"I also fit the profile of someone likely to be bullied at that time. I was overweight. I wore thick glasses. I spent years in braces. I had no athletic ability. I was reasonably intelligent, but the emotional toll of constant bullying made it hard to perform the way I probably could have. When I went to college and the bullying stopped, my academic performance improved dramatically, which in hindsight says a great deal."
"For years, I did not think of these experiences as trauma. Only later, after reading more carefully about how trauma is defined, did I realize that my experience checked nearly every box. That realization led me to ask a question I have heard many times from clients who have been harmed by others: Did the people who did this ever suffer"
Repeated humiliation from bullying can function as chronic trauma, producing long-term emotional and behavioral effects. Bullying operates as a maladaptive status strategy: individuals raise their status by forcing others lower. Victims often adopt survival tactics—altering routes, seating, and behavior—to minimize targeting, and may experience reduced performance while exposed to sustained abuse. Removal from the bullying environment can restore functioning, as seen when academic performance improved after leaving school. Recovery requires separating victims from ongoing harm while refusing to excuse perpetrators. The question of whether bullies later suffer consequences remains an important moral and clinical concern.
Read at Psychology Today
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