Nope. And given I was scrawny, wore thick glasses, and had braces I was an easy target. There was some teasing here and there because of my last name, but none of it was ever mean spirited.

The background for my diagnosis was bullying. In a perfect world, the bullies would be the ones referred for psychiatric evaluation. But I was the victim. It infuriates me to hear people talk about bullying as if it were some sort of childhood rite of passage that everyone experiences. Everyone gets teased, but teasing isn��t bullying. In my experience, every school has one or two kids who get singled out, maybe more if its a large school. These kids are the ones the resident bullies pick out, for whatever reason, and they are the ones who are subjected to almost continual physical and emotional torment. For years. I was the chosen one in my elementary and middle school.

I don��t know why I was chosen. I was quiet, introverted, and not naturally one to draw any attention to myself. I wasnt obviously dysfunctional, and I had no physical defects that obviously presented themselves as targets for peer ridicule. Of course, once you do get chosen to play the role of victim, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. You get bullied because you are the victim, you are the victim because you get bullied. It didn��t help that I would get incredibly angry. I dont believe I really have any anger issues. Years after leaving an environment of emotional and physical abuse, of being made to feel like your only value is as a toy that can be tormented for the sadistic pleasure of others, I dont anger easily, and would classify myself as a rather calm person. But faced with daily taunts, threats, getting beat up, spit on, ignored, excluded, having all sorts of slurs thrown after you and through clever manipulation on the part of my tormentors usually getting in trouble for any altercations that resulted I was violent, I was loud, and I was destructive.

I dont think my response to bullying was in any way evidence of my abnormal psychology. Fight or flight is a basic human instinct. Cuss or cry. Explode or implode. When faced with a situation that inflicts extreme emotional pain, I could either curl into the fetal position and be sad, or I could get angry. I have cried a lot, but I have also fought a lot. I never backed out of a fight, which is idiotic, since I was a smaller kid and everyone was bigger than me. I usually got beat up, if I didn��t get off the first punch; many bullies are also cowards who can��t take the pain they like to dish out. The supposedly mature response to a bullying situation would be to let the adults sort it out, but when all the adults in your life prove to be completely unable to solve the problem, and frequently put the blame on you, what is a child to do? Vigilante justice can happen because someones an ***, or it can happen because the official channels for administering justice fail completely both at rectifying the situation and at dealing out appropriate punishment to the perpetrators.

I a��m not advocating vigilantism. I am not saying violence is the answer to anything. But I believe my response was well within the range of normal human psychology when faced with a dysfunctional and abusive environment. Extreme situations breed extreme action. Of course, my actions were only extreme for a middle schooler. All I ever did was get in a few fights with my peers, yell and scream and insult and possibly do minor damage to school property. I didnt become a school shooter, I didn��t start bombing hospitals or office buildings, and obviously I don��t condone such actions. But I think I can understand the impulse, if I a��m right in the assumption that they are fueled by the same kind of righteous anger I experienced and I suspect people never placed in such a situation can never fully understand it.

Emotional logic doesn��t operate on rational principles. I dont pretend that being the victim of severe and prolonged bullying is anything like living in poverty under a repressive regime, or persecuted for your skin color. But suffering is a subjective phenomenon, and I truly believe bullying can be as traumatizing to a child as more generally recognized forms of abuse, and scientists are starting to see evidence of that in bullied brains. And if it��s true that it can be as traumatizing, then surely it makes sense that bullied children would react as extremely within the parameters of their existence as some victims of other kinds of abuse do, according to the parameters of theirs. Which is to say that I refuse to see what would in analogous situations be seen as dysfunctional, but normal mechanisms for coping with extreme stress as evidence of cognitive abnormality.

it sounds a bit too much like ....eye for an eye...literally

Just got the usual stuff most overweight kids get.

I stuck up for myself very well until I started taking drugs. I've hated myself ever since.

I think this calls for a song -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ0n3itoII

In my small town school, popularity was what separated the "cool" kids and the "losers". Fortunately my two best friends were two of the most popular, and they would not do anything that I was not included in, so I had it pretty easy until junior high, at the end of which my friends and I were not as close, and then the bullying started, one of the most popular kids and I had an altercation. I was a quiet, reserved and patient person, and realized that when people make fun of you, they are actually trying to bring you down because they don't feel good about themselves. Anyway I am patient and can be pushed just so far, but when this guy got physical and pushed me, I let go on him, and I never had trouble from him again. In high School there were several similar events, and they learned not to push me too far. So I was tolerated, but not really let into the inner circle, which many of my classmates realized was pathetic, and for prom King and Queen we voted for one of our own, leaving them wondering what went wrong.

