🤯 INCRÍVEL: “Feels Good, Man”: 32 People Share Their Most Satisfying Cases Of Instant Karma 😲
Tonight, a guy walks into my family’s convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes. I know him from my days growing up here. He and his younger brother used to give me a hard time; they were real bullies, racist types who encouraged others to pick on me and even to turn violent against me. I hated him and his family for taking a part of my childhood.
He was unusually friendly tonight, smiling at me and cracking bad jokes that I smiled politely at but didn’t really respond to. He counted his money with his gimp hand, which was partially blown in half (taking several fingers with it) by fireworks that blew up in his hand a few years ago. I gave him his smokes and change, said thanks, and went about my business.
Before leaving, he stops, hesitates for a moment, and turns around to ask me if there are any job openings at the store. While I had heard him correctly, it’s almost as if the words didn’t register in my mind, so I asked him to repeat himself. He asks again, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have any jobs available, would you?’
I explain that we’re sufficiently staffed at the moment, that with my sister and I around for the summer that we wouldn’t be needing anyone else to fill in the hours, which were sparse enough as is. I told him to ask again in the fall, when I’d return to Montreal and my sister to university. He said that it was okay, but that he needed something now because he had just been left by his wife. He said thanks anyway and walked out.
Memories of him being a jerk flashed around in my head, and through these, a clearer picture began to form. When he had just graduated from h**h school, his parents broke up in a massive way, leaving a fractured home for his younger siblings to grow up in. Sometime in his life, he experienced his hand being blown apart by an explosive. He had amounted to very little, and his marriage was falling apart. And now, he had to come asking for a job from the local ‘black’ guy he used to make fun of and claim superiority over throughout his life. I’m half white and brown, btw, not black, but to people in this part of the world, if you’re not white, then you’re a target for racism.
It didn’t feel good. I should have enjoyed it, but I didn’t. While I don’t feel bad for him, not in the slightest, I don’t feel like any kind of justice was served, or that karma had given him his comeuppance. If the universe is truly neutral towards what is right and wrong, then this was just the way that life played out for someone who did a lot of harm to people in his time. He could have been rich, he could have been powerful, he could have kept the use of both of his hands. But it didn’t turn out that way. Karma had nothing to do with it; there was no justice.
What occurred to me is that I’m not at all connected to this place anymore, this village where I grew up, not even to the pain and harsh memories that stayed with me for years. I’ve become my own person, capable of, at least on some level, sympathizing even with the s**m of the universe that tormented my childhood, and to forget about the painful memories that followed me well into my twenties, as echoes from the past.
I just wanted to share this because I thought it was interesting.
TL;DR: A bully from my childhood who used to attack me and incite others to do so came into my store and asked me for a job. Life’s like that.
Depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, changes in sleep and eating patterns, loss of interest in once-fun activities, low self-esteem, feelings of shame, headaches, stomach aches, colds, and the list goes on.
These are just some of the issues caused by being bullied. Children who are bullied are also at risk of future health concerns, like higher stress levels and sleeping problems. And they’re more likely to miss, skip, or drop out of school. They might struggle to make and keep friends and their romantic relationships could suffer later in life.
But it’s not only the victims of bullies who suffer…
I’ve posted this before, but it fits here.
I few years back I was the assistant manager at my karate studio. It was a slow, quiet day, when in walked Paul, my old bully from public school. I wasn’t sure at first, it had been a long time, and it was hard to tell.
I didn’t say anything. Paul was interested in joining the dojo, and I showed him around, discussed pricing, etc. I didn’t treat him any differently than I would any other potential client.
At the end of the tour, Paul decided to join our dojo. We sat down in the office and he filled out the paperwork. When he wrote his name out on the application, I knew for sure that this was, indeed, my old bully. The guy who used to torment me every single weekday. Who made me kneel in dog s**t.
I still didn’t say anything until after pre-paid me for an entire year’s memebership. As I walked him to the door, I smiled.
“I’m really looking forward to training with you.” I smiled.
