FIRST-PERSON
Anisha Mittal*, a 21-year-old Dubai student, tells Sangeetha Sagar of the devastating effects cyberbullying had on her
A 21-year-old Dubai student gives us a harrowing account of the years she had to spend being bullied online.
‘Igrew up in a liberal family environment and was known for my friendly demeanour. A tomboy, I enjoyed growing up in the company of male cousins, kicking a ball and playing in the dirt. As I entered middle school, I began expanding my friends’ circle to include not just girls but boys as well. Maybe it was my tomboyish nature, but I found myself more comfortable in the company of boys than girls. And that was when things started getting nasty.
When we moved to high school, some of my friends had boyfriends. We would all go out in a group, and just as I was good friends with the girls I was also friends with the boys. However, some girls misinterpreted my actions and felt I was trying to be overly friendly with their boyfriends.
That’s when it all started. The girls started making extremely disparaging and negative comments about me on an anonymous Q&A chat site on which most of my schoolmates used to hang out.
The level of anonymity meant people could say just about anything, hiding behind their computer screens. The comments on me were nasty and malicious and were about my looks, weight, height, and my relationships both in and outside school. I was body shamed, and termed stupid. Some even said I’d had botox injections for my lips. Some pointedly told me to leave school and stop being a bother to others – all this only because I was friends with some of the girls’ boyfriends.
Initially, I didn’t think much of it. But soon the comments started getting worse, with people calling my morals into question.
Just because I didn’t fit into “normal social standards” – which meant attending parties and drinking – (I more enjoyed playing volleyball in the park) I was left to face a barrage of hurtful comments. Soon the comments moved from the anonymous chatline to personal ones.
Some of my good friends too started believing the rumours and began avoiding me or ignoring me, while also contributing to the rumours. And suddenly the online bullying turned alarming and aggressive. It moved from being about just me to the people around me. My family started being targeted, with rude comments being left about them. And the next thing I knew, students were commenting saying I should kill myself.
The issue escalated further, with some ‘friends’ using even Facebook and Snapchat to indulge in cyberbullying me.
Soon some teachers had bought into the rumours – I remember a teacher chiding me for ‘wasting time with the wrong company’. They started picking on me. I wasn’t strong in the sciences (I was more of an arts enthusiast) and a teacher pegged it to my ‘elaborate social life’. When I wanted to run for student president, a teacher told me my application was a joke and that I had no leadership qualities, that I was incapable. She said she would be doing me a favour by withdrawing my name from the candidates’ list to ‘save me from embarrassment.’
I was affected, mentally and physically.
I soon developed a very low self-esteem – something I still struggle with. It took a toll on my physical and emotional health. I failed in a subject for the very first time. I felt defeated. I stopped coming out of my room and shut everyone out, from friends to my parents to even my sister.
T hough they didn’t know that I was being bullied, my parents started getting worried about my behaviour and my long periods of withdrawal into my room. Unable to get through to me, my mother once even got a few friends of hers to come meet me, hoping I’d be more comfortable revealing what was going on in my life to someone other than a parent.
I only told my parents about the bullying when I was in Grade 11, when it reached its peak and got so bad I didn’t think I could handle it. Over the summer break that year, they put me in therapy for depression and social anxiety and as silly as it sounds, as I had no close friends remaining I befriended my therapist and was very attached to her. My dad was furious at the students and teachers bullying me. My parents told me after the summer they were going to approach the school and if things didn’t get better, they would consider moving me to
I soon developed very low self-esteem – something I still struggle with. It took a toll on my physical and emotional health. I failed in a subject for the very first time
a new school. But I begged them not to. I wanted to graduate without further drama, and I worried changing schools and having to adjust to a new environment would throw me off and affect my studies.
Just as I started getting better with therapy, I had a relapse as more comments started to appear online. I got close to starting to self-harm, and knew it was a slippery slope towards developing suicidal tendencies.
If I were asked how I coped with the bullying, and finally got past it, I don’t have a straight answer. It was more of me coming to the realisation that I had to help myself, and push past it all somehow and live my life. That’s when I decided to distance myself from everything and everyone. I logged off social media and completely stopped reading anything said about me. I made a decision to focus only on my academics, and not the comments, or the people making them. I also listened to YouTubers Dan and Phil everyday – they’d talk about standing up to cyberbullies in a very humorous manner, and that helped me cope and understand that there’s more to life than worrying about the inevitable.
So I went back to school after that summer break with a clean slate, ready in my mind for a fresh start. And it worked.
My parents were very supportive through it, but there were times when I felt the overall attitude was more like “everyone goes through it, so take it above your head.”
The only two close friends I have now have helped me become happier and check on me regularly to ensure I don’t relapse in any way. I guess as I grew older, I gained more experience and in retrospect people probably go through worse scenarios in life – but no one should ever have to go through the trauma of being bullied’.