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| Public domain. Courtesy Photos8.com. |
"When someone is mean to you, it breaks your feelings."
This was the comment from a six-year-old girl last Friday when asked her opinion on bullies. I can recall conversations with my peers that lasted for half an hour or longer on the topic where we didn't come so close to the truth.
We all have heard, and probably used, the expression "you hurt my feelings." It's spoken so often it hardly has any meaning left. Not only that, but in many cases, it is inaccurate.
Think about your childhood: was there every a point when someone bullied you? Not just an occasion when someone teased you, briefly, once, in response to one comment or action, or one time when someone laughed because you tripped and spilled your lunch, or something along those lines. I mean an experience were a person or people went out of their way to find faults, publicly humiliate you, and/or call you names on a repeated basis.
If you said yes, there are a lot of people in the boat with you. Now, think back to an incident where you accidentally cut your hand, or something else minor. A small hurt. It probably healed up fast, without a scar, and you can barely remember what it felt like. When you think back on being bullied, can you think about it, talk about it, without feeling the pain again?
Have you ever broken a bone? I have friends who tell me, many years later, that their arm/knee/leg/whatever aches because the weather is changing. The bone was repaired, but the damage was severe enough that seemingly unrelated incidents can cause a shadow of the pain to resurface. People who were bullied had to work extra hard to overcome obstacles but still, and sometimes even as a result, can end up highly successful and in happy, well-adjusted relationships. But the pain is something that can surface for a lifetime.
I've heard people remark that all the publicity about bullying lately is an overreaction. A few times I've overheard the comment along the lines of, "It's just kids being kids," or "Back when I was a kid we didn't have all this fuss: kids picked on each other. It was normal. We turned out fine." I'm stunned that this perception still exists, when so much evidence points to the contrary. Bullying was never a healthy part of the growth process, and with modern technological interconnectedness a bully now can socially sabotage a victim's life in less than 5 minutes.
Think of it this way: if someone were about to fall off a roof, or have a piano dropped on their leg, or get kicked by a horse, would you try to prevent it from happening? Of course you would! If you're capable of preventing broken bones, you're capable of preventing broken feelings.
Next time you see signs of bullying, please try and prevent it. If you don't know how, or aren't in a position to interfere directly, please seek out a teacher or other adult in position to help. Sometimes it takes more courage to speak up than to grab someone about to fall off a ledge, but if you do, more will do the same. Someone will thank you in their (unbroken)heart forever for your efforts.
