World Mental Health Day 2015: My scars don't define me, and neither do the cyberbullies

A study showed cyberbullying has become so commonplace that more than half of children in Britain accept that it is part of everyday life

(Rex Features)

It’s incredibly difficult to explain the mindset of someone who is being cyberbullied to those who haven’t experienced it first-hand. Logically, of course, the solution is to delete your Twitter or Instagram app, to switch your phone off and put it in a drawer, to ignore the cruel taunts and get on with your day. In practice, it simply doesn’t work like that.

All the evidence shows that people who are being targeted by bullies online will spend more time online, not less. They’ll develop a morbid fascination with what is being said about them, compulsively checking for updates, despite knowing they will encounter abuse. I suppose it’s not a million miles away from self-harm, in that respect.

Logically, you know the opinions of strangers don’t really matter. After all, I cannot fathom a situation where I’d be so angry, twisted or bored that I’d seek someone out online and invade their timeline with the sole purpose of taunting them into submission. Yet there is a difference between knowing and feeling. You know you shouldn’t care. You feel a variety of emotions – hurt, confused and an acute sense of injustice.

How do I know this? This summer I was targeted by a group of self-proclaimed MRAs (‘Men’s Rights Activists’) online. The amount of time and dedication they put into trolling me defied belief. Ostensibly, they hate me because I am a self-declared feminist, because they don’t consider me apologetic enough about my size 16 curves and most of all because I am opinionated (although my friend who is rather high up in the police service suspects that in actual fact they hate me because they want to have sex with me and can’t).

So, when I posted a bikini picture featured in my July Cosmo column which was designed to inspire other people with scars to feel proud of their bodies (I have a 100cm scar running along my abdomen after life-saving surgery) that was all the fodder they needed to launch a sustained attack.

Over the next weeks and months I thanked the heavens that Twitter had invented a ‘mute’ button. I used it judiciously, but not before I had read their comments. I was dubbed ‘migraine-inducingly ugly’, a ‘fat, ugly b*tch’ with a ‘noticeable deformity’ that meant no man would ever want to date me, because I looked like ‘something out of a horror movie’. Having received a staunch silence my end they then began to Google me. My family, racial heritage and political opinions all came under the glare of their criticism. The saga culminated in my being labelled ‘mixed-race mongrel, fat, feminist, immigrant-loving c***’... which is something I am giving serious consideration to putting on my business card.

At first, I was confused – there is so much evil in the world, why put all that energy into directing their ire at me? Then I got angry.

Whilst I, as someone who willingly puts themselves in the public eye, have developed a fairly thick skin when it comes to this sort of thing, that doesn’t make it okay. It’s not alright to invade someone’s online social sphere with your unwanted opinions with the sole intention of upsetting them. At best it’s bad manners, at worst it’s a criminal offence. And for the thousands of teenagers I’ve taught over the past eight years, who consider social media to be their world, it could have a lasting and damaging impact.

That’s why I made this video. To stick a defiant two fingers up to cyberbullies – I hope that anyone watching leaves feeling fortified against the more sinister aspects of social media. After all, over the past decade the four most common mental health problems faced by under 25s (depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm) have risen dramatically. A 2013 study showed cyberbullying has become so commonplace that more than half of children in Britain accept that it is part of everyday life.

The internet, whilst wonderful in many respects, is fuelling that fire. It’s important for every young person to realise that the only opinion that truly matters is the one they have of themselves.

Natasha Devon MBE is a writer, television pundit and founder of the Self Esteem Team