The worst part of being bullied is, you are blamed even you are the victim. In the school I went to when I was 10 - 12, Bullies was considered by the teachers as just Pranks, and never punish them even one of the student suicided. I have to be tough in the order to survive through that school, and the trauma made it super duper hard for me to trust my friends in the new school that I recently graduated.

"bullies aren't really happy" always sounds to me like a cheesy excuse. I remember the group of kids that tormented me during middle school, they were happy and were all friends, spending most of their time together. I don't know how they're doing right now, but at those times their friendship didn't look fake at all.

I was physically, socially and verbally bullied all through school, and it didn't stop until my family moved to another town. I took my refuge in books and imaginary friends. When I got old enough, I joined a choir. That was a real life saver for me! I got to know kids my age who were friendly strangers even if they didn't become friends. It's still difficult for me to trust others, and I'm nowhere near being able to feel pity for my bullies yet, but perhaps one day I'll get there too. These videos are helpful, thank you for doing this!

Got diagnosed with ptsd, anxiety and depression last year, as 26-year-old woman. Turns out the bullying I went through was the cause of my torment. As much as people might say to pity my bullies, I still have anger and can never show pity for them no matter how much they struggled. I had my own struggles at home with my father suffering and dying from cancer and I hurt a lot because of family drama, but the difference between me and the bullies is that I never wanted anyone to feel the pain I went through. Even when the bullying was at its worst I never felt the urge to tear other people down to build myself up. Instead of adults taking action and giving my bullies consequences for what they did, they just told me "imagine how awful their lives are to hurt you. imagine how hurt they must feel" or "they just have a crush on you"... So by them telling me over and over how the lives of the bullies must be hard was the only "action" they took for me to "just deal with it".... I'm angry and broken because I had to suffer and be punished because the bullies "might struggle themselves" I will never pity bullies unless they actually show change, growth and feel somewhat sorry for what they did, but that still doesnt mean that I will ever forgive them either. I don't seek out my bullies because I feel like that's the one power I have over them. Their lives now never cross my mind and I have no intentions of ever talking to them. Regardless if they're sorry or not I will never forgive them and my only "revenge" is only to fix what they broke in me and work hard to achieve my goals. People who wish to pity the bullies are welcome to, but I know I never will because every teacher just pitied them as an excuse. I felt like my life wasn't as important because the teachers didn't give a shit how much I was hurting.

There are two types of bully victims: those who turn the hate outwards (they become bullies themselves), & those who turn the hate inwards (like me). I know this might seem ridiculous or weird, but if you have a hard time telling yourself the things you'd tell a best friend who was going through what you are, buy a large, affordable plushie of huggable size. make that plushie your best friend, give them a name, hug them when you're upset, turn to them when you're lonely, stuff like that. Give them a voice, put on one to let them say the helpful, kind things to you you find so hard to say to yourself. My plushie sharky is my best friend & my best therapist all in one, oh & with grounding she helps too. She looks adorable & her fluffy "denticles" are so soft, especially after a gentle grooming. Through her I've found a Discord group of others who share troubles with each other & their sharkies, as well as fun pictures of our sharkies' personalities & fun activities. It's delightful & wholesome. The fact I picked a plushie sharky is part of what got me interested in real sharkies as well.

We hope you like this video! Leave a comment and let us know!

I was bullied all through my childhood. I am still struggling with the aftermath and I am 40 years old. I ended up internalizing so much, I loathed myself. For years I could not take properly care of myself, my hygiene, or anything because deep inside I felt that I did not deserve to have a clean home, etc. Also, I became really good at blocking the hurt, shaking it off. Like I had an elephant skin. I also never confided in any adults. I just swallowed it up. But it means that I still suck at feeling myself and expressing those feelings. This has cost me quite a few relationships. And my anger gets triggered very easily when I have the sense that I am being stepped on or ignored. I am currently trying to work through it with a professional. What still bugs me is that at least some of the teachers must have noticed even though I didn't confide. I am a teacher myself, and honestly, I think the signs are not too hard to miss. Maybe we need to train teachers much better in this regard.

Bullying has affected my mental health significantly. Bullied by my parents and my peers at the same time destroyed my confidence and to this day I have trama responses such as overexplaining myself in every situation. I used to never believe in myself and always doubt my abilities. What helped me cope most was my ex boyfriend, in my 20s, being genuinely shocked at how I could think so low of myself. We're no longer together, but him loving me opened a way for me loving myself. And, well, years of therapy :D I looked at myself in the mirror every morning telling myself affirmations that were positive about myself until one day, I actually believed them, and changed my inner self talk into positive one. I don't think I have ever truly stood up to a bully, though - I have a few coworkers who bully me now and I just try to be avoidant. Facing them is still my goal. BTW, I kinda see these questions as therapy homework, I like them :)

Thank you for all your videos❤️ I am afraid I could never find it in my heart to forgive my bullies. I feel so much anger all the time. As much as do not want to be that "victim" person all the time, I am angry because it feels like they destroyed something in me. So I became a very cynical version of myself and very cold towards people around me. But I hope that even though it feels impossible now, maybe some day it will change

I was bullied almost all throughout middle school and was a social outcast for a while. I do think that bullying is the main reason why my self-esteem and confidence are so bad, and why I'm afraid of people judging me or not liking me. However, I don't remember all of the bullying (such as what was specifically said to me), which sometimes makes me feel like it couldn't really be as bad as I'm making it out to be. If it really was that bad, wouldn’t I remember it better?

It took me years to realise all the name calling, isolation and judgement I faced at school after moving home and school when I was 9, and which lasted well until 18, was bullying. My parents saw it and tried to help in primary school when I tried to run away from home because my worst perceived bully was actually my sister and I couldn't cope with that both at home and school. I never managed to tell the therapist my parents took me to see so nothing got solved. When we got a horse for the family, he turned out to be a difficult horse to train due to his own trauma, and every time I came home struggling because of bullying my parents would send me to him. He was my best therapy, but the bullying continued. I had some good friends and I tried to reclaim the alienating names bullies gave me, gave all the appearance of dealing well with being called an alien, ET, a freak. I outwardly owned it. I wish I hadn't because to this day I feel foreign and detached and like I'll never belong with other humans. That sucks. One bright side is I'm now a teacher and those experiences have helped me be empathetic and hopefully help my students not live through that.

I had 2 sisters who bullied me until I was about 35 years old (when I moved out of state). It definitely affected me. I can't count how many times I said to myself "she was right, I am stupid,slow etc". After 25 years I met her again at the funeral of the other sister. She is now a seemingly a kind person which is a welcomed relief. I have found that she (and our other two sisters) had just as rotten a childhood has I did. I'm glad it has ended well but their are other people who are still struggling as adults. It's sad

I wanna thank everyone that shared their experience. They made me feel validated. All my life I felt like my bullying was not serious enough to be considered bullying. But I realized it was not true. I can't still talk about it to anyone, besides my few friends and boyfriend. Thank you, everyone.

I think, particularly, the worst thing is that it robs you the serenity in being vulnerable. When one's bullied, you don't like that feeling of impotence, of being the victim and, at the same time, in order to overcome it, you learn to repress the signs of your suffering because intuitively you know that it is precisely what feedsback the abuse. Then, you go as "I'm not affected, I don't feel, I ignore you" so that they slowly let you alone (which kind of works); and you even end up believing it yourself "I'm surprisingly fine, I'm strong enough". However, it all comes later; inside you've internalized being alert at all times for if anything comes at you, be able to control the emotions, refrain showing them, thus, decreasing your exposure to suffering. As a consequence, it's hard to connect, it's hard opening up, it's hard having courage to take risks: "what if they see my weak?, what if they see inside me, my insecurity? I'd loose my capacity of defence and I, myself, would feel so very little, self-pity, pathetic..." Of course, it's not a rational argumentation that you're having in your mind, it's a sensation, which, by the way, it's a lot similar of the own emotions you describe of a bully; just the strategy seems to be different; instead of abusing others and being cruel, you isolate yourself even against your own yearnings. They're like a vampire that bites you into a child of night.

I was bullied in middle school and all of the issues I havent been able to figure out and get over by myself have been issues I've traced back to that. I've moved past blaming them for ruining my life and being angry about it, but it's hard to live when you already have social difficulties due to autism, as well as having to deal with panic and anxiety around new people, especially in groups. It's hard not to think that I'll always be alone because of it

I was bullied verbally and socially all throughout k-12. Though I'm 22 now and have a decent social life and I have a supportive and loving family, I *still* struggle with self loathing and socializing in groups. I've internalized so much and I'm embarrassed to even bring it up in therapy because I'm an adult now and no longer in the environment or around those people, and I should be 'over it' by now, but that doesn't stop the dreams reliving some of those memories or shutting down and self isolating the second I feel any kind of social rejection (no matter how minor or subtle).

Hi Mr. and Mrs. Decker, First off I just want you to know just how valuable these pieces of information are to me. They are helping me a great deal. On to what I wanted to share (sorry, it's alot.. but it helps to just let it out): In the comment section of one of your other videos I mentioned that my first break-up traumatized me. I've come to understand that it only added to the plate. I was bullied in school from third until eleventh grade, when I started skipping school to avoid it. The bullying was of social and verbal nature and mostly done by boys. Briefly, when social media started to come up, it turned cyber, too, but (good on me) I just blocked everyone who tried. I only remember few details of the actual bullying but I definitely remember being scared of and stressing over going to school. I couldn't sleep at night. I fled into reading, Books were the better people back then, offering excitement, comfort and a save haven. When I met my first boyfriend, he was the first person my age in years that seemed to liked me for me. But I started to rely on him too heavily and he understandably could not handle it. So he broke it off and I fell down a pitch black hole. I was rejected by therapists because, out of pride, I refused to be medicated. Through the bullying and the intense heartache, I felt like I had noone to turn to. I don't remember if I tried to turn to my parents for help (I must have, since I wouldn't have found a therapist by myself in that state) but I know my father was dealing with his own issues and my mother tried to keep things peaceful, to avoid causing him more stress. I started regularly skipping school and avoid the bullies. How I managed to graduate with decent grades is a mystery to me. When I started making friends elsewhere my behavior over time turned compulsive and needy, maybe even narcistic, so none of those friendships lasted. The bridges have long since burned but I now understand where it all came from. Recently, I started owning up to that, out of intense feeling of shame. It took alot of time, reflection and work until I stopped blaming myself, then my parents, then my expartners and lastly my bullies. I've come to understand that even though others might have caused my pain, it's still my responsibility to heal. And you helped me on my way to do just that. Please keep doing what you do.

