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Comment by UncleOxidant | Hacker News Reader

50-something here. I was bullied a lot in elementary, jr. high and high school probably because I was the nerdy kid who was into science. We also moved a lot so I was always the outsider. While my home life was fine (my parents were great) I do suffer from anxiety and difficulty staying in a job for more than a year or two. I've only recently started to make the connection with the bullying I received. Back in the 70s & 80s when I was in school the attitude was that bullying made the bullied stronger so adults rarely intervened (as they thought that conversely, doing so would make the bullied kid "weaker"). Even the response of my parents was to put me into Karate classes - I think that did help some as I did gain more confidence, but I think the policy now to stop bullying in the schools is much better.

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> the nerdy kid who was into science

Paul Graham, creator of Hacker News and a founder of Y Combinator, wrote a classic essay on the topic of why nerds are unpopular. So much of his writing rings true, especially the part: I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact [of teenage misery] before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. He has a very plausible explanation of how we created this misery, including a culture of school bullying.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Your words exactly describe my struggles in childhood and career. The only difference is I did Tae Kwon Do and my schools cracked down on bullying after Columbine because they were scared one of us nerds might snap.

Anxiety as an emotion is very similar to excitement. Sam Harris discusses this a lot. I never got from him what exactly the difference is, but the other day in the car, I felt excited and started really analyzing why.

What I believe now is that the difference between anxiety and excitement is: perception of outcome.

If you have a positive expected outcome, you are excited. If you have a negative expected outcome you are anxious.

The next step, is to convert anxiety into excitement. I'm still working on this part. I think this is where "little victories" come into play. If you have a series of successes that can change your perception of outcome from negative to positive it might work over the long term.

In the short term, "happy thoughts" might work. "You can do it!!" Encouragement. Confidence.

Of course all of this is very new to me, so these are mostly just my hypotheses, but I plan to examine the ideas in more detail and see what I can do with it...

Anxiety, at least medically speaking, seems to be a loaded word. I've been told I had "anxiety" for some health related symptoms I had experienced, though I feel nothing like excitement nor dread. It's a very strange thought...almost what I might call 'subconscious anxiety'. As in, I don't mind people and am not anti social. But sometimes, in large noisy crowds, would feel lightheaded as if were going to pass out. Never really figured that one out - just wanted to point out that anxiety isn't always just a person thinking negatively.

Anxiety can definitely be triggered at a subconscious level. I get the dizzy, lightheaded thing as well and and I usually am not initially aware of why. But often, if I can take a step back and mentally assess the situation I can become aware of what the trigger was.

I’m not buying that anxiety is similar to excitement. Maybe in that both can make people act brashly and make shortsighted judgements. But the effect on a person at even a hormonal level is different. I doubt excitement releases the same inflammatory response that anxiety does. Anxiety also reinforces itself while excitement progressively requires newer stimuli to produce further excitement with a decreasing effect.

I started doing push-ups every morning as part of a plan to do some form of exercise with my upper body. Noticed at some point it has been a long time I felt anxiety. Not sure if there is a link, but starting to think so.

I'm sorry you went through that. Yes, bullying needs to stop, but if we back up and ask the question, why do kids do this? We used to hear 'kids can be cruel'. I think it has something to do with with alpha/beta dynamics. Kids always want to fit in but they also want to be popular. To be popular means some have to be unpopular. Maybe a quick way to do that is by putting someone down and in effect making them lower than you on the social status ladder.

I think the kindest of us probably suffered through bullying or forever being the outsider, and maybe these people experience more empathy for others as they know first hand how awful it feels to be on the receiving end.

But the majority don't go through this. Because of this, I don't believe we will ever get rid of this behaviour. We may minimise it a bit, but really we are trying to change embedded behaviour.

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