“Thanks, me too,” Paul said.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“No, should I?”
“Yes. We went to school together, Grade 3 through 8. You bullied me every day, and made my life miserable. Can’t wait to see you in class.”
Paul went white, and walked out without another word. And never walked back in. He willingly threw away a year’s membership payment, almost $500, rather than have to be in the same class with me.
**EDIT**: There have been some questions that I’d like to answer here.
1. I didn’t say “I’m looking forward to training with you” with any odd voices or Clockwork Orange-like connotations. It was said normally, with a smile.
2. Someone suggested he could have put a stop payment on the check. He didn’t. I was friends with the sensei, and told him everything that happened when he came back to the dojo. If the check had been cancelled, I would have known. Besides – and perhaps some of the more fiscally savvy redditors can help me here – there are legal complications to cancelling a check when you have signed a contract.
3. Some say I wanted to beat on Paul. Others say I just wanted to see him squirm. I admit that yes, I did want to beat on him, but I would not have. I had a position of responsibility, and I took that responsibility seriously. But yes, I did want to see him squirm. I didn’t expect him to quit though. I figured there would be one or two awkward classes where he knew I was there and was nervous, but eventually we would spar together and I had planned to be as careful and respectful with Paul as I was with any other student.
But yes, my critics are correct. I could have handled that in a more mature fashion. I could have sat down with Paul and had a frank and open discussion about bullying, and how it wasn’t allowed at our club. I did not do this. I’m not apologizing for this. The moment was extremely cathartic for me, and literally erased years and years of hurtful, painful memories that had been with me for over a decade.
If Paul had come to classes, he would have realized that he wasn’t in any danger. Instead, he chose to throw away his $500 and never come back, which is the cowardly way out. As we are taught, bullies are all secretly cowards at heart.
My mom treats me worse than my younger brothers, and it eventually always bites her in the a*s. My favorite is the time she saw it coming.
See, when we were teens, my brothers were always allowed to borrow my mother’s car, but I wasn’t. My grandmother even warned my mother that she would need me one day and I’d tell her no. Mom blew her off because why would she need me, and it’s not in my nature to say no.
Fast forward a few years later when I have a car and my mom gets into an accident that leaves her temporarily car-less. Mom never asked to borrow my car even though she wanted to because she knew I had every right to say no, and she admitted it and apologized because she screwed herself over not being nicer to me as a teen.
The thing is, it’s not in my nature to say no. If she had asked, I would have said yes. Her guilt was the karma.
“Bullying also impacts kids who are not directly involved but witness the bullying taking place,” warns the United States official website, Stop Bullying.
Witnesses to bullying incidents have reported having increased feelings of helplessness or guilt for being unable to stop or prevent it. They also often feel unsafe at school and might have poor attendance as a result. This, in turn, can affect their academic performance, mental health, and daily life.
They’re more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, or use other substances, and are at an increased risk of experiencing mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety.
I was very nearly the recipient of a massive beating due to some delayed karma.
Back in 4th grade I just started at a new school and was scrambling to make friends as soon as possible. To do this I took the path of least resistance. I tormented this poor kid who had no friends and was already being picked on. It was a very shameful decision, but it did get me into the clique. I would spend hours alternating between calling him “turkey Burk” and “slowy Lowey”
Fast forward twelve years later. Im at a party and I see the kid. Only he is less of a kid now, and more of a Mr Universe contestant. I had grown up substantially by then and decided an apology was in order.
I bee-lined it across the room, straight too him. I introduced myself and offered an apology and put my hand out for a handshake of ashamed regret. He stood staring at me for what felt like 15 seconds. He finally took my hand. He enveloped my entire hand, with assured firmness. The guy could have broken my hand without meaning to.
“kids can be c***s, man. I really appreciate your words.”
Wow. He actually was a really cool guy.
Later that night me and a mate were walking home from the party when we were jumped by 4 guys. They started laying into us. My mate ran, 2 followed him. The other two were on top of me I was doing my best at protecting my face and ribs while they sunk the boots in. Then they stopped.