I’m still in school (almost done tho!) and I’m tired of the verbal, social, and physical attacks all the time. Empathy is a skill. And I try to use it with them. I try not to have any enemies. It’s just a lot to be constantly reminded of how worthless you are and to be scared to go to places I shouldn’t be scared to go. Every support system and friend I make doesn’t last long and I’m right but where I started. I just feel helpless and distrustful and stuck and I wish everything was over

I almost feel like my bullying at school was a "mild case", but it still caused me being too afraid to go into town in case I would meet some of the kids that bullied me. My self-esteem was very low for years, so I picked boyfriends who seemed "strong" and "tough" - which in hindsight didn't help at all, on the contrary. I totally lost myself trying to be someone else, so they'd like me. I'm only trying to find out who I really am and build my self-esteem up again now ... around 20 years later, because I was too afraid to be myself. I'm also convinced, this was one of the major experiences that caused my social anxiety. Bullying is awful, teach your kids that! And your friends, and colleagues, and every adult. It hurts and destroys so much on so many levels.

This was a super interesting watch. As someone who was bullied by whole life, by peers and - at one point even a teacher - it's been an interesting journey learning to love myself. The teacher did the most damage, picking one student every year to mercilessly destroy. She would immediately isolate them from the rest of the class, tell them their parents wished they were never born, they're too stupid to finish this year, never mind actually accomplishing anything useful in life, their family and friends are all just waiting for the opportunity to abandon them, and that they would be doing the world a favour if they killed themselves. People noticed I changed but I was so shamed into silence I never said anything. Nearly 20 years later, she was finally found out and fired. I'm in my early 30s and even now I hear the self-talk in my mind which she put there. But I know that I got through depression, suicide attempts, anxiety, fear and panic attacks. And if I can make it through that then surely I can help others never experience that.

Thank you for your amazing videos! As a child I was bullied in school as well as by one of my cousins. My parents were overworked, so even though they tried to help me, they couldn't change it. Over time, after traveling a lot and getting to know many new people, I got to understand that parts of my behaviour and mindset triggered the bullying in school and also found many of them in my younger brother. Helping him to see the world from a more positive point of view, giving him the support, having the conversations that I would have needed back then and watching him gradually becoming the empathetic and lovable social butterfly that he is now, helped me tremendously. I also started to be extremely kind and supportive of my cousin. Initially I did it just to see his dumb face, when I asked him how he was doing and congratulating him instead of getting back at him. I guess it was my way of bullying back at first. But it helped. We had a sort of love-hate-friendship for a few years and can now sincerely talk about many things and support each other. Turns out that simple support without jealousy or comparing each others accomplishments was just what he needed and didn't get from his siblings. The bullying helped me to empathize with many people around me. It also made me a bit cynical, sarcastic and quite detached from things that I feel won't matter anymore in a few years. Back then I often considered suicide. I later found the solution to that in distancing myself or leaving a group or place if the social pressure becomes overwhelming. Those coping- and prevention mechanisms resulting from the bullying are now a part of my character for better or worse.

I was verbally bullied in primary school (elementary) and excluded, too. Because i had sticking out teeth and red hair! Thank goodness red hair isn't as stigmatised nowadays. The bullying started to stop in the final year of elementary and first year of high school (age 11 in the u.k). Because my confidence improved after my dad asked a teacher to watch out for me. Unfortunately, home wasn't very peaceful either. But i believe God looked out for me the whole time. When i was 9, i started sunday School and found a place of love and acceptance. It was literally my saving grace. My friendships got better. Yes, in university, my mental health issues finally revealed their ugly self (after years of suppressing the feelings i suffered due to my abuse and bullying, they leaked out), but thankfully, the counselling helped. Im now happily married with a lovely little family, and still have my faith. I'm still battling the consequences of my tramour, but I'm so much more whole than I've ever been. Sending love to you all.

I can't say that I've been able to pity or develop compassion for all of the people who've bullied me, especially after having been forced to realize that even as a 40-something adult, I could still be bullied. Three people in particular (my host principal, my host teacher, and my clinical supervisor) made my student teaching experience a living hell. They got away with what they did, because I was so traumatized by the experience that I had no idea what to do except switch from the certification program to a BA in education. But back in junior high and high school, I did have the opportunity a couple of times to be kind to people who had bullied me, and turned two or three people into friends. I think that some people don't even realize when they're bullying. Those people can be helped.

I was bullied as a child emotionally, socially, and briefly physically, which I don’t remember. I have low self esteem in my personality, like when someone is mean or excludes me my first thought is, i was too loud, too needy, or I said something wrong, if people don’t want to be friends with me it’s all my fault for being horrible. It didn’t help that I have adhd and have a hard time controlling the behaviors that I thought, and still think but am trying to work to not think, made me undesirable as a friend. I started to heal by making friends who cared about me and built me up. I never reached the pity level but making friends made the bullies lose their power cause they couldn’t isolate me.

I developed severe social anxiety from being bullied aswell as narcissistic tendencies and resentment towards them. I have constant trust issues and no friends.

I'm genuinely surprised this hasn't merited more likes (perhaps not comments, given the sensitivity of the topic at hand), but I feel that the aspect of "learn to pity your bullies, this is not the same as condoning or excusing their behavior" is something that doesn't often get touched on in the right way. I got harassed relentlessly as a kid because my actual name - not the pseudonym I use here - sticks out like a sore thumb. Reacting usually earned me the scorn of my peers; reacting harder usually got me in trouble with teachers, because it was everyone else's word against mine. Even if other students were caught in the act, the faculty response would typically, invariably, be either "kids will be kids" or "you know, you wouldn't get made fun of or hauled into the teacher's office if you weren't so sensitive all the time". Naturally I got read the good old "bullies are actually even worse off than you" lecture. A child is not nearly equipped to understand or appreciate this. Realistically the child's takeaway is "we're not going to do anything", possibly with an afterthought of "you hopeless loser". And to be fair, there was some wisdom in this, because bullies getting punished rarely did anything else besides encouraging the bully to go after you even harder. There was one point in my schooling where, because team camaraderie was the order of the day, bullying incidents resulted in the entire class - or several classes - getting punished and made an example of. The idea was that this would encourage collaboration and friendship, and show that bystanders also shared the responsibility for watching out for weaker peers. The reality was that even the uninvolved became convinced that the victims deserved it because they were troublemakers who landed everyone in the soup. But the worst part about "bullies are actually really insecure people" is that it gives people an out to say "You have it better, you're actually well-adjusted, just turn a blind eye and keep a stiff upper lip". It gives bullies the opportunity to say "You think you have it bad? You have not yet begun to see how bad we can make it for you." Bonus points if you adhere to a religion, because that usually means you get to receive the "be the better person" lecture, too. So I - like many who've left their stories here, I suspect - chose to withdraw. I became generally embittered and focused my energy on games, numbers, anything with some degree of predictability, clarity in expectations, where I could exert some amount of decision and control, because I knew I could not get it anywhere else. I still largely have an aversion to risk and meeting new people simply because where I live is a generally small community, where you're unlikely to be more than 6 degrees of separation from people in your past - and if it boiled down to a contest of who gets to be believed, between me and the peers of my past, I don't have particularly promising odds. I wish there were more stories about people who haven't healed, if only to acknowledge that healing isn't the simple "forgive and forget", feel good stories of people "letting go" and "getting over" that typically get brought up by others, wondering why "you haven't healed! You have to want to heal!" I think it's precisely this idea that things will get better if you "just get over it" that makes it harder for people to open up, because it reminds them of a past when they were routinely mocked, belittled, and undermined. Therapy has helped, undoubtedly, since the time I left my comment on the Cinema Therapy Matrix video. It helped that there were other events in the family that helped to patch up damaged bonds between my immediate family, and I've felt some of the deep-seated anger against my parents dissipate. But I don't know if I'll ever get over my past. I avoid social media precisely because I don't need a reminder of how I'm starting several laps backward from everyone else, pursuing their goals when I'm still very much wracked by inadequacy, self-inflicted or otherwise. I wish I could tell you that it gets better more than a "maybe", but that would be insincere. I just hope if you're reading this, you find someone like Jono in your life. Thank you, Jono, and Cinema Therapy, for what you do.

Home sucked, with my overprotective mother and uncommitted father waging constant war against each other. Bullies just made one more space in my life feel even more unsafe. I already was "damaged" when I started elementary school, having difficulty connecting with others (due to a language barrier in kindergarten), so I struggled with my peers. And then the bullies just made it worse. In my second school much the same happened, with me largely withdrawing from social interactions, which in turn made the bullying worse. "Luckily" the bullies had more interesting targets than me, most of the time. Then the third school... and new bullies. It wasn't really intense. But the fact, that they were a threat lurking at school made me avoid it even more. Sleep was my one safe space. So I consistently overslept for school. And I went late to bed, because at night the parents weren't feuding. Now I am slowly recovering. It's slow going, since so much of my trauma was self-inflicted (due to warped understanding of social context, constant anxiety pushing me to behave weirdly, recurring regrets over inadequate behavior, or regrets because of not acting). I'm a mess, and despite ongoing therapy, it's difficult to unpack and mend it.

I recently discovered Jonno from Cinema therapy and he inspired me to go back to my therapist. And sorry if this is late to the conversation but this video really spoke to me. I used to be kind of an oddball, and would just do or say things that many of my classmates dubbed and no matter how i tried to get along with others, it didn't matter and others would just constantly tear down what I would do and say. And since it was only ever verbal abuse (half the time with the added vibe of the threat of violence if i pushed things or didn't cow-tow to them), i didn't realize until years later that I was even being bullied. So a lot of the comments went unfiltered, unchecked and caused a lasting impact on how I perceive myself and how I act in all types of relationships. And like Jonno it was a shame in my case because I have such a loving and supportive family, so by all accounts I should have grown up with secure attachments, but i didn't. I also didn't have many friends until we moved and I was in a completely different town and environment. Eventually I did find a solid group of friends that support me and are very patient with my insecurities that I am trying to get over, so knowing that there are people who love and care about me and think what I do is awesome makes me start to think that since i trust their opinions, maybe they're right. And the other thing that helped me was what Jonno talked about and realize that my bullies are probably just as insecure as me, and I feel sorry for them. Like when i think about people who are rude and mean to someone just because they are super passionate about something that they deem weird, dumb, etc., it makes me feel bad for them because they obviously don't know the pure joy and excitement in finding entertainment in something simple but amazing. Honestly, if you keep enjoying the things you love as much as you want to you will eventually find others who also love those things or who understand your passion because they feel it about something else. c: keep on keeping on and know you're awesome!

I was bullied a lot as a child and excluded from friend groups since I was so "weird". I can admit to my isolation being self inflicted to a degree, becoming a misanthrope from my already awkward social graces.

