Karma will some day strike them, I know you want to be there when it does, but maybe it has and you aren’t aware. Someday hopefully they will have children and realize, “Wow! what a jerk I was, I hope my child isn’t like that.” or maybe their children will be the victims of bullying, but why would we wish such things on their children. Bullies always disgusted me in school, and so did the in clique.

One of the things that pissed me off to no end was when I was on the basketball team in middle school and kids on my own team were divided in their little cliques and would tease and make fun of me. I was awkward for those years, I had a growth spurt and coordination didn’t come to me right away. My nose grew faster than the rest of my face and I had acne, girls called me greasy and guys called me gumpy. I was not always treated nicely in middle school, and I became obsessed with professional wrestling. I then became obsessed with working out and I never fought or anything, but I felt better about myself and I think I even surprised people. First of all they felt some type of God given superiority over others, most likely something from their parents or it was all the kids that grew up in youth football and cheerleading together.

Come highschool I didn’t put up with bullying of other people, because I hated that feeling myself. I wasn’t popular, I had a few friends and was quiet, but I wasn’t somebody who was going to tolerate it. Come my time to play varsity I didn’t want to just because some of the kids on the team.

Still thinking about them a few years ago infuriated me, I’ve even had dreams where I confronted them about their arrogance. In fact I still have dreams about them bullying me today, but I realized that is my subconscious ego dealing with something and I have to think about it and why the wound is still being healed. I am over it though in terms of allowing it to ruin my attitude and don’t think about them, if I saw them I wouldn’t be friendly to them though unless they seemed to really have changed and were genuine about it. I know they have so far exceeded me in life, and they probably don’t feel any regrets about how they were only nice to the people that were in their cliques.

Over the years I have developed my own philosophy of life and I am sure my earlier years influenced it. I really don’t think punishing them is going to do any good, almost every day I hear about some bullied kid and I know that me doing something to my bullies won’t help them. I’d rather have a positive philosophy in life and help others develop positive philosophies of life in order to not be so resentful of the past and I’d also like to get in the heads of those who are the bullies of the world and give them philosophies to live by that does not include belittling of others and sometimes it is just in their demeanor towards those they see as inferior. There is no evidence to their feelings of superiority except in terms of $$$ yet everyone knows that they don’t know how to live with less. Money can’t buy character and virtue, or happiness for that matter and neither can vengeance. I don’t think forgiveness is the answer, I think letting go is the answer. Let go of the suffering self, the ego, that still feels hurt by what those kids did to you, they were mean. It happened then, but we’re here right now and it is still bothering you. Anger is an egotistical response when something causes us anxiety, why do people have road rage? Because they have to vindicate their ego, that is they are right the other is wrong and they have to feed their ego by getting the other to realize that and admitting wrongness. I have been filled with anger and rage, I am medicated, but I also realized that anger was just an ego response and that there were always consequences to losing my temper. Instead, when I feel myself getting angry at a slight I breath and point out to myself as to why I am getting mad and why I can let it go. For instance some person cut in front of me in line at a store in my head I am thinking is this person for real, do they not see me in line? I catch my heart beating and my mind thinking of a response to put them in their place and then I stop it, what good is it going to get? and then they realize, “Oh I’m sorry I just realized I cut in front of you” and I respond, “No problem you have less than me anyway.” Maybe I don’t agree with my response every time, but at least I don’t have some righteous outburst. A lot of bullies are ignorant in the same way, what good does it do pointing out to them what they did, they will remember things differently and maybe their lives weren’t so great. Maybe someday they will become enlightened and say, “I need to apologize now” but they aren’t there yet. They will never be there if you do something about it and neither will you when you act on just your impulse to punish them. You will gain a lot more from letting it go than they will by forgetting about it, someday you may think of how your experience can help others!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by Mike.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by Mike.

Men never really grow out of their boyish tendencies. It is hard for a lot of guys to ever realize how to handle a woman when it comes to this stuff, especially a woman who loves them yet they reject. To them it gives them the right treat you like nothing. We must remember that just because we love someone, we can never make them love us. It is sad especially for the lover, but how can you be in love with such a callous guy? Often times we mistaken our need to be accepted by a person who we see as “superior” to others as a love for them, after all, love is in a way accepting a person faults and all. But, when in a situation one person sees themselves as better than the other or the other person sees the other person as better than all the others then it turns hurtful for the person. Obviously there are way better guys than this guy, who treats people like this?!?

Your ego has been hurt and you feel as if he is the only one that can mend it. If you just leave your ego out of your assessment of the situation you will see!

You only lose your “free spirit” and creativity if you let it go, if you listen to other people who don’t value it. Don’t stop looking at the world the way you do, there is inspiration in everything. As long as you set aside time to tend to it, you can work hard at a “real” job and come home create the most beautiful art. It would be ideal to find a job where you can use and grow that part of you, but that can be difficult in an entry level job and especially with the competition there is for jobs. I can only think of all of the creative minds that were able to create some great work even though they were in dead end jobs, Einstein worked in a patent office, J.K Rowling, if you look into the history you will find many people that lived extraordinary lives and were still seen to have real jobs and there are even more every day people. Its only normal to feel anxiety over it, it feels as if a very important part of you is being killed, but as long as you work to keep that part of you alive it will still be there!

