Shut up. You’re an idiot. Stupid. You’re inferior to me. Nerd. That was super lame. You don’t belong here. Geek. No one likes you. Wimp. Bullying comes in many different forms, but many people underestimate the power of verbal bullying on the mind. Unfortunately, verbal bullies will always be talk, and there’s no changing the nature of that fact. The ones being bullied, on the other hand, are responsible for allowing such behavior reach the best of them, and with that responsibility, they must rely on themselves to change the nature of the bullies. About 3.2 million students are victims of verbal bullying each year because the bullied are too afraid to stand up to their offender, which only provokes the bully even more. In order for the bullied to stop his offender, he must stand up for himself with confidence and without violence.


Why someone would allow another person to overpower him, that will remain a mystery. Each person is his own individual character; under no circumstances should he allow society and the people in it to influence his mind and impact his choices. Take this example: Here’s an average boy in high school who makes straight A’s in school, enjoys playing video games in his free time, and is not very social, but has a decent group of friends. His best friend decides to start hanging out with a new group of people, skipping class, smoking, and begins looking down on this average boy, insulting him on his “nerdiness” and “lameness,” verbally bullying the boy. Realistically, the boy does not want to change himself, but he begins to feel insecure as he allows the hurtful words reach his mind and slowly follows into the footsteps of his so-called “best friend". As a result, he begins dropping in his academic studies, skipping classes, and smoking daily. Now what? He has reluctantly allowed his so-called "best friend" to corrupt his way of life, rather than hold his ground. Is his best friend truly the bully for pressuring him into this lifestyle? Or is the average boy himself the bully for allowing such behavior manipulate his mentality?


In a perfect world, everyone would be confident about who they are, but, unfortunately, this is not a perfect world. Relating back to the scenario, about 71% of bullied teens encounter the same situation and demoralize themselves to hopefully cease the bullying; 15% of teens will skip out on school to avoid the situation completely, strong-willed enough to keep their morals, but not confident enough to show it. Long story short, verbal bullying goes further than just restricting mentality, but also affects character. The vicious language reaches the mind of the bullied, and forces the bullied to change and conform his character to satisfy his offender in hopes to minimize the bullying, which also minimizes his level of confidence. All of these traits the make an individual who he is become hindered as soon as the victim cares about the words of the offender.


Backtracking on the idea of standing up to a bully, the bullied need someone to pull them out of the hole of fear before they can stand up to their offender. Someone’s fear of his bully disallows his mind to freely think of even the simplest of ways to escape bullying, and this is where us bystanders come into play. What can you do to help? Usually, society encourages you to intervene the bullying WHILE it's occurring. As helpful as it may seem, intervening will only drag you into the problem. Rather than intervene, it is more effect to help PREVENT the next case of bullying: praise his qualities, raise his self-esteem; socially reform him into a more confident person, enough to have him clear his thoughts stand up for himself. By doing so, you put positive thoughts in his mind, encourage the him to stand up for himself, and prevent possible future occurrences involving bullying.


Think you're alone on stopping bullying? Well, think again. You may not see them, but there are organizations all over the country that were created to stop general bullying. One major organization is STOMP Out Bullying, established in 2005. With its programs, STOMP Out Bullying educates people on the forms of bullying, ways to prevent it, and how to keep yourself safe from bullying. There are many more organizations in existence with different programs and methods, but all created for the same reason: to educate society on how to spot and stop bullying. The organization itself cannot stop the bullying, but the people committed to the organization are responsible for HELPING victims stop the bullying themselves.


All in all, verbal bullying occurs if a person allows it to happen to them, regardless of whether or not the person has the ability to stop it. Just simply by caring about the negative opinions from others makes a person insecure, not confident, and another victim of verbal bullying. Now that you are aware, you know you don't have the power to stop the verbal bullying, but you have the ability to help a victim pull himself of the pit of verbal bullying and stand up to his offender, be the person he has concealed inside this whole time.