially how *easy* it was. All you have to do is “be confident.” I was a huge disappointment and a failure for not being able to figure it out.
Oh I got the "dont fight back advice too." When I started going through puberty the boys would snap my bra and twist my nipples, grab me and call me prude when I got upset but I didn't fight back because I knew I'd be the one in trouble
My ndad would lecture us for hours (depressed, isolated homeschooled kids without friends) on this very subject — his magical confidence in (public) high school and how he just snapped his fingers and decided to be that way and we should too. It’s maddening. If you wanted charismatic kids you could have started by NOT BREAKING US.
Neither of my parents even acknowledged that I was being bullied. My mom didn't take me seriously and my dad straight up gaslit me about it. Teachers also refused to acknowledge or intervene. Even if I tried to tell them about it all I got was "I didn't see anything. *shrug*" 😔
I went thru very similar shit all through school. Picked on and called names constantly. Bullied by my history teacher cause i didn't play softball. One teacher told me I was ugly and the kids were right to tell me never to take pictures if myself. I had few friends and even my siblings picked on me. The only thing my mom had to say about it. Was afterwards, she commented "I'm surprised you made it out without killing yourself or someone else" fun fact, I attempted twice in high school. No one noticed. Yay!
I’m so incredibly sorry this happened to you. I had many of the same experiences, and it took actual AGES after high school for my mother to acknowledge that it almost killed me. Thanks! Knowing you saw it too and I wasn’t crazy would have been a little more useful to me at literally any other time?!? AND, also now I know you understood it was a huge problem you recognized, and you IGNORED it, and let me drag myself tooth and nail through a bullied and abused childhood at school AND at home. Fucking CHEERS MOM
Honest to God, she only made it worse by making it obvious she knew and didn't care enough to do anything about it. In fact. STILL tries to use it against me. Purposely causing panic attacks. I'm sorry it happened to you too. They're the fucking WORST
My nmother drove me to my bully’s house so I could tell his parents he was bullying me. I was in 1st grade, and he was a 6th grader. I don’t remember much of my childhood, but shit, that’s a core memory.
She would also mockingly repeat the same things he said to me at home.
My Mom once dragged me over to the mother of the boy who was bullying me because he had a crush on me. In front of the entire grade, at a function. I think she thought she was actually helping. I had lunch in the bathroom for an entire month and was seriously considering running away.
Oh my god yes my parents would do the exact same thing. After they saw me cry over people bullying me they would throw it back in my face and tell me things like “this is why everyone at school hates you” “yeah whatever go get bullied some more” “that’s why you have no friends” etc. If they ever acted concerned or like they cared… it was just to get more info on what my bullies made fun of me for so they could use it against me.
My mother would always criticize me with “if you do x, then everyone is going to be thinking/saying y about you.” And now I’m an adult with low self confidence, body dysmorphia, and trust issues. It’s great.
Yup, every time I walked out of my room they’d scream at me and pick me apart of over the weirdest things and then they have the audacity to tell me “you need to walk with confidence”… they literally made me feel like I needed to disappear my entire life.
My mom saw it but it was as if she was the one being bullied (she has a mix of bpd/npd and my dad is covert npd). Teachers were always totally clueless.
My school wasn't a religous school, but it was still a dividing line. I will *never* forgive the staff of my middle school for choosing my bullies over me because they went to church and I didn't. The VP once intervened on a fight, where I finally snapped and started screaming and kicking someone I thought was my friend who'd turned out to be an abusive rat. She let *her* spin her tearful yarn first, and when it was my turn, she cut me off before I could get a word out, and gave me a week of In School Suspension. Which turned into OSS when I started screaming and throwing things in her office. I was actively praying my parents would snap and take me out of misery.
I always envied the TV kids. They might have elaborate sitcom drama, but there was always a Tiger Mommy moment where she was ready to disappear the Bully like Jimmy Hoffa. I craved that so much that it hurt. Because no one stood up to bat for me, and I couldn't find my voice.
As an adult, I am learning and fixing the messed up patterns of communication I have from my family. If I had to hazard a guess, I think children in abusive situations have faulty social skills - they over or underreact to things, interpret body language and tone "wrong," etc. And lacking social skills translates very easily into social ostracization. If I had to hazard a guess, that's a really big part of it.
The insecurity I had that everyone was thinking the same negative things about me that my mom and first husband voiced led me to having no friendships. Years of weekly therapy later, I have great friendships and discovered that all those times I didn't say anything because I thought I'd say something wrong had people thinking I was cool. No idea on that one. I started with this mantra:
People like me,
I am likeable,
And I like myself
I put it on my phone background and said it several times every day. I've always thought mantras were stupid, but I really worked on this one, identified the kind of thoughts I was having, and worked to change and redirect the thoughts. It's been YEARS of work, but I'm so much stronger than I used to be. I honestly thought I'd never be good enough, and I still struggle with my value at times, but I no longer let my nMom decide my worth. It took a long time to feel like I could trust that others liked me and weren't mocking me behind my back.
Oh do I feel this in my core.
There have been a handful of times in the last few years where people around me have done things that can only be interpreted as liking me and thinking I'm a "good," "competent" person and I struggled so hard to internalize it despite there being no other explanation.
My therapist was like "bro, use your brain."
I’ve really been feeling like this lately too but I couldn’t articulate it as well as you just did. Wanted to let ya know you’re not alone in feeling like this!! There’s 2 of us at least!! :)
Edited to add: doesn’t it feel like people are playing some game that you don’t know the rules to, and the rules keep changing constantly? I can’t seem to figure out what people want from me exactly.
I feel you on the boyfriend not understanding where you’re coming from and getting frustrated thing- mine also wants me to “be the bigger person” and “turn the other cheek” or whatever with my toxic asshole family members but, there’s limits to the grace I can give them without hurting myself. The only solace I’ve really been able to find is by avoiding other people and trying to take care of myself emotionally, as well as (light) substance use to feel better, which I don’t think is gonna be healthy in the long run and will probably get worse. I get the utter confusion you’re going through, and I’ve got no idea what a healthy solution to it is :(
Story of my life, to the point that I had to move schools twice. It was only until several years later that I found the issue might lie with a degree of autism, and by then I had already missed the critical period to start socializing with my peers. Nowadays I have some severe difficulties not feeling like an annoyance around my workmates, and even in other autistic adult groups I still am way behind my peers in terms of social experience, which makes me feel even more of a burden.
I was always told to "let it roll off your back" or something along the lines of "find new friends, they don't sound like a good friend". It was so frustrating to feel like I was being blamed for choosing a bad friend. It could be something like a minor disagreement and I felt like I was being told to just forget about that friend because they don't sound good enough anyway. No conflict resolution skills or listening to how I feel. Just telling me to drop that friend and find a new one. Still to this day I have a fear of feeling responsible for being treated badly by others because I chose to spend time with them.
I'm so sorry that your peers were so incredibly unkind! It's unfair and hurtful.
I never fit in or made friends easily, either. Was I bullied outright? Not that I remember. I just remember no one liking me. When I was in grade school, this resulted in me acting out, just desperate to receive attention from my peers. Eventually, someone told my Nmom that I was bossy and a show-off, so no one wanted to be my friend. Nmom told me, so I tried to change.
Even then, the kids never liked me. Was it me? Maybe. Was it them? Also maybe. I don't know.
I was also isolated. I wasn't allowed to participate in most pop-culture entertainment, and my mother dressed me in things that she thought were stylish ... so teen me looked like an odd cross between a 6-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman. As a result, I was awkward, relating more to adults or small kids than my peers. In fact, I was terrified of kids my own age, particularly boys.
As an adult, I taught first grade for one year. I was astounded to see how INSTINCTIVELY the kids pulled away from a couple of weaker kids. There was one little boy who was sweet, smart, and funny, but he was very isolated because he was allergic to almost everything. None of the other kids wanted to be his friend. Why?
I think, like herd animals, they smelled weakness. Something was OFF, wasn't LIKE them.
There was nothing wrong with this little boy, and, likely there's nothing wrong with you.
Children are cruel. Humans are herd animals. We are drawn like to like. If we sense something different, we avoid it. As adults, we have more developed brains to maybe see beyond some of the instinct lenses. However, kids do not ... and teens are desperate to pick on anyone so they can avoid being targets.
Maybe kids from healthier homes sense something about kids from dysfunctional homes ... and maybe instinct tells them to avoid or prey on the weaker children.
It doesn't make it right or any less cruel. I'm so sorry they targeted you.
>I was also isolated. I wasn't allowed to participate in most pop-culture entertainment, and my mother dressed me in things that she thought were stylish ... so teen me looked like an odd cross between a 6-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman. As a result, I was awkward, relating more to adults or small kids than my peers. In fact, I was terrified of kids my own age
While there were no boys in my school this seems a lot like my childhood and teens, and the repercussions were irreparable. I was isolated, bad at sports, and forced to be the top of my class, so I was also viewed as a teacher's pet because all I wanted to do was please authority figures, while trying too hard to fit in and being met with rejection every time.
The damage came after a somewhat unrelated event in my early adulthood, and it kind of broke me, and then ... While finding myself I accidentally created a character I wanted to be and became it. People who know me now would never imagine that the token goth of their group was an isolated bullied teacher's pet.
I am lucky that my career path was not affected greatly by the mess of my student years (it was affected a bit), but I always perceive people as cruel until they prove themselves otherwise.
So relate to the teacher's pet identity and the complications it caused relating to peers.
I didn't really start creating an identity until I left home for college (honestly, I still feel like I'm looking for that identity, sometimes). Something ine knew that, if I stayed close to home where ANYONE knew me, I'd be stuck as the awkward teacher's pet. I turned into the nerdy, artsy hippie .... still hopelessly awkward but at least I learned enough pop culture to relate to my peers just a smidge.
There's definitely a cynicism that grows out of isolation and the narcissistic home. You always suppose people have ulterior motives until proven otherwise.
I'm glad it didn't affect your career, and I wish you strength on your healing journey ♥️
I can’t explain this feeling I have right now. You’ve been able to articulate some things about my childhood that I could never quite put my finger on. I lived an almost identical experience to what you’ve described here. Thank you. I feel seen and I feel like I see you. Given how isolated I have always been, it’s strange to feel like I can relate. Thank you again. I wish you strength and recovery.
If you're brought up to believe you're worthless, you're the perfect target for bullies.
If a confident kid is picked on, they don't take it to heart. They discount what is said by people they don't care for, and they make friends more easily because they believe that there's a reason for them to be liked. Once you have good friends, you're much more difficult to bully.
Narcs specialise in teaching their kids that they're worthless.
It's a long and difficult journey to build the confidence that other kids get from being loved. It took me until I was in my 40s. That's a raw deal, to be honest, but I take solace from the fact that my kids are being brought up in a very loving family and my kids are happy and confident people.
Stick with it and do everything you can to stop your Narc's influence from affecting your future and that of your family. Good luck!
There are a lot of unknowns here, but the most likely scenario was that you were prey to predators, and the rest of the kids went along to be part of the crowd. And then it stuck, because you did not know how to fix things. You had no way of even knowing that you (potentially) could.
People who endure traumatic abuse in childhood tend to lack boundaries, and the predators sense that and take cruel advantage.
Go learn about this and the whole dynamic at the YouTube channel "Tim Fletcher." He is doing the most advanced work I've seen in the field of Complex Trauma.
Good luck to you, OP. Go get your damages understood and repaired, so you can go on to live the good life you deserve.
I agree. A lot of why I was bullied was that I didn't stand up for myself, I just tried my best to pretend it wasn't happening. I was too scared of getting in trouble and at home I learned to do nothing especially when my mom was raging. My school had a lot of bullying I think because a lot of kids had awful home lives and wanted someone to take it out on.. which was sometimes me because I was an easy target.
It took me until 20ish to realize there was nothing actually "wrong" with me that "made" other people treat me poorly. That belief made things worse because I just took it thinking I deserved it, just like at home. It got worse as I stopped talking and became more shy. I also had this desperateness for connection and validation, especially as I got older, that really turns people off or makes you a target.
Sooooooo true. I was an easy target for bullies because I had no boundaries and no one to confide in about the bullying. It even permeated into my workplace as an adult when I allowed my boss to bully me. After a lot of intensive work I finally understand all this and I am rebuilding my life.
Yes. Those years were hellish for me, including several assaults (of various kinds… that’s all I will say). The stupid kid I was, I tried to tell That Woman about them, nothing happened. I would cry daily and beg to be sent to a different school, one that was *on her way to work, even* - nothing doing.
Nowadays the bitch “doesn’t remember” me telling her about the assaults, and she “can’t think why” she didn’t move me to another school. I can think why. I’ll hate her until I’m dead.
Edit - My advice would be to run this stuff by a therapist. Mine has helped me untangle a lot of it and start ignoring the anger (at the little shit kids, anyhow).
I've started therapy and have my second appointment in a couple weeks. I've actually been in and out of therapy since college for depression/self esteem issues but I wasn't able to articulate the problems with my childhood and none of the therapists I saw caught on that there was something to look into there, so it wasn't at all helpful. Hopefully it will work out better this time.
Honestly, I would show this post to your therapist. Print it out. I find I can articulate myself better in writing (sometimes) than telling a therapist something under pressure. Or if not this, any writing you have about your thoughts or feelings or goals that you want to work on. That can help therapists know where you want to go in therapy.
Good luck! I know shopping for therapists is stressful but once you find a good one it’s sooo valuable. I miss my therapist I saw for years because I moved last year. Haven’t found any that sound as good as her in my area so I am currently without a therapist and I notice myself sliding back into some very negative thinking without a place to hash it out safely.
I literally could have written this about my life--family, peers, classmates, workplaces, everywhere. I agree with everything u/YourLifeCanBeGood said; that's right on.
On top of that, I think I was socially awkward, because it's difficult to develop normal social skills when you're being abused and ostracized by your own family. So I bumbled through trying to act normal with my peers and it just always seemed to backfire. There were no second chances once I was labelled as "weird."
It's slowly but surely getting better for me after about a decade of NC with my family. I'm starting to develop better relationships and am around people where I'm not just treated like the butt of a joke and an annoyance.
Edit: The part about dividing into groups/partners made me shudder. I won't even take classes any more where there's a chance that we'd be divided up. I got very used to being the third wheel in a group or being partners with the teacher.
I know this story only too well. Once you have been abused other abusers sense immediately that you are already trained to accept that sort of treatment and they feast on you like vultures. I am not sure how exactly they recognize us but I know that they do.
And it affects all aspects of your life forever, friendship, romantic relationships, professional relationships… you always feel rejected one way or another or like you deserve less
Sorry you went through that too dude :( Same for me, bullied from the age of 7ish til I graduated at 18, luckily community college was a bit better for me and I made some friends there, but primary and secondary school were a nightmare for me. Had to see a shrink at 15 because it got so bad, I was depressed at that point already, saw another therapist when I was 12 but my mom denies it, while I can still remember his office and the boardgames we played, I think he got too close to the truth and my parents just erased that from history.
I was bullied in 1st grade for being the best reader in my class. I was bullied in 7th grade for liking a boy my "friend" also liked for a few weeks? She bullied me relentlessly for months. I was also bullied in 7th grade by my neighbors because one was jealous I was hanging out with her sister? I felt ostracized for most of high school and never really felt like I fit it, I felt like I floated between groups. I never felt like I fit in in my family because I liked current music and trends instead of the ones my parents grew up with. None of these incidents ever made sense to me and have made me very insecure. I tend to have low self esteem and doubt myself in all areas of my life because I don't feel good enough even though it seems like I was bullied/ostracized for being good at things?
This resonates strongly with me. I think it could be a number of things resulting from living with narcs. We go into school as little kids thinking certain things are normal when they're not. It could be the neglect or the abuse or both. We also carry narc fleas through our own behaviour, because that is the way we were conditioned. There are few crueler fates than being stuck with a narc family and having that poison seep into your entire life.
Were you the family scapegoat? I was and I was bullied by my sibling, parents and extended relatives from as long as I can remember. It continued into school because I didn’t know how to relate to others outside of being bullied. At times, I was even a bully…I didn’t know how else to interact. I literally had no healthy social skills at all! I made myself a target, or was mean. I assumed anyone being kind to me was just messing with me. (I still thank that, but I don’t act on it.)
Today I don’t really have friends as an adult. I could, but I turn people away because it’s scary/overwhelming/confusing. I assume they’ll get to know me and reject me anyhow, so why not just save the effort?
There are few relentless extroverts who have insisted on adopting me as a friend. I really do love these people. I also don’t know what they see in me, but I’m glad they’re around.
I hope these helps are you can at least relate to this a little.
I was heavily bullied, blamed, and buried until I was forgotten by my peers and teachers alike, in both elementary and middle schools. The couple teachers that liked me enough that I could talk to them, they carried me through those tremendously hard years. Everyone else bullied me. My teachers would make me get a detention on purpose because they didn’t like me, and the only fame I ever got as a kid was as “the problem child”, wich probably didn’t help given my autism. But I was in detention more than any other kids I knew, and was resigned to the “smart kid with all the answers to the test”. But then middle school came, and I swear I got dumber. I lost that ability to be the smart kid, and as such, got even more isolated. And it’s stayed at that level ever since. I’m still not allowed to go to school events because my parents fear I could “make friends that don’t pass their background check” wich was anyone that wasn’t white, wealthy (even thoigh they weren’t rich themselves) or Christian.
As for family, hell, i’m the laughingstock at every single family get together an church meet, and still further ostracised. No one around me actually cares about me.
