AskBeehaw

In K-12 in the US? Yeah. I've been bullied past that too, but K-12 was the worst of it.

• I had to leave my kindergarten class due to someone who was acting out. We became good friends in school bc we ended up being into the same nerdy things, but he had bullied me a ton until about 6th grade when it became just joking instead of bullying. He credibly threatened to kill his wife a few couple years ago, whom we both grew up with. I'm still processing this in therapy.
• I remember once one of the people who hated my guts growing up, I accidentally walked into him because our class was crowding and I mistook how much space I had. He pushed me to the ground and said, "stay away from me, faggot". I've brought this up in therapy more than once.
• Everyone in my class picked up I was gay before I did. I had to fight it a lot, because when I wasn't fighting against the bullying from it, it was worse. I even went as far as starting a rumor that the guy I was sleeping with was sexually assaulting me, because he was a giant piece of shit to me & bullied me a lot too and it was socially convenient. He wasn't really affected because he's mostly straight and was just using me to get his dick sucked, while I thought I had romantic feelings for him (and didn't realize they were that). I'm still processing this in therapy.
• At some point someone started a rumor that I was a pedophile in 10th grade. Being a minor myself, I didn't understand this, but I think it was a rumor from my work with middle schoolers cub scout group. I haven't discussed this in therapy.
• In college, I had my ability to trust people on the basis of religion shattered in a Bible study. I got brought into a group that I thought was good, but as I started developing relationships, we had a session where the leader of the group singled me out during a "share your favorite passages" section and just completely railed into me, saying things that invalidated my choice and trying to put me in my place by arguing against my interpretation of its meaning. I'm agnostic now, even though I have a great relationship with my childhood church. I'm still processing this in therapy, it comes up quite often.

This is all just top of my mind, and there's a lot more, but hopefully it gets across - being bullied is something that can affect you for your whole life. I'm in my mid 30s now. I've been treated for depression, and gone in and out of therapy since I was 20. It's pretty easy to say being bullied fucked me up a lot.

At least I'm better than I was before starting therapy. That's all I can really say.