Burk had come out of nowhere! From behind he smashed both their heads together and started plowing into them. They ran.
He laughed when I made a remark on how lucky I was to apologise in time.
TL;DR: highschool bully gets saved by timely apologising to the poor kid he tormented.
(now ex) GF and I worked at the same place. I was in a different department, different level, we had no real interaction there.
She came home one day to tell me about laughing at her new boss who had been hitting on her. Nearly choked when she told me his name – he was my childhood, neighborhood bully.
Warm fuzzies, right there.
When I was in 7th grade, two 8th grade girls always made fun of me, and were generally really mean to me.
One of them moved away, and i never saw her again, but When the other graduated that year (from jr high to high school), I bought her a box of chocolates. She cried her eyes out and apologized for being a jerk, and we became friends.
As for the bullies, they too are more likely to turn to smoking, drinking and other substances. They’re at risk of depression and/or s*******m. Their school marks suffer and they could drop out altogether.
According to Stop Bullying, bullies experience aggressive and impulsive behavior, resulting in higher risks of vandalism, fights, traffic offenses, and criminal charges. And here’s another scary fact from the site:
“[They] perpetuate dating violence as early as eighth grade and [mistreat] their romantic partners, spouses, or children as adults.”
I was the nerdy picked on kid in school… almost 10 years after graduating from h**h school one of the guys who used to give me s**t contacted me on facebook.
apologized for being an a****t, then asked for advice on going to college for the thing i have a bachelor of sciences in
*Edit*
this is not a billy madison rip. I have never seen that movie and only found out about it’s existence from people replying to this comment. I generally don’t like adam sandler.
My b***h of an English teacher in my 11th grade High-school english class f****d my entire life over in some strange way.
She basically accused me of plagiarising a paper in class. Honest to God I did not do it.
She called me a liar to my face, and ruined a lot of my life for a few good years. She reported the incident to the administration, and she tried to make them take legal action. But all I ended up getting was expulsion. My school took this stuff really seriously.
In the long run, it basically caused me to loose five or six scholarships that I really needed for college. I ended up having to go to community college. Nothing wrong with it, but she basically k****d any chances I had at become a doctor(Childhood dream, spent all of highschool prepping for it.) I got most of my general stuff out of the way, and I have a great job now giving out loans at a bank. It pays well enough, but I don’t live any grand life, and I am not a doctor. On top of that most of my friends made fun of me for years about it.
One year after she accused me, her husband cheated on her. The year after I graduated, she got fired for being drunk on the job. About a month ago, the best thing ever happened. Guess who walked into the bank and asked for an extension on the loan she just recently took out to pay for her house? And guess who got the extension denied?
Needless to say, Karma related or not. It was one of the highlights of my life!
Tl;Dr: B***h of a teacher messed up my chances at medschool, she got cheated on, fired, and now begged me to give her a loan for her house at the bank I work at.
When I was in 5th grade, there was a kid who spit on me and bullied me for about 2 months on the bus. When he moved to another bus route I thought I would never get a chance for revenge.
But one day at a Little League baseball game I was playing in, I saw him on the opposing team and my blood started boiling. He was the 2nd baseman and he would laugh whenever I would go up to hit the ball.
In the last inning, I was up to hit and missed the ball twice and heard him laughing from 2nd base. That got me really mad and when the pitcher threw the ball I hit a line drive straight for the bullies face.
After it hit him, he dropped and cried and the players ran over to him, but no one called time out so I ran all the way to 3rd base without getting out.
I sat there on 3rd with a HUGE smirk on my face while they picked him up and walked him to the dugout. I didn’t feel bad about it all and still dont feel bad about it.
“Kids who have been bullied themselves while also bullying others suffer the most serious consequences,” warn Stop Bullying’s experts. “These kids have the highest risk of mental health and behavioral problems, making it crucial for adults to connect these youth with support and resources like mental health counseling.”