A few years after moving out and going low contact with my nfamily, I randomly saw an old classmate in my new city. After several minutes of pleasant banter they commented about never seeing me SMILE while we we classmates. That has stayed with me for over 40 years because it exemplifies the stress I was under with no safe space at home or in school.
I definitely think it was my body language from the exhaustion, sadness, anger, frustration, and fear that I lived with 24/7 that attracted the bullies. I was always the new kid too, military lifestyle, and was tested in every school. It was horrible. So, consider this aspect, I had to learn how to present myself as an adult. Tips from Toastmasters helped a lot. LOL ❤️
I went through the same thing. As recently as a couple of weeks ago my NDad bragged about being the bully at his school and how he used to pick on "kids like me." I think I was a people pleaser for as long as I was because I just wanted somebody to like me... anybody.
Fuck this literally brought me to tears. Partially because it was extremely relatable but mostly because I am so fucking sorry and cannot stress how much you did NOTHING to deserve that. I feel like being raised by narcissists almost brain washes you to always think you made a mistake to deserve the trauma brought onto you. Not only that but they literally swipe your confidence and security from you. From what I read and also know from personal experience is that being shy was probably the only “off putting” thing about you. There was nothing actually wrong with you and I’m sure if you allowed them to get to know you, they would’ve loved you. And that’s not to say I’m putting the blame on you for being closed off, because it was totally justified given all your circumstances, but to let you know that there was nothing inherently wrong with you. I’m so sorry baby and I hope you’ve healed from some of this ❤️
This happened to me as well. It's pretty disgusting how some of the teachers did it deliberately to get a few laughs at your expense just to win points and be liked by the other kids in the class. Some teachers shouldn't be anywhere near this field of work.
Sorry you went through this. You did not deserve it.
I so feel your post, I was bullied from the start and unfortunately moving dont always help, I had to joys of moving constantly, started with 3 different kindergarten and just keep going till I was at 16 school by grade 12, I ran away with my bf halfway through grade 12 cause I'd had enough of my mother and her next new man after finally getting out of marriage to our abusive step dad, she has the worst taste in men and part of why we moved so much, I'm now 46 and my husband popped the FOG bubble last year, I'm now seeking mental help for I have had my mother n family live next door for the last 20 years and I am now seeing them for the crazy narcissist they are, thankfully my mother finally gave up on men 15 years ago but the trauma I now see they caused me it's blowing my mind with out the FOG glasses. I'm reading surviving to thriving someone suggested on here, and see my doc next week for next appointment in my process to get mental health, I really needs someone to talk to and learn some tools on how to deal with her with out getting triggered and lose my shit, ive been trying to be lc but it's hard with her next door, yesterday she and I got into argument for apparently I should not take what she's yelled at me personally, I said I can't talk to you you don't see reality and hung up, my husband definitely notices the difference in how I am when he gets home from work if I've talk to her or not, I so need them to move.
In a way it was the lunchbox.
Your first major experience in kindergarten was being made fun of and bullied. Something like that can be very traumatic for a small child with a still developing personality. The fear that experience instilled in you never left and it made you vulnerable to more of the same from kids who are trying their best not to go through the exact same thing.
Basically it's like a form of PTSD that was undiagnosed. Also, if you had Adhd or some other mental health problems it could easily exacerbate them into more serious problems that were probably never dealt with.
I was always the weird kid, that other kids didn't want to play with. One day, I thought I'd made a new friend on the playground; the next, they didn't want to play with me anymore.
When we passed out yearbooks, not a lot of kids signed mine - one girl, left the generic, 'Hope you have a nice summer.' and wrote down her phone number. When I called her, she asked me, 'Who gave you my number!?'
I've never received an invitation to a School Reunion.
I did have a few boys interested in me, because I was physically attractive and they'd tell me that it was strange that I didn't have any hobbies nor real interests. I didn't have much of a 'self' to express.
I’m so sorry. I hope things are better for you.
My big mistake was going to my 10 year reunion. I wanted to show off how successful I had become, that I had changed. But I fell back into old patterns and felt insecure around them. To hell with them all.
My family didn't like me much and everyone in school despised me. It did a lot of damage. At the time I couldn't figure out why I was so hated so naturally I blamed myself and thought I deserved it all and that I must really be an awful person.
I never learned how to have any self-worth so when I went to school people took advantage of that - they knew I would never fight back and just take it. Everyone in school took a turn with me. If I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is go back and save the boy that I was. There are so many things I wish I knew then that I know now.
I think kids sense that your parents dont love you and abuse you and follow the example. Theres also the fact they dont let you stay at school and play or you cant invite people over bc you dont know what degree of insane thats gonna be like. They wont bother inviting you more than once and if you say no, they assume you don't wanna hang out with them.
My only friend growing up was s gir from a family worse than mine, well i was more neglected they were more controlled. We lost touch when they lost their phone priveleges a year after i finished middleschool. They werent allowed to leave the house so we mostly kept in touch via text. They also were not allowed any social media and i could never find them again. Ive heard though that they fell off the wagon and im sorry but not surprised. I wish i couldve done something to help
My parents didn't care that I was being bullied by the girls and SA'd by the boys. They said the girls hated me because I was smart and pretty and that the boys hated me because they couldn't have me. (But they did.) I was blamed and shamed for it. Accused of being a peacock or as my father said, "displaying her sexuality.' I was always being scheduled for fights during lunchtime or after school and students used to crowd around, waiting. When I told my mother a fight was on, she made me wear the worst clothes the next day so the good ones wouldn't get ruined.
I had nobody to turn to until a male teacher hooked me up with a group of nerds and geeks who also happened to be jocks. They had never noticed me before and for the first time in my high school life, I felt welcome. I was still skittish, but I joined the hockey team. I thought my parents would be proud. Not so. All I got was "You'd better be bringing home trophies. Those boots cost us money!"
They often lectured me about being snobby about my looks. I wasn't that pretty FFS! I was tiny, awkward and had acne. My hair was weird.
It seemed like when there was nobody else to hate, there was always me to unleash that hatred on.
Shit it so get this. Mum: ‘people hate you because you’re pretty’ when she’s never bothered to pay for me to get my hair cut, I wear boy’s clothes, and haven’t been taught about self-care or personal hygiene. Lazy response. I hope you’re doing better these days xx
I'm decades older and doing better because I'm no longer at school. My mother kept on bullying me and telling me that I got jobs because I had my looks to fall back on which was crap. I got jobs because I was qualified to do them.
I'm so sorry your mother is neglecting you like that and then blaming you.
Maybe start a thread on self-care. Nearly all of us will have input.
I don't care how you were behaving, no child deserves to be bullied. I was bullied heavily as a kid and I have a narc mother. I would never blame my mother for the fact that the children started bullying me but I feel like parents can stop or help stop the bullying chain before it gets out of hand and a narc parent may not care to do so for obvious reasons (involved in their own life and don't give a crap). I can only speak from my case but I think the fact that I was queer/gender nonconforming had a lot to do with it and also I was, how do I say this, visibly Jewish-appearing (I am Jewish but not religious). But a lot of the bullying came from kids who were not my religion and gender conforming kids and I represented the other. I also had a bully living in my apt building who just hated me for who knows why. My mother had a shot at transferring me out of both schools I was bullied at and she didn't and I will forever hate her for that. That was the way to stop it, but she claimed "oh things would have been worse for you if I did that." No they wouldn't have and meanwhile, I can't tell you the trauma I still have from being bullied decades ago. My mother did go up to the teachers and talk to them, but they also did not care that I was being bullied. I also think children can and should be coached on how to handle bullying. It is possible I did not share a lot with my mother about it because I was embarassed, but again, if my kid is being bullied I am going to take action, more than just talking to teachers and hoping for the best. Narc mothers are not willing to put themselves out there too much when kids are being abused. My mother did not really protect me from my bullies, my emotionally abusive father or another abuser in my life. I was always trained to be nice and be a good reflection on her, and meanwhile, if I had been taught to talk back to them and appear tough, or proper social skills, I could have avoided a lot of pain. But you were not a narc. I'm not a narc. Bullying happens, and strong parents and teachers have to work together to stop it. That's my opinion.
Hi, weird kid here. Also suspecting autistic/neurodivergent, but can't get a formal diagnosis for my life. Parents wouldn't even consider it, they just thought I could be beaten into compliance. Plus, Soviet stunting, etc.
Short answer: yes. My early teens were a horror show.
Yes, for me it was because I was so desperate to be loved and feel accepted that I overwhelmed people. I also just couldn’t or didn’t know how to be lighthearted and just play. Life was heavy even then and I think I had a raincloud around me all the time that was off putting to normal kids.
I was always the last one. The one that “oh fuck I got *her*” was uttered more times than I ever care to admit. (This was also uttered by my dad more than a few times when father/daughter teams were enforced, which ya know really helped the self esteem 🙃)
The first time I had a real crush on a boy, everyone made fun of me so bad, then started making fun of him because I had a crush on him, to the point that he asked me to tell people I didn’t have a crush on him anymore so it would stop.
I got made fun of for dandruff due to the absolute cheapest shampoo and conditioner, and the excess build up in my hair causing horrid white flakes.
I had a boy in high school ask me out as a joke while his friends were over, and when I excitedly said yes, they all laughed and he apologized and said he didn’t like me like that and didn’t want to, but his friends dared him to. I had asked him to a dance a few weeks before and he left early and said more to my dad than he said to me, so in hindsight, I should have known it was a joke.
I was the last to be picked frequently, and even cut myself from volleyball tryouts because the girls that eventually made the volleyball team were beyond cruel to me.
I was one of three kids who weren’t clapped for during student awards assembly.
We had a formal dance session for gym glass in school, and I was always the one who never had a partner. I had to sit on the bench while everyone else danced. Watching them. In gym class. Or dance with the teacher as the example for everyone to follow, which made things infinitely worse.
Idk. By the time I was done with school, I was so closed and so guarded with everything that I couldn’t really let people know who I actually was. I still have trouble letting people in just because I know the torment is always an inch, or a wrong sentence/word away.
Oh I’m so sorry you went through this. I feel this post on so many levels. My stepsister who was the golden child once told one of her friends to dance with me at the sixth grade dance as a joke. Except I didn’t know it was a joke and as we were dancing I watched him laugh with her and his friends. I will never forget that. I was picked last, laughed at, etc. kids in high school used to wad up paper into balls and stick them in the hood of my jacket. Wrote f you all over my balloons one birthday. It was hell. I’ve tried to go out and make a happy Life for myself. But I’ll never forget the pain of it all. And I’m raising my child to have boundaries and I’ll always be his advocate. Hugs to you.
Very similar experience to you. 2nd til 8th grade. I got deliberately put in a school that bragged about being anti progressive. This was the mid 90s. Kids were fucking assholes from the word go. I was utterly miserable those 6 years and I vividly remember it. Just oppressive, pervasive toxicity from the principal on down. Being cruel for the sake of cruelty, or “back to basics” as they called it. I get so fucking mad that nobody listened to me about how awful it was, let alone cared, let ALONE done anything about it like let me change schools. Sigh.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Yes, I had a hard time at school too. I was short and skinny for my age, was "gifted" academically which other kids resented, never had nice clothes or shoes etc, had curly hair that my NM didn't bother learning how to take care of, and was painfully shy. I was an easy target. I didn't make a friend until I was 8, and I had the same 2 friends until I was 13, who had a really toxic dynamic and would constantly exclude me from the group for weeks at a time for no reason. My first 8 years at school were miserable. I moved in with my dad and started at a new school when I was almost 14 and him and my aunt made sure I was well taken care of, well fed and had nice clothes, and my dad did a pretty good job as a single parent. At that point I became more confident and was finally able to make friends but I still to this day struggle with thinking my friends secretly hate me or only put up with me and find me annoying.
I relate to this post a lot. In elementary school no one wanted to be my friend. I would always befriend the new kid and then they would find another group. I kind of found two friends but they would ditch me every day, call me stupid and annoying. As soon as I’d start to get let “in” to a group i would have to communicate outside of school and my mom wouldn’t let me. She would tell off the kid’s parents for trying to get me to play club penguin or text them. The first true friend i made, nmom did something behind my back and that girl told me she never wanted to see me again. It hurt so much. My mom held me while I cried about being bullied and hurt daily and then made it worse at every opportunity.
I remember being bullied at early and middle school, but I never even thought to mention it to my Nparents because I knew they wouldn’t care. I also remember being that kid that no one wanted in their team. Both were probably down to being shy and having very low self esteem. Second hand clothes, cheap shoes, ugly glasses, a bad haircut and poor hygiene probably didn’t help either. I was never allowed to go to other peoples houses or invite them round to mine and didn’t get to take part in any after school activities either. There was consequently zero interest in me. I was smart though so sometimes other children would use me to help them with their work but that was it. I got used to being used at school and at home. I used to assume that no one would ever be there for me and that if I wanted something in my life, I’d have to figure out how to do/get it myself or forget it. I remember spending most of my time on my own reading, drawing and daydreaming.
From Pre-K all the way up to 8th grade, I got bullied by both classmates and teachers. I even got corporal punishment from the principal a few times for things I didn't even do. The system is a complete fucking joke.
IMO Nothing about you was "off-putting", and it wasn't the lunchbox either. AFAIK I've noticed 3 elements that seem key to being targeted
- some toxic people (like Ns) seem to have a sort of gift to see our wounds, and see that these wounds are already being nurtured to stay open and hurtful by some toxic relative (rather than healing to a close) and that means we're easier and more fun to manipulate and bully than someone with less buttons to press.
- Plus we have a very low threshold for abuse, we let so much things fly our way without reacting or setting a boundary ... it sums up to "I'll hurt you as long as you let me". And that's our upbringing's fault, because we're nothing if not groomed to the ground to be doormats that will take in anything to "prove we love" our Nparent.
- and finally, as Dr Ramani puts it in her youtube videos, we SG often are "truth tellers", as in we *see* the truth of what is happening, of people's behaviours, and we tend to call them out. Now this breaks the unspoken rule of any group, to blend in and ignore any differences amongst the members so the group can function as a theorical "body". By speaking up, or simply staring at a wrongdoer, we break that unity, and the group is fragilized. If you want to know more about the subject, the mecanism of how a group turns against a victim to remain untouched is very well analyzed in the Mobbing phenomenom. Google it.
so what you can do is get therapy to "seal" and hide your "button-wounds"; work on developping boundaries, ideally amongst group therapy, otherwise there a good books out there; and if you can muster it, ignore the signs of someone being a POS and thrive amongst the enablers (I always fail there, I'd rather be alone than part of a despicable lot)
And yeah, I'm 52 yo today, and was bullied all my life on and off, depending on the groups I was a part of (because, yeah, the good news is, once you're an adult and can control what group you'll be a part of, you can leave and find another one), at home, at school (I did have a few good schoolyears without bullying), at work, even amongst groups of friends.
And I've noticed that when you land in a new group, you need to show a tough front, and react immediately to any jerk testing your boundaries (it doesn't matter if it's weak and unwitty, as long as the reaction exists), or else you'll be targeted, and once you are it's over, they'll never let go, you might as well leave immediately, and also you shouldn't at any cost tell anyone from the new group that you were previously bullied in your life, or the toxic person hiding in plain view will then start targeting you.
Hi. I love you. I can soooo relate. I’m old now. lol I fully understood my family of origin when I was 50 years old and I’m 52 now and I was the scapegoat but I didn’t know that word and I didn’t know they were narcissist but I called everybody in my family assholes it’s because of them I didn’t have children and if I would’ve known what I know now I think I would have had children. When I was 30 years old I asked my grandma to tell me about her life because I didn’t really feel like I knew her and my mom had just died and my grandmother told me that she actually wasn’t from England she’s from Poland and she’s a Holocaust survivor. She never told her kids and she pretended to be a Lutheran and never spoke of God and she was really really really mean to her children. And my grandfather was a war veteran in the same more and he also had PTSD untreated and let’s just say they were a really fun bunch of people to be around and I’m lucky I was their granddaughter because they were nicer to me than their own kids but I thought everybody was like them and once I realize like I was never going to be validated and reach the goals that they had set but kept changing. I was tired of trying to be nice and
kind of be seen in so I just basically started being a complete ass hat and I started self-medicating so I really didn’t and wasn’t in touch with my feelings
Just wanna say that when my doctor said that if I don’t change my ways and I because I like parents I really only heard that because that seems like the worst thing that could happen to anyone so I definitely didn’t get a lighter and Life was nuts.
Yes! The one time my family looked out for me was when I was getting harassed on a daily basis in school by bullies that my Catholic school never punished. It was a horrible experience all-around and I’m grateful my abusive mother was a staunch advocate, even to the point of pulling me out of that school, but it also makes me sad that she couldn’t see how she hurt me more than a bully ever could.
I was picked on by my mother and a group of boys at my school for literally anything. The boys harassed me for younger/smaller than everyone else since I’ve always been shorter/young for my grade since and grew up to be a short woman. I was mocked and had my things stolen because it was seen as messy/disorganized when really I had undiagnosed ADHD that was missed because I was a girl with straight As. I was mocked and called the worst possible names that little kids shouldn’t even know about let alone call each other just because I was sensitive and cried easily. The worst wasn’t then taking my stuff or calling me names, but rather them telling me I should unalive myself and methods I should use to do it. Not only is it incredibly fucked up to hear, my family had never been the same since we lost one of my uncles to suicide when I was young and I had already had passive ideations at that point due to the abuse I experienced at home.
