If you had the chance to confront a childhood bully would you?

[earthgirl]

The title pretty much sums it up. There was a girl that was so cruel to me in childhood and one incident in particular, I'm sure I'll never forget. This incident came up recently in therapy and I've been thinking about contacting her ever since. I'm really unsure of what my motive would be, though. I don't know if I expect it to be cathartic to finally stand up for myself or what. Anyone BTDT?

[honey-lilac]

I read somewhere that bullies typically forget or totally reframe bullying incidents. Chances are the child in question does not remember, or if they do, they would just wonder why you carried it around with you all these years.

I was also bullied really badly as a child, but luckily I let go of most of that in my early 20's. I don't really hold any anger towards the kids who bullied me - and things were pretty bad for a while, let me tell you. Unfortunately all it led was to low self esteem leading to lots of bad choices as a teen, but thankfully I'm past that now.

So, to succintly answer your question, no, I wouldn't. I would work on moving on myself.

ETA: I think it would be cathartic if you stood up to a bully in your current life, like if the bullying was really recent or even ongoing. But not someone from the past.

[Tumble Bumbles]

I agree. I wouldn't confront her either. The thing is, if you don't get the response you probably will expect or seek (remorse, recollection, shame, apology, whatever) it is likely to feel worse and set you back in healing. Just work on yourself mama, and I am so sorry that happened to you.

[chaoticzenmom]

Probably not. Bullies carry their own scars. Most probably don't have the best childhoods themselves and have terrible self-esteems of their own, low impulse control, etc. There's nothing you can say or do to her that probably hasn't already been done or that she hasn't done to herself in one way or another.

The best you can do is to not feel like a doormat anymore in your adult life. Learn about being assertive, setting good boundaries, etc.

The best revenge is a good life.

I'm sorry it's still with you in your adult years That sucks.

Lisa

[Freedom~Mama]

I probably wouldn't. As others have said she might not even remember it and she might also have a lot of wounds of her own. I think it is good though that you are working through this in counseling.

[Autumn Moon]

Maybe you can write a letter and burn it or something symbolic, but I wouldn't directly contact the bully.

[missmich]

I did confront someone from my past and got a very good response from her and it really helped me heal. My situation is probably a little different then the one you had though.

I was best friends with E and we were pretty close in grade 5. She was at my house all the time when I lived with this couple who were friends of my parents. She really liked them b/c they would spoil us in ways her parents didn't and she was a bit lonely for her mother right after she died.

Anyway things were not all that nice for me and E didn't know my secret. The man was abusing me and had been since I was very little. The woman knew and she kicked me out when I started to develop and was getting to old. They of course gave a different reason for sending me back to my mother.

A few days later at school E was angry with me and stopped talking to me. I'd just lost my best friend and didn't know why.

The next year I'd changed school but in high school we were at the same one again,this was also a small town. Any time she saw me she say bad things and told me to go the other way and keep walking etc... It was so painful. I also thought she knew what happened in that house and that she'd told the whole wide world.

It hurt me for years and years even after I'd long left town and most of the people I knew there behind. When I joined FB I looked her up and sent her a message asking what had happened and explained a little about what went on.

Her response was great. She said how sorry she was that we were both so young and they'd also told her lies about me and she later on realized how bad they were. We exchanged a few more messages and I was able to work out a lot of issues.

I also sent a message to one of the boys who knew this couple who also bullied me in the same way she did after I'd left them. His response was pretty much the same thing. He was also abused by them and he didn't go into details but told me he had some issues and asked me not to ask about them yet as he was just starting to work on them....20 years later. So I've respected him. He's still on my FB friends list though and maybe someday we can talk about things.

Confronting someone from the past won't always be helpful though.

[earthgirl]

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate your thoughts. This, in particular, really resonated with me:

Originally Posted by chaoticzenmom

Bullies carry their own scars. Most probably don't have the best childhoods themselves and have terrible self-esteems of their own, low impulse control, etc. There's nothing you can say or do to her that probably hasn't already been done or that she hasn't done to herself in one way or another.

Thanks for helping me see this side, which would have probably been pretty obvious had I not been blinded by my own painful feelings.

[rayo de sol]

I was also severely bullied as a child. And I've also wondered if I should tell one or two of the bullies how much they hurt me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with contacting a former bully to let them know that they hurt you in the past. If it would make you feel better, I say, go for it!

