Bullying and Distrust

Distrust. It comes from many reasons and once it appears it’s hard to get past it. When kids bully other kids while in school, it hurts those kids tremendously, sometimes to the point that it causes mental issues (I’m sure everyone is familiar with some of the Star Wars actors and the online bullying). Those kids learn to distrust people.

My older son is one of those people. He was bullied by someone who he thought was a friend when he was in middle school. My son is on the autism spectrum. He had a trusting soul (and still does to a certain extent), but this boy broke that trust by doing something mean to my son and they were not friends anymore.

Flash forward to today. This boy, now a man, keeps trying to Friend my son on Facebook, trying to let “bygones be bygones.” This kid hurt my son so badly, my son doesn’t trust this guy anymore. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve grown up and “wouldn’t do anything like that again.” The kid broke his trust and if someone has been mistreated, no matter how much time has passed, you don’t want to associate with that person ever again. You can’t trust that he or she won’t do anything to hurt you again.

Think about that the next time you want to bully someone. Does it make you feel better to bully someone? It’s okay if you don’t like the person. Not everyone will like everyone else. But that’s no reason to bully another person, whether it’s in person or on the internet. Bullying is never okay.