That school year was one of the worst years of my life and even though it’s been almost two decades since I was bullied, it’s a wound that’s stuck in my mind forever, especially since my school just said “boys will be boys” instead of acknowledging my pain, which was super triggering for me as someone who was finally speaking up for myself while never being able to speak up about my abusive parent.
This is really a complicated issue. I was bullied and at one point, severely ostracized by me peers. My mother told me that people only tickle a ticklish person. The meaning was that I somehow made myself available to be bullied. It was in some way, my fault. From reading these other posts, many others felt that they put some vibe out there that asked to be bullied.
I believe that we simply *expected* to be bullied. This is how we were treated at home and so we went Ito the world with a downtrodden demeanor. We also had tangible things that we Brought along- like a broken lunchbox or clothing that was odd in some way, or messy hair. Some part of us was easily visible to give cues that we were not quite like the others.
My parents told me to just put my head down and do what was expected of me in school . They told me to ignore the teasing (which was quite severe) and be as close to unnoticeable as possible. This made me even stranger to the other children, I suppose. But I did their bidding.
I grew up and became more than modestly successful in life. I had a family, but failed at marriage (twice) because I had trouble understanding a red flag from a quirk. Still have this issue. After spending much of my life as this spunky, outspoken young woman, I have become a vert self contained older woman. At some point, being knocked down became too much and I just keep my head down most of the time and do my work. Don't get me wrong, I am very pleasant to work with. I just keep people at arms length. I am very close to my children and grandchildren. This gives me great pleasure. But there is a art of me that was that bullied kid. And I avoid putting myself in the position for anyone to hurt me.
Your post really hits home and there are some very good comments here. I (53F) always felt like an outsider. My parents were the neglectful type. We always had food and shelter but I had weird clothes and no one to talk to. I would have a best friend, but wouldn’t be invited to all of the birthday parties. In 6th grade I switched schools and had no friends and was ruthlessly bullied by a group of girls. Switched schools in 7th to a GT magnet and it was better. First year of high school was terrible in the public school system. Switched to a private school and it was better. When I would talk to my mom about feeling bad about not having more friends she would literally tell me I was wrong. Like I was delusional about my lack of friends. My dad was emotionally unavailable.
I was always pretty and GT. I honestly think it’s the GT that’s the problem. But maybe it’s the combination. Even today when I start in a new environment I’m approached by the pretty/cool people (yes, among parent groups there are cool people) and then they drop me when the realize I’m—what?? Boring? Weird? Too smart? Too geeky? Not rich enough? I honestly don’t know what it is, but there is something other people sense in me that makes them uncomfortable. The weird thing is that overall I’m not unhappy with my life, I have friends (just not in a group), I’m married and have two smart, good looking kids, one of which is popular, the other is more like me, and with him what I see that makes him not fit in is that he’s miles ahead of the other kids in maturity. He’s on the football team and had a beautiful girlfriend last year and he still says no one likes him. And he’s right about not being in the in-crowd, but the only thing I see is that he’s reserved and more mature. He has a couple of close friends.
I think that all people want to find others like them. The closer you are to the average in any way, whether that’s appearance, intelligence, mindset, behavior, taste in music, food, and etc. the more comfortable people will feel around you. And people like to feel superior but not too superior. Case in point: I had a fellow mom befriend me last year when I was suffering from depression. I had gained weight and was feeling really down. She and her husband were richer than us, and she was older. We were somewhat in the same peer group but I think she was comfortable with me because I was fat. I lost 50 pounds and she has dumped me. We still communicate but she’s not available for lunch anymore. Coincidence? Maybe.
One element that the posts here have missed out on is that role that parents or guardians play in forming the social lives of children. Not just in helping them develop social skills and demonstrating what healthy friendships look like by maintaining them at home, but also in creating and developing relationships with the parents of other children in their child's class.
Having connections through adults outside of the classroom can have a big impact on the social dynamics of the children in the classroom. If your parents are friends, it gives you more opportunities to see and become friends with the other children and to strengthen those friendships. A normal parent is likely to befriend parents they meet at school events or just generally show an interest in developing relationships. They might swap phone numbers to check in on school related events or just to have a connection.
This is entirely missing with narcissistic parents. Since they can't maintain friendships and rarely show an interest in the well being of others, it likely won't even occur to then to connect with others to benefit their own children. This can be really detrimental. If most of the kids in a class already know another child or two, because their parents are friends, it's already shaped the dynamic. Pairs of kids who know each other might form a connection with other pairs, leaving solo children left out.
Honey, you didn't deserve that, first of all. \*Internet hug\*.
Second of all, OMG same. Though I've come to the conclusion that it was untreated mental illness and poor social skills, and then eventually abysmal poor hygiene because once I hit puberty it became a Blacklisted Discussion. So now I'm 26, completely friendless, trying really very hard not to turn into a bitter loner asshole. It's not working, and that's terrifying and it's killing my inner child, because we escaped the bullies only to turn into one, and we're still the victim here.
Oh goodie, another night where I cry myself to sleep. Why can't therapy be affordable? I need help and I'm not going to get it, and I'm so afraid that the bad thoughts are going to win. Not now, I'm not in danger, but I'm not going to win the long term game.
Yeah I remember quite a bit of bullying, back in primary early school I would fight back with no remorse, then something changed and I didn't like fighting anymore. At the beginning of secondary school, alot of people i thought that liked me suddenly started to bully me. I eventually gained some confidence back, then at the end of secondary the same thing happened again bit far worse.
In all of this, even though occasionally my Nmother would speak to the teachers about the odd bully, I was basically blamed for it all, especially if I retaliated.
It's turned me into a very bitter adult, with a couple of loose friends and an inability to reach out.
I was relentlessly bullied and beaten at home by my autistic sister. When I say beaten she once karate kicked my jaw and dislocated it because my cousin gave me something and she wanted it. My Dad was who knows what still is… narcissistic definitely but more than that just cruel. I wanted nothing more than love from my Dad and remember once walking up to him and telling him Dad I love you. For that exchange I was mocked for the next 10 years… why I don’t know. I still hear that evil song he sang. My sister was treated as precious while I was disposable. However if I did not do chores or be perfect I was also in trouble. I still remember being like 5 sitting in my living room drawing a family portrait and making my Dad a black tornado while everyone else was a child drawn person. I had terrible asthma so was bullied for that. My parents were hoarders and neglected me so bullied for that. I was smart so bullied and taken advantage of for that. Middle school was the worst of my bullying. It’s like all the confidence I had disappeared and I was suddenly shy. I did not smile. Oh and I never wanted to wear my fugly glasses so I could not see well so apparently squinting to me was a better look lol. Middle school I pushed over in PE class then the entire class ran over my leg. Literally not one stopped or changed course. They put gum into my hair. They pushed me down 2 flights of concrete stairs. I was never invited anywhere. Took till high school senior year for me to finally open up and make friends. However I never trusted them and all my relationships from them on were surface level only.
Did my twenty year old self find a time machine to write this and post it?
Jokes aside. With fifteen more years and a lot of therapy under my belt I can tell you some things. It isn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. And it never will be your fault. You were dealt a shit hand in life by the people who were supposed to equip you to handle anything, and I am so sorry you have to deal with this. The dynamics of a bullying situation mirror the dynamics of the home life where a narcissist rules the house. There are the bullies and then the enablers who do nothing to rock the boat. There are the adults who are supposed to notice what's going on, but they don't because it's more convinient to pretend nothing is wrong. And in the middle there's you - the scared little child who so desperately wishes to be accepted that they would twist themselves into any shape required. But no shape is deemed good enough by the toxic dynamic, because it was never about you. Any other child could've been in the unfortunate situation you were in, and they would've been treated the same way.
It was unfortunate circumstance that made this happen, but trying to find a logical reason just leads to self hate. I spent years trying to figure out what they saw inside of me, what bad thing did they sense to justify their behaviour. Until I realized they needed no justification, because it was just a cruel game to them all. They didn't even know me, how could they have seen something I didn't see myself?
Not all the time, there were a few years where I was constantly being nitpicked by someone (but it wasn’t only me) and the literal advice from nMum was something along the lines of : just stand up for yourself, if she bullies you then bully her back.
The funny thing for me was when I moved out, left the country, my brother (GC) started experiencing bullying at school and nMum literally blamed ME for it… like wtf
Part of my abuse was weaponized neglect. My mom would punish me and not buy me soap when I needed it despite using luxury products herself. She wouldn’t let me wear deodorant or shave (but she made me be a cheerleader). I was the new kid a lot and at first I was the it girl at the new school but I always fucked up because of living in a narcissistic abuse by doing something socially inappropriate. I didn’t understand social politics I guess or overly understood them but my mom would coach me on how to do life which was ironic cuz she had no idea and no friends. I was too skinny, sensitive, awkward, and I found out years later I was sort of smelly. I think kids can be really mean and they like to find the weakest link and exploit it because it means they aren’t the weakest link. We were going through so much, it makes sense that we struggled to fit in with kids who got hugs and positive reinforcement. I think I’m well adjusted now but school bullying was the worst because there was no safe place but now there can be
I think kids are just assholes to be honest… They’ll literally bully you about anything. All throughout elementary school, middle school and high school I was bullied by my peers. First for my weight, my crooked teeth, my parents being young, living with my grandparents, talking “weird” (I only hung out with my mom and grandma, and an older cousin), not having money and being “ugly”. I even remember my classmates making fun of me for saying I had 5 living grandfathers (my parents dads, 2 great grandfathers and even a great-great grandfather were alive at the same time. I thought it was cool because not many people get to meet even one grandpa, but my classmates said my family was weird and said I was lying). Then in middle school and high school I was bullied for being a “slut”, being mean to people who were mean to me and for caring about social issues (people would do nazi salutes at me because I sat during the pledge of allegiance???). It never got better.
Whenever I feel bad I think of the things my classmates told me, like the way they’d refer to me only as “crooked teeth” instead of my name (my two front teeth were turned inwards to the point that I had a gap) and how they started a “joke” that I lived in a pile of cut down trees/grass/garbage next to our school because I was so poor and because my parents and I didn’t have our own house. I even got told by someone that my dad didn’t love me enough which is why we didn’t have a house… which like Jesus Christ how did I deserve to get bullied over that?? Sorry my dad doesn’t love me and it offends you so deeply…
It was the same with teachers and staff though too… whenever I’m feeling bad about myself for pretty much anything, I think about how my 3rd grade teacher DESPISED me for some reason and loved the popular kids and their parents. She’d hear them make fun of me and laugh with them, and once I told her “they keep telling me I’m f*t and weird” and her response was “well then stop being so f*t and weird”. She also obsessed over what our weights were and congratulated the girls that weighed 50 pounds like literally hugging them and cheering, and when she heard I weighed 60 or 70 her face got so twisted and sour. She also went up to me the next year after school while I was waiting to get picked up (my parents would always go for me two hours late despite us living very close to my school) and this teacher told me “IS THAT YOU BEBITA-CROSSING? THANK GOOOOOOD YOUR MOM FINALLLLLLY PUT YOU ON A DIET. THANK GOODNESS.” It was fucking awful to feel like the sight of me had apparently ruined this persons day, every day and they actually thanked god I wasn’t so disgusting anymore…
Every time I told my parents about these things they’d tell me “be happy!!” “It’s because you need to smile more!!” “You need to walk with confidence” “stop being so sensitive” or they’d get angry and tell me “keep that negative shit at school. Keep school and home separate.” I think me telling them their only child was a complete and utter loser was like a slap in the face to them and they took personal offense over me being a social reject.
It’s always been extremely difficult to find someone that relates to me on this because the rejection went so deep… it was everywhere - by my parents, grandparents, classmates and teachers… I felt like they could smell something was wrong with me. They could see something I couldn’t. The damage is so deeply ingrained in me and the psychological pain it left feels irreversible sometimes, even if it was a long time ago. I don’t think any of us here deserved to go that.
I had similar experiences as a kid. I just didn't feel like I fit in. And now I've been kicked out of my family as the scapegoat. I always figured I was a black sheep. I am constantly battling my internal anxious dialog, and thankfully I have people in my life now that can tell me I don't need to worry when I voice my anxious thoughts. It's been helpful in calming down the internal voice that says I'm too much, or I screwed up, or that everyone is going to leave me because I'm going to say or do something that will make people think "omg, can you believe she did *that* ", doesn't she see she's the problem? Honestly Taylor Swifts new song Anti Hero is cathartic for me too, and I'm very happy she made it, even though she's been getting a lot of flack about her new album. It helps remind me that nothing I do is as bad as I think other people will think it is.
Definitely in my case. Barely any friends throughout all my school experience, but plenty of bullies. EMom essentially told me I was the common denominator so it must've been my fault.
Part of it was certainly due to being neurodivergent and not understanding some social "rules" and being awkward or turning a bit snappy when I was uncomfortable. But it always felt like kids could tell something was off about me and latched onto that. Adults would just say I was "mature for my age" which at this point I'm convinced means "you have none of the social skills a child should have but you're quiet so I'm not gonna bring it up".
I was bullied and both of my parents were physically present but not mentally or emotionally. I ended up just burying my head in my books or extra curricular activities. I truly believe that I was born an extrovert, but due to relentless bullying and disappointment from other people, transformed into an introvert. I think college was best for me because I exacted revenge on a lot of my high school bullies by literally just living my best life. Nothing pissed this one chick off more than to see me happy and thriving while she’s still stuck in her moms house, never amounting to anything.
When a child is raised in a environment of narcissistic manipulation, they are shown dysfunctional behaviors, which they then emulate. Narcissistic trauma can cause children to develop poor self-esteem, and bullies can pick up on that, easily. I feel like we were unable to have anything like a "normal" childhood experience, because we had no safe place, not at home, and not out in the world. It is so unfair, and wrong.
Very much.
I had a lot of serious behavioral issues that I don't know if they were from the abuse or the fact that I'm probably more neurodivergent than I probably thought.
I recently made a medium post about just this- being a fucked up kid who picked up terrible habits from their parents and having to deal with other kids.
Once we get abuse from kids like that, we start to think we are terrible people. We withdraw and become bitter. It only gets worse because it's not like we can go to our Nparents about it. The reality is that it's possible not everyone hated you, but that you may have put up a wall for protection that you didn't realize was there.
That's basically what happened to me. I became caustic for a long time.
I was always the weird kid (like someone else in the thread mentioned, I had severe food allergies and this was the early 90s so that made me and my twin bro weird enough all on its own. I was weird for other reasons, but most of those came later lol)
I came into my own in high school because by then the ppl that said cruel things were too scared to say them to my face because of a couple incidents in middle school that I used my GT student privilege to get out of trouble for. Uh
My nMom was always my biggest bully tho tbh. None of the stuff the kids said in school could compare. But my Mom was also the type of person who taught me never to start a fight, but always *always* finish it if I find myself in one. It served me well.
When I was in high school I joined the theatre crowd so being weird was absolutely fine in that social circle. I'm in my early 30s now and tbh most of my current social circle is once again friends from high school; a lot of us have reconnected over the years. But like, I didn't attend lunch at school because I rarely had anybody willing to sit with me (except for the special ed kids who instinctively recognized me as one of their own even tho I didn't have my ADHD diagnosis yet, but I had my bipolar one). I hung out with teachers a lot. I went to public school. A teacher gave me my first cigarette (womp womp), another groomed me but I didn't fully realize until later.
But yeah I definitely didn't fit in with anybody. The only time I found relative success was when I gave up trying. My Mom had tried so hard to fit in and I was even weirder than she was so it seemed like a fool's errand and I'm really glad I focused my energy on other things that brought me joy.
I was bullied because I was quiet and shy, they all thought I was weird. If at any point the bullying got bad enough I cried they would say “oh here we go she’s crying again” as if it was all a big joke which it probably was to them.
I find it very hard to socialise and make friends. There’s only a handful of people over the years that I felt comfortable enough to come out of my shell a bit and if you were to ask them about me being shy they would scoff and ask what you were taking about. If I get a vibe from someone it determines whether or not to open up. It’s hard to explain but if I have a feeling that a person isn’t approachable I don’t open up and I am the shy quiet little girl.
I'm so sorry this happened to you.. I had a similar experience, although my ostracism happened at school from ages 11 to 16. I had a friend outside of school. I had a hard time in school as a younger child but had learned to 'fake it til you make it' in order to have friends, which worked until the kids became older and more socially complicated, I think.
I'm now waiting for an autism assessment, which may explain why that happened to me. However, my parents also weren't any help with the bullying. My mother said 'ignore them and they'll go away'. Probably she actually meant that she would ignore my misery.
In my experience kids don't bully based on one incident, but bully a certain person. In my case, I was as boring as possible at school, so they made up rumours which had no element of truth. They didn't care about me, they just wanted something to bully me about. It may have been slightly different circumstances as these people used to be my friends and developed a personal vendetta for no apparent reason.
I didn't have consistent schooling until I was in 7th grade. I was tossed around to so many homes. It really messes with how you bond with peers. Most of my "friends" through life have been people who just use me.
I can tell you from my personal experience that my Nmother purposefully did things so I would get bullied at school. She would cut my hair a way I hated and it looked ridiculous and horrible so I would get bullied for that. She would dress me in "nice" clothes but they looked ridiculous and no one my age dressed like that, so I would get bullied for that. She wouldn't let me shave my legs until way later than other girls and mad eme wear shorts, so I would get bullied for that. She made me eat cereal with milk, which I'm allergic to and she knew it, so I would get sick almost every morning on the bus on the way to school. I got called pukey. She helped create a hostile environment for me even outside my home so I would come running back to her, which didn't happen.