They add that kids who are bullied and bully others are more likely to become young/teenage parents, struggle with making and keeping friendships, have trouble keeping a job and/or honoring financial commitments in adulthood, experience mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and antisocial personality disorder, on top of other similar physical health concerns to kids who were bullied but didn’t bully others.
Growing up with racism definitely isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Aside from being bullied yourself you have to deal with the fact that your siblings or your friends have to deal with the same s**t. You dont deserve it, nobody deserves it, but it exists.
I imagine seeing that bully as a complete wreck was one of the greatest moments of your life. Unfortunately not everyone gets to see their childhood tormentors later down the line. I’ll tell you this though, I felt f*****g amazing when I stood up to my bully in Grade 9 of highschool. How did I do it? I don’t remember to be perfectly honest. All I remember was a snarky racist remark.
“Shut up, you’re (Insert Background), you dont have the right to speak”
Thats when I lost it, I mostly remember grabbing him by the shirt and then throwing him against a wall. Once he was pinned against the wall I alternated between punching his face in and and making sure he stayed against the f*****g wall. Details are mostly lost to me, but I definitely remember winning that fight.
I was suspended for the rest of the day, he was suspended for 3 days due to the racist nature of his remark. Possibly one of the greatest turning points of my life.
A few months ago, I looked up an old childhood bully on Facebook out of curiosity. I saw that he is now fat, ugly, and looks quite lonely.
I laughed. Karma probably kicked in earlier, but it was many years in between his bullying ways and him now.
It’s been six years and counting since this dumb girl from h**h school threatened me with text messages and then broke into my house and stole everything of monetary and sentimental value to both myself and my mother. She never saw any kind of legal repercussion or faced any consequences. I’m still waiting for her to die in a fire or lose her job or something.
More than 30% of the world’s students have been victims of bullying, while one in ten has been cyberbullied. That’s according to data from UNESCO.
Zoning in on the United States, and around 20% of students aged 12–18 say they’ve been bullied. Across the pond, the figures are higher. Bullying U.K. found that 69% of kids reported being bullied, 20% reported bullying others, and 85% had witnessed bullying.
A guy in high school out of the blue pulled a random girls shirt over her head and started punching her. Later on in his life he was drafted into the NHL, made millions plus dated Elisha Cubreth. Karma doesn’t exist. His name us Sean Avery.
I dated this girl for a year or so, she broke up with me and immediately started dating another guy. I went to talk to her and he basically told me “look she wants to be with me, I have a job and she needs someone stable in her life, your a loser” …his job was as a line cook and he was in a band part time…real career prospects. About a week ago I went to a friends house to play poker, we acted like men and just pretending like nothing happened. He got kinda drunk and asked me what I do … I graduated college and make very good money as a consultant for a very large and well known company…I ask him the same…He is going to truck driving school…and she is pregnant w his baby (2nd baby of his by 2nd girl).
Feelsgoodbro.jpg
To all these hater responses…the type of job is not the point, its that he cant hold a single job down for longer than a year or so, ALSO, they aren’t together anymore. She already has a kid, she is preg with his kid, he has a kid. They where engaged and she left him b/c he actually is a loser who can’t keep a job.
I befriended a larger red headed girl when I was in grade 3 or 4. She was new to the school, everyone had their own friends and no one accepted her. I didn’t have many friends so I gladly accepted her. We became best friends. Fast forward to middle school. She was still large but got b***s and wore makeup, so she became popular. I was still a way too tall and too thin awkward girl with a lisp. Everyone made fun of me and she joined in so she could be cool. It got worse and worse until she started instigating it, would circle beat me with other girls and egg my house. Fast forward again to highschool. I filled out a bit and got better friends. About half way through grade 11 people started realizing how mean and fake she had become and turning on her. She was crying in the hall one day and I went up to her, asked if she was ok and offered my phone to her if she needed to call her mom. She transferred schools for grade 12 because she was being bullied. Funny thing is, I still feel bad for her. Bullying s***s.
TL;DR bully was s****y, eventually became bullied.
