My sister
was bullied relentlessly throughout primary school - she was in a class of 5 kids, and 2 of them took against her in a big way, and were utterly vile to her. Pushed her over in the playground, tripped her up if she was walking past, threw mud at her - you know the sort of stuff. Mum and dad knew what was going on, although not who the perpetrators were, and told her she needed to stand up for herself, or it would just get worse. There wasn't much else they could do.

As her elder sister, I decided to stand up for her, as she clearly wasn't going to do anything for herself. With two friends, I cornered the chief bully (a weaselly little bitch called Gillian) one lunch time, and politely asked to leave my sis alone, and if not, she'd have me to answer to. That was it. We didn't touch her, just happened to be taller and brighter than her.

When I got home that evening, Gillian's mum was on the phone to my mum, complaining that I had been bullying Gillian and they were going to report it to the school the next day. My mother beat the living daylights out of me for being a bully, my father got home and gave me a stern talking to, and I was told repeatedly how ashamed they were of me. the next day, my teacher called me out to the front of the classroom, told me I had shamed her too, and I had to go to the head teacher, where I got another severe telling off, and threats of expulsion were made. Although I explained to everyone, repeatedly, what had happened, and that I was just defending my sister, I was told that I should not compound my bullying with lies. My two friends also got dragged over the coals for being accomplices.

And what was my sister's response? Fuck all. She said she knew nothing about it, and her bruises were all her own fault.

Bear in mind that we were 5 and 7 years old. It's only been recently, 20 fucking years later, that she'll admit that she lied to the teachers because she wanted to see what would happen to me (WTF?).

I tried to defend her at secondary school when she was bullied too, but to no avail, then when her partner was beating her up a few years back. You would think that one of us would have learnt by now, but no - when I heard she was being bullied at work, I immediately got that urge to rush up to Glasgow and protect her.

Anyway, the whole incident made me deeply distrustful of teachers, so when I was verbally and physically abused at school, I tended to just let it happen, and not do anything. It was only whilst studying for my PhD and dealing with an overbearing prick of a postdoc that I learnt to stand up for MYSELF, and after a small breakdown (which could have been a lot lot worse), I finally realised that we both need to look out for ourselves, and there's nobody out there who will protect us. I'm much better at dealing with bullies these days, and my sister is still a twerp who couldn't find her arse with both hands.

One odd postscript is that the EXACT same thing happened to my father, who stood up to bullies who were targeting his elder brother - so dad has apologised to me, and mum may do one day too. Not holding my breath mind.
( ascorbate, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:39, 1 reply)

That's a hell of a sad story
I'm looking at becoming a teacher, and would hope that I'd be a bit more careful about believing accusations. Have a click, and good on you for trying to sort out something that can really mess people up. I'm sorry that the consequences, undeservedly, were so bad for you.
( wynoh kills threads by his mere presence, Fri 15 May 2009, 17:58, closed)