How do you know when teasing stops and bullying begins? Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself or you see it happening to your child, colleague, or friend: some teasing is going on. Jokes, remarks, a little push, or an almost invisible whisper under someone’s breath. “Oh, it’s just teasing,” people often say. But is that really true?
There is a line. And that line is often very thin. Sometimes you feel it in your stomach before your head understands it. In this blog, I want to take you into my own experience. Why I can now clearly feel when teasing turns into something that hurts: bullying.
How do you know when teasing stops and bullying begins?
Bullying can make you stumble, but it doesn’t have to break you. Sometimes it’s the storm that helps you grow stronger and bloom even more beautifully.
My story. It didn’t start as bullying, although it was called that
I was six. Quiet. Shy and afraid, actually.
Now I know I am highly sensitive, an HSP. But back then, no one had ever heard of that.
What I did know was that I picked up everything: moods, glances, sounds, the atmosphere in a room. Everything came in very strong. Children laughing could scare me. Loud voices made me feel small. If someone said something, it could echo in my head for hours.
Maybe I was even scared before the bullying started because I didn’t feel really safe at home either. But that’s another story, for another time.
I felt different. And I really was different.
I cried more easily. Was careful. Reserved. And I didn’t bully back.
And maybe that’s exactly why it kept going. Because the quieter I became, the easier I could be hurt. The more I adapted, the less I was seen.
Bullying isn’t just annoying behavior
At first, it seemed like just annoying behavior. Jokes about my clothes, how I spoke, that I was always so scared. But it quickly changed. Especially when they realized I didn’t dare to say anything back. There was a lot of name-calling.
After school, they waited for me. On the street, at the school gate. To laugh at me, openly humiliate me.
And most of all: to exclude me.
That exclusion was maybe the worst. The feeling that you don’t count. That you are not wanted. As if you were air. Or worse: as if you are not allowed to be there.
“Teasing is laughing together, with a playful intention. Bullying, on the other hand, is meant to hurt and to make someone feel pain on purpose.”
When does teasing become bullying?
I get asked this question a lot. And I still ask myself sometimes.
Because honestly: I tease too. My mother, people I love. Because there is playfulness, a laugh, something light. My boyfriend has ADHD and sometimes I tease him about his messy mind, because he lost something again. But it always happens with a laugh, and we laugh together about those moments.
Teasing is safe. Teasing is laughing together and teasing doesn’t hurt.
Bullying is repeated, unsafe, and unequal.
It puts someone down instead of lifting them up. It singles someone out. And when the other person can no longer laugh about it, then it stops being a joke and becomes something that intentionally hurts.
I would never treat someone the way I was treated back then.
Because if you know what it feels like to be excluded, you also know how deep that cuts.
How do you know when teasing stops and bullying begins?
For you, if you recognize this
Maybe you read this and feel: I recognize this.
Maybe you are also someone who is sensitive. Who learned at a young age: I’ll just adjust. I’ll become smaller. Less visible. Then I want to tell you: you are not alone.
What happened to you doesn’t say anything about your value as a person.
Maybe it was a long time ago for you (too). If such an old wound sits deep inside your body, it can sometimes unexpectedly still be triggered. Know that this pain is allowed to be there, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Please don’t think you brought it on yourself because you are ‘different.’ You don’t have to wonder if you’re overreacting. Your feelings are always real and deserve respect.
I didn’t write this blog to stay stuck in the past.
I write this because I now know how freeing it is to understand where some feelings come from. And to take them seriously, without making them heavier than they are.
Without judgment. But with love. For myself. And for you.
Why this still matters. Even as an adult
Years later, I thought I was over it. I have had years of therapy. But a few years ago I met someone. A soul connection. Someone who really saw me and at the same time triggered something old in me. His sudden distance reactivated the old feeling of being excluded. The child in me who thought: I am not good enough. It all came back. Not because he bullied me. But because my body remembered something.
That is the quiet work of bullying: it leaves marks. In your self-image, your relationships, how you show yourself or hide yourself. And sometimes it only comes up years later. Through a meeting, a trigger, or a sudden feeling of: here I am again, back on that playground.
Why this story is important
I share this not because I want to stay stuck in the past. On the contrary. I’m doing well. I have learned to feel where my boundaries are. When I am hurt and what I need then. But I also know I am not the only one. And I know how important it is that we keep talking about that line. Between teasing and bullying. And about what it does, even when it stays invisible.
Know that you are not alone. Whether you experience it now or have experienced it before. Together we form an unbreakable strength, ready to move forward with our heads held high and to heal.