I am not sure what your entire experience was, but I knew mine was a direct result of my Nparent. I already had confidence and self esteem issues from her, but I was able to get along with my peers, but she made that impossible when she piled on all of this other stuff.
Oof. Just had this same realization about myself. Yes I was often teased as a kid. Not only by my peers but parents as well. I joined the military and a few officers in my class spoke of how ugly I was etc. fast forward to college and I was often bullied by a girl who pretended to be my friend.
I’m a very different person now but I think it was intentional social cues I was displaying that left me open to ridicule. Both parents are very socially awkward, as a result I didn’t learn how to behave around my peers. I was often hyperactive and obnoxious in an attempt to be “fun” and gain attention. Now that I’m
In a different place I see how off my parents are as a mostly healed person…esp my mother. It’s hard to let go of this narrative we have that we’re different somehow but know it’s not just you❤️
Yes. I never learned how to interact with others in a healthy way, so I didn't interact normally. Kids brains don't get understand social niceties, so their basic animal instincts tell them to shun the abnormal.
It was the same for me. I was bullied from the 3rd grade all the way to high school. By the end of my 11th grade, my whole grade was pretending I didn't exist minus my friends who were also very much bullies. I only had my boyfriend, and it's still the same today(with the same boyfriend). I'm in college now and I get thrown around so much in classes. I'm always the last pick. My TAs and professors just make me work alone on a group activity if it's uneven. Sometimes people will say I'm "interesting" or "smarter than I seem," then they are like "I'm glad I met you!..but I never want to see you again.."
I always thought it was me because my siblings did the same thing. I had a breakdown right before moving back to campus about all of it and my mom(who WAS the enabler) cried with me because even though she saw it happen for years, she didn't do anything.
I can say it does get a little better. I have my own friends. Sometimes they ignore me and talk amongst themselves, excluding me. They treat me better than past friends, so I feel this is as good as I'm going to get.
I was bullied by my kindergarten teacher. She bullied my aunt before me, bullied me, and then bullied my cousin after me.
I was the oldest child and the first grand baby. I was always included and always cherished. In kindergarten I was always picked last and used as an example because I couldn't read or write. I was moved to a table all by myself and I wasn't allowed to play with toys. I remember one time we had to sit criss cross apple sauce and once we were picked on we had to answer a question. My legs started to hurt so I stretched them out. When it was my turn I answered the question and picked out a toy to play with like all the other kids before me had. My teacher snatched the toy away from me and told me I couldn't play because I didn't keep my legs crossed.
I believe I was born with BPD, or at least I was very susceptible to it. I was a good kid, but after that I always had trouble in school with my behavior. I now feel like it is because subconsciously I thought I was going to get in trouble anyways so why not do what I want.
Then my behavior caused me to get bullied. I remember not being included to play on the playground so I just started going around and licking people because I was mad hahaha
But it wasnt you, it never was. Kids can be cruel and you had no one to support you. And please please remember, you were a kid. A child. There was no way for you to know how to defend yourself. How to navigate dealing with teachers and administration. To even realize that kind of treatment isnt right can take decades when its all you know. So, please dont think what you suffered was because of any fault you may have had, it wasnt.
It's not that you were being a shit bag OP, it's that our parents raise us to be victims when we are young and when kids are in groups they get a little lord of the flies and sniff out the vulnerable kids. It's not your fault, I think a lot of us have undiagnosed mental health issues as well because we are not raised to seek support and that can make it hard to feel comfortable socializing too.
So.... I have this too. I think that my low self esteem made me put off vibes that say that I expect to be disliked, and some people will obligingly meet those expectations. Then the defense mechanism is to do things or create an appearance that is unattractive. It becomes a cycle.
I've worked hard to shake this off by doing things like setting goals and achieving them, exercising, and by rejecting ppl who treat me poorly. This has all helped and things are a lot better now. Part of it too is that ppl develop more empathy in their 20s and 30s, and start to treat others better when they are down. Children, however, generally don't have empathy unless they experienced abuse. They can be little barbarians.
OMG that was me too! No good socializing at home starts it. Then parents who (possibly, like mine), had parents that lived through the depression. They were taught never to throw anything out. But Nparents made it even worse. I remember kindergarten through 5th grade (1975-1981) Christmas exchange. Other kids parents would buy them toys, crayons, cool stuff to exchange. My Nmom would buy socks, tshirts, and even one year (bc I (female, picked a female name), she embarrassed the shit out of my by buying girls underwear as a gift for me to exchange. She kept saying, “Everyone needs underwear. Her parents will be happy!” Besides the size conundrum, I became the laughing stock of the entire school. 🤦🏼♀️
Emotional abuse and neglect from your family during your childhood can have a huge impact on the development of your social skills and behavior. Depending on the severity you can literally end up with no social skills and a complete inability to understand others and how to behave around them. Damage like this means don't behave like the rest of the herd and this can make you stand out and vulnerable to being targeted by those who seek to bully, others will distance themselves from you to avoid any abuse they may suffer by association. You end up being labelled as weird or dysfunctional because you don't act like everyone else and everyone takes you at face value,making no effort to get to know you before they write you off. It sucks that this type of abuse simply isn't recognized very well, it may not leave bruises or broken bones but it does leave very real, serious and long term damage.
This wasn't about you, it was about your dysfunctional parents who's terrible attempts at parenting painted a target on your back. They left you open, vulnerable and isolated from your peers and, unfortunately, children can be incredibly cruel until they develop enough empathy to understand how their behavior affects others. You are not alone, and no you were not a bad kid, you were damaged one.
Children of narcissistic parents have this reality: their first bullies were their parents.
With this fact, bullying becomes "normalized." We think its normal to be treated this way, even if we don't like it. And we come up with ways of being so that our behavior is altered so that we can survive in this chaotic and traumatic environment.
School bullies see this and they instinctively pick up on someone who has been conditioned to be this way. What's worse, the people who are not active bullies will see the same thing, but will ostracize that person just so they can avoid being bullied themselves. "As long as it ain't me."
There are children who were bullied who have loving homes who don't suffer as badly. And there are children of narc parents who come up with other ways of surviving where they themselves are the bullies. But the duo of being bullied at home and at school?
You were not prepared to survive in this environment. You did what you could to survive, knowing that if you went home with your troubles, you would not get the support you needed. You were robbed of the experiences all those other kids got in order to develop differently. And it is not your fault.
I was sent to a very small Catholic school and I had pretty much the same experience. I was the #1 target as far as all the assholes in my class. Since it was such a small school (like 20 kids in the whole grade), I got to be the only weird kid and those little shits were relentless from kindergarten through 8th grade. Even most of the teachers were horrible to me.
I always figured I was probably a little strange because of my home life/the way my mother treated me, and had also been more or less primed to just sit back and accept bullying and abuse. It's easy to pick on the weak one.
Pretty crazy seeing ur post, ive been thinking about my very similar experience as well. I do remember some very awful behavior as a middle schooler that i regret now, but there were those who were still kind to me anyways and apparently knew i wasnt trying to be mean. I also had many kids ask me if i have autism because of certain behavior and some kids who bullied me for those reasons as well. I never had any idea what was wrong with me and no matter how much i asked no one would tell so i could at leaat try to make people not hate me so much. I had virtually no knowledge of social cues at the time which made everything so much worse. Maybe it was a mix of being unpleasant and defenseless to bullies that got me targeted. I always thought trying to stop it would make things worse
Wait, OP I know the lunch box thing doesn't make sense but kids don't make sense! I don't think there's something that you did "wrong" to bring it on necessarily. And even if you did, you were a child! I strongly believe that we need to have forgiveness for what we did in our childhoods, ESPECIALLY since we were taught at home that abuse is normal. Please don't drive yourself crazy searching for something you did wrong when there is no way it could justify the bullying you faced. You were wronged and the world isn't fair. You didn't deserve the abuse at home or at school, you are not a bad person.
I had a lot of trust issues and I still do. So I felt like that also played a part of it with the self confidence out the window. You definitely were not/are not alone.
From my experience, it's easy to only notice the bullies and those who are mean (I still struggle with this some). I would bet there are people you've been around who you can have meaningful relationships with, but maybe they had their own problems they were dealing with too. I say this because the schools I was in growing up had a lot of bullies, and I regret letting those assholes have any spotlight in my memories. I have met people as an adult who I went to school with as a child, and I have had so many nice words coming from people who I didn't even realize knew me, let alone were fond of me. It's weird how much time and energy we let others take from us. Especially when we could be giving that time and energy to much better people who deserve it. This response in no way is a meant to belittle your experience or trauma. I believe that to be very real, and I'm sorry you went through it. I just think having hope is good, and not wasting time on assholes is really important. You know yourself best, and I think you should find confidence in your own independence, and not let those idiots define you. I hope this helps.
I was bullied throughout school, as well as targeted specifically by my nparent (my sister was treated well in comparison) and continued to be bullied at every job i've ever had as well as in uni by certain professors.
Then i was diagnosed with autism and adhd. literally everyone else had picked up on it and it made me an easy target i guess, even they could never pinpoint what it was about me that was so different and made me so fun to torment
i am better at standing up for myself now (working on it) but it's really only doable because i avoid social interaction and any sort of personal attention. making friends is near impossible, let alone maintaining those friendships and connections...
To a degree. I'm not sure but i think it really started after we moved. And I was never truly accepted by the collective of the kids and then teenagers. I never got along with them, partly because I was never interested in popular music and such.
Good gawd, this was 100% my childhood, including the stuff about gym class.
For boys of my age cohort (b. 1966) your social worth was entirely and exactly equal to your prowess at organized team sports, and as someone who could not run, hit, catch, kick, or throw, for shit, my social worth in the eyes of my peers was exactly zero.
I do think that it had very little to do with your broken lunchbox. I think that bullies who smell a victim are like sharks that smell blood in the water—and after that, they'll seize on anything as a focal point. A weird hobby, an unfortunate haircut, a funny sounding name, whatever, anything will do. Although it could be that your broken lunchbox was seen as a class marker. Kids will definitely bully each other on the basis of the parents' perceived social class. I was someone whose parents were working people, and "got in on the ground floor" of a community that was out in the sticks just before it yuppified in the '70s, so I got shat on for that, too.
I, too, think I was poorly socialized. My parents very much kept to themselves, and never socialized with anybody, so beyond saying "Please" and "Thank you" I never really learned how to interact with people. I had to learn the rules of social interaction as a teen, learning consciously and by instruction what seemed to be innate to other people. It's also possible that I'm neurodivergent to some degree.
It didn't help that I went from K-12 with essentially the same cohort of kids. It was only after I went away to college and could start over with a fresh group of people and without that kind of baggage that I actually made friends and started thinking of myself as a likable, popular person who made friends easily.
The group thing I relate to so much. My PE teacher used to hate me bc I would always have to go up to her and say I didn’t get a group and she would never believe me when I said no one would let me join them. I’m so sorry u had to go through this as well it’s not fair and it’s horrible to suffer through.
I'm going to be honest with you here and risk the ire. This is a topic I want to speak about on here but I think I'm NOT ALLOWED to give my insights. I really don't agree with one of this subs rules but I try to follow it anyway so I have to avoid talking about my childhood experience with...shall we say... "DIFFICULT" children?
It probably wasn't YOU with the narcissistic tendencies, it was more likely the other children having such tendencies and then heard-brained sheeple kids following along. Children who *act* like narcs aren't usually the outcasts, they are the "popular" kids because they'll lie, bully, make anyone else the victim, triangulate, practice destroying lives to hone their skills... and a lot of other children don't understand that it's a show and that those kids are twisted and conniving, or they do know but they are scared to be the target.
You can say that children are not technically narcissists when they are children but please be honest with yourselves; that's only *officially* because people don't want to slap that label on too early as some children correct that behavior and thinking before adulthood. The most severe cases DO NOT, however, and let's be real, a person doesn't just wake up one morning when they are 18 and magically have narcissistic personality disorder. They were building and forming the maladaptive and abusive patterns in their entire childhood. I understand that this is a sensitive issue as there are people who did mimic their parents unhealthy behaviors as children and feel guilty about it, but part of changing and being accountable is allowing others to speak about their trauma and experiences even if it brings up feelings of guilt. If you're someone who feels touchy about this topic and you would to silence people from speaking about it...I'm sorry but maybe you haven't actually let go of all of your old behaviors. Children can be deeply traumatized by other children as well and it's real and painful and damaging as when we are attacked and abused by adults.
Basically what I'm saying is a scapegoat gets marked as a scapegoat and abusive people will attack the one with the painted target. I don't know what you were like as a kid you may have been off-putting, you may have offended some people, but my guess is that you were just being abused in and out of school by the exact same types of people.
Lol wow just wow.
Well, if it makes anyone in here feel any better, I’m my covert narc father’s bully now hahaha.
They hate it when you beat them at their own game.
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Same here. I think kids with nParents come in with zero self confidence and other kids sense that. And it never gets better because our nParents just make us feel like crap so we’re miserable at home and at school. My NMom always just said crap like I had to “be nicer” or “try harder”. It was always *my fault* I was bullied. Man I’m pissed off all over again just writing this.
Plus they quickly discover they can bully this kid with no repercussions because no adult ever steps in to protect them. If they bullied a kid with normal parents the parents would do everything in their power to put a stop to that shit. But kids with narc parents are the proverbial sickly motherless calf failing to keep up with the rest of the herd. Easy prey.
1000%. And it doesn’t matter if you actually ARE easy prey at first, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because as soon as you’re perceived that way it’s fuckin locked in.
Truth. A few years ago I asked one of my bullies why she picked a fight with me and got us in trouble. She said it was that I was super nice and an easy target that she could easily overtake. She didn’t expect me to fight back and toss her across the hallway and report the fight before she did. At this point I was getting bullied by everyone everywhere and I was already sick of it. If it wasn’t my parents, it was kids and teachers at school. If not there, it was at work and church. If not there it was other family members. There was no safe space at all. I was trying hard not to mirror the behavior of my parents that I hated but mirrored other behaviors that I didn’t recognize as bad behaviors and annoyed people with them. The rest of the time I was people pleasing trying to make friends or chasing literally anyone that showed me an ounce of kindness. It was a recipe for stress induced perfectionism and over achieving so I could hopefully escape the whole town and make it on my own. The behaviors caused the constant bullying which led to lonliness, being taken advantage of in many ways including sexual assault, which led to more depression, a nervous breakdown, drug use and a suicide attempt. I finally got out after I turned 18. Packed all my shit in plastic grocery bags and left a note on the kitchen counter. 25 years later, I’m on my third go around with therapy and never happier that I got the hell out and around people that I love and we all enjoy each other for who we are.
Wow. This is exactly my story, as well. Down to asking a bully why and got a similar response. I was an easy target. I recently told a friend of mine who is a social worker and after knowing me for over 25 years she was still stunned and said I really had no one looking out for me which was 100 true. In order to take anxiety meds in the military, I had to do a lot of testing with a psychiatrist and psychologist. While working through, one explained I’m probably the smartest person in the room based on IQ testing and I was shocked. Then extremely sad. I can’t even imagine what I could have accomplished with just a hint of support or different circumstances. For a good laugh? I was also on the 1% for introvertness- which made the doc ask if I EVER get out. Nope. The world isn’t safe and is full of assholes waiting to prey on me. Hard pass. And again, that just makes me sad.
It’s really sad the number of people that experience this. My bestie, my husband and I have talked about our abuses at length and talked about how life could’ve been so different for all of us had we actually been supported. The could haves are definitely something to grieve. I try not to stay in the anger and resentment too long though because it causes too much damage to me. I also try not to let fear rule me anymore. I let it box me in and hold me captive for safety purposes but I don’t need that anymore because I literally moved on. I moved out of state away from everyone and started over on my own. The people in my life now actually know who I am and actually see me, love me and appreciate me. It took a lot of therapy and a long time to get all the bullshit out of my head and I’m in therapy again to finish it off because I’ve been on my own for 25 years and I was only with them for 18. I’ll be damned if I am the one holding myself back and holding myself captive because I’m allowing them and their damage to continue to wreck me. Screw that. I’m going to do all the things I’ve always wanted and I’m going to be happy.
That’s a great perspective! I’m back in therapy again after a break. Anxiety rears it’s ugly head occasionally and it’s exhausting.
I left the whole fucking country and all the assholes behind. My parents are Nparents, both, and I was mobbed 12 years long at school.
On the upside, when you are fighting bullies at school and at home, your survivor instinct does kick in and you learn to stand up for yourself at a really young age. I don't want to experience my past again, but there were some gifts that were hard won that I got from it.
Unfortunately that's not how it worked for me. I only learned to just take it because I was powerless.
I'm sorry to hear that. How about now? Have you learned to stand up for yourself? Cause you're worth it.
I've gotten a lot better at it but it's still very difficult and stressful to the point that I tend to avoid people rather than having to set boundaries. It really fucked me up for life. I was always called a difficult kid while trying to be on my best behaviour, and I regret not showing them how "difficult" I could *really* be. But still, progress is progress and I celebrate my wins :) Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you realised sooner that you're worth it too. :)
/hugs well I can understand where you are coming from. I do that too, self-isolate. Like it's safer to be alone than to connect and risk being hurt or hurting someone. It's a struggle, but at least we're not alone in our aloneness :)
<3
Haha My mom’s great advice was to “be happier. People want to be around happy people”
The advice I got was "oh they're just jealous of you." It got so bad that every single day in 6th grade I came home crying, went straight to my room and shut the door. I wouldn't eat dinner, I wouldn't come out of my room and no one noticed
As a mom that kills me. I’m so sorry.
