From the time I first started school all the way through ninth grade (and afterward, but to a lesser extent) I was bullied really severely. By the time I was in second grade I was convinced that I was worthless and completely unlovable. I've been told that what I endured was emotional abuse. I'm 23 now and it still affects the way I think and act. I feel kind of alone in this because nobody ever talks about this kind of thing when the topic of abuse is brought up, and sometimes I feel like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, even though I know I'm not. So I was just wondering, has anyone else been through this and it still greatly affects them?
Hi. I was quite short and small when I was going though high school and was definitely pushed around a lot. When I look back I think how amazing it is how cruel kids can be to each other. I have to admit that I did feel the effects for quite sometime and things that happen to us when we are young to make a big difference.
Where you also hit by other kids or was it verbal?
It was pretty much just verbal--what kids said and how they acted and stuff--but I did have stuff thrown at me more than once. I distinctly remember pencils and stones, although there might have been other things.
I have been bullied in school and later in life. It certainly does affect one at the time of the bullying and later on. After I lost my dad when I was 8, we moved. I had to change schools. I put on weight. Some of the kids on my bus and neighborhood would pick on me and constantly call me fat a$$. I finally had enough and went to the principal's office. Those kids and my mom were called to the office also. They stopped after that. Later in lief I have been bullied by a few people online. I just ignored them as much as possible and did not respond to anything they sent me. Eventually they left me alone and went on to torment someone else. It's sad that there are people who9 do this to others. They have problems of their own and this is one reason why they bully others. The best thing I have found to do is ignore them if you can. If you have to, report them to an authority whoever that may be.
See, the "ignore them and they'll stop" thing never worked for me. As a matter of fact it ended up backfiring on me at one point. And I didn't know how to stand up for myself or that it wasn't okay for kids to be treating me the way they were. Anybody I did tell brushed it off.
allison - i am 24, and have been abused. never did i get a bruise on my skin, but the emotional abuse i was put through aided in my development of depression, anxiety, and ultimately an eating disorder.
i remember thinking, maybe i will get help if he just hits me... then i have real evidence that i'm in trouble...
i can't express enough to you how much i know what you're going through... there are so many problems out there that go unnoticed because society operates on images (so to say). meaning, if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.
you're in the right place... we notice, feel it, and are here to help.
Maybe on the outside people like us do not look abused, or maybe we can see photos of a kid who was physically beaten and say, "Whoa, we didn't have it bad at ALL!" But we have to validate our own emotions and say, "Yes, that DID happen to me, and yes it still hurts!" We have to remember that every time we tell ourselves that we are making mountains out of mole hills, we are siding with our abusers and reinforcing the idea that it was OK for them to do this to us and we deserved it for whatever reason.
I am still recovering from the emotional abuse of my father, and I am finally starting to make sense of it. It absolutely sucks to process it and to tell people about it because we DON'T have scars to show, and we DON'T have bruises, and we don't have broken bones. We just have our memories and our feelings... and sometimes it's hard to explain why something that happened x amount of years ago is still bothering us. "Just get over it" or "put it behind you" really doesn't work.
Our abusers most likely wanted us to feel insignificant, unworthy, unloved, so that they could continue to treat us so. It's our job to believe that we can be significant, lovable, and worthy! But even as I say this, there's that voice that questions if I really am.
I'm glad you wrote about this, because I know there are a lot of people who feel a lot of pain but brush it off because they don't think people will "get it."
thank you for your replies. it helps in a small way to know that i am not alone. there are many components to the whole thing, stuff besides the bullying, and i am so good at trivializing things. i have a great new therapist and am working really well with her and have been talking about some of this stuff, but it's really hard.