Early Bullying: The Entanglement and Game of Power, Good and Evil, and Love

Adults often dismiss bullying among minors as "kids messing around," especially when no physical harm is involved. However, the world of children is a microcosm of adult society, directly shaping their worldview, values, and outlook on life. Minors who suffer from long-term bullying tend to develop an especially profound understanding of power, good and evil, and such experiences may continue to influence their psychological state and social adaptation well into adulthood.

Bullying is, at its core, an act in which someone in a position of power wields that power with malicious intent to strip away another person's dignity. The power that minors possess is primarily a form of social advantage, manifested concretely as influence and control over their peers. In the adult world, by contrast, power mainly refers to tangible resources such as social status and wealth. Power itself is neutral; its moral character depends on what it is aligned with: when power is integrated with love, it becomes capable of protection and nurture; when power is combined with evil, it reveals its destructive nature. Many people who experienced long-term bullying early in life have personally witnessed power exercised with malice, and thus deeply understand its ability to dominate another person's free will. As a result, they develop a love‑hate ambivalence toward power—they know clearly that power can inflict harm, yet they also understand that only by possessing power can they protect themselves from bullying and gain respect. Consequently, they often see having power as a prerequisite for survival and a sense of security. Based on my limited observations, such individuals, as adults, are prone to equate a superior's disapproval or rejection with "bullying" as well, and therefore feel compelled to keep striving and fighting to defend their dignity, even when in reality their dignity has not truly been taken away. Moreover, because the power they have experienced has always been linked to evil, they may develop a similarly ambivalent love‑hate relationship with evil itself—though often they are reluctant to admit that they are attracted to evil.

The bullied party, being in a position of powerlessness within the power relationship, becomes deeply trapped in the experience of "disempowerment." They therefore long intensely for love, and may even preserve a utopian vision of "unconditional love" somewhere in their hearts. Yet in reality, the experience of having their dignity stripped away often makes them doubt the practical power of love and goodness—when they were being oppressed, love did not protect them; instead, it highlighted their own vulnerability. This may lead them to underestimate the real‑world value of love and goodness. As a result, deep down they often expect love and goodness to contain strength. What they yearn for most may not be pure love, but rather a union of "love" and "power."

Furthermore, individuals who suffered bullying early in life often experienced similar power deprivation within their families—for example, parents abusing their authority to suppress the child's autonomy. Such family interaction patterns can, through objective or subjective pathways, make the child more likely to become a target of bullying among peers: objectively, for instance, parents forcing the child to dress or behave in ways that stand out from others; subjectively, the child may, through projective identification (a psychological mechanism by which one unconsciously transmits a familiar relational pattern to another person, causing that person to respond in ways that conform to the pattern), repeat the "bully‑victim" relationship pattern familiar from home in the school setting. A healthy parent‑child relationship should combine authority with affection, with the two reinforcing each other, thereby helping the child internalize a positive connection between power and love.

Love has the power to free a person from a purely power‑driven contest and redirect them toward relationship and emotional connection. Without the intervention of love, the inner world of a person tends to be dominated by the logic of power. Some early‑life bullying survivors find solace and redemption in intimate relationships, especially when the partner possesses both love and strength. In such cases, the intimate relationship can even become a sanctuary from the cold world of power. At last, they no longer have to exhaust themselves guarding against potential power exploitation; instead, they can peacefully enjoy an equal emotional interaction. But when a breakup occurs—especially when they have been good to their partner, yet the partner still abandons them or shows emotional contempt—this sanctuary of love collapses. They fall back into that cruel power world where those in higher positions can arbitrarily strip away their dignity. Their mode of existence shifts from an emotional mode back to a fighting mode, where they must struggle for survival and dignity. Even their former partner, who once walked alongside them as a "protector," can become, in their eyes, a cold, ruthless "bully" in a position of power.

Psychotherapists tend to interpret a partner's departure or emotional contempt from the perspective of emotional patterns—for example, attributing it to poor emotion regulation, lack of empathy, and so on. Such interpretations may also consider potential factors of power imbalance, such as sadomasochistic dynamics, but they still tend to base the interpretation on the premise that the two parties are equal as individuals. However, those who have been bullied tend to hold firmly to their own perception: they attribute it to bullying and power oppression by the partner as the superior, under the condition of personal inequality—power, in their view, is the core determinant of everything. For other bullying survivors whose inner world has become deeply enmeshed in the logic of power, simply finding a genuine love object in reality is itself an extremely difficult endeavor. ❀