I was bullied by my dad and my brothers (mostly my little brother) as well as at school. I was born with a cleft lip and palate which required me to have 20+ surgical procedures, 12 of which were grommets to help alleviate ear infections that would render me functionally deaf for extended periods, with little to no concept of volume control so I would swing from shouting to whispering to ashamed silence during most interactions. I couldn't smell or taste properly making me highly reactive to texture, to this day I struggle with fruit and veg because as far as I can tell it all smells rotten; I'm certain the messed up diet didn't help. I had to go to a speech therapist to be reminded that I couldn't even get that right, plus dyslexia, remedial classes, constantly being put down as "stupid and lazy". I was later diagnosed with ADHD but that came a long time after the depression and anxiety. But what choice did I have? Pretend that it is the rest of the world that's wrong or accept that they're right and try to mitigate the humiliation? I was often told that I'm "too sensitive" or told that my thoughts, feelings and experiences were wrong; the perpetual gas-lighting has gotten to the point I hardly know what to believe and can't trust any of my thoughts or instincts. I tried to mould myself into the shape everyone said they wanted, but they kept moving the goalposts and I find out decades later that who I've become is what people say they want, but not what they actually want. I have no idea who or how to be my "authentic self". There was nowhere for me to form secure attachments, nowhere for me to belong, nothing to build my self-confidence or self-worth from, I've just internalised all of the nasty a cruel things the world told me I am. Ugly, lisping, short, stupid, slow, boring, pathetic, neurotic, failure, weird, etc The first time I contemplated suicide was when I was 11, after achieving success in academics going from almost having to repeat a year to getting A's on my tests I thought finally I've done it they can't say I'm stupid or lazy any more, maybe my dad will be proud instead of derisive and mocking. But no, he just moved the goalposts and was completely uninterested when I would try to engage him about anything. Even when was recruited on to the school rugby team he never gave me a whiff of praise, yet he was effusive when lauding my little brother's accomplishments. In the end, they guilted me out of ending this misery by using my compassion against me. So I have persisted for 25 more years. Came close to clawing my way out a couple of times, but a string of betrayals, failed attempts at romance and being sexually assaulted have had me attempting an early exit 4 times so far. So that's the short version of how bullying has affected me.

Thank you so much for this video, Jonathan. From Minute 0:26 to 0:49 I had the feeling you were talking of me. I had also a stable and loving family, but I've been bullied by peers from age 6 to 17, so nearly all my schooldays. I expierenced verbal, social and few times physical bullying. My childhood and teenage days were filled with lonlieness for not having any friend at all, people faking friendship to mock me and abandonements in friendships I believed to be geuine out of blue what did a huge damage to my ability to trust in peers and built up platonic and romantic relationships. As a child I suffered from recurring nightmares. With puperty I stopped to stand up for myself and tried to become "invisible" in attempt to avoid further attacks. I isolated myself, downplayed the bullying to teachers knowing by expierence it would backfire at me if my bullies got in trouble and swallowed down every hurting, trying to cope by pretending being absent, not being right here in the situation, fleeing into daydreams and fantasies and trying to befriend much younger kids or adults instead of peers. All my schoolday as a teenager I almost had more ill days than being in school, half faked, half psychosomatic and it was my luck that I was always good at school so I could compensate it. At the age of 11 I was for the first time in state what looked like a depressive episode including suicide thoughts. With 14 I had a phase where I almost stopped to talk at school at all. With 16 I started self-harming, with 17 the only thing that kept me from taking my life was the thought of the potential mourning by my parents and sibling. For months I kept myself alive for them, not for me. Then, aged 18, I - finally - got into the thearapy I needed and wanted with the help of teachers at a new school. This is all past for a long time now since I've been an adult for a while now. Yet therapy doesn't earase your past and only give you the tools to handle it in a constructive way. There are still times when I got to remember myself activly to not swallow down hurts within interhuman relationships und communicate them, trusting the relationships are strong enough to stand the storm. There are still times when I have to activily remind myself, that I'm not dependend on people who abuse me to not be all alone in the world and draw my boundries. There are still times when my self-esteem is quite low and I have to activily shut down the inner voices of self-loathing to find confidence and trust expressions of affection to be genuine. And there are still times like for example a worldwide pandemic when the demons of my past awaken and I have to activily tell myself that the whole world is in a state of emergency and I'm not about to face another traumatising friendship abadonmenment out of the blue when people struggle with socialiszing and it's most likely they are just stressed out by the siutation and it has nothing to do with me at all. What would have helped the situation back in my school days in my opinion are more activities not based on preformance pressure for today I know that the most of the bullying was based on envy. I was this unfortune mixture of being a top of the class candidate and being completely chaotic. The kid that completely had forgotten about the exam that day, binge recalled the material during the break and managed to get the 4th best grade, becoming an affront to all the kids that had been told that success in school is based on effort and they can "make it" by learning hard. The school choir where it all was about fun was the only place where I didn't face bullying. But at all my schools there were almost none of leisure workshops like this. And also more sensibilization and professional education for the teachers. My teacher's wasn't trained to deal with the systematic bullying I expierenced at all. They treated all as an single event or an both-sided conflict on eye lever over and over again and their only reaction was to punish the bullies for that single event which didn't help in the long-term at all. They even gave me bad notes on social behavior when I was a 11yo with suicide thoughts and the only thing they knew to tell when my parents ask them of my wrongdoings was: "She doesn't integrate". It was the best expample of victim blaming. However personally I would be very careful of telling of pity and "love the enemies" to a victim of bullying as an third party. I understand what is meant by that. It's important to - well, I call it to get to the metalevel, to understand that as much as they mock you there is nothing wrong about you and to reject the role they want to give you. But that insight is a point in an advanced progress to heal, not the first step in my opinion. When you're hurting - so at least my expierence- you first need to "bleed out" all the pain and been validated that you have expierienced injustice. Without that any word of pity or forgiveness or something like that can cause serene harm. When I was an 8yo my mother told my "they do it because they have problems themselfs" to comfort me and asure me there was nothing wrong about me but the message I kept was: "They have problems and they just need to vent them. So it's okay what they are doing to you and you have to bear being their punching ball for they have a right to vent" which well wasn't a quite healthy message to internalize. (She was horrorfied when I told her as an adult) In daily life communication it's often slippery slope to get giving insight in a situation not to be confused with justification and it takes a lot of empathy to sense if a person is yet ready for it or is still hurting too deep. Nevertheless, I am glad that this video exists and that my topic is also dealt with here. And I appreciate, as always, your openness to tell your own life story and not to be the intangible therapist who only explains his science, but to be human, tangible and vulnerable. I've been watching mended light for less than 24 hours, admittedly, but I've been a fan of Cinema therapy for a long time.

A consequence of bullying that's not discussed much is paranoia. Hearing strangers laughing and feeling like they must be laughing at you, or talking shit about you, is a thing that happens to bullied people well into adulthood. Also, that if there isn't a power differential between aggressor and victim at the very beginning of their interactions, the aggressor will create it over time. . . . (To be honest sometimes I feel like the current knowledge about bullying got stuck at "studying elementary and middle school aged children," but researchers never bothered to ask older kids or adults that suffered it and might have some thoughts about it.)

My bully was masked as a friend for awhile. Anytime she wasn’t with me she stuck by the teachers and wouldn’t leave them alone. I’ve had an actual teacher tell my mom that teachers will just be thankful that the child is focused on something else that they don’t notice that they’re bullying someone.

"If they're talking about you that means that they aren't talking about somebody else." Is what my mother has told me once or twice. It wasn't very comforting for a while but I got it eventually. It's like taking a punch vs taking one for a friend. They both feel terrible but you feel a lot better when you're doing it for the sake of somebody else you love, or even somebody you barely know.

I was bullied grades 5-6, then changed school and was bullied by another group in grades 6-9. Then I grew too big to be bullied. This happened whilst my family completely disintegrated after my father filed for divorce, all adults stopped caring for me properly (due to various factors) and I lost all but one of my friends. The bullying was the last straw that totally broke me. 30 years have passed and I am still torn up, despite two therapies. My life is a mess. I do have compassion and pity for the guys who bullied me grades 5-6. They were underdogs, poor families, very likely physical abuse by parents. I must say, I forgive them. With the other group it was another story though: they came from middle-class backgrounds and didn't seem half as unhappy. They were two grades above me. The leader of the gang seemed to really enjoy ruining my days. Once, after months of daily bullying, I came at him out of desperation. He punched me in the face hard (a 7th grader) and while I was lying on the ground and cried, he laughed in my face. I am 100% convinced this guy was just a sadist. If I ever meet that dude again, I make sure it is him and then punch his f***ing face in.

Honestly I was bullied throughout childhood. The worst part is that my so-called friends would just do nothing beside this one girl. Out of 15 friends, only one step up but she was also afraid and can’t do much. I was pushed down the stair at school and one of my “so called” best friend were laughing along with the bullies. No one really stood up for me. This play a huge consequences for me. They would throw rocks at my house window, threatened me and got extreme to the point the cops were called. The cops was honestly my hero at the time. The two main boys got charged with arson but unfortunately not enough evidences in laws for bullying and stalking. But they did put a restraining order for me to make me feel safe. As I got older, I got tired of being pick on so I became rude and more aggressive towards the bullies and unintentionally also other people as well. If someone hurts me or threatened me, I don’t take it lightly. This also makes me crave for revenge but I wouldn’t go extreme. The psychological affects is that bullied victims can either fall into a major depression and be suicide risk, or change their persona completely and be ruthless. I grew up believing that no one cares about me and I am all by myself. Therefore I don’t care about other people. Sometime it can be a bad thing but being a bullied victim completely changed me. I realized that the world is full of evils and to survive and move on from the trauma and pain is to be ruthless. This is honestly something normal people wouldn’t understand.

My bullies always created a narrative that they wanted me to accept or said I was lying if I didn't accept. They all worked together and I didn't know who all they were. I've had trouble with my family for years and took the blame for one of these narratives. They lied to me about the while situation so they didn't get into trouble. Leaving out a lot of details, I later realized they had been lying to me then when I caught them in a new lie that came about when they violated a boundary I had set knowing what my next steps would be. Previously they blamed me for having poor boundaries too. I haven't talked to all the people involved because I don't know who all they are and some behaved badly enough I prefer space to any contact (though I have accidently found out who some of them are when I've spoken a little about the abuse and they want to cover their butts). Some of these people have left me alone and others have lashed out with rumors or gaslighting. I've been very direct where I've needed to be and as a result a good share of my family who were in my inner circle are much further away. I've gradually done this by removing their access to me: social media, gaming systems, smart devices, and even phone numbers. It's a sad thing, but I'm also kind of fortunate to have a sister who has gone through a similar situation (though she previously knew lots of the people from our church growing up). She has done really well for herself and we've bonded on a new level because I finally accepted what I was seeing and not what I was hearing.

