Bullying, in childhood and adulthood, is one of the most common complex traumatic stressors humans endure.
Complex trauma is trauma that endures over time; that is functionally inescapable; and that entwines around our important relationships. Bullying very often checks all three of these boxes.
Childhood bullying in particular can leave deep wounds, insofar as children are usually schooled within the same cohort year after year. If a kid is identified as a target for bullying, they’re very often bullied year, after year, after year.
Children who become frequent targets of bullying often become isolated at school, insofar as other children don’t want to also become targets of bullying by associating with them.
Children most often don’t get a choice whether to continue attending school with their cohort, making the situation functionally inescapable.
Adults frequently assure children that, if they’re being bullied, they can reach out to teachers or other adults for help— but adults cannot supervise children 100% of the time at school, and reaching out for help can actually make bullying worse for kids when adults aren’t around.
In addition, kids who are being bullied at school often aren’t getting a lot of support at home, either— they may be reluctant to tell their parents what is going on, and even if they do, parents are limited in what they can do to support their child at school.
As a result, bullying is very often a traumatic stressor that a kid endures functionally alone— very often for years.
Our culture often sends mixed signals about how seriously it takes childhood bullying.
On the one hand, anti-bullying campaigns are an easy way for educators and other adults to virtue signal about how seriously they take kids’ health and happiness.
On the other hand, how many times have we been told versions of “kids will be kids?”
Or “everybody gets a little bullied, it builds character?”
Or “that was so long ago, people should be able to get over common things that happen in childhood?”
That last one— “it happened so long ago”— has always really, really annoyed me.
If we sustain an injury a long time ago, but the injury never gets appropriate treatment, then all the time that’s passed since is actually a reason the injury HASN’T healed— or has gotten worse. If you walk around for years on a broken leg that was never appropriately set and rested at the time it was broken, it’ll get worse, not better, with time.
Anyway: it is my belief that many people are walking around with complex post traumatic symptomatology that began or was exacerbated by childhood bullying— but they very often do not have the support or resources to recognize what’s happening or what they can do about it.
Our culture has an absolutely toxic relationship with the concept of bullying.
Plenty of people pay lip service to bullying being “bad”— but then they get all coy and philosophical about what behavior actually constitutes “bullying.”
It’s my experience that if we have to ask whether a behavior is “actually” bullying or not, almost always, it is— and almost always, someone is trying to play the “devil’s advocate,” because, well, they kind of like bullying.
And although the patterns of bullying are very often laid down in childhood, bullying of adults by other adults can also be a complex traumatic stressor— one which many adults are loath to address, because we have this belief that “bullying,” like ADHD, isn’t a problem that persists beyond childhood.
My ass, it doesn’t.
I recommend anyone in recovery from complex trauma to look at situations in their life when they’ve been subjected to bullying behavior. Don’t ignore it or minimize it just because the culture sends mixed signals about it.
We may not love the fact that we were vulnerable to or impacted by bullying— but trauma recovery is about getting real and honest about what hurt us and how it hurt us.
We don’t have time for denial in this “recovery” thing. We have a life to get back to.
Use Your Damn Skills 