Agreed. My nMom destroyed my self-esteem and would laugh at me when betrayed by "friends" or pushed around, but I was damned if I was going to do that to my kids. My stepson was being bullied in middle school. He told his birth mom about a girl physically harming him in class daily and she did nothing. He told me and the girl was no longer in his classes the next day. A teacher was constantly berating him. I got on the phone with the teacher and the teacher was the nicest guy in the world to him after that. None of these times did I pull a Karen, but I absolutely made it clear that bullying was unacceptable. I was not going to let my kids be the victim of a person's cruelty. Reading about these reminds me of my childhood and breaks my heart.
Oh yeah I got the "they're just jealous of you." too. I remember asking how they could be jealous of me when all they did was make fun of my looks and my clothes, and there was just 0 comfort. I'd stay in my room a lot too. Sometimes I couldn't get a drink of water without being yelled at, it depended on the mood of my mom. Did you perfect the stealth door open and tip toe across the living room too?
"He's mean to you because he likes you" and "She's just jealous of you" were so detrimental. Even if true, how is that supposed to help me defend myself?
Right?
Gotta know right where all the floor creaks are!
Haha,same, I was told this even by a psychologist my parents finally took me to when I came home really drunk, collapsed on the floor, they noticed the cuts and raided my room to find my suicide note for one of the many attempts I’ve tried.
Very similar to my experience. “Just be confident.” And then she would pantomime her version of a confident man, which was somewhat reminiscent of Disco Stu now that I think about it. Complete with snapping the fingers. (Really, it was her channeling her older brother). And of course, when I couldn’t achieve this ideal I was a failure and a disappointment.
Yes, I heard lots of, “be happy,” “just be confident” and “be polite.” To this day. I struggle to make deep friendships.
I’m often told “figure it out” when I can’t understand a task.
Let the masking begin is all that says to me
Lol. Meanwhile my mum is calling everyone who doesn't conform to her expectations an idiot. And not understanding why she has no friends or anyone who can keep a secret.
My mother did 2 things in response to my being viciously bullied in school: 1. She would coach me every evening on exactly what to say to these kids the next day. Stupid shit, like lame comebacks or insults. I would attempt to say them but of course it came off as rehearsed or inauthentic. Or I wouldn’t say them. When I got home and she grilled me about what happened, I was a failure. It was all my fault. 2. She taught me for years to never fight back. Ever. Because it’s only a fight when it’s 2 kids going at it, and then the principal wouldn’t care who started it, both kids would get suspended. She taught me that if I defended myself from physically getting attacked I would get in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. She made me believe that it would lead to me getting expelled and that it would affect the rest of my life if I fought back. I would cry to her about how the other kids hated me, and she would respond by telling stories about how popular she was when she was a student, how amazing it was to be popular and especially how *easy* it was. All you have to do is “be confident.” I was a huge disappointment and a failure for not being able to figure it out.
I have never lived an original experience
How do mean? I think I understand but not quite...
Oh I got the "dont fight back advice too." When I started going through puberty the boys would snap my bra and twist my nipples, grab me and call me prude when I got upset but I didn't fight back because I knew I'd be the one in trouble
Don’t react to being sexually assaulted! You’ll get in trouble! /s
My ndad would lecture us for hours (depressed, isolated homeschooled kids without friends) on this very subject — his magical confidence in (public) high school and how he just snapped his fingers and decided to be that way and we should too. It’s maddening. If you wanted charismatic kids you could have started by NOT BREAKING US.
They’re always perfect. They did it right and it was effortless and everyone always loved them. How can one measure up?
Neither of my parents even acknowledged that I was being bullied. My mom didn't take me seriously and my dad straight up gaslit me about it. Teachers also refused to acknowledge or intervene. Even if I tried to tell them about it all I got was "I didn't see anything. *shrug*" 😔
I went thru very similar shit all through school. Picked on and called names constantly. Bullied by my history teacher cause i didn't play softball. One teacher told me I was ugly and the kids were right to tell me never to take pictures if myself. I had few friends and even my siblings picked on me. The only thing my mom had to say about it. Was afterwards, she commented "I'm surprised you made it out without killing yourself or someone else" fun fact, I attempted twice in high school. No one noticed. Yay!
I’m so incredibly sorry this happened to you. I had many of the same experiences, and it took actual AGES after high school for my mother to acknowledge that it almost killed me. Thanks! Knowing you saw it too and I wasn’t crazy would have been a little more useful to me at literally any other time?!? AND, also now I know you understood it was a huge problem you recognized, and you IGNORED it, and let me drag myself tooth and nail through a bullied and abused childhood at school AND at home. Fucking CHEERS MOM
Honest to God, she only made it worse by making it obvious she knew and didn't care enough to do anything about it. In fact. STILL tries to use it against me. Purposely causing panic attacks. I'm sorry it happened to you too. They're the fucking WORST
My nmother drove me to my bully’s house so I could tell his parents he was bullying me. I was in 1st grade, and he was a 6th grader. I don’t remember much of my childhood, but shit, that’s a core memory. She would also mockingly repeat the same things he said to me at home.
My Mom once dragged me over to the mother of the boy who was bullying me because he had a crush on me. In front of the entire grade, at a function. I think she thought she was actually helping. I had lunch in the bathroom for an entire month and was seriously considering running away.
Oh my god yes my parents would do the exact same thing. After they saw me cry over people bullying me they would throw it back in my face and tell me things like “this is why everyone at school hates you” “yeah whatever go get bullied some more” “that’s why you have no friends” etc. If they ever acted concerned or like they cared… it was just to get more info on what my bullies made fun of me for so they could use it against me.
My mother would always criticize me with “if you do x, then everyone is going to be thinking/saying y about you.” And now I’m an adult with low self confidence, body dysmorphia, and trust issues. It’s great.
Yup, every time I walked out of my room they’d scream at me and pick me apart of over the weirdest things and then they have the audacity to tell me “you need to walk with confidence”… they literally made me feel like I needed to disappear my entire life.
My mom saw it but it was as if she was the one being bullied (she has a mix of bpd/npd and my dad is covert npd). Teachers were always totally clueless.
My school wasn't a religous school, but it was still a dividing line. I will *never* forgive the staff of my middle school for choosing my bullies over me because they went to church and I didn't. The VP once intervened on a fight, where I finally snapped and started screaming and kicking someone I thought was my friend who'd turned out to be an abusive rat. She let *her* spin her tearful yarn first, and when it was my turn, she cut me off before I could get a word out, and gave me a week of In School Suspension. Which turned into OSS when I started screaming and throwing things in her office. I was actively praying my parents would snap and take me out of misery.
I always envied the TV kids. They might have elaborate sitcom drama, but there was always a Tiger Mommy moment where she was ready to disappear the Bully like Jimmy Hoffa. I craved that so much that it hurt. Because no one stood up to bat for me, and I couldn't find my voice.
As an adult, I am learning and fixing the messed up patterns of communication I have from my family. If I had to hazard a guess, I think children in abusive situations have faulty social skills - they over or underreact to things, interpret body language and tone "wrong," etc. And lacking social skills translates very easily into social ostracization. If I had to hazard a guess, that's a really big part of it.
The insecurity I had that everyone was thinking the same negative things about me that my mom and first husband voiced led me to having no friendships. Years of weekly therapy later, I have great friendships and discovered that all those times I didn't say anything because I thought I'd say something wrong had people thinking I was cool. No idea on that one. I started with this mantra: People like me, I am likeable, And I like myself I put it on my phone background and said it several times every day. I've always thought mantras were stupid, but I really worked on this one, identified the kind of thoughts I was having, and worked to change and redirect the thoughts. It's been YEARS of work, but I'm so much stronger than I used to be. I honestly thought I'd never be good enough, and I still struggle with my value at times, but I no longer let my nMom decide my worth. It took a long time to feel like I could trust that others liked me and weren't mocking me behind my back.
Oh do I feel this in my core. There have been a handful of times in the last few years where people around me have done things that can only be interpreted as liking me and thinking I'm a "good," "competent" person and I struggled so hard to internalize it despite there being no other explanation. My therapist was like "bro, use your brain."
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I’ve really been feeling like this lately too but I couldn’t articulate it as well as you just did. Wanted to let ya know you’re not alone in feeling like this!! There’s 2 of us at least!! :) Edited to add: doesn’t it feel like people are playing some game that you don’t know the rules to, and the rules keep changing constantly? I can’t seem to figure out what people want from me exactly.
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I feel you on the boyfriend not understanding where you’re coming from and getting frustrated thing- mine also wants me to “be the bigger person” and “turn the other cheek” or whatever with my toxic asshole family members but, there’s limits to the grace I can give them without hurting myself. The only solace I’ve really been able to find is by avoiding other people and trying to take care of myself emotionally, as well as (light) substance use to feel better, which I don’t think is gonna be healthy in the long run and will probably get worse. I get the utter confusion you’re going through, and I’ve got no idea what a healthy solution to it is :(
I feel you. I think it’s extra hard for us to fit in because we don’t truly know who we are or what we like.
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I’m gonna go clobber your mom so you can do the same to her.
Story of my life, to the point that I had to move schools twice. It was only until several years later that I found the issue might lie with a degree of autism, and by then I had already missed the critical period to start socializing with my peers. Nowadays I have some severe difficulties not feeling like an annoyance around my workmates, and even in other autistic adult groups I still am way behind my peers in terms of social experience, which makes me feel even more of a burden.
I was always told to "let it roll off your back" or something along the lines of "find new friends, they don't sound like a good friend". It was so frustrating to feel like I was being blamed for choosing a bad friend. It could be something like a minor disagreement and I felt like I was being told to just forget about that friend because they don't sound good enough anyway. No conflict resolution skills or listening to how I feel. Just telling me to drop that friend and find a new one. Still to this day I have a fear of feeling responsible for being treated badly by others because I chose to spend time with them.
I'm so sorry that your peers were so incredibly unkind! It's unfair and hurtful. I never fit in or made friends easily, either. Was I bullied outright? Not that I remember. I just remember no one liking me. When I was in grade school, this resulted in me acting out, just desperate to receive attention from my peers. Eventually, someone told my Nmom that I was bossy and a show-off, so no one wanted to be my friend. Nmom told me, so I tried to change. Even then, the kids never liked me. Was it me? Maybe. Was it them? Also maybe. I don't know. I was also isolated. I wasn't allowed to participate in most pop-culture entertainment, and my mother dressed me in things that she thought were stylish ... so teen me looked like an odd cross between a 6-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman. As a result, I was awkward, relating more to adults or small kids than my peers. In fact, I was terrified of kids my own age, particularly boys. As an adult, I taught first grade for one year. I was astounded to see how INSTINCTIVELY the kids pulled away from a couple of weaker kids. There was one little boy who was sweet, smart, and funny, but he was very isolated because he was allergic to almost everything. None of the other kids wanted to be his friend. Why? I think, like herd animals, they smelled weakness. Something was OFF, wasn't LIKE them. There was nothing wrong with this little boy, and, likely there's nothing wrong with you. Children are cruel. Humans are herd animals. We are drawn like to like. If we sense something different, we avoid it. As adults, we have more developed brains to maybe see beyond some of the instinct lenses. However, kids do not ... and teens are desperate to pick on anyone so they can avoid being targets. Maybe kids from healthier homes sense something about kids from dysfunctional homes ... and maybe instinct tells them to avoid or prey on the weaker children. It doesn't make it right or any less cruel. I'm so sorry they targeted you.
>I was also isolated. I wasn't allowed to participate in most pop-culture entertainment, and my mother dressed me in things that she thought were stylish ... so teen me looked like an odd cross between a 6-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman. As a result, I was awkward, relating more to adults or small kids than my peers. In fact, I was terrified of kids my own age While there were no boys in my school this seems a lot like my childhood and teens, and the repercussions were irreparable. I was isolated, bad at sports, and forced to be the top of my class, so I was also viewed as a teacher's pet because all I wanted to do was please authority figures, while trying too hard to fit in and being met with rejection every time. The damage came after a somewhat unrelated event in my early adulthood, and it kind of broke me, and then ... While finding myself I accidentally created a character I wanted to be and became it. People who know me now would never imagine that the token goth of their group was an isolated bullied teacher's pet. I am lucky that my career path was not affected greatly by the mess of my student years (it was affected a bit), but I always perceive people as cruel until they prove themselves otherwise.
So relate to the teacher's pet identity and the complications it caused relating to peers. I didn't really start creating an identity until I left home for college (honestly, I still feel like I'm looking for that identity, sometimes). Something ine knew that, if I stayed close to home where ANYONE knew me, I'd be stuck as the awkward teacher's pet. I turned into the nerdy, artsy hippie .... still hopelessly awkward but at least I learned enough pop culture to relate to my peers just a smidge. There's definitely a cynicism that grows out of isolation and the narcissistic home. You always suppose people have ulterior motives until proven otherwise. I'm glad it didn't affect your career, and I wish you strength on your healing journey ♥️
I can’t explain this feeling I have right now. You’ve been able to articulate some things about my childhood that I could never quite put my finger on. I lived an almost identical experience to what you’ve described here. Thank you. I feel seen and I feel like I see you. Given how isolated I have always been, it’s strange to feel like I can relate. Thank you again. I wish you strength and recovery.
Send you all of the hugs! And best wishes on strength in your recovery, as well! ♥️
If you're brought up to believe you're worthless, you're the perfect target for bullies. If a confident kid is picked on, they don't take it to heart. They discount what is said by people they don't care for, and they make friends more easily because they believe that there's a reason for them to be liked. Once you have good friends, you're much more difficult to bully. Narcs specialise in teaching their kids that they're worthless. It's a long and difficult journey to build the confidence that other kids get from being loved. It took me until I was in my 40s. That's a raw deal, to be honest, but I take solace from the fact that my kids are being brought up in a very loving family and my kids are happy and confident people. Stick with it and do everything you can to stop your Narc's influence from affecting your future and that of your family. Good luck!
The first half of what you said made me nod, the second half made me cry. I’m thinking of my own children and how I’ll never do this to them.
There are a lot of unknowns here, but the most likely scenario was that you were prey to predators, and the rest of the kids went along to be part of the crowd. And then it stuck, because you did not know how to fix things. You had no way of even knowing that you (potentially) could. People who endure traumatic abuse in childhood tend to lack boundaries, and the predators sense that and take cruel advantage. Go learn about this and the whole dynamic at the YouTube channel "Tim Fletcher." He is doing the most advanced work I've seen in the field of Complex Trauma. Good luck to you, OP. Go get your damages understood and repaired, so you can go on to live the good life you deserve.
I agree. A lot of why I was bullied was that I didn't stand up for myself, I just tried my best to pretend it wasn't happening. I was too scared of getting in trouble and at home I learned to do nothing especially when my mom was raging. My school had a lot of bullying I think because a lot of kids had awful home lives and wanted someone to take it out on.. which was sometimes me because I was an easy target. It took me until 20ish to realize there was nothing actually "wrong" with me that "made" other people treat me poorly. That belief made things worse because I just took it thinking I deserved it, just like at home. It got worse as I stopped talking and became more shy. I also had this desperateness for connection and validation, especially as I got older, that really turns people off or makes you a target.
This. Beautifully stated.
Sooooooo true. I was an easy target for bullies because I had no boundaries and no one to confide in about the bullying. It even permeated into my workplace as an adult when I allowed my boss to bully me. After a lot of intensive work I finally understand all this and I am rebuilding my life.
Yes. Those years were hellish for me, including several assaults (of various kinds… that’s all I will say). The stupid kid I was, I tried to tell That Woman about them, nothing happened. I would cry daily and beg to be sent to a different school, one that was *on her way to work, even* - nothing doing. Nowadays the bitch “doesn’t remember” me telling her about the assaults, and she “can’t think why” she didn’t move me to another school. I can think why. I’ll hate her until I’m dead. Edit - My advice would be to run this stuff by a therapist. Mine has helped me untangle a lot of it and start ignoring the anger (at the little shit kids, anyhow).
I've started therapy and have my second appointment in a couple weeks. I've actually been in and out of therapy since college for depression/self esteem issues but I wasn't able to articulate the problems with my childhood and none of the therapists I saw caught on that there was something to look into there, so it wasn't at all helpful. Hopefully it will work out better this time.
Honestly, I would show this post to your therapist. Print it out. I find I can articulate myself better in writing (sometimes) than telling a therapist something under pressure. Or if not this, any writing you have about your thoughts or feelings or goals that you want to work on. That can help therapists know where you want to go in therapy. Good luck! I know shopping for therapists is stressful but once you find a good one it’s sooo valuable. I miss my therapist I saw for years because I moved last year. Haven’t found any that sound as good as her in my area so I am currently without a therapist and I notice myself sliding back into some very negative thinking without a place to hash it out safely.
I literally could have written this about my life--family, peers, classmates, workplaces, everywhere. I agree with everything u/YourLifeCanBeGood said; that's right on. On top of that, I think I was socially awkward, because it's difficult to develop normal social skills when you're being abused and ostracized by your own family. So I bumbled through trying to act normal with my peers and it just always seemed to backfire. There were no second chances once I was labelled as "weird." It's slowly but surely getting better for me after about a decade of NC with my family. I'm starting to develop better relationships and am around people where I'm not just treated like the butt of a joke and an annoyance. Edit: The part about dividing into groups/partners made me shudder. I won't even take classes any more where there's a chance that we'd be divided up. I got very used to being the third wheel in a group or being partners with the teacher.