I was socially bullied in middle school, only had few friends that I couldn't meet everyday, was also being a social pariah for I don't know why and they didn't tell anyway. It led me into a deep depression and deep resentment towards them. Because of this experience too, I had so many difficulties to maintain a relationship and when someone say they like something about me, I couldn't help but ask "why?" because I believed I was very unlikable. However, as I grow older and attended therapy for almost two years now, I can see the silver lining that the awful experience shaped my dream to become a therapist. It shaped how I treat other people, it taught me that I should try to be as empathetic as I can and never do something negative to people. So for a while, that experience was hellish but over time, I perceive it as a blessing. That's my experience on bullying. I love your videos Mr Decker and Mended Light team

As the 6'2 daughter of two musicians and ad people, both near my height, my defining characteristics in childhood were my creativity and being tall. I hung onto make-believe much longer than most of my peers because I love to tell stories, and before I came into own my artistic and literary skills, that was the best way I had way to tell them. For the first three years of primary school, I got along with everyone, and I had a couple of good friends in my year, but those started to drop away when I befriended a girl no one really liked. By the end of third grade, I was my year's scapegoat, and my onetime friend was clever enough to get on the hype train and talk badly about me in order to improve her status. I was the tallest person in the school by fifth grade, so kids weren't often brave enough to hit me, but I was sworn at, jeered at by cliques of girls, ostracized because I was never up to date on the latest trends, had things stolen or broken (an incident comes to mind where I opened my locker before recess to find applesauce in my boots when there were three-foot snowdrifts outside), and set up to take the fall for other kids' bad behavior more than once. The school administration did essentially nothing to defend me, because it was the word of one child against fifty. My parents were and still are incredibly loving, and I wasn't without friends outside of school, but going into an emotional warzone every day for three years has resulted in a lot of poor coping mechanisms. I can gaslight myself into believing or doing almost anything, because I had to convince myself I was okay every day in order to have a semblance of a normal life. I bury negative emotions and don't show when I'm hurting, because that was a dangerous thing in the schoolyard. It takes a phenomenal amount of effort to ask my profs questions even when I'm flunking assignments, because I never felt heard by my teachers as a child, and part of me is convinced there's no point. Perhaps the worst one, I strive to be self-sufficient and capable, only to end up taking on too much work and draining relationships because 'I can handle it', invariably crashing, and leaving people hanging. I'm still trying to unpack how much of my identity is the product of trauma, and how much is authentically myself. I guess there's still a hurt child inside me just trying to be happy, and this video was a nice reminder that I'm justified in struggling with this even now. Thanks for that 💜 TL;DR: girl got bullied for three years non-stop at a formative age because she didn't fit the mold and is still trying to pick up the pieces. If your kids are getting bullied, GET THEM OUT OF THAT SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY!!!

I was verbally, socially, and sometimes physically bullied at school. It started in the primary school, all through it and onto the next, to secondary school (whether it was because some of my old classmates went to the same next school with me or because I went to the new school already mentally scarred and acted like a victim, I don't know). All together it lasted for almost 10 years, until my family moved to a different country. My teachers hardly reacted (only in extreme cases), I don't think most of them even believed I was bullied and sometimes they placed the blame on me. I am not sure if problems I am dealing with now are a direct result of that or something else. But there were problems with sleeping, anxiety, fear of crowds and insecurity. I am getting better, I think, but still strugling sometimes. While I still look at those events with pain, I also feel proud. Proud of being a survivor, because I had to stood against all of them and I did not break. I am so glad you talk about this subject as someone who has been through it and have a psychological knowledge. I've once attended classes where a teacher talked about bullying but it was so clear she never experienced anything like that and all she said sounded like a complete nonsense to me. That is not the case with you and I hope you will raise awareness and bring comfort to some people. So thank you.

When I was in 8th grade I had a crush on a boy. I was one of the few POC that went to a predominately white school. He asked me to be his boyfriend, and 3 days later he and his group of friends told me it was a joke. They called me racial slurs in person, but mostly via cyber bullying. I struggled with my self image for years. When I was 13/14 I used to cry myself to sleep wishing I was white. One of the boys saw me in college and apologized to me. He wasn't the main instigator, but I forgave him. The boy who was my fake boyfriend recently followed me on instagram for a couple days then unfollowed me. When this happened I broke down and cried. I also realize (according to your other video about fight or flight responses) I still to this day have a freeze response when someone says something racist to me. I feel frustrated because I still freeze and come home to cry instead of confronting people or calling out when people are racist to me. I mean this in away that I would like to get to the point where I stand up for myself in a non-aggressive way, or even educate people who don't realize they're being mildly racist. I would like to one day get to this point, but I feel like I'm still broken. I just stumbled on your channel and am very grateful for everything I'm watching. Keep up the great work!

I was bullied by many of my classmates, but it was driven by another kid who had cancer. How does that make sense you ask? Well, it wasn't a lot of physical bullying (even if it did happen) since I was somewhat strong for my age, but mostly socially. When he acted out on me I defended myself, but others got triggered, including my teachers, that I responded in lighter physical defense. "You can't hit the kid with cancer", they used to say. "Well, why is the kid with cancer allowed to hit me?" I usually responded. This went on from 2nd to around half of 7th grade, and the only reason it stopped was because I changed schools. It is kind of weird, when you're used to being treated negatively all of the time, it baffles you when people start being nice. It hurts in a different way than you expect it to. One of the ways that I healed was trying to pitying them. They (mostly the kid with cancer), were hurting, jealous, but most of all scared. It doesn't make up for all of the things they did, but I get why they felt a certain way. The others who weren't active in the bullying but who were mostly bystanders often didn't know what had actually happened, and when people told them, who were they supposed to believe? The poor sick popular kid with cancer or the socially awkward kid with no friends? I try to think from that standpoint as well, but it is hard to imagine for a 12 year old (I'm 22 now). We all hopefully heal, but we need support. I have had a lot of friends that I made afterwards, but along the way my close family was the most loving and supportive. I don't know what I would have done without them

I was verbally and physically abused by my first husband. He was sexually abused in his past and neglected by his parents. He abused the use of alcohol and medical drugs to hide his pain but it only made his pain more transparent. I loved him because he was broken but he used me to take revenge on his own feelings. I didn't have a great childhood as well and I still fight with feeling confident and secure in my physical appearance. We had a daughter and I did not want her to pick up the cycle of trauma. I found out later that both our parents were abused and abusers too. We got a divorce, I closed all contact to him, and we are happy now with a new family. I got help from a therapist, and I have a huge support team of friends and family. I too was sexually abused as a child. It's hard to see what your worth is when the ones close to you dont show it. Get away from those types of people and surround yourself with good loving kind people who want to see you succeed.

I think finding a loving and supportive community/network/tribe enabled me to overcome the social isolation and subtle unkindness of high school friendships. You won’t be accepted everywhere you go. But u can accept yourself

I had always been a timid and non confrontational person. When I was in middle school I was physically bullied(shoved into a corner with no escape) to the point I blacked out but had still pushed back. I got in trouble but had that sense of power that I didn't need to tolerate that treatment. In high school I had a group of "tough" friends who were there to stand up for me if I couldn't, and they taught me to not take abuse from anyone. Took a while for those lessons to stick and become a part of me, but now I can confidently put out love and kindness to strangers, but get away if they start to take advantage of me. For those who are still trying to get out, you can do this. It's not easy, it may never be easy to tell yourself you are better off doing something or saying something; it can be scary. But you are important and your life and health is far more important than what someone says or thinks of you. Love yourself then those who matter will love you too. I love you!

Your suggestion to forgive them does not help me. I think it's because I never felt angry with them. I instead got convinced by them and my father, that I am the problem. The anger is there, but only if I find the strength to say "They were wrong, and I was a victim. How dare they". Anger is not the emotion that I naturally get when I think about their abuse. My low confidence makes me instantly cry and feel horrible about myself. I think that's a layer that needs to be adressed before I can even do forgiveness.

I got bullied in middle school, by both teachers and students. I eventually figured out if I was mean to the other ostracised kids, I'd be left alone. So I became a bully for a short time. Once, one of those kids tattled on me. I lied to the faculty member, saying I didn't do anything. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. Maybe she'd seen victims like me become bullies before, or felt that bad for the people I hurt. I don't know. After that I developed the idea that the only way social standing works is to step on others, or be stepped on. Not wanting to be part of this anymore, I actively refused to make friends for the rest of my school years. I'd be outside the social system, not a participant. It was painfully lonely, but I guess I felt I deserved it for what I'd done. I had some online friends, but at school, I always ate lunch by myself. I'm much better now, I don't have such a kill-or-be-killed mindset when it comes to social interaction anymore. I see the kids who bullied me as confused children like I was. They were just trying to make sense of things and lashed out. I forgive them. I do not forgive the teachers who bullied me though. How pathetic do you have to be to bully a child? To this day I have extreme anxiety when confronting authority figures, but I still do it when needed, because there's no reason to let past trauma hold me back.

In 4th grade me and my twin brother were bullied by an older kid. he lifted me by my throat high in the air because i was ahead of him in the line for water and he couldnt wait. We retaliated by throwing things at him and since we were so good at school no one believed him. later we played on the basketball team together and "patched" things up. this one action made me have a full list of insecurities that i live with to this day. in the closest relationship i had she broke my heart. all my insecurities and failed past relationships came to the surface. which led to crippling depression, anxiety and mental health. i try to make friends but they ultimately give up on me. i always feel like im the one trying and no one else checks on me. recently the person i consider a sister said that im still like a brother but that were acquaintances and that hurt more than she will ever know. i do over write people that i trust maybe she couldnt take it anymore [she also deals with depression and anxiety that is part of the reason i wrote so much to check in] but to say im an acquaintance and you couldnt write back because you were too busy or too tired after 20 years. plus still dealing with the heartbreak of the girl i loved telling me i didnt matter. i didnt mean anything. i cut ties with her a year ago. dealing with the loss of my uncle a year ago. all these things have not made for a good month mental wise. i do hold on to hope. hope gets me through the dark times. it will get better. i have 2 great friends who have picked me up and of course my twin who knows when i need encouragement. if you struggle with mental health, anxiety, and depression please talk to someone you trust. talking about it will help. it doesnt cure it but it helps to know someone is there with you

I think a lot of bullies treat themselves like that in their head. And maybe, feel close to the person to treat them the same way they treat themselves. Which is putting them down. They put themselves down all the time. That is why they are so miserable. Could see the same with people who love themselves, they also treat others the same, with love.

I was socially isolated as a child, and it took until I graduated high school to realize the extent of bullying I faced and how it affected me. I’m really lucky I’ve had years of therapy and I’m on the path to healing now.

I'm being bullied since kindergarten and I still am at work and I just can't wrap my head around the idea of having any form of pity or even love for my bullies. My hatred for them is so strong... Which leads to the problem of how to finally healing from this bullshit.

