Healing from Childhood Bullying: EMDR, Confidence & Moving Forward
What You’ll Learn
How bullying in childhood continues to affect adult relationships, self-worth, and the nervous system
How EMDR, IFS, Somatic Therapy, and Brainspotting help you heal old wounds
What “the body keeps the score” means and why your body remembers what your mind wants to forget
What a Brainspotting or EMDR session for bullying could look like
Practical steps for rebuilding confidence and reconnecting with yourself
The Long Shadow of Childhood Bullying
Most adults who come to therapy for anxiety, low self-esteem, or relationship challenges don’t start their story with “I was bullied.”
They usually start with “I just don’t feel good enough,” or “I can’t relax around people.”
But when we start to look closer, when memories, sensations, and old messages begin to surface, we often find a younger self who was mocked, excluded, or humiliated.
Maybe it was one cruel comment that lodged in the body like a splinter. Maybe it was years of subtle rejection.
The impact of bullying doesn’t fade just because we grow up. It can shape how we interpret safety, love, and belonging. It can make success feel precarious and closeness feel risky.
Therapy for bullying recovery is not just about “talking it through.” It’s about working with how your nervous system still reacts, how your body still protects you, and how to help those younger parts of you release the shame they never should have carried.
The Lingering Effects of Bullying in Adulthood
Bullying is complex trauma.
It’s relational, meaning it’s embedded in social experiences, and often chronic, happening in the same environment (school, sports, online spaces).
The nervous system learns that connection equals danger.
You might notice:
Feeling hyper-aware in social settings or replaying interactions long after they’re over
An inner critic that sounds suspiciously like someone from your past
Tension in the body- tight shoulders, stomach knots, or a constricted chest- when you imagine being judged
A tendency to withdraw before others can reject you
Bullying is not just “mean kids being mean.”
It’s a repeated disruption of safety in connection. That’s why body-based therapies such as EMDR, IFS, Somatic work, and Brainspotting are so powerful: they reach the parts of us that language alone can’t.
EMDR for Bullying: Reprocessing Old Wounds
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is one of the most researched trauma therapies. It helps the brain re-file painful experiences that were never properly stored.
When you experience bullying, your nervous system often goes into fight, flight, or freeze- but you can’t actually fight back or escape without social cost. So the event remains “stuck” in an activated state. EMDR helps release that activation.
How It Works
In EMDR, we use bilateral stimulation—eye movements, taps, or tones—to engage both hemispheres of the brain. While you focus gently on a memory or feeling, the brain begins to process it in real time.
Clients often notice that what once felt overwhelming starts to feel distant or resolved. You still remember what happened, but it no longer feels like it’s happening to you in the present.
For bullying survivors, EMDR might target:
The moment of public humiliation
The first time you felt excluded or unsafe
A teacher or adult who dismissed your pain
The body sensations that arise when you imagine standing up for yourself
Through reprocessing, those moments lose their charge. You reclaim agency and self-worth where fear once lived.
Internal Family Systems (IFS): Meeting the Parts That Still Carry the Pain
IFS invites us to meet the inner “parts” that formed in response to bullying- often protectors and exiles.
We might have a part that works hard to stay invisible, or one that overachieves to prove worth.
Another part may carry deep shame or anger.
IFS doesn’t try to eliminate these parts- it helps us get to know them with compassion.
When you begin to see that your self-criticism was actually a protective strategy, something softens. Healing becomes less about “fixing yourself” and more about listening to what each part needs to feel safe again.
In practice, IFS and EMDR often blend beautifully. EMDR clears the body’s stored activation, while IFS helps integrate the emotional story- so no part of you is left behind.
Why the Body Keeps the Score: The Somatic Impact of Bullying
Bessel van der Kolk’s, “The Body Keeps The Score,” captures something most trauma survivors intuitively know: our body remembers what our mind forgets.
Bullying isn’t only psychological- it’s physiological.
Every taunt, shove, or silent exclusion triggers the body’s threat system.
Over time, that system learns to stay on guard.
How It Shows Up
Tension and posture: Shoulders pulled in, avoiding eye contact, shallow breathing- subtle ways the body minimizes exposure.
Gut reactions: Digestive issues or nausea linked to stress or perceived judgment.
Voice and expression: Difficulty speaking up or a shaky voice when trying to assert yourself.
Chronic fatigue: Living in a semi-fight-or-flight state drains energy reserves.
