Bullying at any age can leave deep emotional scars

When we hear the term ‘bullying’ we might initially think of children or young people. Bullying can affect anyone at any age, and bullying in adolescence can continue to affect someone into adulthood. We hear from Alexander about his experience with bullying.

Contrary to popular expectation, my experience with bullying rarely (if ever) left me with physical scars or bruises. I wasn’t pushed, kicked, or punched. In fact, with very few exceptions, nothing physical was ever done to me. However, that’s not to say that bullying didn’t leave me with scars that run so deep that I worry they may never heal.

We often see bullying in these black and white ways, but it comes in many forms. Whispers and rumours spread behind your back; the silence that falls when you enter a room; being ignored and forgotten; all these experiences speak to an insidious side of bullying that is no less harmful – which doesn’t stop in childhood. In both experience and effect, bullying is a lifelong phenomenon with disastrous effects.

My experience with bullying began in primary school. I was living with undiagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), likely somewhere on the autism spectrum, and a sheltered home life with an overbearing and emotionally abusive mother. It was a perfect storm, and I soon became known as the “weird kid” who matured much slower than my peers. I had few friends, if any; I lived squarely in my imagination, I talked to myself, and sought attention in all the wrong ways. I didn’t realise I was being laughed at; I just thought I was funny.

Even the teachers were bullies, and I’m often reminded of that line in Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” where Roger Waters sings of abusive teachers and “dark sarcasm in the classroom.” Far from defending me, the teachers joined in with the laughter.

It continued through secondary school. On my first day, I overheard someone from primary school say, “don’t bother with him, he’s weird.” The day got worse from there; at lunchtime, with nobody to talk to, I sat next to a group of older girls because it was the only free seat I could find. I kept my eyes on my lunch tray. I didn’t want to interact. And, when one said, “um, who are you?” I responded with six words no 11-year-old should ever feel the need to say:

“Nobody you would like to know.”

– Alexander

Such was secondary school. I found a few friends, and I lost them. I never really fitted in. There were long periods when I’d spend my lunchtimes completely alone, walking the corridors in laps. I was ignored and ostracised, too “weird” to bother with. I’d hear people whispering about me, and I kept to myself. All the while, those six words from my first day festered inside me like a parasite. They became my core self-belief, uncovered only through therapy – a self-belief that lives so deep within me that I don’t know if I’ll ever separate myself from it.

“I don’t matter.”

Despite the evidence, despite the loving relationship I have with my fiancée, despite the few friends I have now, I always return to that same self-belief. Far deeper than any physical scar that bullying could’ve left in me, this emotional scar has never truly healed. I worry that it never will.

The bullying eventually lessened in school, but continued in other ways. I had a group of friends who, unbeknownst to me, mocked me behind my back for over a decade. I discovered the truth, and those old wounds opened afresh. My mother, an abusive woman who bullied my dad until the end of his life, also bullied me every second at home. In the workplace, I was hypervigilant for any act of bullying, often making me reserved and paranoid. It’s a facet of my ADHD – rejection sensitive dysphoria, where I’m constantly seeing rejection and being forgotten where there may be nothing of the sort.

My point is to highlight this: that no matter where it takes place – whether school, work, or at home – bullying remains the same. Its name might change – abuse, harassment, and so on – but the act and its ramifications remain the same, and only the ages of the bullies and the bullied change with time. We must, as a society, stop seeing bullying as only a childhood phenomenon, and accept the fact that bullies exist at all ages. And, like abuse of all kinds, bullying leaves emotional scars that can lead to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideation, and long-term damage to our self-esteem. I’m proof of this fact.

I still believe, in my heart, that I don’t matter. Bullying did that to me. I will, until I find a way to heal, return to that belief in my darkest moments, and I will be cast back to that frightened, lonely, depressed little kid who only wanted to truly matter to somebody. I didn’t deserve that; nobody does.

– Alexander

We must have open, honest conversations with our children about bullying. Some kids may view it as only a bit of fun and banter, but they need to be educated about the lifelong impact that bullying can have on people. We need to stress the seriousness of treating others with kindness, no matter how “weird” or different they may seem. Too many children and adults alike experience bullying, and we must be aware of the signs. Through education, compassion, and vigilance, we can minimise the effects that bullying has on a person. Nobody deserves to believe that they don’t matter.

Please, don’t let another person feel the way that I do.