My bullying didn't happen during my teen years but all throughout my elementary school years. I wasn't bullied for one person but many, there was verbal abuse by calling me names, mocking me, etc but also some physical things like taking away my books, hiding my notebooks just before an exam or hiding personal things so I couldn't find them. One day I cried and shouted at one of the girls who laughed at my tears why she was doing this? what she got out of it? and she answered "Because it's fun to make you cry." To say that, that sentence made me understood the meaning of cruelty is as close as I can get to the true impact it had in my life. Things got much better later, but it took many years to trust and make friends and I still struggle with letting people see me cry.

What a great and wonderful video about this topic. I've been bullied in school from grade 5 to 12. Pretty much my whole Junior High/Highschool years (or Gymnasiumszeit as we say in Germany) and am still dealing with its aftermath now 6 years later. But it has gotten better. And videos like that help me reorganizing my past, healing the trauma that came from it and accepting what happened then... to help my clients - as a therapist myself - who are going through a similair time in their life, strengthen them and giving them what I couldn't have back then. Bullying is a symptom of our society that unfortunately will never disappear... but we can help and prevent others from suffering so much that it impairs their whole life! And we need to do so! But I only just started to learn about it 6 years later because looking at it there was so much anger, shame, grief and self-doubt connected to it. It feels so relatable that someone like you, Jono, has gone through it as well. It feels less stigmatizing and more handable!

I was bullied socially from about age 10-15. I was actively excluded from anything my classmates were doing, and was often told to not follow them or to go away. I went to an extremely small school in a small town, so the few classmates I had were my only peers around. It has left me as an adult feeling as though unless I am actively invited into a group, that I am not welcome. I now tend to be apprehensive, defensive, and anxious in new social situations, and unfortunately it tends to take me a year or two to become comfortable in my self in a new location/situation, which has made moving or changing jobs very frustrating with just how long it takes me to feel safe, accepted, and sought after. Once I feel secure, only then am I able to truly be myself and seek after others, but it's just such a long transition every time.

I was bullied all throughout elementary school and, yeah, the effects are still here even though I'm 21 now. I got used to needing to be smart in order to have friends, cause I thought if you want someone to like you, you should be willing to give them answer sheets. Got used to never speaking unless spoken to, cause she and the other bullies would always look at me in disgust and said "You are not allowed to talk" whenever i spoke a word. I am afraid of people yelling now, even though sometimes they yell so they can be heard, cause I got many memories of how my mom would scream and get angry at me whenever I confess what happened at school. "You're just too sensitive, they were just playing, do you need attention THAT much?" At this point in life, I got super anxious at tiny things. Like mishearing what the cashier said, or forgetting to say "goodbye" to a coworker. I don't have anyone to talk to, cause I'm afraid they'll have the same reaction of what my mom did, or my bullies did. I need super specific instructions on every social thing, cause I did not learn any way of talking. I'm even terribly terrified of going to a psychiatrist just because I don't know the step-by-step guide of getting one. When you step into the hospital, what do you do? Who do you talk to? What if you accidentally talked to the pharmacist instead? I have zero clue. And I don't have anyone to help me with this.

I wish I had had some of this knowledge when I was being bullied (all throughout grade school). It has made me not only incredibly distrustful of people but has also trained my brain to hold generally very negative views about other human beings. As I write this, I still can't help but feel like my views, despite how negative they are, are true... I don't want them to be.

It's all well and good to say "pity" them. But I went through hell, 16 years of school/collage bullying to the point I don't or rather can't trust, I am severely insecure about the few relationships I do have, if someone doesn't talk to me for a couple days, I automatically wonder "what did I do wrong, how did I upset them?" Saying sorry for something that never happened, but in my head I must have done something wrong. It haunts me to the point I am about to cry just typing this. I am a 41 year old woman and I can't stand my memories, they plague me, I hate them, I want them gone. That being said, I would not be the person I am today if not for hell I went through. I might have massive anxiety in social situations but if someone I consider a friend needs me I will go to hell and back for them, because I know the crippling loneliness that can come from needing help but never getting it. In all honesty I will probably never get married, or find someone to share my life with because I'm broken. I have become very adept at my mask and I deal with things alone, despite being there for others, I can't bare getting help... messed up huh? Okay I am gonna go cry some more lol

I haven't really overcome the bullying. It stopped around mid-high school, but the damage was already done. I had no idea how to make friends, or interact with people. I'm 30 years old, and I've felt lonely my whole life. That loneliness turned into depression, PTSD, and so much anger. I feel like I'm slowly developing agoraphobia, if that is something that can even happen. I've spent lots of time in therapy, but I dunno. I can't ever seem to let it all go.

I went through constant verbal and social bullying from kindergarten until my parents pulled me out of public school at 11 years old for semi-unrelated reasons. I'm 23 years old now, and I'm still in the process of undoing the damage even though it's been over ten years since I've seen my bullies. Kids would call me names, make fun of my appearance, actively choose to exclude me from social interactions, and even pretend to be interested in joining the games of pretend my best friend and I would play to give themselves ammo to continue making fun of us. I also had undiagnosed ADHD, so rejection sensitive dysphoria only added gasoline to that bonfire. It got so bad that I actively considered running away from home just to get away from what was going on. I tried to do everything the teachers told us to do if we were being bullied. Ignore them, walk away, tell a teacher, things like that. None of it worked. I even went as far as meeting with my middle school principal in sixth grade to try to get it to stop, but no one did anything. It got to the point where I would come home in tears more days than not and wouldn't tell my parents what was going on because I didn't see a point. If the administration wouldn't listen to me, why would they listen to my parents? I'm pretty sure they knew that I was being bullied to some extent, but they didn't know what to do about it or how bad it was until I talked to my mom about it when I was in college. I've grown to be indifferent towards my bullies. I don't hate them anymore, but I don't feel much love or compassion for them either. Even though I don't want revenge or to see them suffer, never seeing them again would be too soon.

I was bullied by my step-father who taught my brothers to bully me. I was the convenient scapegoat and all my mother could do was to wonder why he was so mean to me. Her answer was to try and find what I'd done that was worthy of such ugly treatment. What saved me was first my intelligence and the need I had to understand. I observed and analyzed and used what I learned to make him more human in my eyes and so more understandable. He was still an evil and hurtful man but at least I began to see where it came from. He tried everything including sexual abuse to 'break' me. I'm in my seventies now and he's been dead a long time. Now and again he raises his head up out of the ocean in which his ashes were scattered and I pity him back into his watery grave. But there is no relationship with my brothers because they learned his methods too well and have no other way relate to me. I can do without them.

I was bullied socially, verbally, and physically all throughout elementary school. Luckily I had a great home life which I attribute to being able to successfully move past it. Due to my own emotional compartmentalization and unintentional minimization of my experience from peers and even family members, I didn't realize how much it affected me till I was in my late teens and college all the way to now (I'm 24). A lot of time when I talked about being bullied someone would say "well everyone gets bullied" this made me feel like my feelings and pain were invalid since everyone deals with it and can get past it, this lead to me to just pushing it down (not a valid coping mechanism btw lol). It was only when I went to therapy my senior year of high school that I realized that a lot of the perfectionism, anxiety, and inability to fully trust my friends was from being so intensely bullied for years. I've reflected and owned my experiences now and am proud that I am able to understand and reflect on the trauma of being bullied and how that has shaped how I see things. I am also glad that I now feel pity and compassion for my bullies, I was child but so were they. Lastly, to anyone who is reading this far LOL, know that your feelings are valid and that you did nothing wrong to be bullied, you are not lesser, and you are deserving of love always, no one can ever take that away from you.

it took me to my 30s to get over my bulling turma, now when a bully tries i fight back not so much in a violent or vindictive way. but in a roll my eyes and ignore them

I think the thing that helped me the most in response to bullying was to remember that they don’t define me, I do. Its my choice weather I validate what they say. I can give them the power to hurt me by listening to them and believing them, or I can choose not to. Weather their words can hurt me is ultimately my choice. It doesn’t help with physical abuse, but detaching from the emotional and mental abuse that way takes the edge off. It’s not like changing myself would have made them like me any more anyways. Having said that, it still takes me a long time to really open up to someone, and even longer to rebuild lost trust. I have an extraordinarily low tolerance for shitty behaviour from anyone

There was a boy in my class from 5th to 8th grade and he and his "friends" first bullied my best friend, he went to a different school after 6th grade, so they started bullying me which did not really bother me because I had pitty for them but when the boy commited suicide in 8th grade I felt relief and than extreamly guilty till today.

I like the video. I got bullied in school age 10-13, and at the sport club until I left. Now, more then ten years later, I am experiencing some serious problems in my work place and my health has and still is declining rapidly. I have the highest respect for people, who actually manage to forgive or pity their bullies. I don´t like it, but I still fear mine. And I hate them as well as myself for it.

I have been bullied from my very first day of 6th grade, and for several years. My worst year was in 8th grade. I was bullied by people from my class, I was mocked by other students from my school that I didn't even know, and even strangers in the street would make reflection as I was passing by (what is wrong with this society ?). I am now 24 and I am not to a point where I can feel pity. To this day I still feel resentful and bitter when thinking about it, even if it was ten years ago. Regarding mental health, I went through different stages. In 8th grade, I started withdrawing into myself, I was reading a lot to escape reality. I didn't realize it, of course, and I thought I just loved reading. My parents noticed though. I went through a period of anger issues from 13 to 16 years old (when I went to see a therapist who helped me realize what was happening). I had built up anger and frustration in myself that I was rejecting onto my parents. I was going through adolescence and the mix with my bullying was explosive. I was looking for any occasion to have a fight with my parents, even when nothing was going on. To me, they deserved my anger because they didn't understand me, but the truth is I didn't understand myself. I also had anxiety and paranoia (that I still have today to a certain extent, I am still working on it). Crossing a corridor full of people was giving bad anxiety. Any time I could find another way to avoid it, even if it was a whole detour, I would do it. I had the impression that every gaze, every whisper, every laugh was directed towards me. I had the impression that they could scan and notice every single detail of me and make fun of it. And I still feel that way. When I see a group of people laughing, my first immediate thought is "What are they talking about ? What are they laughing at ?" with a bowl in my stomach. I would go on about how my school (like way too many others) have poorly handled the situation, but I think my comment is already long enough. Anyways, when a bullying is reported, please take it seriously and don't tell the kid to suck it up and get used to it. Think about the consequences...

Best talk I've ever heard on bullying I've ever heard. Bravo.

