<p>In second grade I moved across the country to a new school. I made a few friends, but the neighborhood was extremely wealthy and I didn’t exactly fit in. I can recall many cruel things that were said to me and my friends during those elementary years and the names of the kids who said them. I have reconnected with several of these old friends through Facebook, and through the various networks have ended up “friending” some of the bullies. I felt it would be petty to hold a grudge, let bygones be bygones and all that. These kids have formed a FB group for our elementary school, and are planning a 40 year reunion. I have already sent my regrets, but find myself increasingly irritated by their endless comments on the good old days and how great everything was. They have formed some sort of “memory book” for all of us to write our wonderful memories of the elementary school. I am so tempted to write honestly about my memories and then delete them all from my FB account. I know I won’t do it, but wonder if anyone else has found themselves in this situation. Has FB reconnected you with bad memories of people you’d rather forget?</p>
<p>I don’t friend people that I don’t see or talk to at least occasionally in real life, even if some of you I just “see” on CC!</p>
<p>Why would you friend people that hurt you& that you haven’t forgiven?
Life is too short to make it more complicated.</p>
<p>I think that writing about your memories of being bullied would be a very brave thing to do. And I strongly suspect that several others have similar memories but they simply are not brave enough to write about it, so instead they will only mention something pleasant or trite. But I am quite certain that you were not the only one who was bullied.</p>
<p>I would not ‘friend’ someone on facebook that had bullied me. What is the point? Not sure what good it would do at this point to point out the bullying but if it makes you feel better go ahead.</p>
<p>One woman in the FB group was tormented relentlessly, yet she seems to have forgiven everyone and plans to attend the reunion. I guess I was inspired by her initially, thinking it should be possible to accept these people as adults with a common background. To tell the truth, I had preferentially preserved the good memories from that time and it was only after others joined the group page that some of the ugly memories surfaced again. It’s funny how memories can lie dormant for so long then be triggered by a name or face.</p>
<p>For me, it’s only been about 7 years. However… </p>
<p>I was bullied pretty bad in k-8 grade. I came out in middle school, at a Catholic school, and it made it so much worse. I had literally no friends. I didn’t go to school 1/4 of the time because I was “sick” - either real or imagined (sometimes real, sometimes faked). I didn’t even get grades for a few of my quarters because they had no grades to give me. They threatened to call truancy on me. </p>
<p>Much of my 8th grade class has added me on Facebook. Many of them have apologized for what happened. However, there are a few girls that I will never add. I don’t really care about their lives or them and don’t want to bring those memories back.</p>
<p>^ I am impressed that some of these kids have apologized, they were probably fearful of their own status at the time and went along with the lead bully. I haven’t seen the movie “Bully” yet, but am looking forward to it. I’ve concluded that for some of these kids, the elementary years were their heyday. They are spending so much time reliving the past and it seems as though they are trying to recreate the little world they used to dominate.</p>
<p>That is interesting…I am friends with a man that was bullied and tormented. I wasn’t friends with him in school , but didn’t see the harm in it now. He has made several references to " being more popular " on FB than he ever was growing up.
I think he still struggles with his childhood . He recently posted a link to a story about a boy being attacked in a sexual manner and posted about a very personal attack that happened to his as an adolescent.</p>
<p>I was tormented by one boy as a freshman in high school …I never knew what had happened to change seemingly overnight from the boy who had a crush on me to a boy who spread rumors and wrote hateful things on my locker door for the world to see.
When I saw him stroll into our class reunion last year , I left.
I am still bothered by it today and really don’t want to be in his company. I would bet he has no clue about how much it bothered me, probably forgot all about it</p>
<p>Just remember if you continue to not have any positive experiences with this group, the bullies win again. I was bullied in elementary school when I was little. It got better the second half of elementary. That is when I could control how I looked when I went to school. I didn’t forget the bad part but I didn’t let it wreck the rest of my life. </p>
<p>You will find most of the bullies have grown out of it or they will be looked at for the Asses they are and people will talk.</p>
<p>Letting go of grudges is good for you, but it doesn’t have to mean becoming friends with the people who wronged you. Forgiving people for the ways they have hurt you in the past is something to do for yourself, not for them. This is your life - what would really make you feel better about the situation? Personally, I’d unfriend everyone without comment.</p>
<p>If you were to write a negative post about your experiences, you might make some people reassess their actions - you might even receive some belated apologies. But you’d certainly create a flap, and some people would respond defensively, and it could turn out to be a situation that irritates you even more than the FB posts about the good old days. </p>
<p>Intensive bullying before kids are in middle school, an elementary school reunion, and people in our age group who even care to recall elementary school classmates - that seems somewhat unusual. The good part about being in our age group is that you get to decide whether, or how much, to participate.</p>
<p>The girl who bullied me relentlessly in 7th grade apologized a few years later. I think some of this is herd behavior - especially in elementary school - some of it is sort of a temporary insanity often with some trigger. My tormenter was clearly triggered by jealousy. I must say, the apology completely changed my view not just of her, but of the whole phenomena of bullying. I think it would be good to get it off your chest. Perhaps you could post something about having mixed feelings about the reunion, since while you have many good memories you also have some pretty awful ones. Perhaps it will be the impetus for some of the bullies to give you a long overdue apology.</p>
<p>Frazzled makes a good point. I feel that posting about your pain would do little to impact these individuals. People who bully often remain blind to the impact they have on others. If they have not come forward on their own, they will not be offering sincere apologies. If it were me, I would “unfriend” them quietly and move on.</p>
<p>I went through a short period of being harassed when my family moved to another region of the country when I was in the sixth grade. The memories are vivid and do leave a lifetime scar. For me, healing came in raising kids that would help the underdog and personally befriending others that are on the “fringe” of social groups. I instinctively avoid the “cool”, socially adept folks in my community. My tormentors were these “top dogs” and, quite frankly we have little in common anyway. One beautiful thing about being an adult is that we can pick who we wish to be friends with. I have good friends, a nice work setting and, for me, don’t find it helpful to revisit old pain. Life is too short. There are a lot of great folks out there to enjoy.</p>
<p>Our high school graduating class has re-grouped in a big way, largely due to facebook. We had our 40th reunion in 2010 and are planning another big event for this fall. It has been interesting.