A 2024 research paper titled, The adult consequences of being bullied in childhood reveals that being bullied as a child worsens well-being and labor market performance up to half a century later. It also lowers the probability of having a job throughout adulthood. Being exposed to bullying as a child can even result in a shorter lifespan.
“Being bullied in school, we find, has persistent and harmful effects through life and the magnitude of any impacts appear substantial,” the researchers said. Interestingly, they add that the effects they’ve recovered are likely an underestimate.
My 9th grade English teacher agreed with a student that I was ugly and would never get a girlfriend.. in front of the whole class.
Still waiting on that karma to happen.
There was a kid at my secondary school who used to mercilessly bully the kids in Learning Support.
Being a small school, they converted the old caretakers house into a safe environment for the people with learning difficulties to take certain lessons and receive support. It allowed a sorta half mainstream half specialist school environment for them.
Anyways this guy dropped out of school at 16 after 5 or so years of smoking around the back of this house and bullying the kids in LS.
3 years go by and he ends up being shot in the head by a modified air rifle. He now has some brain damage, memory and dexterity issues… and the only place he can retake GCSE’s is the same old house he spent years prowling outside to bully disabled kids.
My brother used to always beat on me, and harass me as a child. He was 6 years older than me.
This is a family feud, more or less. My brother would always pick on me as a kid, and would never let me do many things around the house. He had control of the computer. He had control of the Xbox. He was my moms favorite, and could get away from everything. He used to bring his friends over, and tease me, and ask me questions that I had no idea the answers to, because i was a little kid. Questions such as “When was the last time you masturbated?” and other embarrassing questions like that in front of all of his friends, guys and girls. He would steal things from me, like my christmas presents, and say they were his. He would then sell them for substance money (mainly leaf), and i’d never see them again. He used to blow up my beanie babies(don’t ask), and then leave there charred and ripped remains in my room, for me to pick up.
Recently (I’m 16, he’s 22, and he still lives with me, my step dad, and my mom), he harassed me to the point where i got up and told him to meet me outside in the front of our house, to fight. He followed me out the door.
We started fighting(I’m bigger than him now, we have different fathers.. I’m 6’0, while hes somewhere between 5’7 or 5’8), and he was landing more punches on me because he was far more experienced at fighting than I.
After getting bashed in the face for the forth consecutive time, he laughed and said that I can’t fight for s**t. He let his guard down, and I took the opportunity to punch him as hard as I could in the stomach.
He s**t his pants.
**TL;DR:** My brother, who’s 6 years older then me, harassed me as a child. I finally fought him when i got older and punched him so hard that he s**t his pants.
I had a guy that used to pick on me for no reason in high school, he was a bit bigger, older, and was a wrestler. We tussled once when I had had enough of his s**t but it got broke up by teachers before it got too far. The guy just didn’t like me and was relentless. Honestly he scared me.
When I was 37, I got divorced and took up muai Thai. Over the course of the next two years I got myself into ridiculously good shape. I was 5’11 and 190 lbs of hard muscle with lots of martial skills. I rented a house I owned to a single mom with the same last name as the dude that tormented me. A couple of months later I was visiting her to take care of a few maintenance issues at the house, and I walked up to the door, and he opened it. I stared at him for a full minute. He was much smaller than i remembered, in fact he was struggling with h****n and the look on his face was priceless. It was his sister that had rented from me. Well, he recognized me, knew immediately that I could easily wipe my a*s with him., you could tell the look of fear, at least I could, because that dude used to scare the s**t out of me all the time. He meekly held out his hand, I took it, almost crushed it, then just gave him a big bear hug and a little noogie. It was a guy’s way of letting him off the hook. I think he would have rather had his a*s beat.
Sometimes, the best revenge is just landing on your feet.
This d**k who used to t*****e the s**t out of me when I was in 7th grade, insisted I was ugly and should k**l myself, is now on OkCupid. A few weeks ago, before I got into a relationship, he asked if we went to school together and told me I was hot. He didn’t recognize me, clearly, but it was delicious to know he’d been searching for months and no one was biting.
