I was bullied from about 12 (right after moving to a new school, a VERY susceptible time, in hindsight) until at least 14.
I wouldn't call this justice but the main bullier ended up taking a shotgun to his own head just a few years ago. I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators...
I don't think it is the bullying which does the harm, rather the opposite: those who bully do it because they are insecure in their own person. They bully because they want to make themselves stronger by making others weaker. In other words, those who bully are already damaged, they bully as a consequence of this damage. Obviously your bully was damaged enough to blow his head off.
In some (maybe most?) cases, you can. Bullies look for easy targets. So all you have to do is decide not to be an easy target and ignore any size difference. I told a story of doing that here, and it did work:
The bully I mentioned above, who took a shotgun to his head? He only stopped bullying me when I threw a basketball into his face (suspension for me, of course). This was after at least a year or 2 of abuse in junior high.
Here's the thing about bullies- the school iteration is only one kind, and you can keep running into them later in life. In all cases you will have to stand up for yourself and fight a bit (perhaps not in actuality, as adults, but it's the same energy source).
I think so. [trigger warning -- abusive words, etc]
I think that if it wasn't for the violence and bullying I would have had much in common with my tormentors.
I had an opportunity once to talk, briefly in private, with the kid who was ultimately responsible for sending me to the hospital. He was one of the few black kids at our school of mostly white upper-middle class kids. He was also a foster kid and lived in a home with a violent foster father. I don't even remember if he apologized or not. I just remember being struck by how much we did have in common: I spent my teenage years living with my single, mobility-challenged mother and had escaped a very abusive household. We never spoke again and if I ever saw him around he just went back to his old behavior: spitting at me, cursing, calling me a faggot; so we just learned to avoid one another after that.
I was bullied from about 12 (right after moving to a new school, a VERY susceptible time, in hindsight) until at least 14.
I wouldn't call this justice but the main bullier ended up taking a shotgun to his own head just a few years ago. I have a feeling that bullying harms more than just the victims, it also harms the perpetrators...