Do Bystanders Get A Pass For Keeping Silent Or Doing Nothing When They See Abuse?

*** Mentions physical and sexual assault as it pertains to a minor, which readers may find distressing

The Time A Bystander Did Nothing

When I entered fifth grade, I entered down a trail of darkened paths. School was ultimately hard for me. I was already blinded by the nature of home life trauma and sexual trauma that I scarcely focused in class. I thrived on rote memory and daydreams. I look back and recall that I barely functioned, and this was months after I endured a sexual assault.

Fifth grade was by far quite different from my fourth grade year, and within the same school. I spent more time in a daze and barely recall anything that happened at school. That year was a fuzzy haze of blurred hallways of people and overcrowded classes. I dissociated my way through school much of the time. In fact, I felt most often outside of my body up until I was jolted back into reality by a bully.

A new family had arrived by the spring while I was already suffering PTSD, night terrors, nightmares, and all the stress that comes from being a victim of sexual assault. I was barely functioning even if my mind played no recall of the event. My body definitely kept a score card. So I certainly didn’t have time to struggle with being the victim of bullying on top of what I was dealing with at the time. But my life continued on a downward spiral.

The Bully

To make a long story short, I was bullied over the course of several weeks by a boy who decided I was a good target. He and his sisters targeted me when I knew nothing about them and never said a thing to them. Despite my struggles with social anxiety and autism, this boy singled me out and tried to force me to talk. He would continuously threaten me, and when he found out I walked home from school to my grandparent’s home, he began following me and taunting me daily.

The attacks of this boy first began with verbal insults, but because I refused to say anything (because I was frozen with mutism), he began hitting me. This assault was a vicious blow of trauma to me. Somewhere within my fragmented mind, my body remembered a previous assault, and I was froze in place. I didn’t fight back because I was physically unable to do so. All I could do was take cover and protect myself. Inside, I was dying a slow death because I just did not comprehend such a level of hate against a stranger.

I had nearly made the distance to my grandparents’ home when this bully took hold of me and began punching me and kicking me with all his might. He beat me savagely – leaving me with a severely bruised face and bruises all over my body. If my mind had any recall at the time, this traumatic attack would have nearly mirrored the events that happened to me months prior when I was sexually assaulted by two teens. I had no idea why this bully hated me so. I’d never said anything to him except to defend myself against his lies on me.

Nevertheless, while being beaten, I saw the front door of a neighbor open wide, I thought I might be saved at that point, and I also thought that open door was enough to make the bully stop torturing me. It was not. This bully had absolutely no fear of an adult – and a man at that. The man that came to the door merely watched as I was being beaten. He never once intervened. I remember looking out and searching to meet his eyes and feeling a sharp pain of inner rejection as he looked on, shook his head, and then shut his door.

For a short moment, this man, a neighbor, was a bystander. He stood by and watched as a girl was kicked and punched with fierce and hateful brutality and did absolutely nothing to intervene. I remember the feeling of my heart sinking as I let out a mortally wounded cry from my gut because I didn’t understand. The guttural cry caused the bully to lash out even more until one of his sisters screamed at him to leave me be. My grandmother had by then stepped out to see what was going on, and by the time I had reached her home, instead of getting involved, she too, rejected me in favor of the lies the bully had told. She said that I must have deserved it.

I died on the inside that day, and the panic that arose within me to protect myself was a daily struggle for weeks. On top of the PTSD I was already struggling, there were now increased fears and struggles. During my 5th grade year, sleep deprivation tumbled me further into a deeper depression because of my fears. I had absolutely no one. This bully had led a fierce smear campaign of lies against me, and I didn’t even know him or his family. Yet, everyone believed him, including my parents, and I was forced to do something I had time and again been forced to do years later for a sexual predator – apologize for simply existing against lies being told on me.

Needless to say, the bystanders did nothing. Only the sister yelled for her brother to stop. Then they concocted a lie as to why I was all bruised and bloodied which actually entailed me (a very tiny 10 year old half their size) bullying him! The fact that this was even accepted as truth really got to me. I couldn’t believe it. In that moment, I recognized that even some bystanders don’t have the wherewithal to do the right thing by a victim. They, instead, support the perpetrators.

I was already pushed to the brink of suicidal thoughts prior to this traumatic situation, but afterwards, I went home and decided to come up with a plan to die. It was all I could take. Sneaking pills to bed was the plan, but when that didn’t work, I cried myself to sleep while praying to God for a last ditch attempt to save me from further harm. What happened next propelled events forward in my favor, but my heart was never quite the same again.

The happy ending is that the bully left me alone after I went ballistic on the play ground reacting to his oncoming abuse against me. He gathered a crowd against me on the playground so that he could publicly degrade me, but instead, his face met with the abrasive force of a stick I had inadvertently placed within my bookbag on my walk to school in anticipation of his planned assault. I didn’t truly think I needed to use it, but once he came in my direction with the intention to swing on me, I snapped and let the stick have a conversation with the side of his face and head.

Again, not one bystander came to the aid of the “victim” – except that the bully was not the real victim. It was me. No one came to my aid either. The bystanders just wanted to stand by and watch. They took in my reaction like it was all just entertainment. Nothing else mattered – not my life, not the bully’s life, nothing but entertainment. I walked away with the belief that bystanders do just that in all situations – they stand by. They don’t stand for justice. They just stand by. They don’t stand to help. They just watch. They stand by and do nothing.

Only those called forth with an inward action to do what is right because of empathy and compassion for others stand up to free the victim of abuse no matter what they might face. They don’t just stand by. They stand up and move. They help. They speak against abuse. They don’t watch someone’s pain and do nothing. But this is about bystanders, and by definition, bystanders stand by not taking any part in events. Basically, they do nothing except watch as spectators.

Do Bystanders Get A Pass For Keeping Silent Or Doing Nothing When They See Abuse?

The short answer, in my opinion, is “NO”!