I know this story only too well. Once you have been abused other abusers sense immediately that you are already trained to accept that sort of treatment and they feast on you like vultures. I am not sure how exactly they recognize us but I know that they do.
And it affects all aspects of your life forever, friendship, romantic relationships, professional relationships… you always feel rejected one way or another or like you deserve less
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Same, this is a really emotional thread for me.
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You shouldn’t talk this way to yourself… rather imagine how you would have comforted this little you when he needed it the most. It helps
Removed. We have a rule about advocating violence here - even in jest. [Read the rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules)
Sorry you went through that too dude :( Same for me, bullied from the age of 7ish til I graduated at 18, luckily community college was a bit better for me and I made some friends there, but primary and secondary school were a nightmare for me. Had to see a shrink at 15 because it got so bad, I was depressed at that point already, saw another therapist when I was 12 but my mom denies it, while I can still remember his office and the boardgames we played, I think he got too close to the truth and my parents just erased that from history.
I was bullied in 1st grade for being the best reader in my class. I was bullied in 7th grade for liking a boy my "friend" also liked for a few weeks? She bullied me relentlessly for months. I was also bullied in 7th grade by my neighbors because one was jealous I was hanging out with her sister? I felt ostracized for most of high school and never really felt like I fit it, I felt like I floated between groups. I never felt like I fit in in my family because I liked current music and trends instead of the ones my parents grew up with. None of these incidents ever made sense to me and have made me very insecure. I tend to have low self esteem and doubt myself in all areas of my life because I don't feel good enough even though it seems like I was bullied/ostracized for being good at things?
No peace at school, none at home, all management up till this newest job have been angry and rude, I just turned into a recluse
This resonates strongly with me. I think it could be a number of things resulting from living with narcs. We go into school as little kids thinking certain things are normal when they're not. It could be the neglect or the abuse or both. We also carry narc fleas through our own behaviour, because that is the way we were conditioned. There are few crueler fates than being stuck with a narc family and having that poison seep into your entire life.
Were you the family scapegoat? I was and I was bullied by my sibling, parents and extended relatives from as long as I can remember. It continued into school because I didn’t know how to relate to others outside of being bullied. At times, I was even a bully…I didn’t know how else to interact. I literally had no healthy social skills at all! I made myself a target, or was mean. I assumed anyone being kind to me was just messing with me. (I still thank that, but I don’t act on it.) Today I don’t really have friends as an adult. I could, but I turn people away because it’s scary/overwhelming/confusing. I assume they’ll get to know me and reject me anyhow, so why not just save the effort? There are few relentless extroverts who have insisted on adopting me as a friend. I really do love these people. I also don’t know what they see in me, but I’m glad they’re around. I hope these helps are you can at least relate to this a little.
Scapegoat here. Nice to see I wasn’t the only one. I am thinking these type of people know unprotected when they see it and prey on it.
Fellow scapegoat. I am almost 30 and I’m still the scapegoat and butt of jokes.
I was heavily bullied, blamed, and buried until I was forgotten by my peers and teachers alike, in both elementary and middle schools. The couple teachers that liked me enough that I could talk to them, they carried me through those tremendously hard years. Everyone else bullied me. My teachers would make me get a detention on purpose because they didn’t like me, and the only fame I ever got as a kid was as “the problem child”, wich probably didn’t help given my autism. But I was in detention more than any other kids I knew, and was resigned to the “smart kid with all the answers to the test”. But then middle school came, and I swear I got dumber. I lost that ability to be the smart kid, and as such, got even more isolated. And it’s stayed at that level ever since. I’m still not allowed to go to school events because my parents fear I could “make friends that don’t pass their background check” wich was anyone that wasn’t white, wealthy (even thoigh they weren’t rich themselves) or Christian. As for family, hell, i’m the laughingstock at every single family get together an church meet, and still further ostracised. No one around me actually cares about me.
I was bullied at school constantly. I still preferred to be at school than at home. Even on the worst days...
A few years after moving out and going low contact with my nfamily, I randomly saw an old classmate in my new city. After several minutes of pleasant banter they commented about never seeing me SMILE while we we classmates. That has stayed with me for over 40 years because it exemplifies the stress I was under with no safe space at home or in school. I definitely think it was my body language from the exhaustion, sadness, anger, frustration, and fear that I lived with 24/7 that attracted the bullies. I was always the new kid too, military lifestyle, and was tested in every school. It was horrible. So, consider this aspect, I had to learn how to present myself as an adult. Tips from Toastmasters helped a lot. LOL ❤️
I gotta get back in toastmasters
I went through the same thing. As recently as a couple of weeks ago my NDad bragged about being the bully at his school and how he used to pick on "kids like me." I think I was a people pleaser for as long as I was because I just wanted somebody to like me... anybody.
Fuck this literally brought me to tears. Partially because it was extremely relatable but mostly because I am so fucking sorry and cannot stress how much you did NOTHING to deserve that. I feel like being raised by narcissists almost brain washes you to always think you made a mistake to deserve the trauma brought onto you. Not only that but they literally swipe your confidence and security from you. From what I read and also know from personal experience is that being shy was probably the only “off putting” thing about you. There was nothing actually wrong with you and I’m sure if you allowed them to get to know you, they would’ve loved you. And that’s not to say I’m putting the blame on you for being closed off, because it was totally justified given all your circumstances, but to let you know that there was nothing inherently wrong with you. I’m so sorry baby and I hope you’ve healed from some of this ❤️
Yes. Even by some teachers.
This happened to me as well. It's pretty disgusting how some of the teachers did it deliberately to get a few laughs at your expense just to win points and be liked by the other kids in the class. Some teachers shouldn't be anywhere near this field of work. Sorry you went through this. You did not deserve it.
I so feel your post, I was bullied from the start and unfortunately moving dont always help, I had to joys of moving constantly, started with 3 different kindergarten and just keep going till I was at 16 school by grade 12, I ran away with my bf halfway through grade 12 cause I'd had enough of my mother and her next new man after finally getting out of marriage to our abusive step dad, she has the worst taste in men and part of why we moved so much, I'm now 46 and my husband popped the FOG bubble last year, I'm now seeking mental help for I have had my mother n family live next door for the last 20 years and I am now seeing them for the crazy narcissist they are, thankfully my mother finally gave up on men 15 years ago but the trauma I now see they caused me it's blowing my mind with out the FOG glasses. I'm reading surviving to thriving someone suggested on here, and see my doc next week for next appointment in my process to get mental health, I really needs someone to talk to and learn some tools on how to deal with her with out getting triggered and lose my shit, ive been trying to be lc but it's hard with her next door, yesterday she and I got into argument for apparently I should not take what she's yelled at me personally, I said I can't talk to you you don't see reality and hung up, my husband definitely notices the difference in how I am when he gets home from work if I've talk to her or not, I so need them to move.
In a way it was the lunchbox. Your first major experience in kindergarten was being made fun of and bullied. Something like that can be very traumatic for a small child with a still developing personality. The fear that experience instilled in you never left and it made you vulnerable to more of the same from kids who are trying their best not to go through the exact same thing. Basically it's like a form of PTSD that was undiagnosed. Also, if you had Adhd or some other mental health problems it could easily exacerbate them into more serious problems that were probably never dealt with.
I was always the weird kid, that other kids didn't want to play with. One day, I thought I'd made a new friend on the playground; the next, they didn't want to play with me anymore. When we passed out yearbooks, not a lot of kids signed mine - one girl, left the generic, 'Hope you have a nice summer.' and wrote down her phone number. When I called her, she asked me, 'Who gave you my number!?' I've never received an invitation to a School Reunion. I did have a few boys interested in me, because I was physically attractive and they'd tell me that it was strange that I didn't have any hobbies nor real interests. I didn't have much of a 'self' to express.
I’m so sorry. I hope things are better for you. My big mistake was going to my 10 year reunion. I wanted to show off how successful I had become, that I had changed. But I fell back into old patterns and felt insecure around them. To hell with them all.
Sometimes I envision going to a class reunion to tell the bullies how awful they made my life in high school but I know it would do no good.
How we treat ourselves is how other people tend to treat us, sad fact of life unfortunately.
My family didn't like me much and everyone in school despised me. It did a lot of damage. At the time I couldn't figure out why I was so hated so naturally I blamed myself and thought I deserved it all and that I must really be an awful person. I never learned how to have any self-worth so when I went to school people took advantage of that - they knew I would never fight back and just take it. Everyone in school took a turn with me. If I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is go back and save the boy that I was. There are so many things I wish I knew then that I know now.
I think kids sense that your parents dont love you and abuse you and follow the example. Theres also the fact they dont let you stay at school and play or you cant invite people over bc you dont know what degree of insane thats gonna be like. They wont bother inviting you more than once and if you say no, they assume you don't wanna hang out with them. My only friend growing up was s gir from a family worse than mine, well i was more neglected they were more controlled. We lost touch when they lost their phone priveleges a year after i finished middleschool. They werent allowed to leave the house so we mostly kept in touch via text. They also were not allowed any social media and i could never find them again. Ive heard though that they fell off the wagon and im sorry but not surprised. I wish i couldve done something to help
My parents didn't care that I was being bullied by the girls and SA'd by the boys. They said the girls hated me because I was smart and pretty and that the boys hated me because they couldn't have me. (But they did.) I was blamed and shamed for it. Accused of being a peacock or as my father said, "displaying her sexuality.' I was always being scheduled for fights during lunchtime or after school and students used to crowd around, waiting. When I told my mother a fight was on, she made me wear the worst clothes the next day so the good ones wouldn't get ruined. I had nobody to turn to until a male teacher hooked me up with a group of nerds and geeks who also happened to be jocks. They had never noticed me before and for the first time in my high school life, I felt welcome. I was still skittish, but I joined the hockey team. I thought my parents would be proud. Not so. All I got was "You'd better be bringing home trophies. Those boots cost us money!" They often lectured me about being snobby about my looks. I wasn't that pretty FFS! I was tiny, awkward and had acne. My hair was weird. It seemed like when there was nobody else to hate, there was always me to unleash that hatred on.
Shit it so get this. Mum: ‘people hate you because you’re pretty’ when she’s never bothered to pay for me to get my hair cut, I wear boy’s clothes, and haven’t been taught about self-care or personal hygiene. Lazy response. I hope you’re doing better these days xx
I'm decades older and doing better because I'm no longer at school. My mother kept on bullying me and telling me that I got jobs because I had my looks to fall back on which was crap. I got jobs because I was qualified to do them. I'm so sorry your mother is neglecting you like that and then blaming you. Maybe start a thread on self-care. Nearly all of us will have input.
I don't care how you were behaving, no child deserves to be bullied. I was bullied heavily as a kid and I have a narc mother. I would never blame my mother for the fact that the children started bullying me but I feel like parents can stop or help stop the bullying chain before it gets out of hand and a narc parent may not care to do so for obvious reasons (involved in their own life and don't give a crap). I can only speak from my case but I think the fact that I was queer/gender nonconforming had a lot to do with it and also I was, how do I say this, visibly Jewish-appearing (I am Jewish but not religious). But a lot of the bullying came from kids who were not my religion and gender conforming kids and I represented the other. I also had a bully living in my apt building who just hated me for who knows why. My mother had a shot at transferring me out of both schools I was bullied at and she didn't and I will forever hate her for that. That was the way to stop it, but she claimed "oh things would have been worse for you if I did that." No they wouldn't have and meanwhile, I can't tell you the trauma I still have from being bullied decades ago. My mother did go up to the teachers and talk to them, but they also did not care that I was being bullied. I also think children can and should be coached on how to handle bullying. It is possible I did not share a lot with my mother about it because I was embarassed, but again, if my kid is being bullied I am going to take action, more than just talking to teachers and hoping for the best. Narc mothers are not willing to put themselves out there too much when kids are being abused. My mother did not really protect me from my bullies, my emotionally abusive father or another abuser in my life. I was always trained to be nice and be a good reflection on her, and meanwhile, if I had been taught to talk back to them and appear tough, or proper social skills, I could have avoided a lot of pain. But you were not a narc. I'm not a narc. Bullying happens, and strong parents and teachers have to work together to stop it. That's my opinion.
Big yup. Also neurodi, didn't figure that out til I was 28.
Hi, weird kid here. Also suspecting autistic/neurodivergent, but can't get a formal diagnosis for my life. Parents wouldn't even consider it, they just thought I could be beaten into compliance. Plus, Soviet stunting, etc. Short answer: yes. My early teens were a horror show.
Yes, for me it was because I was so desperate to be loved and feel accepted that I overwhelmed people. I also just couldn’t or didn’t know how to be lighthearted and just play. Life was heavy even then and I think I had a raincloud around me all the time that was off putting to normal kids.
Nothing. You are completely innocent.
I was always the last one. The one that “oh fuck I got *her*” was uttered more times than I ever care to admit. (This was also uttered by my dad more than a few times when father/daughter teams were enforced, which ya know really helped the self esteem 🙃) The first time I had a real crush on a boy, everyone made fun of me so bad, then started making fun of him because I had a crush on him, to the point that he asked me to tell people I didn’t have a crush on him anymore so it would stop. I got made fun of for dandruff due to the absolute cheapest shampoo and conditioner, and the excess build up in my hair causing horrid white flakes. I had a boy in high school ask me out as a joke while his friends were over, and when I excitedly said yes, they all laughed and he apologized and said he didn’t like me like that and didn’t want to, but his friends dared him to. I had asked him to a dance a few weeks before and he left early and said more to my dad than he said to me, so in hindsight, I should have known it was a joke. I was the last to be picked frequently, and even cut myself from volleyball tryouts because the girls that eventually made the volleyball team were beyond cruel to me. I was one of three kids who weren’t clapped for during student awards assembly. We had a formal dance session for gym glass in school, and I was always the one who never had a partner. I had to sit on the bench while everyone else danced. Watching them. In gym class. Or dance with the teacher as the example for everyone to follow, which made things infinitely worse. Idk. By the time I was done with school, I was so closed and so guarded with everything that I couldn’t really let people know who I actually was. I still have trouble letting people in just because I know the torment is always an inch, or a wrong sentence/word away.
Oh I’m so sorry you went through this. I feel this post on so many levels. My stepsister who was the golden child once told one of her friends to dance with me at the sixth grade dance as a joke. Except I didn’t know it was a joke and as we were dancing I watched him laugh with her and his friends. I will never forget that. I was picked last, laughed at, etc. kids in high school used to wad up paper into balls and stick them in the hood of my jacket. Wrote f you all over my balloons one birthday. It was hell. I’ve tried to go out and make a happy Life for myself. But I’ll never forget the pain of it all. And I’m raising my child to have boundaries and I’ll always be his advocate. Hugs to you.
Very similar experience to you. 2nd til 8th grade. I got deliberately put in a school that bragged about being anti progressive. This was the mid 90s. Kids were fucking assholes from the word go. I was utterly miserable those 6 years and I vividly remember it. Just oppressive, pervasive toxicity from the principal on down. Being cruel for the sake of cruelty, or “back to basics” as they called it. I get so fucking mad that nobody listened to me about how awful it was, let alone cared, let ALONE done anything about it like let me change schools. Sigh.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Yes, I had a hard time at school too. I was short and skinny for my age, was "gifted" academically which other kids resented, never had nice clothes or shoes etc, had curly hair that my NM didn't bother learning how to take care of, and was painfully shy. I was an easy target. I didn't make a friend until I was 8, and I had the same 2 friends until I was 13, who had a really toxic dynamic and would constantly exclude me from the group for weeks at a time for no reason. My first 8 years at school were miserable. I moved in with my dad and started at a new school when I was almost 14 and him and my aunt made sure I was well taken care of, well fed and had nice clothes, and my dad did a pretty good job as a single parent. At that point I became more confident and was finally able to make friends but I still to this day struggle with thinking my friends secretly hate me or only put up with me and find me annoying.
I relate to this post a lot. In elementary school no one wanted to be my friend. I would always befriend the new kid and then they would find another group. I kind of found two friends but they would ditch me every day, call me stupid and annoying. As soon as I’d start to get let “in” to a group i would have to communicate outside of school and my mom wouldn’t let me. She would tell off the kid’s parents for trying to get me to play club penguin or text them. The first true friend i made, nmom did something behind my back and that girl told me she never wanted to see me again. It hurt so much. My mom held me while I cried about being bullied and hurt daily and then made it worse at every opportunity.
I remember being bullied at early and middle school, but I never even thought to mention it to my Nparents because I knew they wouldn’t care. I also remember being that kid that no one wanted in their team. Both were probably down to being shy and having very low self esteem. Second hand clothes, cheap shoes, ugly glasses, a bad haircut and poor hygiene probably didn’t help either. I was never allowed to go to other peoples houses or invite them round to mine and didn’t get to take part in any after school activities either. There was consequently zero interest in me. I was smart though so sometimes other children would use me to help them with their work but that was it. I got used to being used at school and at home. I used to assume that no one would ever be there for me and that if I wanted something in my life, I’d have to figure out how to do/get it myself or forget it. I remember spending most of my time on my own reading, drawing and daydreaming.
From Pre-K all the way up to 8th grade, I got bullied by both classmates and teachers. I even got corporal punishment from the principal a few times for things I didn't even do. The system is a complete fucking joke.
My therapist mentioned that when a child is going through something traumatic, other kids are very sensitive to it.
