00:00Hello, everyone. Welcome to Separated by Few. Today, I'm going to talk to you about a serious problem.
00:06Bullying. But before we get into that, it's story time. So there I was on a beautiful high school
00:13afternoon, walking with my friends to horticulture class. As you can imagine, I was being myself,
00:19making random noises, and just being goofy in general. When this one guy that was always giving
00:26me problems in high school came out the same way that I was going. Basically, he told
00:30me to shut the- Yeah, you get the gist of it. Being the person that I am, I paid
00:33no attention
00:34to it, and continued doing what I was doing. The next thing I know, he's charging me. He
00:39picks me up and drops me on the ground, resulting in a sprained tailbone. How do you even sprain
00:45your tailbone? I don't know, but it happened to me. And as you can imagine, sitting after
00:49that, like you have to in school for six hours a day, was not fun. Now, what did I do
00:54about
00:54this? I went and I told my school administrator. Good job, Nathan. But yeah, that's just one
00:59less-than-fortunate event that's happened to me. Some others include being called a fag,
01:04threatened, spit on, and other things of that nature. Anyways, being through all that got
01:09me wondering, what exactly is bullying, and why do people do it? By understanding the problem,
01:14you can conjure a solution. Now, I'm pretty sure you already know what bullying is, but I'll
01:18define it anyways. It's when someone is persistent and acting with unwanted behavior towards another
01:24person, usually uncalled for or negative criticism, or unwanted physical tormenting. Now, why do
01:30people do this? Most bullies have a strong desire to be in a position of power and control. Bullying
01:36can continue due to approval by their peers or by people not taking action. Bullies lack empathy
01:42and can even get pleasure from seeing others suffer. Bullies lack the capability to self-regulate
01:47their emotions. And five, bullies are influenced by their family background. So now we have some explanations
01:53as to why people bully. From here, we can produce a greater understanding of it. Now, a lot of kids
01:58who are bullied think there's something wrong with them. However, this could not be further
02:02from the truth. You're beautiful just the way you are. Now, the last few reasons of why people
02:06bully can really help explain this. A great portion of people who bully cannot self-regulate
02:12their emotions, and they lack empathy. Studies show that bullies score low on empathetic reactivity,
02:17which is the main cause for antisocial personality disorder, which causes people to ignore the
02:23rights and feelings of others. Additionally, in these studies, the part of the brain that
02:27allows to self-regulate emotions was inactive, meaning they don't have a way to control their
02:32anger, which can result in provoking others, which then feeds into the first reason of why
02:37people bully. So it's just a cycle, man! So, as you can see from these facts, it's the bullies
02:43that have something wrong with them, not you. Now, how do you go about dealing with
02:46this behavior? Firstly, and most importantly, you need to tell somebody that has more authority
02:51and power than they do, like a counselor, a teacher, or a parent, or in my case, a school
02:57administrator. That way, they have to listen. Now, if you're a parent and your child is telling
03:01you what Timmy did, do not dismiss them, even if you think that Timmy flicking boogers at
03:06your kid is just them joking around. Here's the reality. Your kid isn't laughing, and you need
03:11to take action. If your kids can't rely on you, then who can they rely on? You don't
03:15want your child to feel like school is a place to survive. It's a place to learn, so step up
03:19and reinforce that. The second step to deal with bullying, after you've done the first
03:23step, of course, is to express yourself creatively, maybe through music, poetry, art, or anything
03:29else that's creatively constructive. Thirdly, if you see someone who's being bullied, for the
03:34love of all that is good, have some courage and take action. Either step in and deal with
03:39it yourself, or do what they won't, and go tell someone who has some authority. You can't
03:43even imagine how grateful they'll be, and you could potentially be saving their life.
03:47Sadly, it's not uncommon to hear about someone committing suicide as a result of bullying.
03:52This must change, and we have the power to make it so. When you do nothing, bullies are
03:57not being confronted, thus making them feel like they can get away with their behavior, and
04:01just do as they please with no consequence. It's my desire that bullying is eliminated completely,
04:06and when we all take action, this is possible. If you're feeling alone, or lost, or you just
04:11want to talk to somebody, I invite you to join the site Compassion and Peace. Compassion
04:15and Peace is a judgment-free and bully-free social network, where people genuinely care about
04:21you. I myself have an account there, and so does every one of the main members of this
04:25channel. And finally, I have a personal message for anyone who's ever been bullied. From one bully
04:31victim to another, you are beautiful. You are strong. And you will make it through this.
04:38I did. And you will too. Just... don't give up.
05:09I'm sorry. Take care.
