How to stand up against bullying

Elsa, 18, shares how bullying can impact your mental health and make you feel isolated, and gives her tips for standing up against bullying.

When I think about my experience of bullying one of the immediate feelings that comes back to me is loneliness.

One of the things I struggled with the most was speaking up and asking for help. I felt like I wasn’t going to be taken seriously and that I would lose friends because of it. If I’m honest a lot of the time I felt like I didn’t deserve to ask for help. I thought that I deserved to be treated the way I was because so many people saw what was going on and chose to do nothing to help - I always thought that there must just be something wrong with me. This was one of the toughest parts of my experience which left me feeling incredibly isolated and really knocked my confidence.

The theme for Anti-Bullying Week this year is United Against Bullying – a great reminder of the vital role that we can all play in standing up to all forms of bullying.

It is so important that we are all responsible for spreading kindness and showing compassion to others. So whether you see negative behaviour online or offline, please use the resources you have got to raise your voice. Use the report tools on social media, speak to a teacher or leave a note on their desk to make them aware of the situation, talk to an adult you trust or reach out to support the person being bullied. Your small action will make a much bigger difference than you think.

Over the course of lockdown and with restricted activities we will probably all have been on social media much more than usual and may even have witnessed or taken part in some negative behaviour online. This might make going into school a more daunting experience and it might feel difficult to know where to turn to for support at the moment.

But we can make such a positive change when we support each other, so here are my four top tips for speaking out if you are experiencing bullying or see something you think is wrong.

If you are experiencing bullying, please don’t suffer in silence. No matter how lonely it might seem, I promise that there are so many people who are happy to help you. I know how hard it can be, but reach out if you need the help – I found it particularly difficult to express myself verbally so found that it helped to write things down before going to speak to someone. Do whatever works best for you and take things at your own pace. You do deserve help and things will get better.