*Edit:* For clarity, I am not suggesting anything about my looks with the last part. I just take great delight in him being alone right now despite all the try hard and being on the actual website for months without success. I never went on a date with him, I just deleted his message.
Kind of a short story. Kid I met in sixth grade became that kind of “is your friend but is really secretly your bully” type with me. I knew he was going to fail sixth grade (the first grade in my school system that you could really actually “fail” and get held back), so he did. I saw him a couple of times in the hall after that but I haven’t really heard from him since.
He used to talk about how he wouldn’t mind being in jail at all, because you get lots of cole slaw there and he likes cole slaw. Hopefully his wish came true.
Back in first-grade, there was a notorious second-grade bully that all the first-graders feared. I was due to transfer to another school, so on my last day I pretty much did whatever. But then I got an idea…..I was gonna beat up the second-grade bully. I needed a reason, so during recess he and two friends were talking s**t to anyone who walked by him. I walked by numerous times and nothing! But then he did, and that was all I needed. I brutalized that b***h, had him against a wall, face shot, then he’d cover his face, body shot, then he’d lower his hands, then face again. It was like a game of rock-paper-scissors and he lost every time. Then he just gave up and fell over, at that point I dragged him to a teacher and tossed him at her feet and just said, “here you go.” My name was sung by all first-graders that day, for the tyranny had been lifted. I was at a new school the next day.
**TLDR**: Karma didn’t kick in, **I** kicked in. I am become Karma, the destroyer of bullies.
I’m was one of the least popular kids in my high school by far. I was too nerdy for even the nerds to hang out with. I spent most of my time with the outcasts.
I knew it was bad but I had a crush on a football player. (Can you blame me? What nerd didn’t?) I decided for once to take charge and do something for myself.
I asked him out.
He laughed in my face and told me I was too ugly for anyone to ever date. Called me “crow face” which was a lovely nickname that caught on for a long time. Because of this, I had such awful self esteem that well into my 20s, I still couldn’t ask anyone out and even now still get to embarrassed sometimes. He ruined my self esteem completely.
After high school I began doing modeling gigs and cosplay events. I felt great and looked amazing.
Not too long after these shoots started popping up online, he messaged me on facebook telling me how gorgeous I looked and that he should have never said no to me at all.
I then got to calmly explain to him the years of self esteem issues I’d suffered from him and how I always pictured him humiliating me in front of our high school any time I wanted to ask someone out.
TL;DR: Crush told me I was too ugly for anyone, now I model and he’s alone with a beer belly.
Not too long, actually. In 8th grade there was a group of guys that would make fun of my – hardly noticeable – lisp. (Now you can only hear it when I’m nervous or drunk) I’m sitting on the bus next to my friend one day and this guy got his hands on a can of spray axe. The first generation kind that smelled like aerosol cancer.
So he’s on the bus relentlessly filling the air with axe, and open windows could not relieve the awful that it was. I turn around and I shout something along the lines of “Oh my god, cut it out- no one can breathe!” I turn in my seat and was expecting some verbal harassment in retaliation, but maybe that would distract him from spraying axe for a bit. Next thing I know there’s cold, liquid axe dripping down the back of my scalp. The f****r put the can *right next* to my head and unleashed liquid stankitude upon my hair and I *flip*.
I stood up and starting cussing him out with s**t like “Don’t ever f*****g do that again.” “Don’t ever f*****g touch me with that s**t” I would have gone with the classic “I’ll kick your a*s so hard into the ground you’ll be numb for three days” but he was the tallest middle-schooler-asian-bully I’ve ever seen in my life.
I might note that this was also the first time I seriously cursed anyone out. I was one of the last ones in my friend group to start cursing, so you can imagine how raged I was. I sit down and put my hoodie up to prevent future hair-harassment and my friend just *stares* at me.
Not a moment later, the kid’s friend turns around in his seat in front of me. He had broken his finger a few days/weeks beforehand and pulls the classic “HEY SMELL MY FINGER” line. I suppose it was some odd backup for his axe-wielding friend.
