February 25th is an important day in Canada. It’s Pink Shirt Day—a time dedicated to bullying awareness—and yet, the day feels both significant and incomplete. The message of Pink Shirt Day is vital: be kind, stand up for others. But for those of us who were bullied for who we are rather than anything we did, the day feels complicated. It feels incomplete.
That’s because, for many, the bullying didn’t actually end at graduation—it just put on a suit. It moved from the playground to the workplace, the healthcare system, and the halls of government.
This is why Pink Shirt Day and the WHO’s World Day of Social Justice (Feb 20) are inextricably linked. They aren’t two separate dates on a calendar; they are two sides of the same coin. We have to stop pretending that mental health and social justice are separate conversations—for those living through systemic harm, they are exactly the same one.
Bullying Beyond Childhood
Most of us learned about bullying as a schoolyard problem. Someone’s unkind, someone’s targeted, an adult steps in (hopefully), and eventually it helps.
Bullying is really about power—who has it, who doesn’t, and how that gets enforced. It’s how children learn, very early, who is considered acceptable and who isn’t. And for kids who are LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, racialized, disabled, fat, or gender-nonconforming, that lesson gets repeated a lot. Not just by other kids, but by the systems around them that fail to intervene, or worse, participate.
Statistics Canada found that 77% of sexually and gender-diverse youth experienced bullying compared to 69% of their cisgender peers—with earlier research showing LGBTQ+ students experiencing harassment at rates up to 8 times higher in some categories.
The numbers tell the story of this transition.
Canadian research found 77% of autistic children reported being bullied, with autism identified as the top risk factor among all neurodevelopmental disorders. In a 2021 national survey, visible minority students were three times more likely to experience racial bullying than white students—and 23% said teachers either ignored it or didn’t notice at all.
None of that is random. It reflects who we, as a society, have decided to call ‘normal’ or ‘nonconforming’. Who fits and who doesn’t.
When Bullying Is Institutionalized
For a lot of people, the bullying never actually stops; it just matures. Those targeted as kids for being “different” recognize the same patterns in adulthood—they’ve just moved into different buildings. In the workplace, playground exclusion evolves into being passed over for promotions or silenced by microaggressions. In healthcare, it takes the form of having your pain dismissed or your identity debated.
This is what bullying looks like when it has institutional power.
Right now, it is impossible to ignore the through-line. We see it in the legislative targeting of trans people, the rollback of reproductive rights, and the demonization of immigrants—where cruelty is increasingly framed as “strength.” This systemic harm trickles across borders and into our schools, our clinics, and our very sense of safety.
It is more than just “mean behavior.” It is a coordinated effort to remind marginalized people that they do not belong. And frankly, it deeply worries me.
What Bullying Can Do to a Person
Bullying teaches your nervous system that certain spaces aren’t safe. That standing out is dangerous, that you have to monitor how you’re being perceived at all times. And you know what – a lot of spaces aren’t safe for many. We have to change this.
Research consistently shows higher rates of anxiety, depression, complex PTSD, chronic shame, and difficulty trusting others in people who were bullied as children. Not because something was wrong with them. Because they adapted to survive something real.
These are adaptations that follow us long after the school bell rings. They manifest as a persistent hypervigilance in social situations, or a “people-pleasing” reflex that costs us our own needs. It’s the difficulty of receiving kindness without waiting for the “catch,” and a baseline, low hum of anxiety that tells you it isn’t quite safe to be yourself.
That’s a very human response to having been repeatedly told—by peers, by silence, by inaction—that you were too much, or not enough, or simply wrong.
Why Mental Health IS Social Justice
Here’s what we believe at Healing Spaces that shapes how we work: We Believe You.
Your anxiety isn’t “just in your head”. It’s a response to living in systems that are challenging to who you are. Your depression isn’t going to go away “if you try harder”. It’s what can happen when you’re struggling in a world that doesn’t always understand you . Your trauma isn’t something you “should be over by now”. It’s the result of harm that was done to you by individuals, by systems and likely compounded over time.
Therapy can’t be done outside of the community and system that you exist within. We can’t ask someone to “manage their anxiety” if that anxiety is a rational response. We can’t tell someone to “practice self-care” if they’re being denied access to healthcare or housing. Real care meets people in the actual context of their lives—not a sanitized version of it.
That’s why we practice from a trauma-informed, anti-oppression, neuroaffirming lens. Not as a tagline, but because it’s the only way we know how to do this honestly.
What can you do…
Wear the pink shirt, if it feels meaningful, and honour what it stands for. Stand up for kindness. Stand up for children’s rights – human rights – co-existing and living within a wild and wonderful community of differences.
Get Support for Bullying Trauma in BC
Healing from bullying trauma usually starts with recognizing that what happened was real, that it had an impact, and that your responses (however they show up) make sense given what you went through. You can find support to help you navigate this in our Trauma Guide: Understanding, Healing, and Growing Forward. From there, therapy can help you slowly untangle shame from identity, understand your patterns without judgment, and gradually build more room to be yourself without it feeling like a risk.
If you were told—directly or indirectly—that you were too much, not enough, or wrong for being exactly who you are: you weren’t. And there’s support here when you’re ready for it.
Healing Spaces offers in-person trauma-informed counselling in Vancouver, Kamloops, and North Vancouver, and virtually across BC, Alberta, Yukon, NWT, and Saskatchewan. We’re neuroaffirming, LGBTQ+ allied, and anti-oppression—not as a tagline, but as the foundation of how we work.
Your first 15-minute consultation is free. No pressure, just a human conversation with a counsellor who best fits your needs about where you’re at and how we can support you. Book your time here.
If you’re not looking for therapy right now but want more opportunities for connection and shared reflection, you’re welcome to join our newsletter community.