No sry, it was quite a while ago but I remember it happening everywhere and always having to be on guard. The biggest fights took place on the field during recess.

I think most people were; kids can be very cruel. I used to be friends with a girl who was made fun of for being pretty. Go figure....

I wasn't bullied but i do remember a few instances where I was picked on. My dad always taught me not start anything but if someone else did i had better finish it. He also said pick my battles. Ignore ignorance when possible. And always look after family and friends. I never had to take up for myself because I had a good group of friends. Ive battled many for my friends in return tho. You mess with one you mess with all.

Growing up in Glasgow, if you let anyone get the better of you, they would all have a pop at you! I'm the oldest of 2 brothers and had to fight my own battles Sweetest. Me and my brother, ended up growing way past them all, in height and build! I still see 3 of them on nearly a daily basis and I actually get on with them nowadays. The past is the past and it was dealt with in the past and that's where it stays!

Ditto.

I agree with Larson, I grew up in Detroit when it was the murder capital and there's a big difference in getting picked on and fearing for your life. You have to learn to defend yourself against bullies or they will have a field day with you and it will be daily you can count on that.Even if someone came to your defense they would just wait until you were alone.Once you take matters into your own hands they might not like you but they will respect you and move on to someone else.Its sad that it had to be that way and its not right but you have to deal with things like they are.When someone bullies you put a stop to it at once!

No for me, but this brings to mind a story
about a would be rapist..

Mr. Bad Man rapist decided that he was going to attack a woman
coming out of a bar alone one night.

Mr. Bad Man, would be attacker, found out that his "victim"
was actually a male champion MMA fighter that liked to
dress as a woman & beat the ever living chit out of
Mr. Bad Man!

I love karma when it works

I was bullied until I made friends with a crowd that were bigger bullies than the bullies pickin on me

Gawd I love Karma

One redheaded freckled face bully in the fourth grade.
He used to run home and throw rocks and broken bricks at me.

I was only allowed to cross the street to try to avoid him. If they found out I even went one block from the path I was told to take home, the least they would do was send me to bed hungry.

They were bored,my stepfather would backhand me. If it raised my hands or moved, he'd slap me till I neither moved or cried.

Another thing. I wasn't allowed to defend myself. THEY told me, if I got into fights, I'd get beat when HE got home.

I got really sick of Derrick and had such a rage towards THEM, I finally decided to stop Derrick.

I snuck around his house through an alley. I had hidden a softball baseball bat.

Came up behind him and smacked him in the head. Didn't hit him too hard. Just hard enough to knock him down. He rolls over and starts to get up.

I knew,if he did, my *** was whooped for sure.

I hit him harder and harder. I knew not to hit him in the head again.

He got much more of a beating than he deserved. It just felt sooo damn good.

Derrick spent a couple weeks in ICU, I got stripped down naked and beat with a vengeance HE had never used before.
I went to Juvie for a week, Judge sent me back to THEIR house. He also ordered me to see a shrink. From the fifth, sixth and half the seventh on Valium.

Kids at school left me alone. They, even the bullies thought I was nuts and would kill them.

Little did they know, I'll was always stoned and didn't have much of a clue.

What is it with red headed freckled face kids being bullies?
I remember in kindergarten everyday a red headed boy named Matt used to push me out of the seat with his feet! It was my assigned seat! I would get in trouble because I wasn't in my seat anymore. Cause as soon as he did it he would say "She's out of her seat Ms Linda!":-( then one day I bit the **** out of him and he finally quit!

I keep telling true life stories.
I know, every time I do, it lessens my chances of hookin up.

But, fck it.

It feels so damn good that now, they are only stories with no feelings attached. Almost like real life therapy sessions.

BTW.
One of THEIR rules was to never tell the shrink what went on behind closed doors.

Sux! {{{{{{willing}}}}}}

It stopped when I started taking Kung Fu.

I only had to break one arm,and I was never bothered again.