Bullying has been in the spotlight following revelations involving National's Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell and Labour's Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma. 1News' Aziz Al Sa'afin shares his experience of being bullied, and the impact it had on him even as an adult.
It's crazy to think one in three Kiwis suffer from bullying at some point in their school lives.
It's no surprise New Zealand has one of the highest rates of bullying in the Western world.
And it simply isn't good enough.
My bullying story - and it seems everyone has one - started when I was 13. Who would have thought 10 years after finishing high school, I would have a sitcom plot playing out before my eyes at our reunion?
It started as most bullying stories do. A little name here, a little push there, and the more overlooked it was, the worse it got. Pushes turned to punches, rumours were rife and name-calling became sinister.
I even found myself triggered by pencil shavings. It became a fad to sprinkle them secretly in my hair, and I would spend hours picking out every last bit.
I spent lunch times navigating our school grounds to try and avoid being spat on. Getting to the tuck shop without running into my tormentors became a challenge, and I turned surviving that half-hour alone into a game.
I spent much of my school life as a moving target. The worst thing is, the bully holding the bow and arrow used to be my best friend.
We all know kids can be cruel, and I found that out first fist. It's why I spent most of my childhood finding reasons not to go to school, pretending to be sick, even demanding I move country because I was so traumatised.
The irony is I came to New Zealand as a refugee fleeing war, and all I wanted to do was leave again.
Even as an adult those things have stuck with me. I'm certainly not fond of pencil shavings and surprisingly find it quite hard to make friends.
There's something to be said about how much that kind of experience shapes the kind of adult you grow into. It probably explains a lot about why I became a journalist.
Luckily for me, mum had my back even when my school let me down. Despite all my escape demands, she made sure I went back to school with my socks pulled up, my hat in hand, and advice that gave me the confidence not to care about anything other than my education.
She would say often to me, 'You faced Saddam Hussein; you can face these kids.' When you think about it like that, what do school kids really have on a dictator warlord?
Although that bullying continued for a while, I got on with my life and with my learning. Years later, to no surprise, my bully dropped out of school.
And 10 years after that it was time to go back to my high school reunion. Was I scared? Absolutely. Was I apprehensive about who I would see? Most definitely. Did I consider pulling out? Wouldn't you?
I know some may probably question why it mattered after all these years. The thing is, bullying is a disease that affects people long after the infection - and some sadly will never recover.
For those wondering whether my bully was at the reunion, he was, and even after 10 years I still found myself shaking with emotions I thought I had been long rid of.
He came up to me and apologised. He admitted there was nothing he could say to make it OK. He said there wasn't a day in his adult life he didn't think about his actions.
He wanted me to know regret had become his best friend. He had wished there was someone in his life that helped him with his anger, which was something he still battled with.
And then there it was. A decade of trauma all centred on one word.
I'm not sure if I'll ever really get over my pencil shavings phobia, but at least I got a "sorry". While it won't necessarily change anything, I suppose there's something to be said about the power of language.
And with that, closure.
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