BY CECILIA GIMENO VEIRA.
Bullying is a serious problem that some people could face during their life. It is not a laughing matter, but rather something that should be prevented. However, it could sometimes happen that you are bullying someone without even realising that you are doing so.
When you constantly torment and annoy somebody you are actually harassing them. You bully others when you make them endure recurrent attacks where you insult, criticize, or physically hurt them. Harassment can take two forms:
- Physical bullying occurs when you shove or hit other persons on purpose.
- Moral intimidation is the more common form. It occurs when someone is being oppressed with abusive and harsh words. This type of harassment is often the hardest one to bear: victims will lose all confidence in themselves and will feel down for some time.
Last week, a conference took place in the Salle Polyvalente that showed us a type of harassment that we do not really speak of but is as common as the others, especially nowadays. I am referring to cyberbullying or virtual harassment. Bullies use social networks to oppress a person or a group of people; to attack their victims they disclose confidential or false information about them. This sort of bullying is horrible because the whole world can see the personal information or pictures of the victims and it is really difficult to delete everything for good.
There could be a lot of bad consequences in the victim’s life. The target endures a terrible time while she is being harassed. She loses all her joy of living; she becomes very unhappy and can experience real depression. She closes herself off and she will no longer dare to speak to others for fear of rejection, and so she does not make new friends. In the future, the victims will face difficult problems at work or with their partners. It will be extremely difficult for them to gain confidence and to open up to others again. The memories of their tormentors will haunt them for a long time.
Never harass anyone for you might not realize that you are destroying their life. It would be difficult for a person to recover from harassment: they will be marked for life. Bullying leaves traces that will be difficult to erase for the victims.
If you see that a fellow student is being bullied, tell someone: a teacher, the administration, your parents. You can always try to help the victims and confront the oppressors. If one day you are being harassed, do not be scared to tell someone! The school or your parents will stop the persecution and punish the bully or bullies. Do not let this pass, thinking that they only bothered you only a couple of times, because they should not even do it once. Speak up for yourself and the rest of the student community!
