Looking away doesn't keep you out of it. It puts you right in the middle of it.
None of my business
At the beach one summer, I watched an older girl scream at and hit a younger one — probably her little sister. Nobody moved. I was the only one who said anything.
She spun around and yelled at me: who did I think I was, sticking my nose in? I told her calmly that she'd made it my business the moment she did it in front of me, and that this was her one warning to stop and let the younger girl go. She backed down — I had about forty pounds and several inches on her, so she didn't push it.
What stayed with me wasn't the confrontation. It was the fact that half the beach had witnessed the whole thing and not one other person did anything.
"He was always so nice to me"
There was a guy in our friend group that every girl was at least a little in love with. Zsolt was tall, good-looking, the kind of effortlessly charismatic troublemaker whose edge only made him more magnetic. He was the unofficial leader of the group — everybody loved him.
Then he got a girlfriend. She was beautiful and quiet, and he treated her badly. He was impatient, dismissive, sometimes outright disrespectful — and she never once raised her voice or fought back. I found her crying after one of his outbursts and went over to comfort her. We talked, we laughed about what idiots guys can be, and I thought that was enough.
A few weeks later, we heard that Zsolt had beaten her badly enough to put her in the hospital. Her parents filed a police report. The most chilling part? Nobody in the group was surprised. We'd never seen him get physically violent with her, but somewhere deep down, we all knew it wasn't beyond him.
My mom asked why I hadn't done something. All I could manage was that he'd always been kind to me, so somehow it hadn't felt like my problem. The group cut him off after that. But I've never stopped feeling responsible for what happened to her.
Choosing a side by doing nothing
My friends watched my then-boyfriend verbally abuse me for months and said nothing. When I finally had enough of the verbal abuse and left him, I was stunned to find out that many of them stayed close with him.
When I brought it up, they told me not to ask them to "choose sides — that's so immature."
I told them they had already chosen — the moment they stayed friends with an abuser. I cut ties with all of them.
The ones who enable it
I was the kid in my family that everyone kicked and nobody defended. My dad was always drunk. My mom didn't want to get involved. My siblings were rivals, my cousins thought it was entertainment. My aunts and uncles figured a bit of teasing was just part of growing up. Only my grandmother ever looked troubled by it — but she never did anything either.
That experience shaped a promise I made to myself: I would never be the person who looks away. I've called security on a mother who slapped her child in a shopping mall. I've called the police on a neighbor who was hitting her husband. I will always make the call.
Silence in the face of cruelty is its own kind of guilt — and I believe that with everything I have.
Tommy
I was actually in the middle of telling a friend that bullying wasn't really a thing when we were kids — and then I stopped talking, because I suddenly remembered Tommy.
Tommy was the classic invisible kid in our elementary school class. He barely existed to most of us, except when the other boys decided to make his day miserable. It happened regularly. It was considered normal. Nobody said a word — including me.
In fact, I had forgotten it so completely that at thirty years old, I was confidently claiming it had never happened. That realization hit me like a wall. The guilt was overwhelming.
I looked him up on social media. His photos show a life that looks happy — a pretty wife, two little daughters, a smile that seems real. I hope he's forgotten what we put him through. But I know that's probably too much to ask.
Frequently asked questions
Why do people stay silent when they witness abuse?
As these stories show, the reasons vary — not wanting to get involved, assuming it's not their place, or simply not registering the situation as serious. Sometimes people rationalize silence because the abuser treats them well personally, which makes it easy to minimize what they've seen.
Does staying friends with an abuser make you complicit?
According to the experiences shared here, many survivors feel that it does. Maintaining a normal relationship with someone who has abused another person sends a signal that their behavior is acceptable — even if that's not the intention.
What can bystanders actually do when they see abuse?
The stories in this article show that even small actions matter — calmly telling someone to stop, going to comfort the victim, calling security or the police when necessary. The key is choosing not to do nothing.
Can childhood bullying leave lasting effects on witnesses, not just victims?
Yes — as one contributor describes, the guilt of having done nothing as a child can resurface decades later and feel deeply unsettling. Witnessing harm and staying silent is something many people carry with them long after the fact.
