Bullying, Repression, and Healing
I saw his face pop up from the seat in front of me.
“Well, what do we have today?”
I remained silent. The bus, far from being brand new, jumped and rattled violently with every little bump in the road it passed over. I clinched onto my lunch box tighter and stared out the window, pretending I hadn’t heard anything.
Not accepting that answer, he slid into the open spot next to me and asked again:
“What’s in there for me today?”
I continued to stare. My friend, sitting across the aisle from me, was equally silent. The bus continued to rattle uncontrollably as we sped past cars and houses.
“Nothing?”, he asked again. This time he took my arm and began to twist it. I still tried to ignore it but the burning sensation became too much. I yanked my arm away, turned to look him in the face, and handed him my lunch box.
Like a greedy pirate his face lit up and he began to unzip every pocket he could find. After scouring frantically like a starving dog, he finally found what he was looking for. From the lower compartment of the lunch box he hoisted his grand prize – a tiny Little Debbie cake I had saved from lunch.
Satisfied he threw the lunch box back in my lap and returned to his seat.
“My favorite! Thanks bud. Remember to bring one next time.”
This was my ride home from school nearly everyday for a year. Tormented by a kid I didn’t even know outside of those bus rides from school. A bully who, to this day, I can’t even remember his name. One day, he found out I kept treats for after school in my lunch box and he decided it’d be easy to intimidate me out of them. My only interactions with this kid was being bullied into giving him my lunch box. It was all a transaction to him. One that’s still affected me today.
Bullying is one of those topics that seems to be brought up a lot but discussed very little. It feels like every school has some sort of anti-bullying program or “bullying prevention week”, but few people tend to talk about their real-life experiences of it. It can create an isolating world where bullying starts to sound like a cliche when brought up, but feels like a living nightmare on the inside to those who’ve experienced it.
I know what it’s like to be bullied and countless others do too. One out of every five students say they’ve been bullied, 50% of teenagers say they’ve been cyberbullied before, and nearly 70% of students say bullying has negatively impacted the way they feel about themselves.
Bullying is not a light manner. It’s not a cliche. Regardless of how many times we may have heard it brought up in class or after-school programs – it is real and the people who have experienced it carry real pain.
The silence may be broken in public, but it’s time we break the silence in our own hearts.
For years after that bully on the bus in 6th grade, I didn’t think about any of it again. Not because it didn’t impact me, but because it was too painful to think about. If I accepted the fact that I was bullied then what did that say about me? I thought it meant I was weak, less of a man, and unimportant. If someone could treat me like less-than-nothing, then what did that say about my self-worth?
So for years I didn’t think about it. I did the opposite. I repressed it. Life went on and I began to live out of the lies bullying had impressed on me. If I was weak then I had to appear strong, so I started putting up walls around my heart and let no one in. If I was less of a man then I had to appear more macho, so I fell into objectification and temptations of the flesh. If I was unimportant then I had to appear important, so I chased popularity and the approval of others. Unbeknownst to me, even though I thought bullying had no effect on me, the way I lived my life was directly impacted by how that bully treated me.
It wasn’t until nearly 11 years later that I began to realize where those lies came from. I was already out of college and started to reflect on what I wanted in life. I realized that a lot of the things I did, the ways I acted, stemmed from these beliefs I had about myself. Where did these beliefs come from? It came from the lies I had come to believe about myself as a result of being bullied.
Thus began a process that, if I’m being honest, is still ongoing right now. A process of renouncing the lies I believed and healing from the wounds that bully inflicted. The crazy thing is I thought everything was always fine. For bullying to make lasting impacts on my life, those had to look big and dramatic, right? And I didn’t have any of “those problems”, so everything must be fine, right?
But it wasn’t until I stopped to think about why I constantly looked for the approval of others or why I was self-conscious about the way that I looked that I realized it all stemmed from lies. Lies I had come to believe because of the way I’d been treated by that bully.
Even as I walk in the midst of this journey I can already say it’s a liberating one. One of the most healing things we can do is open up our past hurts to the healing they deserve. The healing we deserve as children of God. The healing of a Divine Physician.
The wounds bullies can inflict on us aren’t just physical, they can also go deeper.
I want to encourage you right now. If you’ve been bullied at any point in your life – 11 years ago or 1 month ago – don’t run away from it. Don’t repress it and pretend it didn’t happen. These wounds run deep, even if we feel like that was forever ago and it doesn’t affect us today. Just as ignoring a physical wound can lead to greater trauma, ignoring the wounds left on your heart is denying yourself the right you have to heal.
Here are some suggestions to help you open up that wound to healing:
- Find God in Your Past
It’s painful to revisit old memories. The ways we felt and the hurts we endured are something we don’t ever want to feel again. But the truth is that we will continue to feel the pain from these memories throughout our lives until we address them.
A helpful point of guidance I received is to invite God into your memories. In times of prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember key moments from those times of bullying. Certain moments that had a significant impact on you. As you reflect on these experiences ask Jesus to show you where He was at that moment. God is so loving and He is present even in our hurts. Sometimes asking Him where He was when we hurt the most can bring so much healing into those memories.
The key, though, is to allow time for God to respond. Ask and then sit in the silence. He will speak.
- Talk About Your Experience with a Friend
Secrecy is one of the most fatal prisons we can lock ourselves in. The more we keep our struggles in the dark, the more we begin to believe we’re alone. The devil wants us to keep our struggles a secret so that he can continue to whisper lies to us and keep us oppressed. But the devil is weak and when we bring our pains to the light he flees.
There is so much power in sharing our struggles with someone we trust. This can be a close friend, a sibling, a parent, a spiritual director, a therapist, or someone similar. So many people can feel like they’re carrying a heavy burden and, when they start to talk about it with someone else, have immediately felt the weight lifted off their shoulders.
If bullying is something you’re going through right now or even if it’s something you went through years ago, talking about your experience with a trusted person can start opening up that hurt to a hand that can heal.
- Don’t Repress, Feel
We are our own worst critics. We can put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect and not feel anything we think we shouldn’t. When we start to feel angry or sad we may begin to accuse ourselves. “I shouldn’t feel that way. It’s not a big deal. I just need to get over it.”
The truth, though, is that there’s nothing wrong with feeling. You’re allowed to feel angry or sad or dejected. When we condemn ourselves and our feelings we sometimes suppress critical data. If you feel sad or mad then there’s probably a reason. What is that reason? It may be from a deep hurt you experienced in your past and unless you address that part of your past it may never feel better.
You’ll never know unless you allow yourself to feel it. So feel. Repressed emotions lead to uncontrolled outbursts.
If you’ve ever been bullied I want to say that I’m so sorry. You deserve to be treated so much better than that. You deserve to be treated as the amazing person you are. How you’ve been treated in the past does not reflect your worth. Your identity goes so much deeper than that. Healing can start today.
The journey is long, but I invite you to dive right in. Not alone, but with a trusted companion and with Jesus. We can begin to experience real healing and real redemption right now – regardless of what we think about our past.
On a final note, if you are experiencing bullying right now or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you don’t have to go through this alone. There is help. Talk to a teacher, a parent, a counselor, or this hotline. People want to help you. All it takes is a first, brave, tiny step forward.
It gets better. I promise.
