yes - i believe that in saying "other people had it worse" you are not allowing yrself to feel your own personal pain at being bullied. frankly, i think you aren't even looking at it at all - who knows, if you look at it you may discover that it was really really bad.

here's the problem - by saying its normal & everyone gets treated that way as a rite of passage - well, may stop being sympathetic to others who have been bullied. i know you probably aren't there yet, but you are steps away from justifying bullying in your mind - you're already making up the excuses for it by ignoring your own pain.

I have often thought the exact same thing. But I also realize that just because it wasn't as bad as what others have had to endure, it did affect me.

Ignoring it will only make the problem worse.

I'm not ignoring it...I'm thinking more and more about it every day. tdoc homework is to think about the things people said and did that upset me. She thinks that's why I built up this "wall" around myself... b/c of the bullies.

It just doesn't seem as bad as what other people had to cope with. I wasn't bullied for very long...if bullying is what it was considered..

look, as someone who was bullied mercilessly throughout school - & even had to face that same shit in college & even afterward - so you could say i was bullied "more" then you - i give you permission, as one of those you would have sympathy for, to see what you went through as bullying & feel upest about it as such.

I was made fun of throughout most of my school career beginning in the tiny grades all the way up to some high school. In K and 1st grade, boys would poke safety pins into my broad backside when I walked down the aisle of the bus. I was called countless names, etc. That's what I call bullying. To be put down and made to feel less than somebody else is considered bullying to me. Own your past, Hanna. It is hard, but maybe it will help you.

I guess ignoring was the wrong word, thinking that it wasnt that bad or downplaying it is more like it.

Thank you otter. I appreciate that you said that. I don't know that I'll be able to see myself as one of those poor people that were, like you said, mercilessly bullied....but I will keep trying to think of these people from the past that may or may not have made a huge impact on my life. (((HUGS)))

i do dnot see myself as a "poor" person - i just have to say. i see myself as someone who got singled out so as to make people less able to face their own insecurities feel better about themselves. in the end, i no longer even feel angry at them - over time i have seen them to be the "poor" people - poor in spirit & internal fortitude.

well, that's a great way to look at it otter.

Thank you everyone for all the replies. :)

Amen to that otter.

Hanna you're minimizing because you think those who are bullied have as stigma. You don't want to be in that "class" of poor people.. as you call them. Rite of passage? The only rite of passage anyone ought to have is kindness and mutual respect at the very least.

It's not that I don't want to be in that "class" of people. It's that I don't feel I've earned the right to really complain about something that seems really minimal to me.

Perhaps I was bullied enough for me to shut out emotions, or perhaps I developed this for some other reason.

Hanna It may not matter what u believe. The freedom will come from doing the process. Dont fight it. If she thinks that happened go with it. I have done lots of counseling. In order for me to get the most of it I say a prayer like this.

God Let the miracle of me changing happen this process. Show me the miracle of letting go even if I think this treatment is bullshit grant me freedom from this and open my heart to a new experience
You can have doubt about therapy and still gain freedom from what ails you.

Hanna don't ever minimize your own pain on account of others. Just because you percieve what you went thru to not be on the same level as others it still affects you and was wrong . . .

Don't let yourself minimize what happened to you just because you think others had it worse but also dont let your pdoc assign more importance to something if you really feel it has no or little significance.... do her exercises and spend some time letting yourself really think about what happened to you, and not in context with what happened to others but just what happened to you and how it made you feel.... My pdoc has done that to me a couple of times when I insist something does not bother me or that I have already gotten over it and it irritates the hell out of me.... maybe it's just me but not even my psychistrist knows me well enough to tell me how to feel. ((HUGS))

I'm going to address it. I'm thinking about the people who bothered me most in Jr. High and High School...although I really didn't have any problems in HS. I'll focus on me and what happened to me and try to see if that truly is the problem.