Bullying doesn’t just harm the target. The person doing the bullying faces a real set of psychological, social, and physical consequences that can follow them well into adulthood. Children and teens who bully others are more likely to struggle with depression, substance use, criminal behavior, and difficulty maintaining relationships later in life. These aren’t distant possibilities. They’re well-documented patterns that show up across decades of research.
Mental Health Risks for the Bully
Kids who bully others are more likely to experience depression and self-harm. That finding surprises many people, because bullying is often framed as a power dynamic where the bully is in control and therefore unaffected. But the behaviors that drive bullying, such as poor emotional regulation, difficulty with empathy, and aggression as a coping strategy, are themselves markers of underlying distress. The act of bullying doesn’t resolve that distress. It tends to reinforce it.
A subset of young people both bully others and are bullied themselves. This group, sometimes called bully-victims, faces the worst outcomes of anyone involved. They’re more likely to develop anxiety, depression, and antisocial personality disorder compared to those who only bully or are only victimized. Research published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that bully-victims had higher rates of emotional and behavioral disorders, greater emotional dysregulation, and lower self-esteem than any other group. By early adulthood, they were more likely to report psychotic experiences and depressive symptoms than peers not involved in bullying at all.
Gender plays a role in how these risks show up. Female bully-victims are at elevated risk for agoraphobia, a fear of situations where escape feels difficult. Male bully-victims face increased risk for suicidality. These patterns suggest that the consequences of bullying behavior don’t look the same for everyone, and some young people carry compounding vulnerabilities that make outcomes significantly worse.
Substance Use Starts Earlier and Escalates
Adolescents who bully others use cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana at higher rates than their peers who aren’t involved in bullying. This holds true across both middle school and high school populations. Bully-victims report the highest levels of substance use of any group, but even those who only engage in bullying (without being victimized themselves) use substances more than uninvolved students.
The relationship between bullying and substance use isn’t simply a matter of “bad kids doing bad things.” Bullying behavior often coexists with impulsivity, sensation-seeking, and difficulty managing negative emotions. Substances offer a quick way to regulate those feelings. The problem is that early substance use during adolescence rewires reward systems in the developing brain, making dependence more likely down the road. A teen who starts drinking at 14 while also engaging in aggressive social behavior is setting up two reinforcing patterns that become harder to break with time.
Social and Relationship Problems That Persist
Bullying behavior in childhood predicts trouble with relationships in adulthood. People who bullied as kids are more likely to engage in aggressive or controlling behavior in romantic partnerships, friendships, and workplaces. They’re also more likely to encounter the criminal justice system. Studies consistently link childhood bullying perpetration with higher rates of criminal convictions by the mid-20s.
Part of the explanation is that bullying works, at least in the short term. It can earn social status, control over peers, and a sense of power. But those rewards come from coercion rather than genuine connection. Over time, the social skills that bullying reinforces (dominance, intimidation, manipulation) become liabilities. They push away the kinds of relationships that buffer against loneliness, depression, and poor health. The person who relied on aggression to navigate middle school often struggles when adult relationships demand vulnerability and reciprocity.
The Stress Response Gets Disrupted
Chronic involvement in bullying, whether as a perpetrator, a target, or both, affects how the body handles stress. Cortisol, the hormone your body releases in response to threats, follows a predictable daily rhythm in healthy people. It spikes in the morning and gradually declines throughout the day. In young people deeply involved in bullying dynamics, that rhythm can become flattened or dysregulated.
Research in Frontiers in Psychology found that the relationship between bullying involvement and brain development depended on a young person’s cortisol patterns. Boys with different stress hormone profiles showed different structural changes in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, decision-making, and regulating emotions. This matters because a disrupted stress response doesn’t just affect how someone feels in the moment. It shapes how the brain physically develops during adolescence, potentially locking in patterns of reactivity and poor self-regulation that persist into adulthood.
Why Bullies Often Don’t Get Help
One of the most consequential effects of bullying on the bully is that it masks the need for support. A child who acts aggressively is far less likely to receive sympathy, mental health screening, or early intervention than a child who is visibly distressed. Teachers, parents, and peers focus on the harm being done rather than asking what’s driving the behavior. That’s understandable, but it means the bully’s own depression, trauma history, or emotional difficulties often go unaddressed for years.
Many children who bully are dealing with chaotic home environments, exposure to violence, or their own history of being mistreated. The bullying behavior is often a symptom rather than the root problem. Without intervention that addresses those underlying issues, the cycle continues. The child becomes an adolescent with substance use problems, then an adult with unstable relationships and untreated mental health conditions. Each stage makes the next harder to interrupt.
Programs that reduce bullying most effectively don’t just punish the bully or protect the victim. They identify why the bullying is happening and connect aggressive children with the specific support they need, whether that’s emotional regulation skills, trauma-informed therapy, or a stable adult relationship. The evidence is clear that bullies pay a steep long-term price for their behavior, and that price is largely preventable when someone intervenes early enough.