In 12 of 15 school shooting cases in the 1990s, the shooters had a history of being bullied. Bullying can affect everyone involved, hurting those who are being bullied, those who bully, and even those who witness it. Bullying leads to a lot of negative effects such as impacting one’s mental health, substance abuse, and even suicide. There are more negative effects to be aware of so people can alert the proper people when they see potential bullying happening and know what it can do to a person’s health. 

Three types of bullying can occur. The first one is verbal bullying. Verbal bullying is ultimately saying or writing mean things to someone else or about someone else. Teasing, name-calling, threatening to cause harm, taunting, and inappropriate sexual comments are also seen as verbal bullying. The second type of bullying is social bullying. Social bullying is described as someone trying to hurt someone else’s reputation or relationships. Leaving someone out on purpose, spreading rumors about someone, embarrassing someone in public, and even telling others not to be friends with someone is social bullying. The third type of bullying is known as physical bullying. Physical bullying is defined as hurting a person’s body or possessions. This type of bullying contains hitting, kicking, pinching, taking or breaking someone’s things, making mean or rude hand gestures, anything of that nature is known as physical bullying.     

Bullying happens everywhere, whether it’s someone making fun of what someone is wearing, to physical features on their body. I took a small poll from students and 6/8 students I asked have been bullied or have seen bullying happening. I asked a student how they got bullied and the student responded with “I got made fun of the clothing I wore and the different color of my hair” and then I asked how that made them feel they said “I felt discluded and sad because it was an outfit I really loved” another student responded with “I got bullied by being made fun of body features that I have” I then asked how that made them feel and they said, “It makes me sad people make fun of me for something I cannot control and I don’t know why I can’t just be accepted for who I am.” I find this very disturbing people are getting bullied for things they cannot control. People who are bullied can potentially experience negative physical, social, emotional, academic, and mental health issues. Bullying can cause depression and anxiety because bullying can increase the feeling of sadness and loneliness. Depression can also cause changes in eating and sleeping patterns and can even make a person not enjoy activities that they usually enjoy. Children and teens being bullied can be negatively affected by having academic struggles. Bullying can cause decreased academic achievement. Knowing this, someone’s GPA can fluctuate, and lower test scores can appear, also just school participation in general. Someone being so heavily bullied can result in them skipping school and possibly even dropping out. 

Why does someone bully? People who tend to bully others take part in violent behavior potentially leading into adulthood. People who bully tend to abuse alcohol and other drugs, getting into fights is recurring, and even taking it so far as vandalizing others’ property. It is also shown that people engage in early sexual activity to make themselves feel better for bullying others. They are also seen to abuse their romantic partners or even potential children. 

What effects can someone have by watching bullying happen? Believe it or not, people who stand by and watch bullying happen have negative effects happen to them as well. Bystanders are seen to have increased use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs. Bystanders can also have increased mental health problems including depression and anxiety and several others. Skipping school is also an effect of someone standing by and watching bullying happen so they can get away from watching it. Bystanders can sometimes be drawn into the bullying without wanting to but are drawn into it because of who their friends are.    

Bullying happens everywhere and can affect more than just the person getting bullied. Bullying leads to a lot of negative effects on a person. It’s sometimes hard to identify if someone is being bullied but when you see the signs don’t be a bystander stand up to the bully and make sure the person getting bullied is ok.