Imagine walking into a room filled with mockery, pointing fingers, and cruel laughter - all directed towards you. It hurts to have to deal with this every single day. Sadly, every 7 minutes, a child is bullied. Yet, in about 85% of reported cases, no one steps in to help. Because of the lack of support, many victims of bullying develop mental problems that disrupt their flow of life. Bullying can cause short-term and long-term mental effects, as well as academic problems.
To begin with, some mental effects are immediate, meaning that they develop as the victim is being bullied. Low self-esteem and low self-confidence are just some of the many troubling problems that bullying victims face. Kids lose their self-confidence and self-esteem when they hear negative comments coming from other children. It’s hard to just block them out, so they take it to heart…and it has devastating consequences. For example, you are in gym class when you overhear snippets of conversation coming from a group of girls, who are known for tormenting others. Upon further inspection, you realize that they are talking about you. They laugh at how your clothes are “outdated” and “not fit for a girl like her.” You are extremely hurt, but if you say anything to them, they’ll just tease you even further. So your solution? You believe them. You put yourself down every day, just because of something that someone else said. By doing this, you are slowly joining the staggering 21% of bullying victims who deal with low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence.
Additionally, many of the mental problems caused by bullying are long-term, meaning that they develop over a period of time and will have lasting effects. Depression and anxiety are some of the most commonly seen mental problems due to bullying. Depression happens when bullies say cruel remarks to a victim, causing them to lose their sense of self-image. They end up being ashamed, or isolate themselves from others. Kids develop anxiety when bullies destroy the victim’s self-confidence. Those victims live in fear of being targeted again, causing them to miss out on important moments in their lives. Picture this: you and your cousin go to the same school, but there’s one problem. He’s friends with the bullies. The crowd of popular kids. The group who relentlessly torment those who “don’t meet their standards.” Because of this, you tend to stay in the shadows, but that’s exactly who they target. After a grueling day filled with attacks and insults, all you want to do is crash on your bed and cry your eyes out. But just your luck, you have a party to attend, and your cousin will be there. You somehow manage to convince your parents to let you stay at home, just this one time. But once turns into twice, and soon enough, you’re skipping school all together. Due to the bullying that you have endured, you are a part of the 16% of students suffering from anxiety who missed school to avoid bullies. But thankfully, only 12% of bullying victims were too depressed to show up to school.
Furthermore, bullying can take a toll on a student’s academics. When a child is bullied in school, grades don’t matter to them anymore. All they worry about is when the next attack from their bully will be. Missing school, plummeting grades, and lack of concentration are all signs that a student is being targeted by bullies. Imagine walking into school, expecting a normal day. You sit down in your classroom, but suddenly hear whispers coming from the back of the class. You turn around to see your classmates giggling and pointing at you. You turn back around and face forward, humiliated. Once the bell rings, you sprint out of there as fast as you can, hoping that it will all be over. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Over the next week, you get pushed around by people you called friends, and insulted by classmates who you thought you could trust. Your grades drop drastically, because is there really a need to worry about school when you have bullies monitoring your every movement? You can’t seem to care in any of the classes that once brought you joy, and you fake being sick just so you don’t have to face your classmates. One day, you hit your breaking point. You quietly escape from the cruel realities of your school, and don’t return. Rumors spread like wildfire, but you couldn’t care less. There was now way you could ever go back there. If you had taken 10 students, you would have been the only one to drop out of school due to bullying.
Think of a child as wet concrete. If you write something in it, it’s permanently etched into it. Kids are the same way. Say the wrong thing, and it could scar them for life. But not all these scars are on the surface. Some affect children on the inside, which can lead to mental problems, both short-term and long-term. These “invisible scars” also lead to trouble in academics. But it doesn’t matter what type of bullying children face. All the effects are equally horrible, and they can tear a family apart. So join me, and let’s end bullying. One step at a time.
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