Anyone who has experienced it will know.
Bullying is a horrible thing. It eats away at a person's confidence and inculcates them with a fear that can take hold and make them afraid to go about their daily life. That fear is what bullies thrive on.
Day after day.
In worst-case scenarios, the person being bullied can become so despairing they suicide. That situation is especially feared by LGBT people and those who love them.
In 2010 US author Dan Savage with his partner Terry Miller decided to do something to try to inspire hope for young people facing harassment. If you've not seen it, take eight minutes to see what bullying can feel like - and how there is a message of hope for the future.
Here is that original: It Gets Better video on YouTube.
You can learn how Dan and Terry's life got so much better after leaving the schoolyard bullies behind. Tears can come easily when you hear about the impact of bullying and the message of hope they send to young people being bullied. Terry says: "Live through high school. You can have a great life. Just stick it out, it's painful now but its going to get so much better. We are so happy to be alive. We have really great lives together."
Since that first video was filmed - in response to a number of students taking their lives as a result of being bullied - there are now literally thousands of personally uploaded videos by people from all walks of life, telling their own stories to help teach young people being bullied right now that it does not last forever, and it really does get better.
More than 60 million people have watched at least one 'It Gets Better' video as part of what has become the 'It Gets Better' project.
Celebrating five years
Five years have passed since the launch of that first 'It Gets Better' video.
There are loads of ways people that want to make things better can get involved in addition to uploading their own video. There are ways to get involved highlighted in the Action Center on the It Gets Better website.
Another way was announced last week: .LGBT is a new top level domain that allows people to have '.LGBT' as the end of their domain address. The world's first of its kind - I am pleased to say - is OutNow.LGBT which launched in January 2015. From now until October 11, 2015 - which is National Coming Out Day in the US - each new .LGBT web address registered triggers a US$20 donation from .LGBT to the It Gets Better Project.
Here are just a few from the thousands of 'It Gets Better' videos that have been uploaded over the past five years. Check out the It Gets Better YouTube channel for more.
Gareth Thomas: "I knew I was a little bit different but I couldn't explore that difference."
Ellen DeGeneres: "Teenage bullying and teasing is an epidemic."
President Barack Obama: "We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage. It's not."
Stephen Colbert: "I remember being picked on all the time. I got called 'queer' a lot. It was the most hurtful thing the bullies could think of calling you."
Google employees: "I remember feeling this dread knowing that someday I have to tell my family."