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When someone bullies someone else, it leaves a scar on their soul that doesn't heal. Their damaging experience remains with them for the rest of their life. It changes their perspective and adjusts the way they think. It makes them believe horrendous things about themselves, lowering their once high self-esteem.
I'm here today to talk to you about why we should talk more often about bullying. Because believe me, it happens everyday.
The Different Types of Bullying
There are several types of bullying, ranging from physical to online bullying.
Physical bullying would be the most serious. This is when the bully utilizes his/her fist to harm someone or to harm someone's possessions. Physical bullying usually doesn't come alone since it usually comes along with verbal insults. If you see even a glimpse of bullying like this, tell someone right away.
Verbal bullying would be the most common. I bet that if you listen closely enough, you could hear it happening in your own school. Shaming someone or criticizing everything they do to make themselves feel better are two examples.This one is most often caught by a teacher or supervisor or told on by the victim or a witness.
Cyberbullying is also quite common. Adults have probably come to your class to talk about it because with our constantly evolving technology, bullies have more resources to terrorize their victims. Cyberbullying is when bullies verbally bully someone through social media, like Instagram.
Sending them mean comments or horrible pictures to scare them on a regular basis are a few examples. Luckily these days we have more things to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
There is another type of bullying you probably have never heard of before. It's called Relational bullying. You probably have seen this in different kinds of teenage movies or in a TV series when a group of girls exclude a certain girl based on her characteristics or knowledge.
This kind of bullying can go on throughout high school. This type of bullying is silent and that's what makes it last the longest because some people don't characterize it technically as bullying.
The Ridiculous Reasoning Behind Bullying
Bullies act the way they do for three main reasons: they most definitely have scars themselves that never healed, they are just a really nasty person or they are envious of someone and feel they have the right to bully them. Maybe their parents just got divorced and they need someone to take their anger out on. Maybe they just got bullied themselves and they need to bully others to make themselves feel stronger. Or maybe, they just feel like they're superior to everyone else and have the right to criticize someone in the most unspeakable ways.
These kinds of people do this when someone is most vulnerable. They find their victim's weakness and exploit it. One way to prevent being bullied is to not appear hurt by the words or the things they do.
Bullies don't understand what kind of scars they leave on their victims, not just the next day, not just for the next year, but for the rest of their lives. No one deserves that kind of scarring at such a young age.
The Serious Psychological Damage That Can Occur
If bullying persists for a while on a specific person, it can, over time, cause psychological damage. Nearly 20% of people who have been bullied in their childhood have mental health problems later in life.This is just because of one or multiple people who couldn't keep their opinions to themselves.
With enough bullying, the victim can develop depression symptoms and anxiety. Sometimes, due to the bullying from their childhood, people can develop certain conditions for a lifetime. Suicide is even one of the possibilities.
I'm not going to go through the list of mental health problems that they can develop because the list pretty much depends on the type of insults that the victim received. For example, if they get bullied about their weight, the victims are more likely to develop anorexia or bulimia and suffer from a lack of self-esteem.
We Need to Discuss This More Often
People who don't witness bullying themselves or who have never been bullied don't show interest about it themselves. The other 65% of the world population who have never been affected themselves don't do anything about it. They shove it off as a minor problem.
But this has been going on for too long. Too many lives have been ruined because of stupid children or teenagers.
No one knows the kind of effect bullying can have on the young mind, so no one sees it as a serious problem. But did you know that bullying has only increased over the past few years? We can't ignore this problem anymore.
You can't sit on the sidelines. Take action.
What You Can Do
Share this article, share the message. Make sure everyone knows about the awful repercussions that bullying can have.
When you get back to school in September, look out for bullies. Don't let their horrendous words take you down with them. Tell someone right away.
Don't wait and don't let fear overcome you. Telling someone is the best thing to do to make sure they never physically or psychologically hurt you ever again.
If you've never been affected by bullying or even if you've been affected, look out for bullies around you that are hurting others. If the victims are too scared to do so, do it yourself. Tell someone for them if they cannot. Stop it before it becomes a serious threat because if you don't, you can be partially responsible for ruining someone's life.
To donate or call a helpline, contact:
https://www.childhelplineinternational.org/
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying
https://cyberbullying.org/school-bullying-rates-increase-by-35-from-2016-to-2019
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/bullying/conditioninfo/health
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