8 Emotions That Targets of Bullying Feel

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Targets of bullying endure a hell that no one can comprehend unless they themselves have experienced bullying. It’s the same with the range of resulting emotions they feel. Unless you’ve been there, you can’t imagine the intense stress and the wide array of powerful emotions that come with it.

1.Grief- Once you become an object of bullying or mobbing, life as you know it changes. You mourn for the way your life used to be and long to get your former life back. You also grieve the loss of your respect, dignity, reputation, good standing, and your identity. You mourn the loss of your friends and in some cases, your spouse and family.

2, Bewilderment- You don’t understand why this is happening to you- why you’re being bullied and why people you love and thought loved you have turned against you. You’re also at a loss as to what you did to bring about such hatred. In your heart, you know that you’re a great person and that you never intentionally slighted nor hurt anyone. So, what gives?

3. Confusion- You’re at a loss as to which way to turn and who to turn to. And you don’t know what to do to remedy the situation because each time you try, only makes the bullying worse. You feel stuck!

4. Terror – Anytime you’re targeted, the fear can be paralyzing. You’re afraid to speak but afraid not to speak. You’re afraid of the people around you. You’re afraid to make any moves or decisions because you know that anything you do will be scrutinized and made to look bad, crazy, or evil. You’re afraid to come to school or work because you know they’re all out to get you and you know that if you show, they’ll only blindside you with another attack.

4. Sadness- You cry in your car to and from your school or workplace. You cry in your pillow at night when you go to bed. It seems that no one will give you a chance and you’re isolated and alone. When you try to make new friends, the bullies always seem to intervene and turn the new people against you too. The type of sadness a target feels is the kind that is deep, dark, and overwhelming.

6. Depression- This comes with being rendered powerless. It seems that there’s nothing you can do to change the situation. You have the feeling of being bound and gagged. You feel trapped like a rat and there’s nowhere to go where the bullies and participants won’t find you. And you feel that there’s no hope that things will ever get better.

7. Ohhhh, the rage! This is, by far, THE most powerful emotion targets can have. With each physical or psychological attack, the fury grows until you’d give anything just to have the power to rip their heads off and shoved them up their you-know-whats. Oh, yes! Rage does that to you and gives you such evil thoughts!

I remember the rage I felt in middle and high school when I was a target of bullying and it grew to a level until, at one point, I felt homicidal! I loathed them so intensely that I just wanted all of them to drop dead.

I used my brain. I didn’t allow myself to snap and take any lives. I thought about my future and how doing something horribly violent would ruin it, I then decided that none of my classmates were worth ruining my future and causing my family heartache over and eventually, a door opened for me and I was able to transfer to a new school where things got better.

8. 8Suicidal thoughts. It’s not that you want to die. You just want the torment to stop and when it gets to a certain level, death seems to be the only escape for it. These thoughts happen when you feel you’ve exhausted every possible option to make things better. But don’t give up. Because as long as you’re alive, there’s always a good chance that things will change for the better and you can come out victorious on the other side of it.

 I want you to know that if you’re a target of bullying, things may seem hopeless, but they aren’t. Things change for the better all the time and when you least expect them to.

20 thoughts on “8 Emotions That Targets of Bullying Feel”

  1. Kym Gordon Moore says:
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    Cherie girlfriend, now this is serious. But I have to say when I read this part, “I used my brain. I didn’t allow myself to snap and take any lives” I hollared! 😅 😂 🤣 I remember when I was in the 7th grade, a bully jumped me because a guy she liked who I wasn’t even thinking about, liked me and not her. Oh she wasn’t having that. While walking home one day from school, the bitch jumped me and I fought her like Captain America! 👊🏼 😵 💪🏼 Well, when she managed to get away from me and ran home, I looked confused. I guess she underestimated me (I was a cool, well accessorized tomboy) and she never bothered me again.

    However, when I went home I was still fuming. 😠 😡 🤬 I told my mother about what happened and my parents were going to go talk to hers. But that didn’t lower my anger for her starting something I did not provoke. It was by the grace of God that my mother was missing her butcher knife and just happened to check my book bag cause yep, you guessed it, the knife was in between my books and I was planning “The Big Payback!” To this day I swear my mother had eyes behind her head, on top of her head, her arms, her legs…. 😜 She really had to talk to me!

    The kids who witnessed it talked about it at school the next day and I believe that she transferred to another school. As Water Boy said, “That is what you call opening a can of whip ass on somebody!” Interestingly, I didn’t have a problem at school or off campus like that again. I wonder why??? 🤗 🤔 🤭

  2. Dawn Pisturino says:
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    Great article, Cherie! The long-term effects can be anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder. It’s also important for people to understand that many school shootings – including Columbine – have been the result of bullying. After talking to kids and parents about bullying, I don’t feel like our public schools do enough to stop it.

    • cheriewhite says:
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      Absolutely! And the shooting in Texas the other day was also a result of bullying. I certainly don’t condone such an action as bringing a gun to school and actively speak out against it. But people snap so easily and you never know what state of mind another person is in and what they might come back and do later. It’s just horrible!

      And you’re right, schools don’t do nearly enough to address bullying because they’re too concerned with their own reputations and not enough for the safety of the kids.

  3. Greg Dennison says:
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    A lot of this sounds familiar. I didn’t really feel grief growing up, though, because the bullying pretty much started as soon as I started school, so I didn’t know a former life of having friends. But I’ve felt bullying-related grief as an adult, when I’ve found out what people whom I thought were my friends really thought of me.

      • Greg Dennison says:
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        Yes. Exactly. If you’re an old friend I haven’t seen in a while, and I see you at a gathering at a friend’s house, and I open up to you and tell you that I’ve been having a rough time because there’s this other girl here whom I dated recently and it didn’t end well but we’re trying to stay on good terms, the last thing I need from you is to run off and set up that girl with one of your guy friends. Those are not the actions of a friend… they aren’t even the actions of any human being with a shred of consideration and decency. The way I was treated in that story was so unbelievably terrible that I’ve thought about incorporating it into DLTDGB, because it’s the kind of thing immature college kids would do, even though it happened to me much later in life. (All of the people involved in that situation I cut out of my life for good eventually.)

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