Low Self-esteem The Impacts of Social Bullying as Seen Through the Victim of Social Bullying

experienced by the victim of bullying because there is event embarassing the victim of bullying. Embarrassment comes as a form of reaction toward embarrassed feeling Elsie experiences. On a certain event, Elsie’s skirt falls off. Everyone in class mocks her and teases her so she feels no one likes her. Jenny wonders whether that is “some kind of striptease” DeClements, 1981: 48 or not. Jack laughs so hard when he looks at that incident. It makes Elsie embarrassed. Elsie goes away from the class to be hidden and not to be the object of mockery happening. I turned to Diane. “What’s going on?” “When Elsie stood up, her skirt fell off,” Diane answered me. ...... But it was too late to say anything to Elsie. She bunched the top of her skirt with one hand and pulled the classroom door open with the other. The door slammed behind her. DeClements, 1981: 48 In the condition showing that her diet is in a good way, Elsie is still embarrassed. Her skirt falls off because she gets thinner. she becomes thinner because she does her diet. She does not do some kind of striptease. She tries to compensate her physical weakness by obeying her mother’s instruction. Elsie tries to decrease her weight as a way to overcome her weakness but she does not understand the fact that her classmates does not like her not only for her physical appearance but also her behavior that the surroundings feel uncomfortable with. Getting her skirt falling off places Elsie in an embarrassing moment. Everybody in her class can see what they should not see. The result of being embarassed because her skirt falls off is sadness. It is very natural when Elsie wants to be hidden when she know her skirt falls off. Elsie’s big body is her new classmates focus and on that time, her new classmates get another focus to mock. Robbins and Parlavecchio states that “in moments of disruption, such as in illness, clumsiness, or exposure to the judgments of other people, the lived body becomes an object of our attention” 2006: 322. Being a center of attention makes some children face fear of social situation. They cannot handle the feeling of not doing something stupid. Hersen and Gross state that “socially anxious children often come into treatment believing they “cannot” tolerate their fear in social situations, or with certainty that they will do “something stupid,” peers will laugh at them, and they will feel greatly embarrassed” 2008: 702. The embarrassment felt by Elsie results tears. Elsie cries and looks hopeless. The way she cries and goes away from the class is to protect herself from other verbal bullying on the same time. She feels sad for she sees that everyone laughs at her and no one tries to protect her from that incident. Elsie was slumped against the wall at the end of the sinks. Her head was tipped back and her face tilted up. Tears were streaming from her eyes, but she didn’t bother to brush them away. One hand hung at her side. The other still clutched her skirt. She looked sad and hopeless and alone. ..... Elsie closed her eyes. The tears dripped from under her eyelids. I stood there for a while. “I’ll go get a safety pin from Mrs. Hanson so you can pin up your skirt. DeClements, 1981: 49 Boys and girls laugh at her. The way “Roy could only shake his head” and “laughing so hard tears wobbled in his eyes” DeClements, 1981: 48 gets Elsie down. No one defenses her. She is alone and she has to face those aggressions herself. As laughing at ridiculous event can be considered as a bullying, the effect of that bullying is felt by Elsie. Elsie feels embarrassed because her classmates mock and laugh at her. Her skirt falls off and no one tries to help her cover the condition, on the contrary, some of Elsie’s classmates bully at Elsie so hard.

3. Loss of Self-respect

The last impact of social bullying the writer tries to examine is the loss of self-respect. The loss of self-respect is shows the reader the stage when the victim of social bullying judges her or his capability. According to Elizabeth B. Hurlock, Ph. D, it is possible that being teased by boys makes the girls “often have a poor opinion of themselves and make less favourable social adjustments than their superior social maturity would justify” 1964: 411. Neil Thompson suggests that the victims of any aggresions should stand up for theirselves. He states that “due to low self-esteem, we do not stand up for ourselves, we will not earn respect, and will not, therefore, have opportunities to boost our self-esteem. In this way we can become trapped in a vicious circle of low self-esteem” 2002: 39. She or he makes her or his own opinion about her or his life without any action to stop the surroundings’ opinion. For Robbins and Parlavecchio, “the loss of self-esteem model holds that embarrassment results from a loss of self-respect or dignity as a result of the negative evaluations of others 2006: 327. Elsie faces this problem. She feels distant with her new classmates and she is embarassed by the situation she has to face. Elsie judges herself that she has no person loving her. She thinks no one likes her, even her own family. I watched Elsie separate a yellow curl from the rest of her hair, twirl it around a thick finger, and yank on it. I guess Marianne saw this, too, because she suddenly asked me how my kitten was doing. I told her she had a sleeping box on the back porch. She had to stay outside all the time except when I was playing with her. “I bet Mama would like to do that with me,” Elsie said. DeClements, 1981: 14 Since she considers that her mother does not really like her, Elsie thinks that her mother will do the same with Jenny’s family do toward their kitten. She has low self-esteem, and here, she starts to lose her self-respect. The word ‘bet’ shows her certain feeling about what her mother can do toward her. She does not feel the acceptance from her mother. Lerner, Easterbrooks, and Mistry state in the book Handbook of Psychology that “ a young child’s assertion of self-will is a newly discovered self-conscious sense inspiring reflection and requiring expression and respect from others” 2003: 104. In this case, Elsie does not receive enough caring from her mother. She feels that her mother does not like her either. According to Ellen J. Langer, Ph. D, “the person with self-respect simply likes her- or himself” Langer, www.psychologytoday.comarticles199911self- esteem-vs-self-respect, 2011. In this level, Elsie is brave enough to bet. Being able to bet means there is an understanding and acceptance that she is not too bad to be compared to kitten. Relating the words by Ellen J. Langer, Ph. D, “to respect something, on the other hand, is to accept it” Langer, www.psychologytoday.comarticles199911 self-esteem-vs-self-respect, 2011. She indirectly accept the idea of placing her as kitten. She does not respect herself as a girl but a kitten. When I returned to Elsie, she still had her eyes closed. I held out the pin. “Here. You can fix your skirt.”