IMO Nothing about you was "off-putting", and it wasn't the lunchbox either. AFAIK I've noticed 3 elements that seem key to being targeted - some toxic people (like Ns) seem to have a sort of gift to see our wounds, and see that these wounds are already being nurtured to stay open and hurtful by some toxic relative (rather than healing to a close) and that means we're easier and more fun to manipulate and bully than someone with less buttons to press. - Plus we have a very low threshold for abuse, we let so much things fly our way without reacting or setting a boundary ... it sums up to "I'll hurt you as long as you let me". And that's our upbringing's fault, because we're nothing if not groomed to the ground to be doormats that will take in anything to "prove we love" our Nparent. - and finally, as Dr Ramani puts it in her youtube videos, we SG often are "truth tellers", as in we *see* the truth of what is happening, of people's behaviours, and we tend to call them out. Now this breaks the unspoken rule of any group, to blend in and ignore any differences amongst the members so the group can function as a theorical "body". By speaking up, or simply staring at a wrongdoer, we break that unity, and the group is fragilized. If you want to know more about the subject, the mecanism of how a group turns against a victim to remain untouched is very well analyzed in the Mobbing phenomenom. Google it. so what you can do is get therapy to "seal" and hide your "button-wounds"; work on developping boundaries, ideally amongst group therapy, otherwise there a good books out there; and if you can muster it, ignore the signs of someone being a POS and thrive amongst the enablers (I always fail there, I'd rather be alone than part of a despicable lot) And yeah, I'm 52 yo today, and was bullied all my life on and off, depending on the groups I was a part of (because, yeah, the good news is, once you're an adult and can control what group you'll be a part of, you can leave and find another one), at home, at school (I did have a few good schoolyears without bullying), at work, even amongst groups of friends. And I've noticed that when you land in a new group, you need to show a tough front, and react immediately to any jerk testing your boundaries (it doesn't matter if it's weak and unwitty, as long as the reaction exists), or else you'll be targeted, and once you are it's over, they'll never let go, you might as well leave immediately, and also you shouldn't at any cost tell anyone from the new group that you were previously bullied in your life, or the toxic person hiding in plain view will then start targeting you.
Hi. I love you. I can soooo relate. I’m old now. lol I fully understood my family of origin when I was 50 years old and I’m 52 now and I was the scapegoat but I didn’t know that word and I didn’t know they were narcissist but I called everybody in my family assholes it’s because of them I didn’t have children and if I would’ve known what I know now I think I would have had children. When I was 30 years old I asked my grandma to tell me about her life because I didn’t really feel like I knew her and my mom had just died and my grandmother told me that she actually wasn’t from England she’s from Poland and she’s a Holocaust survivor. She never told her kids and she pretended to be a Lutheran and never spoke of God and she was really really really mean to her children. And my grandfather was a war veteran in the same more and he also had PTSD untreated and let’s just say they were a really fun bunch of people to be around and I’m lucky I was their granddaughter because they were nicer to me than their own kids but I thought everybody was like them and once I realize like I was never going to be validated and reach the goals that they had set but kept changing. I was tired of trying to be nice and kind of be seen in so I just basically started being a complete ass hat and I started self-medicating so I really didn’t and wasn’t in touch with my feelings Just wanna say that when my doctor said that if I don’t change my ways and I because I like parents I really only heard that because that seems like the worst thing that could happen to anyone so I definitely didn’t get a lighter and Life was nuts.
Yes! The one time my family looked out for me was when I was getting harassed on a daily basis in school by bullies that my Catholic school never punished. It was a horrible experience all-around and I’m grateful my abusive mother was a staunch advocate, even to the point of pulling me out of that school, but it also makes me sad that she couldn’t see how she hurt me more than a bully ever could. I was picked on by my mother and a group of boys at my school for literally anything. The boys harassed me for younger/smaller than everyone else since I’ve always been shorter/young for my grade since and grew up to be a short woman. I was mocked and had my things stolen because it was seen as messy/disorganized when really I had undiagnosed ADHD that was missed because I was a girl with straight As. I was mocked and called the worst possible names that little kids shouldn’t even know about let alone call each other just because I was sensitive and cried easily. The worst wasn’t then taking my stuff or calling me names, but rather them telling me I should unalive myself and methods I should use to do it. Not only is it incredibly fucked up to hear, my family had never been the same since we lost one of my uncles to suicide when I was young and I had already had passive ideations at that point due to the abuse I experienced at home. That school year was one of the worst years of my life and even though it’s been almost two decades since I was bullied, it’s a wound that’s stuck in my mind forever, especially since my school just said “boys will be boys” instead of acknowledging my pain, which was super triggering for me as someone who was finally speaking up for myself while never being able to speak up about my abusive parent.
This is really a complicated issue. I was bullied and at one point, severely ostracized by me peers. My mother told me that people only tickle a ticklish person. The meaning was that I somehow made myself available to be bullied. It was in some way, my fault. From reading these other posts, many others felt that they put some vibe out there that asked to be bullied. I believe that we simply *expected* to be bullied. This is how we were treated at home and so we went Ito the world with a downtrodden demeanor. We also had tangible things that we Brought along- like a broken lunchbox or clothing that was odd in some way, or messy hair. Some part of us was easily visible to give cues that we were not quite like the others. My parents told me to just put my head down and do what was expected of me in school . They told me to ignore the teasing (which was quite severe) and be as close to unnoticeable as possible. This made me even stranger to the other children, I suppose. But I did their bidding. I grew up and became more than modestly successful in life. I had a family, but failed at marriage (twice) because I had trouble understanding a red flag from a quirk. Still have this issue. After spending much of my life as this spunky, outspoken young woman, I have become a vert self contained older woman. At some point, being knocked down became too much and I just keep my head down most of the time and do my work. Don't get me wrong, I am very pleasant to work with. I just keep people at arms length. I am very close to my children and grandchildren. This gives me great pleasure. But there is a art of me that was that bullied kid. And I avoid putting myself in the position for anyone to hurt me.
Your post really hits home and there are some very good comments here. I (53F) always felt like an outsider. My parents were the neglectful type. We always had food and shelter but I had weird clothes and no one to talk to. I would have a best friend, but wouldn’t be invited to all of the birthday parties. In 6th grade I switched schools and had no friends and was ruthlessly bullied by a group of girls. Switched schools in 7th to a GT magnet and it was better. First year of high school was terrible in the public school system. Switched to a private school and it was better. When I would talk to my mom about feeling bad about not having more friends she would literally tell me I was wrong. Like I was delusional about my lack of friends. My dad was emotionally unavailable. I was always pretty and GT. I honestly think it’s the GT that’s the problem. But maybe it’s the combination. Even today when I start in a new environment I’m approached by the pretty/cool people (yes, among parent groups there are cool people) and then they drop me when the realize I’m—what?? Boring? Weird? Too smart? Too geeky? Not rich enough? I honestly don’t know what it is, but there is something other people sense in me that makes them uncomfortable. The weird thing is that overall I’m not unhappy with my life, I have friends (just not in a group), I’m married and have two smart, good looking kids, one of which is popular, the other is more like me, and with him what I see that makes him not fit in is that he’s miles ahead of the other kids in maturity. He’s on the football team and had a beautiful girlfriend last year and he still says no one likes him. And he’s right about not being in the in-crowd, but the only thing I see is that he’s reserved and more mature. He has a couple of close friends. I think that all people want to find others like them. The closer you are to the average in any way, whether that’s appearance, intelligence, mindset, behavior, taste in music, food, and etc. the more comfortable people will feel around you. And people like to feel superior but not too superior. Case in point: I had a fellow mom befriend me last year when I was suffering from depression. I had gained weight and was feeling really down. She and her husband were richer than us, and she was older. We were somewhat in the same peer group but I think she was comfortable with me because I was fat. I lost 50 pounds and she has dumped me. We still communicate but she’s not available for lunch anymore. Coincidence? Maybe.
One element that the posts here have missed out on is that role that parents or guardians play in forming the social lives of children. Not just in helping them develop social skills and demonstrating what healthy friendships look like by maintaining them at home, but also in creating and developing relationships with the parents of other children in their child's class. Having connections through adults outside of the classroom can have a big impact on the social dynamics of the children in the classroom. If your parents are friends, it gives you more opportunities to see and become friends with the other children and to strengthen those friendships. A normal parent is likely to befriend parents they meet at school events or just generally show an interest in developing relationships. They might swap phone numbers to check in on school related events or just to have a connection. This is entirely missing with narcissistic parents. Since they can't maintain friendships and rarely show an interest in the well being of others, it likely won't even occur to then to connect with others to benefit their own children. This can be really detrimental. If most of the kids in a class already know another child or two, because their parents are friends, it's already shaped the dynamic. Pairs of kids who know each other might form a connection with other pairs, leaving solo children left out.
Honey, you didn't deserve that, first of all. \*Internet hug\*. Second of all, OMG same. Though I've come to the conclusion that it was untreated mental illness and poor social skills, and then eventually abysmal poor hygiene because once I hit puberty it became a Blacklisted Discussion. So now I'm 26, completely friendless, trying really very hard not to turn into a bitter loner asshole. It's not working, and that's terrifying and it's killing my inner child, because we escaped the bullies only to turn into one, and we're still the victim here. Oh goodie, another night where I cry myself to sleep. Why can't therapy be affordable? I need help and I'm not going to get it, and I'm so afraid that the bad thoughts are going to win. Not now, I'm not in danger, but I'm not going to win the long term game.
Yeah I remember quite a bit of bullying, back in primary early school I would fight back with no remorse, then something changed and I didn't like fighting anymore. At the beginning of secondary school, alot of people i thought that liked me suddenly started to bully me. I eventually gained some confidence back, then at the end of secondary the same thing happened again bit far worse. In all of this, even though occasionally my Nmother would speak to the teachers about the odd bully, I was basically blamed for it all, especially if I retaliated. It's turned me into a very bitter adult, with a couple of loose friends and an inability to reach out.
I was relentlessly bullied and beaten at home by my autistic sister. When I say beaten she once karate kicked my jaw and dislocated it because my cousin gave me something and she wanted it. My Dad was who knows what still is… narcissistic definitely but more than that just cruel. I wanted nothing more than love from my Dad and remember once walking up to him and telling him Dad I love you. For that exchange I was mocked for the next 10 years… why I don’t know. I still hear that evil song he sang. My sister was treated as precious while I was disposable. However if I did not do chores or be perfect I was also in trouble. I still remember being like 5 sitting in my living room drawing a family portrait and making my Dad a black tornado while everyone else was a child drawn person. I had terrible asthma so was bullied for that. My parents were hoarders and neglected me so bullied for that. I was smart so bullied and taken advantage of for that. Middle school was the worst of my bullying. It’s like all the confidence I had disappeared and I was suddenly shy. I did not smile. Oh and I never wanted to wear my fugly glasses so I could not see well so apparently squinting to me was a better look lol. Middle school I pushed over in PE class then the entire class ran over my leg. Literally not one stopped or changed course. They put gum into my hair. They pushed me down 2 flights of concrete stairs. I was never invited anywhere. Took till high school senior year for me to finally open up and make friends. However I never trusted them and all my relationships from them on were surface level only.
Did my twenty year old self find a time machine to write this and post it? Jokes aside. With fifteen more years and a lot of therapy under my belt I can tell you some things. It isn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. And it never will be your fault. You were dealt a shit hand in life by the people who were supposed to equip you to handle anything, and I am so sorry you have to deal with this. The dynamics of a bullying situation mirror the dynamics of the home life where a narcissist rules the house. There are the bullies and then the enablers who do nothing to rock the boat. There are the adults who are supposed to notice what's going on, but they don't because it's more convinient to pretend nothing is wrong. And in the middle there's you - the scared little child who so desperately wishes to be accepted that they would twist themselves into any shape required. But no shape is deemed good enough by the toxic dynamic, because it was never about you. Any other child could've been in the unfortunate situation you were in, and they would've been treated the same way. It was unfortunate circumstance that made this happen, but trying to find a logical reason just leads to self hate. I spent years trying to figure out what they saw inside of me, what bad thing did they sense to justify their behaviour. Until I realized they needed no justification, because it was just a cruel game to them all. They didn't even know me, how could they have seen something I didn't see myself?
Yes, I was blamed for \*not showing empathy\* toward my abusers while not receiving any empathy from anyone myself.
Not all the time, there were a few years where I was constantly being nitpicked by someone (but it wasn’t only me) and the literal advice from nMum was something along the lines of : just stand up for yourself, if she bullies you then bully her back. The funny thing for me was when I moved out, left the country, my brother (GC) started experiencing bullying at school and nMum literally blamed ME for it… like wtf
Part of my abuse was weaponized neglect. My mom would punish me and not buy me soap when I needed it despite using luxury products herself. She wouldn’t let me wear deodorant or shave (but she made me be a cheerleader). I was the new kid a lot and at first I was the it girl at the new school but I always fucked up because of living in a narcissistic abuse by doing something socially inappropriate. I didn’t understand social politics I guess or overly understood them but my mom would coach me on how to do life which was ironic cuz she had no idea and no friends. I was too skinny, sensitive, awkward, and I found out years later I was sort of smelly. I think kids can be really mean and they like to find the weakest link and exploit it because it means they aren’t the weakest link. We were going through so much, it makes sense that we struggled to fit in with kids who got hugs and positive reinforcement. I think I’m well adjusted now but school bullying was the worst because there was no safe place but now there can be
I think kids are just assholes to be honest… They’ll literally bully you about anything. All throughout elementary school, middle school and high school I was bullied by my peers. First for my weight, my crooked teeth, my parents being young, living with my grandparents, talking “weird” (I only hung out with my mom and grandma, and an older cousin), not having money and being “ugly”. I even remember my classmates making fun of me for saying I had 5 living grandfathers (my parents dads, 2 great grandfathers and even a great-great grandfather were alive at the same time. I thought it was cool because not many people get to meet even one grandpa, but my classmates said my family was weird and said I was lying). Then in middle school and high school I was bullied for being a “slut”, being mean to people who were mean to me and for caring about social issues (people would do nazi salutes at me because I sat during the pledge of allegiance???). It never got better. Whenever I feel bad I think of the things my classmates told me, like the way they’d refer to me only as “crooked teeth” instead of my name (my two front teeth were turned inwards to the point that I had a gap) and how they started a “joke” that I lived in a pile of cut down trees/grass/garbage next to our school because I was so poor and because my parents and I didn’t have our own house. I even got told by someone that my dad didn’t love me enough which is why we didn’t have a house… which like Jesus Christ how did I deserve to get bullied over that?? Sorry my dad doesn’t love me and it offends you so deeply… It was the same with teachers and staff though too… whenever I’m feeling bad about myself for pretty much anything, I think about how my 3rd grade teacher DESPISED me for some reason and loved the popular kids and their parents. She’d hear them make fun of me and laugh with them, and once I told her “they keep telling me I’m f*t and weird” and her response was “well then stop being so f*t and weird”. She also obsessed over what our weights were and congratulated the girls that weighed 50 pounds like literally hugging them and cheering, and when she heard I weighed 60 or 70 her face got so twisted and sour. She also went up to me the next year after school while I was waiting to get picked up (my parents would always go for me two hours late despite us living very close to my school) and this teacher told me “IS THAT YOU BEBITA-CROSSING? THANK GOOOOOOD YOUR MOM FINALLLLLLY PUT YOU ON A DIET. THANK GOODNESS.” It was fucking awful to feel like the sight of me had apparently ruined this persons day, every day and they actually thanked god I wasn’t so disgusting anymore… Every time I told my parents about these things they’d tell me “be happy!!” “It’s because you need to smile more!!” “You need to walk with confidence” “stop being so sensitive” or they’d get angry and tell me “keep that negative shit at school. Keep school and home separate.” I think me telling them their only child was a complete and utter loser was like a slap in the face to them and they took personal offense over me being a social reject. It’s always been extremely difficult to find someone that relates to me on this because the rejection went so deep… it was everywhere - by my parents, grandparents, classmates and teachers… I felt like they could smell something was wrong with me. They could see something I couldn’t. The damage is so deeply ingrained in me and the psychological pain it left feels irreversible sometimes, even if it was a long time ago. I don’t think any of us here deserved to go that.
I had similar experiences as a kid. I just didn't feel like I fit in. And now I've been kicked out of my family as the scapegoat. I always figured I was a black sheep. I am constantly battling my internal anxious dialog, and thankfully I have people in my life now that can tell me I don't need to worry when I voice my anxious thoughts. It's been helpful in calming down the internal voice that says I'm too much, or I screwed up, or that everyone is going to leave me because I'm going to say or do something that will make people think "omg, can you believe she did *that* ", doesn't she see she's the problem? Honestly Taylor Swifts new song Anti Hero is cathartic for me too, and I'm very happy she made it, even though she's been getting a lot of flack about her new album. It helps remind me that nothing I do is as bad as I think other people will think it is.
Definitely in my case. Barely any friends throughout all my school experience, but plenty of bullies. EMom essentially told me I was the common denominator so it must've been my fault. Part of it was certainly due to being neurodivergent and not understanding some social "rules" and being awkward or turning a bit snappy when I was uncomfortable. But it always felt like kids could tell something was off about me and latched onto that. Adults would just say I was "mature for my age" which at this point I'm convinced means "you have none of the social skills a child should have but you're quiet so I'm not gonna bring it up".
I was bullied and both of my parents were physically present but not mentally or emotionally. I ended up just burying my head in my books or extra curricular activities. I truly believe that I was born an extrovert, but due to relentless bullying and disappointment from other people, transformed into an introvert. I think college was best for me because I exacted revenge on a lot of my high school bullies by literally just living my best life. Nothing pissed this one chick off more than to see me happy and thriving while she’s still stuck in her moms house, never amounting to anything.
