It’s not always easy or comfortable to walk through the memories of the past, especially if bullying is part of your life story. I think many people want to “move past it,” or “get over it,” and simply keep moving forward without feeling the old pain. Many self help philosophies encourage this when it comes to abuse, trauma, or any type of pain from the past. And it makes sense – to a point. My personal and professional experience has shown me a slightly different truth, though – and that truth is that the only way to get “over” or “away” from pain is to first go through it. Most people who suffer from addictions that were caused, fueled, or involved some type of emotional pain often use the addictive substance or behavior to escape the pain. In other words, they try to “fast forward” through the thing that is or was causing them pain and to simply leave it behind without first feeling the negative or painful emotions.
And my experience has shown that this rarely, if ever, works. It may successfully distract a person for awhile, and it may even bury the painful experience or experiences under layers and layers of the addictive behavior, but sooner or later, the addiction will cease to work, or more pain will be brought by the addiction, or the cost of the avoidance will become too great for the person now trapped in the addictive cycle of avoiding old pain only to create fresh pain through their destructive behaviors.
In this way, I think people who discover “or are forced to face,” their addictions and begin to deal with pain from the past are extremely lucky – they have a chance to go back and heal from past pain in a healthy way. Many people who do not suffer from addictions “or those who never face them,” never really heal completely from those old wounds. They do not have a catalyst strong enough to go back and review old hurts, habits, and hang ups. They simply keep doing things the way they have always done them and feeling that something is off or something is missing in their life and nothing they do or buy or become fills the void or cures the old pain. This is because pain from the past needs attention. The majority of people I have worked with over the years have been forced in some way into looking at their addictions, it is never a matter of waking up one day and saying “O.K. – today, after I get the kids off to school, I’m going to face that heroin addiction.” Confronting and admitting that a change is needed is normally started by the extreme pain and great losses that the addiction has caused, putting the addict between a proverbial “rock and a hard place.” Arrests, loss of a driver’s license, job loss, domestic violence, divorce, homelessness, severe health issues, suicidal ideation or attempts, and a variety of other painful precipitants are common to people reaching out, at last, for help. I have heard many people describe becoming what is commonly termed “sick and tired of being sick and tired” due to the predictable downward spiral of addiction. The words of a professor I had while studying to enter the field long ago have stuck with me: “We can provide the information, and the hope to a sober life, but unless someone has experienced enough pain, they are not likely to change.” And, unfortunately, this level of pain varies from person to person.
Many times people do change, however, and the experience of moving backwards to heal before moving forwards is one of the first courageous steps. It offers a chance to go back to the root of the pain – the heart of the problem – and to begin healing. Studies have shown that recovery from addiction is very similar to recovery from any major life loss, and that the best results often come by going through the 5 stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. People who do not allow themselves to grieve and feel these stages often continue to suffer from the loss or losses. The 12 Step programs of recovery also encourage healthy grieving of things lost through a balance of healing, feeling, and behavior changes. Since entering the world of addiction and recovery, I am continuously surprised and saddened by the number of people I see who continue to suffer by refusing to feel the pain from the past. I recently heard someone who was celebrating a year of sobriety state that she finally learned that “the only way through something is through it” and I knew exactly what she meant.
So how does this relate to the issue of bullying? Bullying involves pain. Someone who is bullied may turn to negative behavior to escape the pain – I think that is self evident. If you are going through a daily existence that involves physical or emotional teasing, taunting, or the awful feeling of never knowing where the next assault may come from, that is going to cause deep pain. My research into victims of bullying has shown what I already believed to be true – that these victims are far more likely to turn to drug abuse, self mutilation, unhealthy romantic relationships, isolation, troubled peer groups, bullying others, suicidal or homicidal thoughts, or some other form of acting out in unhealthy ways. The old adage that “hurt people hurt people” is proven by many who suffer from bullying, and, in the end, these victims hurt themselves and others largely because of the pain they have endured. And this pain is not likely to go away by itself. Like most pain, it needs to be dealt with – to be “treated,” before it heals properly.