Somatic therapies help by bringing awareness to these body stories.
Rather than pushing past them, you learn to move with them- grounding, orienting, and gently re-teaching the nervous system that it’s safe to relax.
Simple somatic techniques- breath work, grounding, gentle movement, or co-regulation with a trusted person- can reintroduce the feeling of safety that bullying once stole.
Brainspotting: Accessing the Body’s Deepest Memory
Brainspotting works from the idea that “where you look affects how you feel.”
The therapist helps locate an eye position that connects to the emotional or somatic activation tied to a memory. From there, you stay with that spot while the body processes what’s stored.
Why It Helps
Unlike traditional talk therapy, Brainspotting allows the body, not the mind, to lead.
Many clients who feel “stuck” in EMDR or verbal processing find that Brainspotting opens deeper access to implicit memory: sensations, images, emotions that never had words.
Because bullying often involves shame and frozen responses, Brainspotting helps those frozen parts thaw safely.
You don’t have to recount every detail- your nervous system already holds the story.
What a Brainspotting Session for Bullying Might Look Like
Imagine sitting in session, grounding your feet on the floor. You describe a situation- maybe a memory of being laughed at in class or left out of a group.
The therapist invites you to notice where you feel that memory in your body. Maybe your throat tightens or your stomach sinks.
Using a pointer or visual cue, you explore where your gaze naturally lands when you feel that activation most clearly. That point becomes your “brainspot.”
As you hold that gaze, the therapist stays attuned to your breathing, subtle shifts, and emotional release.
Some clients cry, others feel waves of heat, trembling, or sudden calm. You’re not reliving the event. You’re allowing your nervous system to complete the survival responses it couldn’t back then.
By the end, many clients describe feeling lighter, more grounded, and more connected to their present-day self.
Over time, the old trigger loses intensity. You start to trust that you can be seen without being shamed.
Somatic and Mind-Body Integration
Healing from bullying is not about intellectual insight alone; it’s about reconnecting mind, body, and spirit.
Somatic therapy encourages curiosity instead of judgment.
When you notice the tightness in your chest before a meeting or the way your jaw clenches when you feel criticized, you’re witnessing the body’s history in motion.
Pausing, breathing, placing a hand on your heart, or orienting to your surroundings are ways of reminding the nervous system that you’re safe now.
Over time, this embodied awareness supports the deeper trauma work of EMDR, IFS, and Brainspotting.
Rebuilding Self-Confidence After Bullying
Confidence after bullying doesn’t come from pretending it didn’t hurt; it comes from repairing the trust that was broken—trust in others and in yourself.
Some ways therapy helps:
Reclaiming voice: Practicing boundaries, saying no, and learning that assertiveness isn’t aggression.
Corrective experiences: Feeling seen and validated in a therapeutic relationship rewires what “connection” means.
Integrating strengths: Recognizing resilience, empathy, and insight that grew from surviving pain.
Cultivating self-compassion: Replacing the internalized bully with a gentler, truer inner voice.
Each modality- EMDR, IFS, Somatic, and Brainspotting- approaches confidence from a different doorway, but all lead toward the same outcome: a grounded sense of self that no longer depends on others’ approval.
The Role of Community and Connection
While individual therapy is central, healing also thrives in community.
Isolation reinforces the messages bullying planted: connection challenges them.
Whether it’s group therapy, volunteer work, creative communities, or friendships where you can show up authentically- relational safety is the medicine bullying took away.
You don’t have to earn belonging. You already belong. Therapy just helps you believe it again.
Key Takeaways
Bullying is trauma. Its effects extend far beyond childhood, shaping the nervous system and self-concept.
The body keeps the score. Chronic social threat becomes embedded in posture, muscle tone, and physiological responses.
Therapy works best when it’s integrative. EMDR, IFS, Somatic Therapy, and Brainspotting each address different layers of experience—memory, emotion, and body.
Confidence is rebuilt, not discovered. Healing means learning that it’s safe to be seen and to take up space.
Connection heals. Supportive relationships and community experiences rewire the isolation of bullying.
You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone
If bullying still echoes in your body, relationships, or self-talk, that doesn’t mean you’re broken.
It means your nervous system did its best to protect you.
The good news is…it can learn safety again.
I offer virtual EMDR, IFS, Somatic, and Brainspotting therapy for adults in Virginia, Colorado, California, and Florida.
Together, we can untangle the old stories and help you feel grounded in your worth.
