Understanding Trauma From Bullying
Bullying isn’t just “kids being mean” or “toxic coworkers.” Research shows that bullying can cause trauma with the same severity as combat or natural disasters. Trauma happens when an experience overwhelms your ability to cope and rewires your nervous system into survival mode.
Naming it as trauma is the first step in recovery. Without this acknowledgment, survivors often minimize what happened, allowing the cycle of abuse to continue.
👉 Related: What is Bullying?
Step 1: Stop Giving Bullies Access to You
For me, that meant making really hard choices. I cut ties with my sister, my mother, my former friends, and even my old manager and coworkers who thought covert bullying was “cute.”
Creating silence and distance wasn’t easy, but it gave me space to see clearly. When you stop allowing bullies access to your time, your mind, and your energy, you begin to reclaim control.
Step 2: Seek Trauma-Informed Support
The second step in healing is finding support from someone trained to understand trauma. I turned to EMDR therapy, and it changed everything.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a type of therapy developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. It helps people process traumatic memories by using guided eye movements or other forms of bilateral stimulation.
Instead of reliving trauma over and over, EMDR allows the brain to reprocess those memories in a way that reduces their emotional intensity.
According to the American Psychological Association, EMDR is considered an evidence-based treatment for PTSD and is effective in helping survivors of abuse, combat, disasters, and yes, bullying.
How EMDR Helps With Trauma Recovery
For survivors of bullying, EMDR can:
- Reduce flashbacks and intrusive memories.
- Lower anxiety and hypervigilance.
- Help separate your identity from the trauma.
- Restore a sense of safety and self-worth.
In my own journey, EMDR therapy allowed me to open up fully, to talk about everything, even the parts of myself I had struggled to admit. Facing that shame head-on was terrifying, but it reminded me: the abuse wasn’t my fault.
👉 Related: Mental Health Impact of Bullying
Naming Trauma Is the Beginning of Healing
Healing begins when you stop minimizing what happened, when you stop giving bullies access to your life, and when you allow yourself to be honest about the pain.
For me, the combination of silence, distance, and EMDR therapy gave me the clarity to finally begin healing from years of bullying and abuse.
Let’s make an echo that says: acknowledging abuse is the beginning of healing.
