Bullying is the intentional act of doing something to someone or a group of people in order to make them feel sad or unhappy . These acts can occur both verbally and physically .
Have we ever heard of the “prey” and “hunter” system?
In many fairy tales that we have heard as children, whether it is about a “wolf” being hunted by a “sheep” or a “rabbit”, have we ever thought that these things that we have read as bedtime stories may have instilled something in us until we grow up, until it becomes normal?
If one day the story that gives us a moral or a lesson is a story about someone chasing us, would it still be able to be used as a bedtime story?
The issue of bullying has been around since we were children until now.
To give us a clearer picture, bullying behavior can be divided into 4 types:
- Physical bullying is the intentional use of force to make the other person sad or hurt, such as hitting, punching, or throwing things at someone. Think back to when you were a child. When you were a student and had a crew cut, did you ever get slapped on the head by a friend, senior, or teacher and feel bad? Or when your mother braided your beautiful hair before you left the house and a naughty friend pulled on your hair until you felt a throbbing headache? If we have experienced this, it means that we have been bullied.
- Mentally, it is bullying that uses behavior and intentional expression to make the opposite party sad and hurt. For example, things that are often seen in the workplace are being unfriended, being forced not to talk to others, pretending to ignore or not seeing them, or what we have heard of being banned from a group. The victim will be separated from that workplace, making each day’s work full of suffering.
- Verbal bullying is using words and intentional expressions to make the other party feel sad or hurt, such as making fun of parents’ names (this happened often when we were students), or it could be mocking, taunting, sarcasm, or cursing to cause damage to the other party, such as in the workplace, some people are exposed for their mistakes at work, or the boss likes to be sarcastic and sarcastic to subordinates in front of other people, etc.
Some people might think, we just said this, are you going to say that we are bullying? That’s not right. Don’t forget that we are all different. Each person has different serious or sensitive issues. Many times, some words that we think are minor can hurt someone’s feelings.
- Online bullying is using the online space through various social media. For example, typing messages to curse or digging up someone’s past stories to make them funny or embarrass them, etc.
We have probably heard the words “tour down” or “break”, right? When one person sets off a firecracker and starts typing messages to curse the victim, there will be many people who like it or are ready to bully, following suit. Everyone will gang up on the victim with vulgar words, slander, and hurt the victim’s feelings through the keyboard. Whether it is cursing the person or the parents of that person, there will be tags on various social media channels for other people to gang up on that person as well.
Now, online bullying has become one of the top channels that is a problem in society. We see news of suicides of famous people such as celebrities and actors abroad who have ended their lives because they could not handle being bullied.
So how do we deal with bullying?
Even though we ourselves do not want to bully anyone, we ourselves cannot prevent others (who do not wish us well) from bullying us. In this article, we will definitely not talk about predators (those who want to bully) because they probably feel powerful enough to bully others. But we will increase knowledge, understanding, and build confidence for everyone who is currently a victim of bullying, about how we should handle our situation.
Don’t try to find the answer to the question “Why us?”
We may not need to find reasons why we are being bullied if it does not help the situation. Remember that no one deserves to be bullied, so don’t find reasons why you have to go through these things.
People who bully us may do these things because they are not getting the attention, the love, the acceptance, or the care that we get. They may feel insecure and need a sense of power, so they engage in bullying behaviors to get attention.
Sometimes, the reason why we get bullied is because we may be the most interesting, talented, and popular person there. That’s why we become easy targets for bullying.
The simple reason why people bully someone is because of “jealousy”.
A simple reason to bully someone might be because of jealousy. It’s not hard to think of an example, right? If we’ve ever watched a TV show that your mom puts on during dinner, we’ll see that people hate each other and hurt each other just because of jealousy. (Our TV shows often show scenes of bullying.)
If we are being bullied by someone or have been bullied before and accidentally think that we are the one who is at fault and deserve to be bullied, then please change your mindset right now because
“We did nothing wrong. We didn’t deserve to be bullied. And no one deserves to be bullied.”
How to cope when we are being bullied
First of all , if they don’t come in a group and surround us like in a drama, it is recommended that we just walk away. Don’t waste time arguing or doing anything useless. Or if we want to try talking to these people, we must respond confidently, do not hesitate, do not let the other party see that we are weak, do not express feelings in the same direction as these people want.
“Don’t respond in the way they want, unless you want it to happen again. And this is not a threat.”
If it’s not physical abuse, just stay calm. Focus on what he’s saying or doing to make you feel bad. And always think that if these things hurt you, they’ll get what they want. And then there will definitely be a second time, and a third time.
But if it is physical abuse, find a way to escape before getting hurt. Ask for help from your superior, supervisor, or call the police immediately.
Be prepared for the next time . No one wants to be a victim forever, right?
Therefore, we must always be prepared. If we are inevitably bullied next time, we should control our emotions as best we can. Try to remain silent about those people’s actions. A worse way to respond than going up to them and punching them in the face is to try to collect all the evidence, whether it’s audio recordings, video recordings, or photographs, to send to your supervisor, supervisor, teacher, or police.
Don’t do these things if you are being bullied.
As I said at the beginning, never blame yourself. Never hurt yourself or let yourself have a miserable life because you think that if these people see it, they will stop bullying you. These are behaviors that we absolutely must not do.
Remember, if we do that, it means we give them what they want, they (the ones who bully us) will be pleased and will never stop bullying us. If the bullying is severe enough to cause physical harm, try to avoid going anywhere alone, stick to groups of people and never respond with fighting or violence.
Don’t forget to heal your emotional wounds.
After going through a difficult time, some people may think that they are fine and are glad that they made it through. Some people may say that the bullying did not affect them mentally.
But whenever we are repeatedly bullied, our mental state may deteriorate without our knowing it. Try to give yourself time to be calm, think carefully and examine your mind well. Tell yourself that everything will be okay. Try to find someone you trust and feel comfortable telling them what happened. Don’t try to keep everything to yourself. Or you can choose a popular method that psychiatrists often recommend, which is writing to vent and release everything through writing a diary. This method is another good way to heal yourself.
Remember, don’t be the person you hate.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you don’t want to be hunted, then become a hunter?”
Sometimes when we have to face severe suffering, we may unconsciously become the person we hate. Since we cannot defeat the person who bullies us, we take out our anger on the person who can be our victim instead. But this kind of thinking is wrong. We do not want this to become a “vicious cycle”, do we? Please remember the bad feelings we have received and remember not to let anything change us to become the person we hate.
Conclusion
If we are victims of bullying behavior, don’t abandon yourself. Let’s stand up and fight in a different way from those people. We are not unlucky, we are not bad, but we are good and perfect in our own way.
Please don’t hate yourself. Don’t feel bad because of those people’s words or actions anymore. Because that’s not what we want. But it’s what the people who bully us want.
Even though we may feel like the whole world is abandoning us, and everyone is indifferent to our suffering, remember that we must live, to eat our favorite meals again, to visit beautiful places again, to work or do what we love, or to be with the people we love, or to meet many wonderful people.
We must honor ourselves, appreciate ourselves, and love ourselves a lot because no one can do this duty better than ourselves.