As a kid all I ever heard was how bullies were sad, how they had bad homes lives, how they weren't treated well, but neither was I. I was abused at home and at school, it didn't stop. Children are not supposed to be the emotional, psychological, and physical punching bags for other children. I was their jester, their plaything, from the moment I began preschool to when I left college. In my teens I was sent to a councillor, not to help me deal with my trauma but to shut me up. Nothing was done about the people tormenting me so the councillor, as nice as she was, was useless. Have compassion for my abusers because they don't have friends? They bonded over my torment, they used to hang out together planning what they would do to me? Have love for my abusers because their lives will be sad? All I ever heard was how most of them went on to do well. I watched this vid hoping to find a way to deal with the abuse because I can't access therapy, but this hasn't helped. I'm 40 years old and I'm of the belief that I deserved what happened to me, that I am a disease, a virus, a pollutant that inherently harms other people simply by existing and so all those kids were right to torture me, it was punishment from the universe for my audacity in existing.

I was bullied for many of my young years, however within a friend group where one of them was the auctoritative leader who bullied (especially me). One of my friends in the group once told me that im very sensitive and take everything personally and that the bully was taking advantage of this. for our young age this was very perceptive of him and we're still close friends to this day. however, as he also knows now, this wasn't an excuse. My personality wasn't bad just because it got me bullied. Today I have a different perspective of my years as bullied that has also given me a perspective of my dad. he has always told me that im to sensitive and that i flee from conflict (maybe the reason that my friends' words hit so hard). Lookin at it from my perspective today as I don't have a great relationship with my father anymore but have great friends who are close to their emotions in a very mature way, I wish I could make other people realize that it's okay and even admirable to be sensitve and that leaving destructive relationships for your own good is real strength. It's not fleeing. If you're being told by a bully or abusive parent that you're fleeing it's more likely a sort of manipulation from their side to make you stay in their world under their rules. Everyone's trying to figure out life, even your parents. If your parents company is making you miserable, tell them, and or leave. Just because it's a family member it doesn't mean you have to accept it if they're a bad influence on you and others. this may be easier to take action on if it's someone outside your family but just because it's your family they don't get the privelege to control your life withourt consequence.

Thank you for saying my inner thoughts in lest then ten minutes. I don't have to waste hours on them anymore.

Only when I was adult and left for another town I realised what real friendship was. My two and only friends I had until then were bullies who made me think their behaviour was normal or that I kind of deserved that. Some days they were great but another time they were real bi*ches who would hide my things, leave me alone on purpose or threaten to tell others my secrets. Then they would tell me it was a joke and I don't know what fun is. I've learned not to fight back because it only made things worse and pretended I was happy in front of others. Only when I met other people in my early 20s I realised your friends should not make you fear them and that sharing secret does not mean giving them a weapon to hurt you.

My teachers used pitying and compassion for bullies to excuse their behavior and tell me I was the problem for being affected by it. Rather, I should’ve been flattered since the probably picked on me since I was cute 😡

This is a KZfaq comment, so… reaching out seems ridiculous here. But, hi. This is the first time I have heard anyone admit that childhood bullying could qualify as real TRAMA. As an adult now I have told myself and heard from others that it’s trivial and in the past. Just get over it. This little KZfaq video, under 10 minutes is the first time I have ever heard ANYTHING different. Certainly, people want to stop bullying that is happening currently, but there’s nothing to be done for whatever has happened in the past. It’s far long and done with, it doesn’t matter. And why shouldn’t I believe that? But I still feel like the lessons I learned through those social interactions from bullies apply to ALL people I interact with to this day. Humans aren’t safe. Trust no one but yourself. Goodness is only a tool to manipulate, or embraced by the nieve. It doesn’t matter if I wish things were otherwise or if I have seen proof of the contrary, when years upon years of abuse have abolished the idea of trust. But I should just get over it. They were just sad kids, who didn’t know what they were doing. And it was so long ago, why does it even matter? You’re crazy to be holding onto it for so long. Nobody remembers their childhood the way it happened, you’re just exaggerating… and I’m rambling on a KZfaq Comment. Nonsense. Anyway, I guess what I really mean to say is thank you. I had always felt silly for even wondering if bullying could be considered real abuse. And it’s kinda neat to see there’s at least someone who does.

I had good relationship with our school bullies. Probably it's because I was nice to them, and we managed to become some sort of friends, plus our class was not terribly toxic overall. Until our literature teacher got changed to that lady, an exact copy of Dolores Umbridge. She got along with some students by picking a "clown" in each class, usually a kid who struggled with the subject and already had problems with socializing. She mocked the chosen person to entertain the rest of the class. Two months into this hell classmates started bullying me. The "clown" in other class tried to commit suicide the next month. The principal shrugged it off showing how excellent the teacher's students did on the exams and how many awards this teacher had. I don't read books much anymore. At least not classical russian literature. Never going to touch that again.

I was bullied in primary school mostly for 4-5 grade. I have always been a pretty emotional person. As a kid I often repressed my feelings when other people bullied me. I was also bullied in high school, where my classmates would belittle me and tell me I was worthless. Now as an adult I struggle with my interpersonal relationships. I have never been in a romantic relationship and probably never will. I am not a very sociable person but when an subject interest me I am very talkative. My parents are everything I got but they are busy working so I didn't always get as much attention as I would have liked. In the end the bullying made me a lonely person who feels a lot of anger often and who will probably die alone.

I had a bully that was the worst anybody who knew of it could remember. This was from about 1989-1995, from my 6th grade until graduation from High School. Prior to 1989 he was still mean to me, but I was later told it was because he 'liked me' and it culminated in him asking me out in front of everybody. I thought he was being mean and turned him down cold. He turned that unhealthy attraction behavior into the worst bullying. He vandalized my house, my Mom's car, broke my possessions, spread lies about me, tormented anybody who was nice to me, goaded others into treating me as bad as he did. His parents didn't care about it and routinely refused to do anything about it. The school agreed to not have either of us in the same class but that was all they did. He convinced his friend to fight my older brother to a draw that left both of them bleeding and bruised. It only stopped when I graduated out. And it was so bad my parents considered moving to get away from it, but ultimately didn't. The absolute worst was the knowledge that people would rather be horrible to me rather than tell him to knock it off. He gave them permission to treat me as badly as they could. He dredged up stuff I had done in kindergarten and told people about it. And the school stood by and did nothing. I just wanted somebody at school to believe me. One teacher. One 'counselor'. Somebody. In high school, I made it better by befriending some older kids who weren't impressed that a freshman was trying to start trouble. As long as they were around, he bided his time. But I'd look up randomly and see him watching me. Waiting. He spent his entire public school career following me around to treat me like garbage. I haven't seen him since graduation so I don't know what happened to him. But I got through it, strangely, because I knew it wasn't my fault. I was lonely and raged against the absolute unfairness of it, but I never blamed myself. I knew it had everything to do with how embarrassed he was at asking me out. I don't know if he was asking me out to mock me and it backfired or he just liked me and I hurt him. My Mom once asked me if I was okay with it and obviously I wasn't, but I was secure in the knowledge that he wasn't my problem, he was his own problem. He spent 6 years making my life hell because he couldn't take the embarrassment of being turned down. If I had advice for kids being bullied, it would be to never trust that bully on anything. They will never tell the truth to you. For parents? Seriously consider moving if the bullying is that bad. Better a new school that the hell I went through. If you can't move, change schools. Get away from the bully that knows too much. Start over. Get involved in activities that the bully can't do. Mine was Girl Scouts. He couldn't get into GS due to not being a girl. And yes, he did try. But the direct parental supervision during those times kept him from crossing a line. And the leader did call the police once to explain to him that what he was doing was stalking. Get your kid into counseling because my belief that it wasn't my fault somehow is ludicrously rare in kids. I knew I'd eventually not have him around and I was willing to wait. I did rage about it in private and the best thing my parents did was to let me. They knew it was unfair and they didn't try to pretend it was. They didn't punish me when I broke a baseball bat on a dead tree stump getting my rage out (didn't make a dent in the stump, eucalyptus is rock hard when dead). They just quietly replaced the bat. Take a serious look at your kid and see if there is a reason your kid is being bullied. I was an undiagnosed autistic and this meant I was vulnerable to being 'othered'. Work with them on the social skills they need to get around a bully latching on to them. But realize that once a bully is latched on tight, you can't get rid of them with logic. All you can do is exit their sphere of influence.

I was, from what I can remember (my memories of their exact acts have become fuzzy), bullied mostly verbally, with possibly a pinch of social bullying, from ages 6-10/11 by a group of other boys in my grade. The main thing they did was to shame me for whatever it was I was doing or liking, riling my temper up to a max and then ridiculing said reaction. Had it not been for a quite literal business move (by a stroke of luck, I traded them some fresh muffins in exchange for getting the target off my back), I assume they would've kept at it for who knows how long. Though even after I was technically in the clear, I was still always afraid of getting that target back, which was reflected in my thoughts and actions (through 8th-10th grade especially, which in Norway are the grades in which you go to secondary school). The combination of the bullying itself and the constant fear of it that followed resulted in a multitude of things: In 2nd grade I started eating way less, and I am still underweight today. I also suspect my underweightedness was a factor in how late I hit puberty compared to both family and peers, which further devastated my self image and esteem; My emotions were numbed, as I had to learn not only to control my anger, but also to not give away any joy or sadness I could be shamed for; I developed big trust issues with people around me, as being constantly on guard throughout my first ten years of school had me over-analyze everyone's words and actions to figure out what their "hidden motives" were, which in turn made me very lonely for the rest of my adolescense and earilest 20s due to lacking socialization skills; Huge drops in self image and self esteem, to the point where I often feel like I lost half my teenage years to feeling miserable; And all of these combined caused what I highly suspect was a depression (I say "highly suspect" because I never dared to ask anyone for help or see a psychologist until I, with the great help of my now girlfriend, had basically therapised myself, and because I found that most of the symptoms and experiences lined up with mine through the research I did over the years. I was so frighteningly good at hiding it that even my parents had any idea of how bad it was). For the first many years, I coped with what confidence I gained through playing music, although even that could be easily hampered as I tended to compare myself to my peers. I'd escape into books, make up imaginary worlds and characters, and I gave all my plushies names and personalities (and there were a lot of plushies!). In my last semester of highschool (at the age of 19), I found inspiration in poets from the modernism era, and started writing my own poems about life, my thoughts and feelings, events, etc. This was instrumental in my recovery because, in putting myself to words in a way that others could understand through some analysis, I also put myself into words in a way *I* could understand - which I previously was largely unable to. Just a few months later, I started exploring metal, and quickly found a sense of solace, belonging and comfort in the all-encapsulating sounds and dark, but very relatable lyrics. Finding a place by myself, closing my eyes and listening to it became a temporary relief comparable to what it feels like to cry without feeling ashamed or out of control afterwards. Nowadays I feel much more confident and at peace, due to the work that I, with help, did on myself. However, I still had to learn to essentially trick myself into feeling those muted emotions by almost manually switching them on, and some of the trust issues and old habits (like isolating myself and asking for help) are still around. I don't necessarily view my muted emotions as *just* a bad thing, as it means I'll stay calm, composed and pragmatic in situations where others would have much stronger, inhibiting reactions (which is not to say that curling up and crying isn't a valid reaction), but it means it's easier for others to misunderstand the emotions I convey

I was name called in primary school and middle school. I think it took a great toll on my mental health as I am still continuing to struggle with it.

