Were you teased or bullied or made to feel awful about a weakness of yours as a child?

Yeah. I matured rapidly in Middle School (boobs.) Caught a lot of hell over that. Then it turned into a good thing and I got over it. No, it doesn’t still hurt or embarrass me.

The residue for me is insecurity, not anger. I’m overly sensitive to criticism of any kind; it sounds to my wounded child like merciless teasing.

@Dutchess_III same here.

^^You stuff!!!

I was bullied from time to time by what we called in those days “hoods”, but nothing like what goes on today. Still, it affected me enough to keep several specific incidents clear in my memory.

How do we know it’s worse today?

Pretty much my whole childhood we didn’t have much money, and of course at school I never heard the end of it, all the way into highschool. It showed, as I had crappy clothes, and even the stupidest thing, like me having my lunch in a grocery bag while every other kid had a lunch box made me a target. I lived in a few group homes as a teen where they bought me decent stuff, but by then I was always skipping school and classes haha.

That was my main bullying, being dirt poor lol. I was teased, laughed at, insulted. Not too many physical occurrences, but there were a few, most of those in elementary rather than highschool, actually. Of course it angered me and made me sad, but I have to admit, most of the time I was scared. Lol. I just wanted people to not notice me and leave me alone.
Today though, I don’t feel much about it, if anything. Seems so long ago now.

I was teased by older siblings and told I was fat, ugly, and stupid. I was average build with low muscle tone, average looking, and on the high end of average intelligence. But no one ever gave me positive messages to counter the negative ones, so when I got positive attention in the form of sexual molestation, I was easily coerced. Self-loathing had the better of me for a few decades. I’ve come much further than I ever imagined I could, but I still don’t take care of myself the way a self-confident person does.

As a little girl, I was teased for having red hair. Later, red hair was a major asset. By junior high, I was routinely teased for the way I spoke and being “too smart”. << That still happens from time to time. None of those things bothered me as I got older.

Two things really stuck with me, though, and still hurt when I think of them today. The time two anonymous girls called me at home and said, “No offense, but you’re a slut.” I was a virgin at the time, but was popular with the boys. They called several times, and I got the feeling one of them was a “friend” of mine. Never could prove it, though.

The other thing was when a guy I’d gone out with and broken up with over the summer got all his friends on our school bus to yell out “squid!” every time I got on the bus when school started back up that fall. It went on for weeks, and I actually stopped riding the bus for a while because of it. Shortly after, I ran into the guy in the neighborhood one night, and we had a talk about it. He told me he’d been really hurt when I broke up with him, and had wanted to hurt me back. He could see how much the whole thing had upset me, and he put a stop to the squid thing.

God, girls can be such bitches @augustlan.

I was an assertive child and I don’t think any of the other kids would dare. I was a tom boy and played mostly with the boys. I could fight and played soccer, no rules. If I got kicked in the stomach my boy friends would come to my defense. I never teased anyone either although there was opportunity to do so.

I was teased all the time. I think it was because I would over-react and that delighted bullies so it happened more often. I know we aren’t supposed to blame the victim, but I do think there are ways we behave that can be bully or teaser magnets.

Yes…still too painful to talk about, sorry.

I was occasionally teased for being very quiet and reserved.
Some people thought I was very sweet, but for some reason other people had a big problem with it. I wasn’t teased for long, I guess because people couldn’t get a reaction out of me. I would just kind of glance at them and go about my day like nothing ever happened. I kind of wish I could be more outgoing and such, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I don’t even understand what the problem is with some people.