For Children. “Why do I feel sick?”

If you are being bullied you might wonder why you feel so unwell all the time. There could be lots of reasons why you don’t feel well, and if you don’t feel alright it is important that you tell a grown up and ask for help, and maybe the grown up will take you to a doctor if that is what is needed. Even though there might be different reasons that you don’t feel well, some of them might be to do with the bullying. Have you ever fallen over when running or hurt yourself riding a bike or bumped into something? Your body would have felt pain, and maybe you had some bleeding or got a bruise. Our bodies allow us to feel pain so that we can know that something has gone wrong and so that we can rest the bit that has been hurt and allow it to heal and get better.

When people are mean to us, our emotions get hurt and so do our minds. We might not be able to see the pain or wound in the same way as if we had broken a bone or got hurt in our body, but we still can feel what is called emotional pain (when we feel sad, hurt, afraid, angry, humiliated, lonely or other difficult feelings) and mental or psychological pain (in our minds and thoughts). When we are going through difficult things, we experience ‘stress’ – our brains are working overtime to protect us from harm. Our brains produce chemicals in our bodies because of the stress, and sometimes because things are a bit ‘wonky’ we get too much of these chemicals. We might feel anxious, scared, frightened, confused. These are all normal reactions to difficult situations. But just like our bodies need time to heal, so do our emotions. If you are being bullied though you might not get the chance to heal, or ‘process’ those painful emotions, and your body might show those emotions through physical symptoms. You might have tummy aches, or headaches, you might feel sick or anxious and afraid a lot of the time. You might feel confused and not know what to do, or you might feel aches and pains. If you find that you are not feeling well a lot of the time, or if you also feel sad, upset, tearful and poorly, it is important to know that this is not your fault, your body and emotions are reacting to the difficult things you are going through and you need time and space and help from an adult to get better. It can be really scary to ask for help. When I was a child I was very frightened and a patch of my hair fell out. I felt too sad, scared and ashamed that I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mum. But my mum saw this one day when she was doing my hair and she wanted to help me. If you feel scared and ashamed because you don’t feel well, please know that it is not your fault and it is ok to tell a grown up. Can you speak to a mum or dad, auntie or uncle, a teacher who you trust, the school nurse, a big brother or sister or even a friend? It may be really difficult to express what you feel, and you might not know the words to say, or you might not be able to get the words out. Maybe you could ask for help by writing it down. Sometimes grown ups forget how hard it can be for a child to speak up. If you don’t know what to say maybe you could write something like: “I feel very sad, scared and unwell a lot of the time. Please help me”. It would be a good idea to let them know you are being bullied but I understand that can be very difficult. There are lots of ways to get help but the best thing to do is to tell a kind grown up. They may not know how bad you feel inside, so it is important that you be really brave and let someone know. If you feel like there is no one you can talk to, you can come here to this blog, and you can ask me any questions in the comments and I will listen to you and try to give you any help and advice I can. Please remember that you are not alone, people love and care about you and want you to be well.