One of the classmates was teased throughout school. He would now be diagnosed as Aspberger’s. I always enjoyed him and we were neighbors. Anyway, when all the reunion stuff and reconnecting started up (he is not on facebook) he wasn’t going to participate because he had such bad memories. His sister/brother in law convinced him to have an open mind. He came to the pre-reunion party and was the hit of the event because he remembers EVERYTHING! He remembers where everyone lived, their parents’ names, teacher’s names etc. He was just beaming. He is a lovely (still odd) man and we all enjoyed him so much. He wrote the nicest email after the event saying how much it all meant to him. </p>
<p>Another woman who is active on facebook was what we called a “hood” (now would be Goth) back then. She had teased hair, wore all black and was feared. She is the nicest, loveliest woman. She told us she thought everyone hated her and she was afraid of everyone. We have had the most fun times reconnecting and getting to know each other as adults.</p>
<p>The people who apologized to me were ones who went to public high schools are realized that LGBT weren’t really possessed by evil. </p>
<p>Ironically, those who have still yet to apologize were those who continued to go to Catholic schools that touted “growing in God’s love”.</p>
<p>I am FB friends with very few people from hs. When a few people I knew in high school first “found” me on FB, lots of others wanted to friend me, also. For a while I did friend most of them. Then I wondered why. After all, f I didn’t care about them in high school, why on earth do I want to hear/see them now? </p>
<p>I went to one hs reunion, and have no desire to go to another. High school wasn’t the best time of my life.</p>
<p>Not a chance. I won’t even accept the ‘friend’ request of the stupid girl that ‘stole’ my HS boyfriend of 2 years (and that was 35 years ago!!). Interestingly enough she and he are now ‘friends’ on FB…I wonder if his wife knows :)</p>
<p>So…“unfriend” those folks. I’ve done that with a few folks and really no one seems to even care. </p>
<p>I have received friend requests from folks I barely knew. Those get declined.</p>
<p>Interesting. In 2007, when I was on Facebook so I could see my kids’ updates, I got a friend request from the girl who tormented me (and my friends) in high school. (I went to a very small private school, and she’s on the alumnae group on Facebook, too, so it was impossible to avoid her.) I was so upset that I quit Facebook for three years. </p>
<p>When I rejoined–because so many of my friends were active–there was her friend request, and I decided I’d get over it. I accepted the request, and I wrote her a note to ask why on earth she wanted to be friends when she’d been so mean to me. I got back a nuanced and considered reply in which she came close to apologizing (which frankly surprised me). For a long time, I ignored her after that. But over three years I’ve lost the anger and hurt I once felt. It just doesn’t matter any more–and yet, three years ago it mattered a LOT, although it had been 35 years since high school!</p>
<p>So here’s my advice: ask these people if they remember bullying you. Ask how they feel about bullying now. Change the discussion; don’t let them get away with forgetting.</p>
<p>Fortunately Facebook has features that allow me to block information sharing in both directions, so it is essentially the same as unfriending without the overt severing of contact. It is interesting as @hornet mentioned that many of these kids haven’t changed at all now that they are grown. They stayed in their wealthy enclave and still socialize together. I feel as though I’ve lived 10 lives since elementary school, and if it weren’t for this ‘virtual’ reunion I would have completely forgotten most of them. I won’t be adding anything to their “memories” page, sometime silence speaks for itself.</p>
<p>note re: @dmd77 post.
Ironically, the Facebook reunion page was started by several low totem pole kids. I remember the one boy had two hearing aids and his friend had an IQ over 140- or so it seemed at the time. The group’s comments revolved around memories of teachers, school performances and other innocuous topics. It was when other people were added that the tone shifted to social dynamics. Out of respect for the founders of the group, I think I will just bow out of the discussion.</p>
<p>I was “the brain” in junior high and high school, which was not a good thing to be. A couple of guys, as well as one cheerleader, teased me mercilessly. I was nervous about going to my 30th HS reunion since I hadn’t gone to any earlier ones. The most astonishing thing happened. Two of the mean guys made special trips over to my table to tell me how much they’d admired me! One said, “I’ll never forget in seventh grade, it was the one time I made honor roll and I was up on stage getting recognized. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I’m on the stage with MaineLonghorn, isn’t that amazing?’” A couple of girls wanted their photos taken with me and another of my HS friends, because we had been val and sal. Several cheerleaders asked me to be friends on Facebook. The star quarterback (who wasn’t mean, just didn’t know I existed) asked to dance with me and my BFF, who was even less popular than I was. I guess people do change. It was one of the most remarkable days of my life.</p>