How do we deal with the guilt associated with bullying?
Q: I have recently dealt with a bullying issue and had to address the guilt of the bullied. They felt guilty about how powerless they felt. Have you experienced this legacy of guilt and how did you deal with it?
Jenny: You are talking about a very subtle sensitive area. In the field of adult therapy there is a lot written about adults who are co-dependants in a cycle of violence and how they feel guilty that somehow they allowed the other person to carry on hurting them. In every situation where someone has been physically or emotionally hurt there is always that terrible feeling that, ‘if only I had reacted differently, I could have stopped this happening’.
We all feel guilty that we can’t stop things from happening around us. Parents and teachers feel guilty that they can’t protect the children. It’s a very natural progression for someone to feel guilty that they can’t protect themselves. There is a well-known syndrome of the self-elected victim and secretly many children and adults wonder if they have attracted the bullying to themselves.
If someone has experienced deep powerlessness they will suffer from very low self-esteem and waves of anxiety. The way to heal is to give them other strategies that will allow them to re-build their self-esteem. If someone has been hurt initially they need to be able to talk it out or play it out. When this process has been gone through, then its time to find ways where you can be powerful over your environment and the people around you. Schools have millions of ways of building children’s self-esteem and I am sure if you and his teacher and class and parents could possibly work together you could come up with lots of ideas to help this person feel important, valued and strong again. You are very wise in the way you have interpreted his reaction.
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