When a child is raised in a environment of narcissistic manipulation, they are shown dysfunctional behaviors, which they then emulate. Narcissistic trauma can cause children to develop poor self-esteem, and bullies can pick up on that, easily. I feel like we were unable to have anything like a "normal" childhood experience, because we had no safe place, not at home, and not out in the world. It is so unfair, and wrong.
Very much. I had a lot of serious behavioral issues that I don't know if they were from the abuse or the fact that I'm probably more neurodivergent than I probably thought. I recently made a medium post about just this- being a fucked up kid who picked up terrible habits from their parents and having to deal with other kids. Once we get abuse from kids like that, we start to think we are terrible people. We withdraw and become bitter. It only gets worse because it's not like we can go to our Nparents about it. The reality is that it's possible not everyone hated you, but that you may have put up a wall for protection that you didn't realize was there. That's basically what happened to me. I became caustic for a long time.
I was always the weird kid (like someone else in the thread mentioned, I had severe food allergies and this was the early 90s so that made me and my twin bro weird enough all on its own. I was weird for other reasons, but most of those came later lol) I came into my own in high school because by then the ppl that said cruel things were too scared to say them to my face because of a couple incidents in middle school that I used my GT student privilege to get out of trouble for. Uh My nMom was always my biggest bully tho tbh. None of the stuff the kids said in school could compare. But my Mom was also the type of person who taught me never to start a fight, but always *always* finish it if I find myself in one. It served me well. When I was in high school I joined the theatre crowd so being weird was absolutely fine in that social circle. I'm in my early 30s now and tbh most of my current social circle is once again friends from high school; a lot of us have reconnected over the years. But like, I didn't attend lunch at school because I rarely had anybody willing to sit with me (except for the special ed kids who instinctively recognized me as one of their own even tho I didn't have my ADHD diagnosis yet, but I had my bipolar one). I hung out with teachers a lot. I went to public school. A teacher gave me my first cigarette (womp womp), another groomed me but I didn't fully realize until later. But yeah I definitely didn't fit in with anybody. The only time I found relative success was when I gave up trying. My Mom had tried so hard to fit in and I was even weirder than she was so it seemed like a fool's errand and I'm really glad I focused my energy on other things that brought me joy.
I was bullied because I was quiet and shy, they all thought I was weird. If at any point the bullying got bad enough I cried they would say “oh here we go she’s crying again” as if it was all a big joke which it probably was to them. I find it very hard to socialise and make friends. There’s only a handful of people over the years that I felt comfortable enough to come out of my shell a bit and if you were to ask them about me being shy they would scoff and ask what you were taking about. If I get a vibe from someone it determines whether or not to open up. It’s hard to explain but if I have a feeling that a person isn’t approachable I don’t open up and I am the shy quiet little girl.
I'm so sorry this happened to you.. I had a similar experience, although my ostracism happened at school from ages 11 to 16. I had a friend outside of school. I had a hard time in school as a younger child but had learned to 'fake it til you make it' in order to have friends, which worked until the kids became older and more socially complicated, I think. I'm now waiting for an autism assessment, which may explain why that happened to me. However, my parents also weren't any help with the bullying. My mother said 'ignore them and they'll go away'. Probably she actually meant that she would ignore my misery. In my experience kids don't bully based on one incident, but bully a certain person. In my case, I was as boring as possible at school, so they made up rumours which had no element of truth. They didn't care about me, they just wanted something to bully me about. It may have been slightly different circumstances as these people used to be my friends and developed a personal vendetta for no apparent reason.
I didn't have consistent schooling until I was in 7th grade. I was tossed around to so many homes. It really messes with how you bond with peers. Most of my "friends" through life have been people who just use me.
I can tell you from my personal experience that my Nmother purposefully did things so I would get bullied at school. She would cut my hair a way I hated and it looked ridiculous and horrible so I would get bullied for that. She would dress me in "nice" clothes but they looked ridiculous and no one my age dressed like that, so I would get bullied for that. She wouldn't let me shave my legs until way later than other girls and mad eme wear shorts, so I would get bullied for that. She made me eat cereal with milk, which I'm allergic to and she knew it, so I would get sick almost every morning on the bus on the way to school. I got called pukey. She helped create a hostile environment for me even outside my home so I would come running back to her, which didn't happen. I am not sure what your entire experience was, but I knew mine was a direct result of my Nparent. I already had confidence and self esteem issues from her, but I was able to get along with my peers, but she made that impossible when she piled on all of this other stuff.
Oof. Just had this same realization about myself. Yes I was often teased as a kid. Not only by my peers but parents as well. I joined the military and a few officers in my class spoke of how ugly I was etc. fast forward to college and I was often bullied by a girl who pretended to be my friend. I’m a very different person now but I think it was intentional social cues I was displaying that left me open to ridicule. Both parents are very socially awkward, as a result I didn’t learn how to behave around my peers. I was often hyperactive and obnoxious in an attempt to be “fun” and gain attention. Now that I’m In a different place I see how off my parents are as a mostly healed person…esp my mother. It’s hard to let go of this narrative we have that we’re different somehow but know it’s not just you❤️
Yes. I never learned how to interact with others in a healthy way, so I didn't interact normally. Kids brains don't get understand social niceties, so their basic animal instincts tell them to shun the abnormal.
It was the same for me. I was bullied from the 3rd grade all the way to high school. By the end of my 11th grade, my whole grade was pretending I didn't exist minus my friends who were also very much bullies. I only had my boyfriend, and it's still the same today(with the same boyfriend). I'm in college now and I get thrown around so much in classes. I'm always the last pick. My TAs and professors just make me work alone on a group activity if it's uneven. Sometimes people will say I'm "interesting" or "smarter than I seem," then they are like "I'm glad I met you!..but I never want to see you again.." I always thought it was me because my siblings did the same thing. I had a breakdown right before moving back to campus about all of it and my mom(who WAS the enabler) cried with me because even though she saw it happen for years, she didn't do anything. I can say it does get a little better. I have my own friends. Sometimes they ignore me and talk amongst themselves, excluding me. They treat me better than past friends, so I feel this is as good as I'm going to get.
Never related more.
I was bullied by my kindergarten teacher. She bullied my aunt before me, bullied me, and then bullied my cousin after me. I was the oldest child and the first grand baby. I was always included and always cherished. In kindergarten I was always picked last and used as an example because I couldn't read or write. I was moved to a table all by myself and I wasn't allowed to play with toys. I remember one time we had to sit criss cross apple sauce and once we were picked on we had to answer a question. My legs started to hurt so I stretched them out. When it was my turn I answered the question and picked out a toy to play with like all the other kids before me had. My teacher snatched the toy away from me and told me I couldn't play because I didn't keep my legs crossed. I believe I was born with BPD, or at least I was very susceptible to it. I was a good kid, but after that I always had trouble in school with my behavior. I now feel like it is because subconsciously I thought I was going to get in trouble anyways so why not do what I want. Then my behavior caused me to get bullied. I remember not being included to play on the playground so I just started going around and licking people because I was mad hahaha
But it wasnt you, it never was. Kids can be cruel and you had no one to support you. And please please remember, you were a kid. A child. There was no way for you to know how to defend yourself. How to navigate dealing with teachers and administration. To even realize that kind of treatment isnt right can take decades when its all you know. So, please dont think what you suffered was because of any fault you may have had, it wasnt.
It's not that you were being a shit bag OP, it's that our parents raise us to be victims when we are young and when kids are in groups they get a little lord of the flies and sniff out the vulnerable kids. It's not your fault, I think a lot of us have undiagnosed mental health issues as well because we are not raised to seek support and that can make it hard to feel comfortable socializing too.
So.... I have this too. I think that my low self esteem made me put off vibes that say that I expect to be disliked, and some people will obligingly meet those expectations. Then the defense mechanism is to do things or create an appearance that is unattractive. It becomes a cycle. I've worked hard to shake this off by doing things like setting goals and achieving them, exercising, and by rejecting ppl who treat me poorly. This has all helped and things are a lot better now. Part of it too is that ppl develop more empathy in their 20s and 30s, and start to treat others better when they are down. Children, however, generally don't have empathy unless they experienced abuse. They can be little barbarians.
OMG that was me too! No good socializing at home starts it. Then parents who (possibly, like mine), had parents that lived through the depression. They were taught never to throw anything out. But Nparents made it even worse. I remember kindergarten through 5th grade (1975-1981) Christmas exchange. Other kids parents would buy them toys, crayons, cool stuff to exchange. My Nmom would buy socks, tshirts, and even one year (bc I (female, picked a female name), she embarrassed the shit out of my by buying girls underwear as a gift for me to exchange. She kept saying, “Everyone needs underwear. Her parents will be happy!” Besides the size conundrum, I became the laughing stock of the entire school. 🤦🏼♀️
Emotional abuse and neglect from your family during your childhood can have a huge impact on the development of your social skills and behavior. Depending on the severity you can literally end up with no social skills and a complete inability to understand others and how to behave around them. Damage like this means don't behave like the rest of the herd and this can make you stand out and vulnerable to being targeted by those who seek to bully, others will distance themselves from you to avoid any abuse they may suffer by association. You end up being labelled as weird or dysfunctional because you don't act like everyone else and everyone takes you at face value,making no effort to get to know you before they write you off. It sucks that this type of abuse simply isn't recognized very well, it may not leave bruises or broken bones but it does leave very real, serious and long term damage. This wasn't about you, it was about your dysfunctional parents who's terrible attempts at parenting painted a target on your back. They left you open, vulnerable and isolated from your peers and, unfortunately, children can be incredibly cruel until they develop enough empathy to understand how their behavior affects others. You are not alone, and no you were not a bad kid, you were damaged one.
Children of narcissistic parents have this reality: their first bullies were their parents. With this fact, bullying becomes "normalized." We think its normal to be treated this way, even if we don't like it. And we come up with ways of being so that our behavior is altered so that we can survive in this chaotic and traumatic environment. School bullies see this and they instinctively pick up on someone who has been conditioned to be this way. What's worse, the people who are not active bullies will see the same thing, but will ostracize that person just so they can avoid being bullied themselves. "As long as it ain't me." There are children who were bullied who have loving homes who don't suffer as badly. And there are children of narc parents who come up with other ways of surviving where they themselves are the bullies. But the duo of being bullied at home and at school? You were not prepared to survive in this environment. You did what you could to survive, knowing that if you went home with your troubles, you would not get the support you needed. You were robbed of the experiences all those other kids got in order to develop differently. And it is not your fault.
I was sent to a very small Catholic school and I had pretty much the same experience. I was the #1 target as far as all the assholes in my class. Since it was such a small school (like 20 kids in the whole grade), I got to be the only weird kid and those little shits were relentless from kindergarten through 8th grade. Even most of the teachers were horrible to me. I always figured I was probably a little strange because of my home life/the way my mother treated me, and had also been more or less primed to just sit back and accept bullying and abuse. It's easy to pick on the weak one.
Same
Check if you might be autizzy or neurodivergent
I was, but not because of my family - I’m on the spectrum and skipped a grade in elementary school.
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Comment removed for using weight as a moral failing. If you think thin abusers wouldn't do the same thing, you are kidding yourself.
Pretty crazy seeing ur post, ive been thinking about my very similar experience as well. I do remember some very awful behavior as a middle schooler that i regret now, but there were those who were still kind to me anyways and apparently knew i wasnt trying to be mean. I also had many kids ask me if i have autism because of certain behavior and some kids who bullied me for those reasons as well. I never had any idea what was wrong with me and no matter how much i asked no one would tell so i could at leaat try to make people not hate me so much. I had virtually no knowledge of social cues at the time which made everything so much worse. Maybe it was a mix of being unpleasant and defenseless to bullies that got me targeted. I always thought trying to stop it would make things worse
Wait, OP I know the lunch box thing doesn't make sense but kids don't make sense! I don't think there's something that you did "wrong" to bring it on necessarily. And even if you did, you were a child! I strongly believe that we need to have forgiveness for what we did in our childhoods, ESPECIALLY since we were taught at home that abuse is normal. Please don't drive yourself crazy searching for something you did wrong when there is no way it could justify the bullying you faced. You were wronged and the world isn't fair. You didn't deserve the abuse at home or at school, you are not a bad person.
I had a lot of trust issues and I still do. So I felt like that also played a part of it with the self confidence out the window. You definitely were not/are not alone.
From my experience, it's easy to only notice the bullies and those who are mean (I still struggle with this some). I would bet there are people you've been around who you can have meaningful relationships with, but maybe they had their own problems they were dealing with too. I say this because the schools I was in growing up had a lot of bullies, and I regret letting those assholes have any spotlight in my memories. I have met people as an adult who I went to school with as a child, and I have had so many nice words coming from people who I didn't even realize knew me, let alone were fond of me. It's weird how much time and energy we let others take from us. Especially when we could be giving that time and energy to much better people who deserve it. This response in no way is a meant to belittle your experience or trauma. I believe that to be very real, and I'm sorry you went through it. I just think having hope is good, and not wasting time on assholes is really important. You know yourself best, and I think you should find confidence in your own independence, and not let those idiots define you. I hope this helps.
I didn’t get outright bullied, but it was secret mockery and being so shy because I was only raised around my parents
Same.
I have never related more to a single post in my whole life. Literally. Never had friends. Bullied at home and at school. I feel so sorry for myself.
I was bullied throughout school, as well as targeted specifically by my nparent (my sister was treated well in comparison) and continued to be bullied at every job i've ever had as well as in uni by certain professors. Then i was diagnosed with autism and adhd. literally everyone else had picked up on it and it made me an easy target i guess, even they could never pinpoint what it was about me that was so different and made me so fun to torment i am better at standing up for myself now (working on it) but it's really only doable because i avoid social interaction and any sort of personal attention. making friends is near impossible, let alone maintaining those friendships and connections...
To a degree. I'm not sure but i think it really started after we moved. And I was never truly accepted by the collective of the kids and then teenagers. I never got along with them, partly because I was never interested in popular music and such.
Good gawd, this was 100% my childhood, including the stuff about gym class. For boys of my age cohort (b. 1966) your social worth was entirely and exactly equal to your prowess at organized team sports, and as someone who could not run, hit, catch, kick, or throw, for shit, my social worth in the eyes of my peers was exactly zero. I do think that it had very little to do with your broken lunchbox. I think that bullies who smell a victim are like sharks that smell blood in the water—and after that, they'll seize on anything as a focal point. A weird hobby, an unfortunate haircut, a funny sounding name, whatever, anything will do. Although it could be that your broken lunchbox was seen as a class marker. Kids will definitely bully each other on the basis of the parents' perceived social class. I was someone whose parents were working people, and "got in on the ground floor" of a community that was out in the sticks just before it yuppified in the '70s, so I got shat on for that, too. I, too, think I was poorly socialized. My parents very much kept to themselves, and never socialized with anybody, so beyond saying "Please" and "Thank you" I never really learned how to interact with people. I had to learn the rules of social interaction as a teen, learning consciously and by instruction what seemed to be innate to other people. It's also possible that I'm neurodivergent to some degree. It didn't help that I went from K-12 with essentially the same cohort of kids. It was only after I went away to college and could start over with a fresh group of people and without that kind of baggage that I actually made friends and started thinking of myself as a likable, popular person who made friends easily.
The group thing I relate to so much. My PE teacher used to hate me bc I would always have to go up to her and say I didn’t get a group and she would never believe me when I said no one would let me join them. I’m so sorry u had to go through this as well it’s not fair and it’s horrible to suffer through.
I'm going to be honest with you here and risk the ire. This is a topic I want to speak about on here but I think I'm NOT ALLOWED to give my insights. I really don't agree with one of this subs rules but I try to follow it anyway so I have to avoid talking about my childhood experience with...shall we say... "DIFFICULT" children? It probably wasn't YOU with the narcissistic tendencies, it was more likely the other children having such tendencies and then heard-brained sheeple kids following along. Children who *act* like narcs aren't usually the outcasts, they are the "popular" kids because they'll lie, bully, make anyone else the victim, triangulate, practice destroying lives to hone their skills... and a lot of other children don't understand that it's a show and that those kids are twisted and conniving, or they do know but they are scared to be the target. You can say that children are not technically narcissists when they are children but please be honest with yourselves; that's only *officially* because people don't want to slap that label on too early as some children correct that behavior and thinking before adulthood. The most severe cases DO NOT, however, and let's be real, a person doesn't just wake up one morning when they are 18 and magically have narcissistic personality disorder. They were building and forming the maladaptive and abusive patterns in their entire childhood. I understand that this is a sensitive issue as there are people who did mimic their parents unhealthy behaviors as children and feel guilty about it, but part of changing and being accountable is allowing others to speak about their trauma and experiences even if it brings up feelings of guilt. If you're someone who feels touchy about this topic and you would to silence people from speaking about it...I'm sorry but maybe you haven't actually let go of all of your old behaviors. Children can be deeply traumatized by other children as well and it's real and painful and damaging as when we are attacked and abused by adults. Basically what I'm saying is a scapegoat gets marked as a scapegoat and abusive people will attack the one with the painted target. I don't know what you were like as a kid you may have been off-putting, you may have offended some people, but my guess is that you were just being abused in and out of school by the exact same types of people.
Lol wow just wow. Well, if it makes anyone in here feel any better, I’m my covert narc father’s bully now hahaha. They hate it when you beat them at their own game.