autasticanna:

Facts that adults don’t tell you about bullying

- Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.

- being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.

- not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.

- on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.

- in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.

- getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.

- there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.

- as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.