You are not lost! You are in the midst of finding yourself, because you can only find yourself if you realize and admit that you are lost. At the age of 17 I had no where near as much happen to me as you have been through. I will say though I sense in you a budding artist. Some people don’t get the same positive feelings when they spill their hearts out to others, I know I don’t. I feel better when I focus the pain and allow it to flow out of me in some creative format like writing stories, music, poems, art, but even if you do this you mustn’t allow your feelings to build up inside of you. Having good friends is almost a necessity in life, but some people have a hard time being friends with someone if they never open up emotionally. A therapist is good because they listen and use techniques that allow you to move passed your past. I myself am introverted and it is hard to open up, especially when people so often are two faced. Studying is important, but you’ll study more when you find something you are passionate about, for me that is spirituality, philosophy, and psychology I could study these subjects all day every day if I had the time. My suggestion is to find a place, somewhere quiet, outside preferably in nature where you can go. Find a nice place to sit where other people won’t bother you and write, let your hand write what ever it does, don’t think about what you are writing and when you re done you may have a little more insight about yourself. If you are stumped just take it all in, then try again. It is perfectly normal to react the way you have in your situation, now you must grow from it. To sum it up, you aren’t a weak person, from what I read you are an emotional, introvert and express yourself artistically, follow that and see where it takes you and once you come to terms with what ever it is you learn about yourself then maybe you will again find the importance of and have tolerance for studying.

I have been in the same boat for a while now. I really have found that the Briggs-Meyer typology test base on Carl Jung or Jungian psychology has helped me. It doesn’t tell you exactly what to do, but it may give you some insight into your personality type. If you do a good search you can find some free ones in order to get your four letters. For example I am an INTP (Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, percieving) I can then look up what is typical of my personality type. I simply have used it to learn about myself and I have found it to be pretty accurate. I have heard that if you if you aren’t sure what your passion is then to think of what you do the most of and enjoy doing and also think of those people in professions that you have always found your self having respect for, or seen as a role model and maybe a bit of envy and maybe that is what you really want to be doing. For me I have always enjoyed writing down my thoughts and ideas, I also greatly respect writers, professors, philosophers, psychologists so for me I can see that is where I want to be myself. I went to school for law enforcement, did an internship in a homicide department and I learned that while I respect police officers I do not want to be one. I would rather be the person helping the family get through grief than the investigator. My personality type just doesn’t go along with law enforcement.

I have been in the same situation for all of my 20’s and about to turn 30 this year and I am still figuring it out. I went to school for something based on what other people told me about it, when I graduated in criminal justice I was over it when I graduated. I realized that the original reason of going into law enforcement was not me. I have done the whole self employed thing now for a while, did a business with a friend that lasted two years and have been struggling with it the whole time. Everyone has an opinion about what I need to do or what my problem is. A lot of people say, “Why don’t you go work for so and so company I hear they are hiring,” or “Why don’t you look in to some occupation I hear they make great money.” I listen to what they have to say of course, but overall I ignore them, because they aren’t really telling me to be happy by doing what I feel called to do and they don’t know what I do in my free time toward fulfilling my goals. They are telling me that I should put aside everything I believe in order to make money. Let’s face it work is a huge part of our lives at least a third of the majority of days, so that is a lot of time to be miserable in order to just make money. The number one thing you can do though is to make a goal for yourself and you should make it your priority to fulfill that goal. Sometimes in order to fulfill a goal you will have to sacrifice and if that requires you to get a job you hate in order for you to pay for putting yourself back through school for your passion then you need to do it. Just remember what you are doing it for, because time goes by fast and it is easy to get comfortable in a job making good money if its not where you feel you belong. You will need to set aside time to attain your goals in such a case, its easy to go to work come home and forget about your dreams. But, when you retire though you may have regrets.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by Mike.

Everything takes work and when we feel hopeless and helpless it can be very hard to put in the work. You must answer a lot of questions for yourself like where do you want to be? What job do you want? What do you want out of life? Who do you want to be friends with? For people with anxiety and depression that seems crippling it can be so hard and almost seem suffocating to do anything and being around people can cause intense symptoms, but the problem is that negativity pushes people away. You attract what you put out and if you are feeling this way it is very hard on other people and the way they are made to feel. Your body hurts because you are creating a negative internal environment. Physical activity relieves stress, most people need to have some sort of important relationships, we are social creatures. You really need to surround yourself with people who care! Make goals for yourself! You need at least one person that checks in on you to make sure you are pushing yourself! A therapist, life coach, friend, or family member can help you with this. Start slow and get yourself moving, just walking in the fresh air can help, take in all of the sights and sounds of nature and make this a habit. Smile and be friendly to others, forget about your problems and stop allowing yourself to focus on the negative. Live to serve others and you’ll forget your own problems. Keep yourself busy, get a hobby, learn something new, and eventually you will forget to think about your problems. Do not just survive, but thrive!