Honestly, it took me a long time to really register whether I was bullied as a kid or not. It was mainly cyber and social, because apparently, I was "clingy" or something. It was grade 7, and there was a new girl at school. We were friends at first, nothing really happened but I caught her writing notes about me to another girl, I don't remember what it said. I think the social was due to them talking to others and when I would ask them about something they would try to hide it or say something to switch the conversation. I think I just wanted to be wrong so I accepted the weird feeling of being excluded, eventually, there was a group chat with this girl and 2 others. They said that apparently, I was clingy, I needed to go make other friends and that we didn't really click. They called me "shrimp" in this group chat which is actually funny to me because it's stereotypical bullying, but they had used that word throughout the school year so I only assume they were talking about me. I don't remember much but I felt excluded and socially anxious, always assuming people were talking about me, laughing at me, so on. In grade 8 this didn't really continue? I became friends again with another girl from the group chat because she apologized and we knew each other from when we were younger. In grade 8 it was more taking advantage by asking me if she could have a cheese string I had for lunch because I didn't really like them much, around others she said "oh we're friends right?". It was really confusing and one day in grade 8 there was a speaker who came in and talked about some things (religion, afterlife, etc). It ended with some girls crying because they felt bad or touched not sure, but it feels really fake because she came to me and apologized while crying, saying I didn't do anything. A lot has changed since then because I'd like to think I don't care as much about what people have to say about me, it's more internal issues that I need to work out. I still struggled with my mental health, I think that it was always there and this just made it worse? If i keep writing this will be very long, so overall I think what helped me was knowing that this person actually struggles with their own thing now, I got an apology which i know most don't, and just finding friends or people who can uplift you and don't bring you down. Once you have people that make you feel better about yourself, it's a lot easier for you to do that. But i also think you need to work on yourself as well without others, because sometimes they won't be there, and it's important to build up your own self-esteem through other methods then friends validation. If you took the time to read this thank you, i hope you are well (i also watch cinema therapy and i love it), and i did not expect to write this much :)

Hi I came across this video because of cinema therapy's video on severus sneep. I really liked this video. I was bullied at school when I was a kid and I struggled a very long time with it because I believed it was my fault, because, well, because af medical reasons I pissed in my pants far longer than most kids. For me, it was a combination between social and verbal bullying. I was already at an age where I knew it wasn't right to physically hurt someone but I didn't realize what they did to me was wrong. I didn't have any friend then, not at school, not in my volleyball club and not anywhere else, mostly because of the bullying. I didn't really have anyone I could really open up to, except maybe my older sister but she was also just a kid and there were a few years she had it really hard too and I felt like my problems weren't big enough to bother someone who was already having a bad time. I went to a therapist in my last year at that school because my parents sent me (I was twelve). They were afraid that I wouldn't be able to make new friends in my new school (at least that's how they explained it to me). I regret that they only intervened then. Maybe they didn't really know I was bullied because I didn't really talk to them (or anyone) then but I mean, that had to be an indicator. For my first presentation ever, I was even genuinly sick (like puking and stuff) because I was afraid to stand in front of class. I bit my nails because of the stress and I bassicaly read books to forget about the real world. I only went a few times to therapy and we didn't really form a band or anything but she did one thing absoluteley right. She said to me that I was being bullied. Until then I always believed it was relatively normal to happen and that bullying could only be physical. If only someone had told me earlier it would have impacted me far less. Because at that point, even if I knew it wasn't right what they did to me, I still felt like it was my fault. Skip forward a year and I went to a volleyball camp. In the group I was put in I was one of the youngest kids but I was really well liked. So much even that I realized (at last) that it really wasn't my fault and that being in my presence didn't hurt anyone. After that, I still changed a lot of course and I'm still discovering new part in myself but that was really a turning point for me because from then on I could at least look for who I was (which I couldn't before). The last year, I have been struggling a bit with forgiveness. Two of the people that were in my class (they weren't my bullies) came to me to apologize for not doing anything. At first, I wanted to say it was okay and strug it off but then I thought to myself that it wasn't really okay. (Especially for one of them, because there was a period we were pretty close.) I told her that there was a time I blamed her for it, but now I realised that we were both kids and kids make mistakes and I forgave her. If one of my bullies ever comes to me to apologize, I don't know what I'd do but for now I feel like the energy it takes to hate them or even think about them isn't worth it. I am happy now, it certainly doesn't effect me much anymore and I'm glad I overcame it.

I was bullied just about constantly from age 7 to 12, then a new set from 13 to 15. ( _ADD: Should be noted it was Verbal and Physical_ ). It's affected me greatly as almost everything on that list struck true. I've even been mean to people but it never gave me anything to do so, and I would apologize when I saw it was taken personal. This was also always no longer than a moment in one day. Except for the case of mean people having been mean to me first, then my view was they can go eff-themselves. Eye for an eye and all that you know. In the long term, I think what grieves me the most about all my experiences is whenever I am positive, and uplifting, someone or something always comes by drag me back down into reality to show that humanity really is a bunch of asshats that don't deserve kindness. I can never be happy for any particular long time and I see each day as one high point and one low point. I will openly criticize things that are done badly with the bluntness of a crowbar, but I will also praise what is done greatly with amazement. I will argue with people when they are wrong, and I will do what isn't allowed on the internet, apologize when I am wrong. Now the way I've described this makes me feel like a really bad person but, I'm not. It's true I can be a real bastard if you catch me on a bad day or say the worst possible thing to me that instantly makes me flip my shit ( _usually related to mistreatment of other people or animals_ ). Likewise I can be extremely passionate and possessive about fiction which leads me at odds with other people since I believe in the integrity of the work or such while they just want the next cool thing or other stuff that ruins the work instead of enhancing it. But other than that; I am introverted, calm, listens to people, even strangers, listens to friends, support friends even strangers at times. Even called Kind more often than not. While adults around me.. I don't know what, but I rarely get along with adults.. I have problems often with people my own age group because they seem to have this belief in that they MUST act "adult" while I'm just... Me?.. But kids and animals like me. My mum and others have said they probably see the kindness in my eyes or just my calm energy. I've always been around animals growing up and I was effectively a third parent from age 10 when my sisters were born and there were times my mum and stepfather had to do stuff, so I took care of my twin sisters ( _who grew up to be better people than myself_ ). I have a darkness inside me from all my bad experiences in life, but without it, without my pain, I wouldn't be me. I need my pain, to endure life. But... lately.. Due to some surgery stuff.. I find myself just being sick of it all... But that's going beyond this all. I will never forgive my bullies. I can't. I hate them all. They're held down by gravity and always was. All I can do is to stomp on their graves when they die and scream that I am better than what they could ever hope to be. They made their choice. They forced me into being what I never asked for. That's all to it.

I was in fifth grade when I was bullied by all of my classmates, who took advantage of what I personally call my “crybaby trait.” There were two major salts to the wounds… this one kid in my class who was basically THE school bully that no adults were able to control, no matter how hard they tried. And then I had a friend of mine, who suddenly started being mean to me as well. I still don’t understand why she betrayed me other than her family issues at home. The only silver linings from that year were my learning to forgive my friend who betrayed me, and somehow redeeming a name that the school bully is also named (I have an OC who bears the same name as the bully because for some odd reason I couldn’t find a better name when creating him?)

I was bullied for a year in primary school before leaving for high school and I’m now in my early 30s. It sucks and I still remembered part of it vividly. It changed my whole life. I hate group projects and any group settings because of it, so I chose to study in a field that I can work more independently and require less social interactions. I have low self esteem and don’t have much confidence in myself because I was always thinking that there was something wrong with me, that’s why they choose me to be the girl to bully. (Which I later know that’s bullshit, but it hard to turn this part of thinking off when it’s in your system for decades). I don’t like making new friends and can’t seems to get into a romantic relationship because I just don’t trust people much in real life. I started to plan the worse for every scenarios, because one moment they were my best friends and the next they were my worst nightmare. I’m not sure about other school, but teachers in mine didn’t help, the social workers and the teachers just festered the thought of ‘why me and is there something wrong with me’. All the interferes just made it so much harder because I was not just the girl that they like to bullied, I was also the snitch. The worst thing of being bullied for me is never able to figure out why. I don’t care they have or had a shitty background or unhappy life whatsoever, that’s no excuse for doing that to anyone. I don’t care about anything of my bullies now but there is one thing for sure, I would never forgive or pity them, I wish all of them just rot in hell. Well, on the positive side, I’m grateful that I lived though it, that I became tougher and more independent because of it. I accept that it’s part of what happened to me in the past and it makes me who i am. I guess I still have much to work on, but i am ok with it now.

I have big mental (and related physical) health issues and I'm sure the bullying (all forms but cyber. Luckily for me I am to old to have risked that during my school years) I experienced throughout most of my shool years quite surely play a role in that big puzzle, beyond other things. It was super hard, and the teachers pretty much pretended not to see or played it down. Just one random example (an especially bad one): my bullies stripped me naked in the playground (aged about 9-10) just mere meters away from "their spot" and they did not even say a word. Pupils from all grades could enjoy the show. I remember I did not dare to wear skirts and dresses (although I loved them) in summer any more in school and developed a liking for dungarees, because these are harder to get off against your will. The mere fact that I start tearing up just now only thinking back to all what happened tells me it definetly sticked with me until today. In fact, it came up in the last session with my psychiatrist and we agreed to speak about it in our next session. But I know it will be hard. Sometimes I really wonder how I managed to endure all of that daily hell. I sure did not unharmed. There even had been teachers doing very inapropriate things. And thank you for your content. I hope it can reach the right people who can need it and help them or their children.

As an elementary student I was always left out, picked on, shamed, called ugly, deemed as a crybaby because it would hurt to hold back any tears. If any day would've been perfect without me crying it would measure how much I would cry if I did up to 5 times or more the school year it was a "bad year" I wasn't allowed to cry as it was unacceptable for me. I was always someone's last option little did they know I was someone's baby. Little did I know some wanted to kill me As a middle schooler I would always be bullied for my appearance the way I talk. And it was mostly with crushes everyone would get in my business I was to be someone's girlfriend but only as a joke cuz I was too "ugly" everyone avoided me no one wanted me I had no one but my self to lean on. I liked someone but they already had someone she vented on me really bad. I was SEXUALY ASSAULTED by a boy and I would be pressured into SEXUAL ACTIVITY. but I've never said anything. now as a high schooler I just started and the year have just ended school is soon to start again. I can say it was not really really bad but they would gossip about me and would call my ugly but I haven't grown to care. Life will always be traumatizing everyone's life is at least. But you still may have a long life to live or maybe not. But do not beat yourself up let your feelings out and give yourself some love. You deserve love. You deserve a live. You deserve happiness.