In my case, I was a bullied kid who eventually became a bully. I am finding out now that this is fairly common. Because the commonality among most bullying is that it involves power. Acting out against someone else with your words or behaviors is always an attempt to gain some type of power over them. I can see now that I was trying to fill the void I felt inside with a sense of power over others, over those I considered weaker. I was also desperate to join the ranks of the those I considered popular in my school – of those kids who held all the social power. I am finding out that my story, although very common, is not the only background of someone who becomes a bully. Some bullies have low self esteem, and this issue of self confidence always comes up when discussing why people bully others. I know it was a major source of my behavior, but more and more research is showing that some bullies have healthy self confidence. Their behavior does not seem to come from a desire to feel better about themselves, they just get some type of benefit from putting others down. Sometimes the benefit is acceptance into the “in crowd”. Perhaps they are afraid of the differences they see in others. Maybe they are jealous – as is often the case in female bullying. In other cases, kids simply lack the social skills to make friends using kind words, so they try intimidation and fear. More current research is making connections between the words and attitudes kids are exposed to and the common types of communication our youth use and their behavior towards others. Kids are sponges, and they emulate what is around them. The regular messages of sarcasm, put downs, and getting what you want at the expense of others can fuel the desire for power in many kids. And that is the similarity in all bullying scenarios – the need for power. And it is this reason, this seeking of something to make them feel more powerful, that puts kids who bully at a higher risk for addictive behaviors.
The “void” I mentioned earlier in the case of many bullies involves this sense of power. In his book “The Seat of The Soul,” Gary Zukov references two primary sources of power that most people turn to. One is internal power – put simply, this is the voice inside of our own heads that helps us to be content and proud of who we are and what we have accomplished. It is the result of a healthy self esteem and the ability to make and achieve goals. Zukov refers to this as “authentic power.” The alternate type of power he describes ,“external power,” is all of the material things and behaviors people turn to in the quest to feel more powerful. In the addiction field, I often hear about external power from people who became drug dealers. They felt powerful because of their behavior. People needed them, and they often made large sums of money by selling drugs. This translated to power in their minds. But once the external things were gone, so was the sense of power. Much of our culture seems to feed on this message of external power; the bigger house, the most expensive cars, the way our bodies look and the clothes we wear – these are all external forms of feeling more powerful, of justifying our success, our existence, our rank in the social order. Is it any wonder that many of our children are picking up on these messages?
Keep in mind that many kids who are bullying are already “powerful”. They are often the students who are physically bigger, or stronger. Many excel in sports, or academics, or come from affluent homes. They have power, but they may not recognize it. Or it may not be recognized by those who matter most to them – by their families. It is not enough, because what their families have is never enough. They have been programmed to keep up the quest for bigger, stronger, faster, smarter – more external stuff equals more power and more power equals a full person – a full void – satisfaction. Unfortunately, a life based on filling the internal void with external power will be an endless cycle of chasing the newest, brightest, shiniest things or people only to find in the end that one has been digging a new hole and using the dirt to fill the last one. The only true power, true satisfaction, true contentment will come from internal changes, behaviors, and messages. A life well lived rarely coincides with the premise “he who dies with the most toys wins.”
And all of these things are contributing factors to the behaviors and attitudes we see in our youth. But we can make a difference by simply sharing our own experiences and listening to theirs. In the work I am doing now, I see hundreds of kids at each school who are eager to talk and eager to listen. We are all responsible for the actions of our youth. The stakes are too high, and our kids are not going to get better on their own. The pain they are experiencing today will not be healed with time. Now is the time to look back on your own life story and to talk to your kids, or some kids, any kids that happen to be in your circle of influence, about it. If they are the victims of bullying, let them know that they are not alone, and that others have been through it, and that things will get better. Encourage them to talk to you, and other family members, and their own friends – not so much to gain answers and solutions, but to be heard, to know that they are not powerless and voiceless. If the young people in your life are showing signs of bullying others, it is also important to listen to them. Maybe they do not feel heard, or recognized, or valued within the family. Let these kids know that their behaviors matter, and that when they use words and actions against others, it hurts. And that hurt injures themselves and the people they are targeting. Try to get these kids to see the “bigger picture,” and acknowledge the power they already have in their lives – you may just prevent life long problems for our youth with these simple tasks.
Please contact me at bsfarr@firststepconsultation.com, or (518) 583-3881 for more information on these issues, or to schedule a presentation. See the presentations page of my website for a full list of current programs, and keep in mind that I can create a custom presentation for your specific needs.
Thanks for sharing. I too was creepy to some kids at times when I wanted to “fit in”. I cringe when I think about it-especially when I did it to kids I was “friends” with. I hope to instill integrity and kindness in our children, and pray they are stronger, better people than I was as a teen. Reflection on this always seems to scream-Karma! Our kids pay for our sins. Hard pill to swallow.
Brian, How do you get through to kids, now? As ‘they’ say, hind sight is 20/20. Could someone have said something to you when you were a kid to stop you from bullying? It is tough when I see the kids who seem like the bully or bullied types in the classroom. Any wods of wisdom?
Juliana
I agree that it is a continual process of working on past behaviors and applying them to the present that keeps us growing and learning. Not a bad thing at all. So frequently we are comfortable or uncomfortable because of a circumstance encountered in childhood.