I haven't done it because I would be ashamed for them to know that their mistreatment of me is even still on my radar after all these years, you know what I mean?

If I had been a bully, I think I would want to know if I had hurt people. If former victims told me that I had hurt them, it would give me a chance to apologize. Think about it: say the bully feels guilty today for mistreating you, but she would feel weird just contacting you out of the blue and apologizing. She would assume that you hate her and would prefer not to hear from her.

So, theoretically it could be lifting a burden from both of you to tell her that she hurt you.

But that's assuming that she's carrying around the burden of not being able to apologize.

[hhurd]

I wouldn't confront a childhood bully, for many of the reasons stated here. The bully was a child, and they can't change how they behaved in the past, so what would be the point?

[Storm Bride]

I honestly don't know what I'd do in your shoes. I was bullied a lot in high school, and honestly a big part of why I went to my 10 year reunion (where I had a blast, btw) was to confront all that. It was held at the school and I felt like I was entering a war zone...I can remember checking my back on the way into the building.

To make a long story short, it was the best thing I could have done. Facing my fears was important, all by itself. On top of that, three of the worst of them apologized to me of their own volition. In many ways, it didn't matter, but I was happy to realize they had actually figured out how obnoxious they'd been. I later concluded that it was possible a couple of them had put themselves through worse than they put me through, yk? I certainly wouldn't want to look back on high school and realize I'd been that cruel to people - I have enough regrets about the way I handled some things.

However, I don't think my experience is necessarily going to be the way it is for everybody, yk? If they hadn't brought it up, I wouldn't have, either...and there could easily still be one or two of them who are bullies. If so, I just feel sorry for them.

[Theia]

There was a girl that really tormented me in middle and high school. Several years ago I ended up running an errand with my brother who was friends with this girls sister. So I ended up at my former bully's house. I was really uncomfortable before arriving, wondering what would happen or be said.

She was living a miserable life as an adult. She welcomed me, looked sickly, had just had a major surgery for a car accident, was living in a rough neighborhood in a run down home next to a chemical plant..... And I saw her differently. I was polite and never once brought up the things she used to say or whatever from back then. I kinda felt a bit sorry for her. I knew her home life had been unpleasant as a kid, and she was shuffled around a lot. She talked a bit about old times like they were all good and I just kinda went along. She looked so run down by life and I was in a pretty good place in my own life, I couldn't see how confronting her would do any good.

So it was weird after we left her home cuz I felt like I had confronted a childhood demon and found out it wasn't a demon after all. She was weak and suffering and hadn't ever seemed to have gotten a break in her life. I felt good because even though I was only being myself during that brief visit, it was obvious that I was living well in my life. And so regardless of if she actually remembered the bad things she used to do, I did, and I could see the karma or whatever you wanna call it at work in those moments.

[blizzard_babe]

I've had a few pop up here and there, mostly on Facebook. I have chosen not to engage because... well... I don't want to go back there. Maybe I should, or should want to, I don't know. Maybe I still feel a little shame at having been a victim (that would be my mom's doing... she always managed to somehow imply that people wouldn't be bothering me if I were more socially adept, if I wore make-up, if I had more friends...), but I don't even want to remind these nasty people of how they used to be. Or maybe, of how I used to be. The constant crying. The desire for approval. Everything.

So in even WANTING to bring it up to your bully, you're one step ahead of me. Whether it's a good idea or not, I have no idea.

[Shantimama]

I think there are some wise replies in this thread.

[earthgirl]

Originally Posted by Shantimama

I think there are some wise replies in this thread.

Agreed. I haven't done anything other than located her. Right now I'm choosing to believe she must have had her own hurts to deal with or she wouldn't have been such a nasty and mean child. I'm going to work on forgiving her, but I think the temptation to confront her might remain with me for a while.

[SunshineJ]

Honestly, no, I wouldn't. Now, there was a girl in hs who was a compulsive liar, very manipulative, and hung with our crowd - and made my life fairly hellacious during that time, but she wasn't really a bully. She recently tried to friend me on fb, and I didn't bite. We were never "friends" and I can't see why I would want to pretend to be now, not to mention from what I've seen she hasn't changed, and I simply don't need that negativity in my life. However, for the actual bullys, I've moved on. I refuse to let people from so long ago still have any power over my life and honestly at this point I really couldn't care less about them or an apology or what have you.