I welcome you to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. One of the things that leaves a scar is bullying. Whether cyberbullying or physical bullying, they both have a way of coming back to haunt those that have suffered from them, and their marks never seem to go away. People say time heals all wounds, but it is not always like that when it comes to bullying (online or offline); many people who suffer bullying don't heal from it. They have to deal with it daily, and almost everything that has to do with bullying reminds them of the experience. Many who suffered bullying do everything in their power to make sure someone else does not have to deal with such a thing because the trauma feels like something one has to deal with for the rest of their lives.
I have seen people get bullied both offline (physically) and online (cyber) and how that bruises their ego; it takes a lot of therapy and a lot of effort for one to recover from a bullying experience. The movie industry tries to explain to us and portray how bad bullying can be in the movies, and we actually underrate it or make it look small, but it is even worse than the movies portray it to be. Sometimes the movies portray that one can recover from the experience of getting bullied, but the truth is that it is not as easy as they portray it to be.
Bullying, in layman's terms, can be defined as a situation where one picks on the other; often, for it to be considered bullying, it has to happen more than once. That means the bully has to come at their victim repeatedly, and that way the trauma runs deep and the knives cut deeper; it can be calling their victims names, insulting them, or even going as far as hitting them. The bully tries to humiliate their victim at every given opportunity and make them feel less of themselves or more like they have no worth at all, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to recover from bullying because once you lose your self-esteem and your confidence, it takes a lot of effort to get it back, and that is exactly what the bully aims at.
I have experienced bullying, but it did not go on for long. In my JSS1 I had a classmate who was already about 19 years old while I was about 11. He was so big and feared in my class, almost everyone avoided crossing his path. He had people he always picked on and threatened to buy him things, or else he would beat them up, and at some point he wanted to extend the same treatment to me, but I immediately reported to my father, who did not hesitate to act. He came to school with military men and warned Denis to stay away or face his wrath, and that was how he stayed clear of me.
One of his victims I still talk to always talks about how she feels when she talks to our classmates that saw those things happen, and for that reason she avoids talking to them because it makes her have suicidal thoughts and wish she could turn back the hands of time so she could fight back. Bullying is one thing that does not go away; everything that reminds you of the experience is a threat to your mental and emotional health.
Both cyber and physical bullying do the same harm and harm an individual in the same manner (emotionally, mentally, and physically); none should be treated with more urgency than the other. Rather, both should be treated equally and seen as the silent killer they are.
