You’ve heard of cows chewing their cud. This is known as ruminating or regurgitating partially digested food and chewing it again. We often do this with our thoughts.

We have the habit of turning things over in our mind again and again. We often replay the same thoughts over and over until it is nearly impossible to stop. We can cause a lot of damage to our self esteem by chewing on “mental cud”. We end up believing the thoughts that we continually repeat to ourselves even if they aren’t true. They get in our head and take up permanent residence.

Someone can bully us one time and then we bully ourselves 100 times. A bully tells you you’re fat and ugly. Now every time you look in the mirror you think about how fat and ugly you are.

It’s form of self-torture and it causes a great deal of suffering. It leads to feelings of powerlessness, worthlessness, and depression. This makes it hard to feel competent and happy.
Often people who bully themselves have some idealistic idea of the way they should be and when they compare their current situation with this “unachieved, idealistic standard” they become even more of a bully to themselves.

Self-bullying increases ones sensitivities to others comments, taking them too seriously or to an extreme that wasn’t intended. Each time you bully yourself, you are doing real psychological harm. You are stealing self-esteem and happiness from yourself.

Just like drinking and driving don’t mix well together, strong emotions and technology don’t either! It’s too easy to send heated, harmful comments that you later regret.

Sara was a kind hearted girl who would never purposely hurt anyone. At least she didn’t think she would. But when she broke up with Sam and started dating Tyler, Sam had strong feelings of jealousy and revenge, and he let the nasty text messages fly! Sara was so hurt and felt a strong need to defend herself. Of course, her messages only made Sam’s messages more frequent and heated. Police got involved and charges were threatened if they didn’t stop the messaging. After a few days, when things quieted down, Sara felt terrible about the cruel and awful messages she had sent. When rereading her posts, she couldn’t even believe she had said those things. She had intense feelings of guilt and embarrassment, but the damage had been done. Sara wishes she would have had the strength to “not respond” like people were telling her.

Not responding to someone who is hurling insults at you is hard for anyone, especially when you’re a teenager. When you feel strong emotions, you need to take a break from your phone or computer, and have an alternative plan. Go shoot hoops, go for a run, take a shower, talk to a friend, but don’t send messages on your phone or computer until you have calmed down!

Once you hit the send button, it’s gone and sometimes it’s impossible to retrieve. The damage is done and you can’t take it back. It’s out there for anyone to see.

Last night on CNN, UC Davis sociology professor revealed his study results that bullying frequently occurred to boost someone’s position on the social ladder. The study showed that the more kids cared about being popular, the more aggressive they are.

This study also showed that even though it may give instant gratification in the moment, bullying doesn’t work as a strategy long term to give you the higher social status. Kids may act like they are your best friends but it’s more about them being afraid of what you will do to them than it is about them respecting you and really being your friend.

Kids need to know that bullying isn’t the solution to gaining or maintaining their social status. Studies show that the students who are consistently the most popular are the least likely to be bullies.

Rhonda and Erica had a falling out in school which continued over texting late into the evening. A contest had begun to see who could text the nastiest and most painful message. In the wee hours of the morning, the messages had taken a toll on Erica and she was feeling alone, misunderstood and depressed. Her thoughts became irrational and she wondered how she could possibly make Rhonda feel as bad as she did. That’s when the thoughts of hurting herself began to emerge, “Wouldn’t it be the ultimate revenge, wouldn’t Rhonda feel miserable if she knew  I killed myself because of her. Then she’d regret all the nasty things she said to me! “

Flaming is a fitting name for this type of cyberbullying as each text sent definitely throws gas on the fire. After hours of this, the fire becomes quite large, large enough to stir up suicidal thoughts.
When you don’t see the pain on the face of the person you are texting, it’s easy to keep dishing out the vicious messages. We need to be aware of the intense emotional pain this can cause. We need to have discussions encouraging kids to step away from technology when they are feeling this level of emotion, to take a break, go take a shower, go for a walk, go shoot hoops, talk to a friend or better yet, an adult they can trust. There are better ways to cope with this feeling than lashing out with cruel words. Once you hit the send button, you can’t take it back!