Well, this is going to be the most cheerful QOTW ever!
This is cathartic, but bloody depressing. Best read while listening to something cheerful.

Hrm. My story. I actualy didn't get too much greif at primary school. To this day I still do not know why. I was an awkward kid. But that all changed at secondary school.

To start with I was smart, but not smart enough to know to hide it. I could be pretty gobby at times, and I still can be to be honest, and worst of all I was poor. Being poor in a school with a fairly well off catchment area sucks. It realy does. I never had a decent PE kit, or uniform for that matter. So yes. All sorts of bullying, from getting a girl to ask me out then arranging it so she stood me up - verbal bullying, nicking my stuff, hiding it and then laughing, standing in a circle round me and knocking me about, beating the shit out of me after school (I especialy enjoyed the way that they'd tell me what was coming during first lesson, so I'd have all day to stew over it). Oh, breaking stuff then claiming I'd done it, which got me banned from art, one of the few lessons I enjoyed. Oh god, to be honest it wasn't much fun. Until 6th form I don't think I had one friend.

You see, all this bothers me, obviously, and still does, but what realy, realy fucking hurts is that it's around that time I learnt never to rely on authority figures. You see, my parents noticed this, probably due to all the torn clothing, and self harm and that - and did what they should have done, they notified the teachers. The teachers pushed it under the carpet. They claimed that I was often the instigator, that I bought it on myself and I had to learn to stick up for myself a bit more, be more friendly, less "odd". Mostly because the claim that bullying was "not realy a problem" at the school was more important than actualy dealing with bullying.

Well, I learnt that important lesson regarding authority, and decided to take things into my own hands. Literaly. One day, after years of this I snapped and smashed one of the cunts round the head with a chunk of brick. So yeah, after all the blood and fuss and that it was decided I had "emotional" problems. To this day I don't think I did, I'm not a violent person, it's just everyone has their breaking point. So yeah, that solved nothing and I just managed to get more shit for being a mental and having to go see the school counceller.

To this day, what angers me is not that I was bullied (hell, I was probably asking for it a lot of the time) It's the fact that the teachers I was supposed to trust, and who where supposed to look out for me did nothing. They shifted the blame and ignored it until something so bad happened that they couldn't. Then they blamed the victim. And having worked in schools since then, I've got to say I've seen this happen to others more times than I can count.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 13 May 2009, 14:47, 7 replies)

:(
This makes me very sad to hear.
seems like authority figures are cunts all over the world. *hugs*
(Poppet some assembly required., Wed 13 May 2009, 14:50, closed)

Yeah.
But I came out of it okayish, and other people have had it much worse. Your post in particular. People are shits to each other. And the fact that a lot of schools seem to take the turd polishing approach and just ignore it and hope it goes away still makes me very angry.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 13 May 2009, 14:55, closed)

"Oh, don't tell tales...."
I've got a stammer so was a bit of a bully magnet at schools, more piss taking than physical harm, but it felt, to a 6 year old, just as bad. I was upset, hated school and needed help. So, you ask the teachers for help and get told off for telling tales! Eh? What the fuck is all that about? You're in charge, these kids are upsetting me, I'm 6 years old and you're telling me off? It makes you feel like it's all your fault.

I'm with you on this one. It's easier to ignore the problem and blame it on the poor kid who's the victim than the people actually doing it. And yes, some 28 years later I'm still bitter.
(FiatPanda, Wed 13 May 2009, 15:22, closed)

Yup. Seen stuff like that happen.
Bullying always happens, that's a fact. But the authority figures should not be ignoring it, or even in some cases encouraging it.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 13 May 2009, 15:27, closed)

I clicked but...
I don't like this at all. Pretty much exactly the same thing happened to me, only the cunts that were doing it were the popular crowd and the teachers wouldn't hear a word against them, even when I was having the shit ripped out of me right in front of them. It makes my blood boil to this day and I'm still more angry with the teachers that let it happen that the little shits who were doing it.
Sigh. Still, apart from the odd moment of rage, I'm over it now and I hope you are too. *hugs*
(berk, Thu 14 May 2009, 11:49, closed)

Heh.
Yeah, way I see it, I'm fairly well balanced and such, so I win. But yeah, I've seen it so much in this QOTW and pretty much every school I've worked in or gone to - some authority figures just want things to run smoothly, and just push the stuff under the carpet. Given that teachers and schools have a pastoral duty to the wellbeing of the kids this is certainly not the right approach.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Sat 16 May 2009, 12:04, closed)

Yeah...
Bullying is always "not really a problem" at any school. Because they won't acknowledge it, ever, simply because of that.
(razakel, Fri 15 May 2009, 14:42, closed)