Effects Of Bullying On Self-Esteem

Remember the days when you’d go to school, make memories with your friends and enjoy your lunch with everyone? Those days are golden. Eating from each other’s lunch boxes was personally my favourite thing about school. These memories from school stay with us for about a lifetime. People say that school days were the best of their lives. But remember that shy and introverted kid who you made fun of for bringing the same food everyday? Or the kid who you passive aggressively forced to do your homework? What about them? What are their happy memories?

Self esteem is an individual’s subjective evaluation of their own worth. In order to have a truly healthy mental health, it’s important that your self esteem levels are high. This means that you are overall confident about yourself and feel good about being you. We all have our moments of embarrassment in our lives. Most of us get over it. But when we already have a low self esteem and something embarrassing happens to us, we forever build walls around ourselves and fail at developing healthy bonds with a lot of people.

These problems generally develop when we are in schools because our bodies have still not completely developed. Some girl who alfeady feels self conscious about her body will further get scarred if we are not welcoming and accepting her for who she is.

This brings me to the topic of effects of bullying on self esteem. Now, we know that bullying is not a good trait for a person. But why exactly?

It is because it’s effects on the child’s last for a long time. It not only makes the child feel less confident about themselves but they also start believing the things they are told. For example, if someone constantly makes fun of a girl’s weight in a passive aggressive manner, after sometime she will start believing these things. She will believe that she is fat.

She might start exercising and dieting tithe point she loses her consciousness and becomes anorexic. Or she might binge eat so much that she will jeopardize her health. And it will ultimately affect her mental health. We may not even realise it, but our small actions have a lasting effect on someone else.

Not just schools, bullying is a common occurrence not only in colleges but also in work places. In a research it was seen that people who were bullied at their work place had a lower self esteem than those who were not bullied. This was also noticed that people who were bullied quit their jobs at a higher rate than those who were not bullied.

In schools even the teachers are harsh on kids who are not doing well academically. Why do we not think that they might just be suffering at home because of a family dispute? Or maybe they have an intellectual disability? Instead of helping these kids, why does EVERYONE push them to the edge by calling out their weakness in a way that would make them lose their will to live!?! Why is it that their are so many kids who commit suicides so early in their lives!

We.. We are responsible for that. We are the ones who do this to them. We may not be ‘the bullies’ but even our snide remarks about their looks, or their grades or their work, make them feel like dying is better than going through all this. This says a lot about as a society. Is there no way we can change this disturbing tradition ?

Yes, there is a way. The change will come only if we are willing to change. The next time you see your fellow peer not doing well academically, ask them if they are going through something. Offer them your help. Talk to them. The next time you see your subordinate or a coworker making a mistake, teach them the right way of doing things instead of calling their mistakes out in a disrespectful way. They are humans too. And impart the same morals in your at an early age. Acceptance is the only way we can correct this situation. Accepting the people around you as they are. Accepting that you can be wrong too. And mainly, don’t let some bully bring your self esteem down. Even if they are your best friends. You deserve respect too. Wouldn’t the world be beautiful if everyone was looking out for everyone?