Bullying

I am going to start to dive in to the bullying I have experienced. Of course it is stirring up some unpleasant feelings. I have been reading articles most of the day about the effects of bullying. Next I want to read about how to heal from it. But at least for now I feel like some of my feelings have been validated.

Has anyone worked on the own bullying experiences? How have the outcomes been?

I'm not sure if it's something I should work on as as never experience physical side of bullying, I just know I have been called lot of names during my schools years, and i was always picked on, laughed at and made fun about, even for little things, not sure if it can be called bullying, or just teasing. But I do think it affected me in some ways, especially the way I see myself. I do have some unpleasant feelings just thinking about it and my therapist seems to think there might be some wounds there. I definitely think it affected my life I just always thought I was maybe too sensitive. I'm not sure how or if to heal from it, as I don't even remember it all, I remember few experiences, but mostly I just know that kids didn't like me and call me names but nothing specific so I don't kno if it means anything

I want to work on the bullying I've experienced with my therapist but I am afraid to.

nope i never did, i think my parents emotional abuse did more harm to be long term than bullying did. so thats what i am working on

The emotional abuse/bullying can be much worse than physical some times. I was bullied by kids and teachers. Then I was forced to play on the same sports teams as my bully. I just could never get away. Then I would go home and have an older sister who picked on me. It is no wonder I try to isolate.

I talked about my bullying experience as a kid with both of my therapists. Just mentioned to one of them but I really wanted to work with it with the other one. I got quite discouraged because, for some reason, he did not seem to acknowledge the significance of it even when I repeatedly said that that was pretty much "the" traumatic experience of my early life, and it affected me in many ways long-term. He was more interested in looking for difficult experiences and lasting effects around my parents, where there was little compared with that bullying that characterized my life off and on in the first 10 years. I found it very odd that a T would not be interested in that but did not push it.

Maybe because the real question (at least from what I gather) is what your parents did or did not do both to directly help you deal with the bullying and further still, to have shaped / nurtured you in ways that you could / couldn't protect yourself from the bullying?

Similar stuff with other sorts of abuse and so on -- Ts care about what happened but more so about the responses of primary caregivers and what led to the child being in that position in the first place. As a stark example, if a child never mentions what happened at school to the primary caregivers, that's a huge red flag. And, so on.

Ah! This is exactly why I've always been hesitant to go into it in therapy. I'm worried that it will be minimised, and that I'll then feel like an idiot for being so deeply wounded by it.

To answer OP's question - it's something I've talked about in therapy a little bit. I certainly can't say that I've worked through it, though. Not even close. I am aware that it really, really messed me up and that the effects of it will likely be with me for the rest of my life.

Thanks for the comment. Yes, all that is true. But I think it's far from only the primary caregivers that affect a child's development, yes they have outstanding roles, but the larger environment and peer relationships are extremely important as well, and dismissing the direct emotional impact of those things (that parents often don't even see directly) is ignoring something central. For example, in my case, that bullying experience has seriously impacted how I approach socializing and my relationships with many people. That was, I think, the major factor that contributed for me to become a generally fairly reserved and emotionally armored person, affected my body image, self esteem, made me become very suspicious of certain kinds of people, and a lot more. Of course how my parents contributed to the fact that it could happen in the first place and how did not help make it stop, or how I did not seek help from them in the first place, are other important elements of the issue. I think all this is very real and important to look at.

So what does it mean if the child doesn't mention anything to parents?
I think you're right, my T also asked me what parents did or didn't do but I don't even think I told them much. I think the message from them and others was pretty much that I'm fat and that's why I get picked on, so I don't think was seeking help from them because it was all my fault and something was wrong with me. Maybe it could've turned out different if I had someone to stand up for me, protect me or tell me something different

I haven't talked about it in detail, but my T does know about it.

In my case, I did not get my parents involved unless it was unavoidable because they were never particularly supportive / interested in negative emotional issues. Also because the bullying (kids picked on me about my weight) was caused by the consequences of my mother's behavior. Feeding us excessively was her way to express affection and care, so both my dad and I were overweight and she did not see how that was wrong, would actually get angry when confronted or asked not to give us food all the time, far beyond necessary, and refused to acknowledge that I was overweight. Also, before age 10 I thought my weight was a given and could not be changed, and thought that I just had to endure the bullying or ignore it. I changed it myself when I was 10 and started on a drastic diet to lose the weight, which led into many years of struggles with eating disorders, that my parents knew of but just reprimanded me about occasionally and did not even think of helping. The whole thing caused so many issues, including that I still have hard time asking people for help, I had that with my therapists as well. It's not my parents attitude that caused me the most direct emotional pain and struggles though but the actual bullying, other kids behavior. Of course it's all related.

Thank you for sharing. I just thought it was interesting that it's considered a red flag when child doesn't mention anything to parents. Your story sounds very similar to mine, although mine is probably the lighter version. I never developed an eating disorder and I didn't even think it was a problem until recently when I realize that my main life goal has been to lose weight and not to get fat and it's kind of upsetting to me now just thinking how it could all be different.
Have you talked about bullying in therapy?

Bullying can be very serious. In psychology, the effects of bullying can be called relational trauma and some think that it is complex PTSD.

Here's a site on complex PTSD

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...nce-adult-ptsd

I'm not sure how much bullying you face nowadays but I would never use the phrase bullying to describe it - use the phrases 'physical abuse', 'emotional abuse', 'abusive' or 'aggressive' and never use the word bullying. With any T worth their salt it won't matter but in conflict resolution it makes a difference.

In terms of the past bullying itself my main concern would be in discussing insidious stuff. With the physical the bruises and bones heal, but the emotional scars are harder and with insidious stuff like narcissism even more difficult.

I'd ensure that your T has the attention to detail to understand when you are referring to physical abuse, emotional abuse, isolated incidents or ongoing stuff. Particularly if you have faced narcissists (very common in adult bullying) this attention is important in dealing with it.

With one T in college I mentioned one isolated incident from school and, even though I clearly said it was isolated, he just couldn't get out of his stupid little head the notion that I had been beaten on a regular basis in school. Completely infuriated me and interfered with the sessions. Contrast that with one great T I had - discussing another incident where I'd been threatened physically in school she asked specific questions like 'Did bullying happen often in your school?' and established the context of the incident and the environment. My bullying was mainly emotional abuse and infrequent to intermittent and i was breath of fresh air hearing her understand that. Part of my healing was from discussing things with her, part of it was just the tools I picked up to beat anxiety. These days sometimes kids try and take the p**s out of me when I'm out and about and I've learnt how to walk away without caring - it's not enough to just go 'I won't personalise it', you have to learn how to own that and to do that as a consequence of beating anxiety.