Bullying in School Causing Humiliation and Depression

[Shanmugam]

Hello friends,

Were you or any one of your friends got bullied in school? I am from India and I went through it a lot in school. Share your experiences.. I have shared mine here:

 

[NatureB]

I was bullied by cousins, my brother, and different "friends" up until 20. It is still something that I am working on, and I've noticed that a lot of my social anxiety and self-worth issues stem from these experiences. Objectively it was nothing horrible such as physical abuse. For me it was more being put down verbally.

The lesson for me is to have more boundaries around how I will allow myself to be treated. And the work from here on is to forgive and heal

[Shanmugam]

On 4/13/2021 at 9:23 PM, NatureB said:

I was bullied by cousins, my brother, and different "friends" up until 20. It is still something that I am working on, and I've noticed that a lot of my social anxiety and self-worth issues stem from these experiences. Objectively it was nothing horrible such as physical abuse. For me it was more being put down verbally.

The lesson for me is to have more boundaries around how I will allow myself to be treated. And the work from here on is to forgive and heal

Thanks for sharing.. You wrote 'I've noticed that a lot of my social anxiety and self-worth issues stem from these experiences'.. It was same for me too...   Bullying I faced in school led to a lot of humiliation and it affected my self-esteem in the worst possible way....

[NatureB]

2 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

Bullying I faced in school led to a lot of humiliation and it affected my self-esteem in the worst possible way....

@Shanmugam I feel you there brother. These experiences leave a lasting effect on us until we go back and face the feelings consciously.

One insight I had while working on this area was this: I was prone to being bullied because I wasn't fully valued at home. So the pattern goes back even further into childhood, before the bullying and directly into my childhood home and family dynamics. If I was valued more and attuned to, I would have had the confidence to stand up to bullies, or to tell an adult, or to find some constructive way of dealing with it.

I'm not saying that to beat myself up, but to get closer to the root of the issue where it all stems from.

Has anything helped you in particular? Therapy? Psychedelics? etc?

 

[Shanmugam]

13 hours ago, NatureB said:

@Shanmugam I feel you there brother. These experiences leave a lasting effect on us until we go back and face the feelings consciously.

One insight I had while working on this area was this: I was prone to being bullied because I wasn't fully valued at home. So the pattern goes back even further into childhood, before the bullying and directly into my childhood home and family dynamics. If I was valued more and attuned to, I would have had the confidence to stand up to bullies, or to tell an adult, or to find some constructive way of dealing with it.

I'm not saying that to beat myself up, but to get closer to the root of the issue where it all stems from.

Has anything helped you in particular? Therapy? Psychedelics? etc?

 

I have also felt that I wasn't fully valued at home.. And I agree with your logic here.. 

As I left the school where I was bullied, I could find some good friends in other locations where I lived and I somehow felt I was important. I was introduced to serious spirituality in the mean time when I was 18; I had a life changing epiphany, something that I could reproduce again and again with meditation.

I did a lot of mindfulness and witnessing meditation.. I had to wait for a spiritual transformation that happened in 2014 for my social awkwardness and feeling of not being good enough socially to fully disappear..