 Drama: November 12, 2025 Issue [#13444] |
This week: On Bullying Edited by: Kit  
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Were you ever bullied? Did you receive any support?
Bullying can destroy lives. How can we stop it?
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about bullies and their victims.
Kit |
Were you bullied as a child? Are you being bullied now? I was pretty fortunate during my school years. There was one girl in my primary school who could be a little unpleasant to me every now and then, but it was sporadic and not full-on bullying. In high school I wasn’t one of the cool crowd, but I wasn’t unpopular either. I had a nice group of friends and it was good fun on the whole. There was one guy who tried the fake asking me out thing a few times, but considering I had absolutely no interest in him his friends were more amused that I kept on turning him down. Or maybe he did actually want to ask me out and just told me that he didn’t mean it anyway when I said no. Whatever the case may have been school, on the whole, was enjoyable for me.
I didn’t completely escape any and all unpleasantness, but a lot of people have it worse. I had a friend who was bullied for being gay, and he had to change schools. My own sister had to change schools due to horrible bullies (she is much younger than I am, so I wasn’t around at the same school to protect her) Sometimes the worst bullies are the teachers. That was the case for me – my high school German teacher was a real piece of work and I had to report her. In primary school I got in trouble for defending one of my friends against our P.E. teacher. My friend’s parents were deaf, and the teacher was openly mocking them in front of my friend and everyone else. So I told him off and got into trouble. Picture little me, tiny and indignant… my punishment was to draw some animals. I liked to draw, so that wasn’t too bad.
The thing is, though, that the people who ought to look out for us and protect us often fail to do so, and sometimes they’re worse than our peers. Some of the teachers at my niece’s primary school were terrible. They were useless when my niece was being bullied and they made her feel lazy and stupid, until she was diagnosed as dyslexic – even then they were at best unhelpful and at their worst they used my niece as an example for other children of what not to be like. Yes, that happened. My niece came to hate school, to think she was a terrible student, to distrust teachers. She is now in a high school that offers support for dyslexic students and she’s thriving. She’s suddenly learning that leaning can be fun. It goes to show what a difference a good teacher and a good support network can make.
And these days, it’s much more difficult to escape bullies. When I was a kid you’d come home from school and you’d be away from it all. Now, there’s social media and even if you block your bullies they can make fake accounts and try again, or spread lies about you on various platforms. There is no hiding from it – even if a kid stays off social media altogether, which would isolate them further, they cannot stop others from talking about them, or taking pictures and mocking videos of them which get posted online. It’s relentless and that can have a devastating effect on a child’s health and well-being.
It’s not just kids either. You’d think adults would know better but as I mentioned before, some teachers are bullies. There are bullies everywhere, including in the workplace. It’s bad when one’s colleagues are bullies; it can be even worse when the bullies are higher up the corporate ladder. There are plenty of bullies online. I was bullied in an online game before – a daily barrage of sexist, racist and just absolutely vile comments. I was a top player, but I left in the end because I played it to relax after work and have some fun. It stopped being fun and relaxing…
Often, the responsibility for solving the problem of bullying is placed on the shoulders of those who are on the receiving end. They’re told to ignore the bullying, to report it, to be tougher, to fight back. That’s if they’re not being told that they’re just imagining it. Reporting it is no good if you’re not listened to. If you end up the one being blamed. Or if, even if you are believed, nothing’s done about it. Ignoring it is easier said than done when every day you fear coming face-to-face with your bullies, who slowly but surely eat away at your self-confidence, and who may well include physical violence in their bullying. Telling someone to be tougher is basically telling them that it’s their fault they’re being targeted, their fault for being affected by another person’s actions, rather than placing the blame where it belongs – the bully. Fighting back may work in some cases but it’s saying that violence is the answer and anyway, my little niece was being bullied by a group of older boys. My sis did put my niece in martial arts classes to help with her confidence, but if she’d actually tried to fight back it would likely have ended up with her getting injured. And then, when a kid does fight back, chances are that they’re the ones who end up being punished.
To properly cope with bullies, first of all kids (and adults) need to feel safe reporting the issue. They need to know that they’ll be listened to, believed, and that real action is going to be taken. There need to be real consequences for the bullies, proportionate to their actions. It is true that in some cases bullies have their own problems and they should certainly be supported, too, but that does not excuse them taking this out on others. The bully’s problems are not the victim’s responsibility. And not every bully is a troubled kid. Some bullies are just unpleasant individuals who take joy in having power over others. People should be able to feel safe in their schools, safe in their place of work. They should be able to feel safe in online spaces, too.
Who Are You: School 2015 is an interesting Korean series about bullying, and the consequences thereof. I did get second lead syndrome from it, but it’s well-acted. A girl loses her memories after being bullied and finds herself in the place of an identical-looking girl who has gone missing. Then, her memories return…
Being bullied can affect a person for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, it can affect the bully, too. It can happen that the bully realises how wrong they were, and experience guilt. Some even make the effort to apologise. Others, however, never take any responsibility for their actions.
I don’t understand how anyone can be a bully. I feel bad enough when I accidentally say the wrong thing or step on someone’s toes. That’s the kind of thing that can still make me feel guilty years later, often just before I’m trying to get to sleep. I don’t know what it’s like to be a bullying victim, either. Not really. But I have seen the devastation it can cause and I really wish there was more done to stop it.
Kit
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