To get his finger out of my face I slam his hand into the back of the seat and pin him. He’s in pain, and I let go when I realize he’s not just being over-dramatic. The kid tried to call me out on it to the security guy that walked onto the bus that very second, but he was ignored for being a known trouble maker, and I was, well, the quiet nerd girl.
I was never really bothered again after that, the rest of the year’s teasing felt more like bro humor than anything. Had I somehow gained their respect for putting them in their place for all of five minutes?
Boys are weird.
**TL;DR
Cussed out an axe-wielding 8th grader and accidentally defended myself from a kid with a broken finger. Gained bro-points?**.
In 8th grade (age 13-14), this kid threw a wooden block at me, probably thinking, “Oh, let’s pick on the punk girl, that’ll be so hysterical!” I blacked out for a good 10-15 seconds after it clocked me in the head. When I came to, he and his friends were all on the ground laughing at how funny this was. I ended up having to go to urgent care and not participate in gym class for a few days. His mom was on the school board and had a large role in the financial decisions of the school, so the administration was afraid to punish him and did nothing. My math teacher was this kid’s football coach and made him run extra while everyone else got to take a food/water break, but that was the only justice I got.
Fast forward two years: everyone is freaking out that this guy can’t play football for the JV team that year. He ended up spraining his back and breaking a few ribs from a drunken escapade into the woods the week before his sophomore year started, and the concussion that he sustained from this was severe enough that a second concussion could have caused serious mental damage.
Two years isn’t that long of a time, but considering there were witnesses and the kid should have been arrested and suspended at the very least, it seemed like a long time.
A boy at school, [Name redacted due to fellow redditor now knows me/worked it out], was an absolute a*****e to me and my group of friends. I was raised as a fairly introverted kid, and thus gravitated to people of a like mind. He could basically smell the pacifism on us and exploited it to no end. Kicked the c**p outta my friends and I every chance he got, humiliated us in front of the class, basically assigned us to the lowest social rungs for most of our schooling year. The relentless intimidation and thuggery reduced me to start hiding in my shell. I would prefer to read in the library than play or eat during lunch, lest his roaming bring us into contact again. Without a word of a lie, I read over 300 novels by the time I had finished school, and had sparked a life-long obsession with literature.
My own bio-father was a bully and violent, and it burned into me a deep-seated hatred of anyone who resorts to preying upon the weak. Daily I would fantasise about murdering him, or at least crippling him so he could know what it is like to be helpless. It is wrong, I know, but until you are in that situation, you never know. Leaving school and going to uni lead me to be a much more confident person, and slowly learnt that you can be confrontational without someone being violent to you.
Fast forward to some 8 years after school. One Friday afternoon he walked into my place of business looking for something we sell, and (due to the nature of our business) revealed that since leaving school, he had been caught stealing a car, gone to juvenile prison (due to age), got busted for d**g possession, more convictions etc and been living at no fixed address. (I am in Australia, so the courts can be pretty weak and forgiving sometimes. Not that I care in this case. That he got *some* punishment is enough for me). We were his last chance for this particular product.
Before you judge too quickly, we had been at a fairly expensive private school, so he wasn’t exactly a down-on-his luck hobo to begin with – he had just never once stopped making bad decisions despite the opportunities given to him.
I projected an outwardly professional demeanour, (internally gladly and gleefully) and denied him service, and sent him dejectedly on his way. (I was required by policy, and had no actual authority over the choice, but it still felt good)
The best part? He didn’t recognise me. He looked at the man serving him, and only saw a man. I had grown and changed so much, and he had stayed exactly the same.
Looking back, it may be bad karma for me to take such pleasure in this. However, it gives me hope that sometimes the bad guy loses in the films AND in real life. I suffered a f****d up school/social life for 8 years because of him, and do not regret feeling some schadenfreude at his demise.
TL;DR – Bully at school ended up as a criminal with no future, whereas I survived and moved on to a bigger and better life.