I was bullied around the 3rd grade and it was hard for me to report it sense English wasn’t my first language the hurtful things they said to me about me hurt until this day I have no self esteem I self loathe hated school after the third grade ever since I never had pity for my bullies cause of them it’s hard to trust people takes me time to trust someone I’m mentally unstable from depression and anxiety

"take away their ability to hurt you." Ok. Let me know how that works when five guys are kicking the shit out you in the locker room. There is only one way to stop a bully and that's beating the shit out of them until they won't even look at you. People with demonize you for it but you stay strong. The bully is threatening your life. Respond in kind. Show them that you will not be fucked with.

When does bullying tip over into something worse? I feel like when we say "bullying", there's a connotation that leads us to believe that the person's actions aren't that bad. Or that they're easily overcome. I was bullied by someone in my life all through junior high and high school. Someone I once considered to be a dear friend gradually treated me worse and worse. She started with verbal abuse, calling me fat and ugly, telling me that no one would ever want to date or marry me because of my looks, telling me I was overdramatic and annoying. Then she started punching me, slapping me in the hallways at school, pulling my hair, grabbing my fat rolls. Things continued to escalate until one night, while our families were spending time together, she asked if I could sleep over and my parents agreed. She then locked me in a bare storage room in their basement overnight. I was there for 13 hours. She and her older brother also molested me. I have severe PTSD, depression, and issues with my self esteem from my interactions with this person. Whenever people talked about her as a bully, I always felt upset because the things she did to me felt so much worse than a schoolyard bully. So is there a point where someone's actions go beyond bullying into something worse? Or is it just based on age range? What has helped me the most is therapy, medication, and a support network of loving friends and family. I've slowly begun to unravel the tangled emotions I have about the things this person did to me. I've gotten to a place of compassion for her, because I recognize that she hurt me because she felt deeply alone, insecure, and jealous of my friendships and achievements. I have not yet gotten to a place where I can love her. But I have found forgiveness, and that has been healing for me. I'm slowly building up my confidence, but I still struggle with my self image, and I do deal with flashbacks and nightmares fairly regularly. I have an emotional support animal who helps with the nightmares. I hope that I can reach a place one day where I can let go of the pain and fear and hurt I still have.

I was diagnosed with autism in the year 2003 so of course I was the kid that everyone picked on everyone bullied and now as an adult I have us phobia of children every time I see one I want to get as far away as physically possible . I don’t want to be a mom and I’m OK with that but my sister wants to have children and I don’t wanna feel this way when she does how do I move past this?

Wow❤

What does it matter if they'll never experience true love or friendship? They don't know what they're missing, so *they* aren't bothered by it. Same with insecurity: if they hide it from themselves and others well enough, why, they live life as if they aren't insecure. So they'll go through life happy with their form of love and friendship, feeling secure and happy. Even if it's not 'true' love, friendship, security and happiness, as long as they don't know better they'll be perfectly content with it. Exactly what is supposed to be pitiable about this? (Mind, pity is condescending emotion, but if you mean compassion, same question. In addition, it's kinda dangerous to assume that if you love them and are kind to them that their hearts might soften over time. Bullies *will* use that to abuse their victims further)

A beautiful video. I hope it helps many people.

I was bullied from 2nd grade until graduation. Physically, socially and verbally. It had gotten so bad in one case that the police had to step in because I was at serious risk of injury. They were 3 years old then me and throwing rocks some the size of baseballs. The bruising and lumps is what alerted my mom. See, I withdrew at a young age because I was also abused at home my my younger sister and my grandmother. Verbally and physically. So I didn't feel safe at home, or at school or anywhere. Even my teachers bullied me. I was called stupid slow and lazy (now I know that I have adhd) I was singled out in classes, picked on and even made fun of in front of my class. My PE teacher made fun of me for being fat and slow. Nothing new there. I was verbally teased daily about my weight, hair, glasses, clothes... everything about me was all wrong. I would make friends and then they would reject me, I would make more and someone would spread a rumor. I went 2 years without a direct friend. My 1 friend who is still my BFF today had moved and was an hour away and I was alone. That was 6th grade. In 8th grade I made a couple friends. Mostly they were toxic and unhealthy but I was desperate. Then they dumped off as well. I was never good enough. In high school I moved 3 times in freshman year. No friends. I just stopped trying. This is when I had started self harming where Noone could see. By sophomore year I did have some friends. Most of which were toxic. It was my junior year that I because very dangerously suicidal. I made 1 attempt and it did not work, I simply woke up after I had passed out initially. That is when I asked my parents for help. I was brushed off. I was told I just needed a better additude and I seemed fine. I was not fine. I was good at masking. I continued with this until graduating in 2010. I'm 30 years old now. The feeling of never being good enough is still here. The panic everytime conflict occurs is instant. I have extremely bad social anxiety to the point where I get light headed when meeting new people because my heart rate is too high. I won't mention the trauma I experienced after 2010 because it's even more to unload including SA and manipulation. I'm an absolute disaster of a person who has continued to function on the outside for years. Last year I had a mental break down. Now I'm seeing a therapist because vlearly I need help haha

If someone in the friendship/business partner (non romantic) dynamic feels insecure and is pushing those anxieties between two already-close good friends (friend of the friend), and then when it's addressed directly and privately between the two, the one who was anxious and accusatory blows up at the friend for something completely separate that happened between the friend and a relative prior, and tells the friend that their own feelings and perception are "all in your imagination"... Is that gaslighting? What if the anxieties (the conclusions drawn from them) really are untrue? Is calling what it is still gaslighting? I see a lot of content addressing romantic partnerships and interfamily drama or boss/employee workplace dynamics, and these are almost hyperfixated on sexual harassment (because our culture is so Freudian and Godless), but seldom do I see any of this relative to friendships/peers. Trusting God has a plan for everyone and everything, but trying to piece this all back in place in my head because there's still the baffled "WTH?!" to get through.

I'm not sure you will allow this story to be here, but I think it's important that we stop pretending that somehow words and time are enough and that bad people always have some tragic backstory that doesn't excuse but explains their actions. When reality is you are just going to meet bad people in your life who decide that you are going to be their target to keep them entertained. As much as we like the idea that the people who hurt was just mean people who were mean because bad things had been done to them and they would never escape it. And I'm sure there are cases where it is true. But most of it is just because they are bored I was bullied daily until I was 15 practically every single day, and it's not like I don't feel bad for people who get bullied verbally or people posting things online. That's horrible and I wish them the best, I just also wish that I could have traded places because words never really bothered me compared to having to fight to make sure I would get the least amount of injuries on a regular basis, and still got in trouble and yelled at by my teachers for fighting back. "Since if I didn't want to fight then why didn't I come and tell a teacher" and telling them "oh I don't know because last time I did you still held me in detention for throwing the guy who tried to attack me from behind into a wall so he would need to catch his breath to get way from him, then they stabbed me with needles as I was walking home" to which the response I got "Stop lying, I'm sure it wasn't that bad". What did I do to make it end? Well I was already able to sometimes win the fights I got into even against all 4 guys, but I had decided I had enough so I spent an entire summer working out and learned how to fight properly. First day of school I knew I needed to be quick when it started so I sharpened my nails to the point where I was able to make a cut on the big guys forehead so that he would start bleeding, having trouble seeing and getting scared. I broke two noses, sprained some ribs and just generally beat the crap out of 4 guys in front of my entire school. I was even nice in that I told them before they started, that if they just left me alone what happened next could be avoided and they didn't listen. They generally left me alone after that, throwing the occasional insult to which I would would just reply "hows the nose job/ribs". The last time I was ever in a fight I was 18 the big guy wasn't pleased that he hadn't gotten to use his favorite punching bag for a long time after randomly stumbling upon him at a party, he tried to attack me with beer bottle. I saw red, had the bottle in my hand after a few seconds, swept his leg and to be very honest I enjoyed very much pummeling his face hearing him cry out for help that didn't come. I was about to use the bottle until I realized there were people watching and I couldn't have gotten out of that situation without legal consequences. So instead I told him so everyone could hear that this was the final warning, and if he or his friends ever so much as looked at me wrong ever again their best bet would be to end my life because if not I would come at night and end theirs. Guess what, not a single person has ever dared say a bad thing to me ever again much less put their hands on me. There were later situations with people out of town that could have lead into drunken fights where I know it didn't get there because certain people went to the aid of their drunk friend and told them it was not a smart idea to mess with me. Sometimes nice words, and trying to be calm and rational isn't enough, sometimes fear is the greatest weapon you have as a deterrent. And what is important is, I was never in a disagreement with someone later in life who backed off and instead decided to agree with everything I said because they never feared that I might suddenly attack them. I've never been an aggressor, I have never bullied someone else just because I would got bullied. That is the lamest excuse get out of jail free card you can give pathetic people. If you have been bullied you should know how bad it feels and not want anyone else to feel what you felt. Just being attacked for someone elses amusement. But you can be damn straight that at some point I decided that while I will never be the one to start a fight I was no longer scared to end one. And as for their lives, they all went on to lead lives that ranged from the average with the house, wife and two and a half kids, while the guy I'd love to see end up in a place Guantanamo bay to be defiled the way I was when he broke one of my testicles, is the most successful of all of them. Sure he needed daddy's money to get there, but sadly he didn't mess it up.

6:35 hmm is that so. Loveeee😊

I was bullied because I'm disabled. My mum told me it all started when I was in kindergarden at the age of four or five. I can't remember that time. The bulling went on in elementary school. I first told my mum. She told the teachers, they talked to the class (I was isolated by all of them but I was also attackedphysical and verbal by a group boys) but the fact, that the teachers told the class to be nice to me, because I'm not like the other kids made it even worse. So I stopped telling anybody. I learned to show no emotions as soon as I was on my way to school I told myself that to feel means to be weak. When I came home crying I punished me for beeing weak and for crying. The bulling stopped in the last year of highschool. Thats 17 years ago now I got therapy and learned to accept my feelings but my body still tenses when I see a group of teenagers talking and looking in my direction, I kind of get prepared of beeing bullied. If I talk to other people about it, and that I feel kind of traumatised they often tell me I am to sensitive and bulling is part of a normal students life.

I am not really sure this is true for every type of bully. Maybe for some but in my experience there is a point when there is people (happy or not) joining in because it looks like fun. I had at least half of my respective class bullying me in 3 different schools and from what I can tell most of them seem to have managed to sustain quite stable relationships/friendships throughout the years (I live in the same area I grew up in and everyone knows everybody’s business around here, if you want to or not 🙈).

God bless you for being there and making this content

She seeing someone with BPD hopefully she doesn't use him or try to get him to kill himself like they tried with me. Bullying is terrible when egged on by evil people.