It would be interesting to know if the kids where "normal" before the bullying. I was bullied pretty badly, but my anxiety and mental health issues where obvious early and that made me a target. I wonder if some of these kids are targeted for their mental health issues (especially something like anxiety). Or if they were all good before the bullying and it came on after.

I checked the original article (fuck yes no paywall) and they did not control for previous mental health issues. They did control for maternal health issues, but of course that's not the same thing. They also controlled for socio-economic status and unstable family structure, which are other common sources of bullying.

Bullied to hell and back between 6 and 15. Luckily I looked like the bully in the picture. Others in my proximity had it worse.

I'm a big guy and hit my growth spurt early, so I learned from a young age that when I hit people they stayed hit. Turned me into a total wuss, taking all sorts of abuse from bullies for fear of causing damage. Particularly annoying were a couple of kids my brother and I termed "chihuahuas;" really puny twerps who were hyper-aggressive to compensate.

I recognize that. The few times I hit back, they tended to stay down. Got all kinds of shit for it. Not from adults, they knew very well what was going on and that I was very hard to provoke. But when I moved up a school people started to see me as some kind of ogre. I was large, about one head taller than other guys and with about 20 kgs on them, had a big undershoot and... Well. I looked like the bully in the thumb really. Thankfully the new class was great, and the bullying was mostly from people in the corridors.

I recognize the chihuahuas as well. Gave me an guilty satisfaction to hear that the worst of them died of an overdose a few years back. He clearly had his issues as well, but growing up is hard enough without some fuckers making it harder on you.

A lot of my insecurities and introvertisms are probably from that time.

I know it's a cliché, but I have never been found of the "big bully" picture. Unless it's older kids picking down, big fellas get their fair share of the crap to.

Thank ABP that I can block huge fricking images like that.

There is a similarity between nerds dismissing and making fun of people who practice sports, and people who eat meat making fun of vegetarians, I think. The same type of person, really. I get that you want to eat meat, but do you really have to shove that fact in everyone's face? You've become what you once belabored.

How do you spot a meat-eater?
Don't worry, they'll tell you.

(I'm not a vegan but, as with nerds dissing sports, I'm getting really fucking tired of the anti-vegan/vegetarianism I see everywhere. Maybe I just need new friends.)

I was bullied quite a lot as a child. The main thing it did to me was make it very hard to ask for help from others. I learned that other people were invariably either unwilling or unable to to do anything to help me, and I was unable to do anything about it myself, so I acquired a bad case of learned helplessness that has plagued me to this day.

It simply doesn't occur to me in most situations that getting help with a problem is even an option. I know logically I'm lucky enough now to have people who would, but it's something I have to constantly remind myself about. Most of the time I just either try to deal on my own, or ignore whatever's wrong and hope it goes away.

Protip: "just ignore them" is not and never has been useful advice to a victim of bullying.

My feelings about bullying don't seem to be shared by many. It's hard to explain quickly, but the short and sweet is basically "that's horrible... Suck it up." That's obviously not the case in extreme circumstances involving violence. I'm who I am today because of a lifetime experiencing copious amounts of bullying. I have always been at least two or three normal people in size. That is coupled with a personality heavily weighted towards introvert. Hell, I'm in my mid 30s and I still get bullied fairly regularly. I just say "fuck 'em" and move on with my day.

It's really quite easy once you realize that most people are assholes. Too many people rely on others for their sense of worth. The only opinion that really matters is your own and as long as you do your best to be a good person, everything else tends to work out. With luck you'll eventually come across one or two other people who learn to love you and at least try not to hurt you.

The only opinion that really matters is your own and as long as you do your best to be a good person, everything else tends to work out.

...yes and no. Me, I've had a devil of a time with so-called romantic relationships because I have a tendency to see myself as a "creep" or a "pervert" if I express interest in someone, so I instinctively protect people from myself by hiding that aspect of myself away. Of course, there were other complicating factors in my case, but the bullying was definitely a part of that.