A new study came out this month that's been getting a lot of attention in the bullying world. This is because it's the first study to show that the effects of childhood bullying can last well into adulthood. A previous study published earlier this year, which I referred to in the post "Why do people bully anyway?" showed that the effects of bullying can last into early adulthood. This new study followed participants until the age of 50 and still found evidence of bullying's effects. Reports of bullying were collected from their parents at ages 7 and 11.
What this means is that some 40 years after being bullied people still experienced the effects bullying had on them.
The most striking thing I found about this study was the report that those who had been frequently bullied, and reported a lower satisfaction with life so far, also anticipated less life satisfaction in the years to come. This is basically saying that these people don't expect things to get better! Think about that for a minute. These people don't see themselves getting over the effects bullying has had on them. This isn't right! This makes me sad because they deserve so much better. Life is too short to not be experienced in its full potential because of what someone did to you in the past.
Of course I'm not saying that it doesn't take time to process being bullied and to deal with all the ways it affected you, but everyone deserves hope. There should always be hope that things will get better because there's no reason they can't. The first step is to see that, though. Once you know there's hope then you have something to work towards. Always work towards something and you're guaranteed to make progress.
Below is an infographic I created to more easily describe the study. You can also find the full article here.
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