It’s been roughly two years, for me. After my first love broke up with me, my self esteem took a huge hit. I felt insecure, like a terrible person, like I ruined everything good around me, etc. These insecurities manifested themselves in low self esteem with regards to my body image.
I recently started getting drunken text message from my ex. After a while they progressed to him trying to get me to come visit him. Once I agreed to drive the two hours it takes to go see him, but then he cancelled saying he would be embarrassed for his friends to know we had hung out because I was “such a terrible person.” I stopped being nice and polite, but he continued to drunkenly text me. I should also mention, as it’s relevant to the story, that my ex’s life dream is to be on TV and be famous.
Then two weeks ago I was driving to a music festival up in Michigan when I decided to check my email. I found out I’d been one of 6 girls (out of an original 250 from my region) to move on to the next round of interviews for the casting of a new modeling show. I’d applied and sent in pictures of myself on a whim, I hadn’t really expected anything to come of it since I’d only done some amateur modeling in middle school. I was absolutely besides myself with happiness. I felt confidence like I hadn’t felt in two years. I felt *d**n good*.
But it gets better. When I returned home I was shopping at a fancy local boutique when the owner approached me and asked me if I’d had any modeling experience. Then he asked me to come in for a photo shoot for their online catalogue they were launching. I went in for the photo shoot and it was amazing. I felt on top of the world. S**t like this does not happen to me.
I like to think that the world is paying me back tenfold in karma for having to deal with so many self esteem problems stemming from this one guy and this one break up. Also… Who’s embarrassed now, a*****e?
EDIT: Took out the name of the show.
I was a really small freshman in high school (like 5’2″) and looked like I was probably 12. I was always picked on for being the smallest. I transferred to a private school and fast forward 3 years and I go to a party with all the kids from my old school. I see one of the kids that always had it out for me because he was bigger at the time. Im now 6’1″, obviously a lot bigger than before. So he talks some s**t to me and I give it back. He shoves me and without even thinking I one punch ko’d this dbag in front of about 80 people. Everyone thought I was a f*****g hero and then smoked some bowls with old friends. Great night.
Family karma here…when I was about 8 and my brother was 11, he got in trouble for punching a kid in the face on the school bus (my brother claims he was defending someone else…I don’t really remember it all that clearly). My brother paid the price, was banned from the bus for a while, faced repercussions at school, and my Mom made him apologize to the kid he punched in person. A couple of months after the incident, the mother of the kid he punched decided to flip the crazy switch and sued my parents for mental anguish, claiming that her son now had crippling emotional problems stemming from the incident. She showed up at board meetings, tried to get my brother expelled, painted a picture of my family as shady and my brother as a delinquent and violent.
My parents ended up escaping the legal battle with a little bit of dignity intact, but feeling ostracized in our community of 90 people.
Fast forward…I’m now 27, my brother is 30. My Mom sends a newspaper clipping to him in the mail…it’s the indictment of the crazy Mom from our childhood. Come to find out, she had been embezzling money from her employer for 5 years…totaling more than $50,000. May have taken two decades, but she finally got what was meant for her.
TL;DR: Brother punch kid, kid’s Mom sued my family for “mental anguish”, 20 years later, kid’s Mom goes to jail for embezzling.
I am 34 – much older than most typical redditors.
So, I’ve seen people grow up and have seen the results of their lives. Generally speaking, the people who were kind, hard-working, friendly as kids all have succeeded as adults. Those that were just a******s kind of had s****y lives.
In middle school this older boy used to make me feel stupid all the time. Then I grew up to be attractive and have a good job, and he got married and had kids and we were both happy and don’t care about middle school because we’re not f*****g 17 years old anymore.
EDIT: At 17, you still care about something that happened 2 or 3 years ago. But when you go off to college you have better things to do than hold your breath for revenge over something that happened in middle school. No one is 17 in middle school.
I can’t help but feel as though, this would have been a better experience had you said yes.. It’s hard to let go, but giving a bully a chance they never gave you would seem, to me, infinitely more satisfying.
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