Resilience as meaning-making: Adolescents’ experiences of cyberbullying in post-conflict Ambon, Indonesia – a qualitative narrative study

Abstract

Background

Research on cyberbullying has largely focused on psychological outcomes and individual coping strategies, with limited attention to how adolescents narratively construct resilience within specific cultural and historical contexts. In post-conflict societies, adolescents’ responses to cyberbullying are shaped not only by personal resources but also by moral expectations, spiritual discourses, and power-laden digital environments.

Objective

This study aimed to explore how adolescents in post-conflict Ambon, Indonesia, narratively construct resilience through their meaning-making of cyberbullying experiences.

Methods

A qualitative narrative inquiry design was employed. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling through senior high schools, universities, and youth community networks in urban and semi-urban areas of Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia. In-depth narrative interviews were conducted in 2021 with twelve adolescents aged 16–19 years who reported experiences of cyberbullying. Data were analyzed drawing on Riessman’s approach to narrative analysis, focusing on the connections and recurring patterns across narratives through which resilience was articulated and meaning was constructed, rather than treating narratives as linear or unified trajectories. The study was reported in accordance with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).

Results

Five narrative threads were identified through which adolescents narrated resilience in the context of cyberbullying. These narratives did not follow a single or linear pathway but reflected emotional wounding, silence as an ambivalent form of endurance, spiritually mediated meaning-making under constraint, moral restraint as identity negotiation, and tentative efforts to reclaim self-worth through compassion and reframing. Silence and spirituality functioned as culturally shaped resources that at times provided moral coherence or protection, while simultaneously revealing despair, constraint, and limited perceived options within morally regulated and digitally surveilled environments.

Conclusion

Adolescents’ resilience to cyberbullying in post-conflict Ambon was narrated not as recovery or empowerment, but as an ongoing and culturally embedded process of endurance, moral negotiation, and partial re-authoring of self-worth. For nursing practice, these findings underscore the importance of narrative-sensitive and culturally responsive approaches that attend to adolescents’ silence, spiritual expressions, and moral frameworks, while fostering safe spaces for meaning-making and psychosocial care.

Background

Cyberbullying has become a pervasive form of digital aggression that shapes adolescents’ emotional, social, and moral development. Unlike face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying unfolds within networked digital spaces where attacks can be anonymous, persistent, and widely visible, intensifying experiences of shame, exposure, and powerlessness (Kowalski et al., 2020; Lee et al., 2026). Global and regional reports continue to document the growing prevalence of cyberbullying and its association with psychological distress among adolescents, including anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal (Bitar et al., 2023; Li et al., 2024; World Health Organization [WHO], 2024). While these epidemiological and clinical approaches are essential for identifying risk and informing prevention, they often conceptualize cyberbullying primarily through deficit-oriented outcomes and provide limited insight into how adolescents themselves interpret and give meaning to their experiences.

Cyberbullying also does not occur within neutral digital environments. Online platforms are structured by hierarchies of visibility, credibility, and moral authority that shape whose voices are amplified and whose are silenced (Cheng, 2024; Cuadrado-Gordillo et al., 2020). Gender norms, age, peer status, and religious or moral legitimacy influence how adolescents experience online aggression and which responses are perceived as acceptable or risky (Merlici & Maftei, 2025; Tao et al., 2022). Within such power-laden digital spaces, silence, withdrawal, or restraint, often interpreted in Western psychological literature as avoidance or maladaptive coping, may instead function as socially and morally sanctioned responses (Kim et al., 2018; Mahmood & Kalo, 2024). Without attention to these dynamics, adolescents’ responses risk being misinterpreted when isolated from the cultural and moral expectations that govern digital interaction.

These issues are particularly salient in Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia, a region shaped by a history of communal conflict and ongoing processes of social reconciliation (Riyanto, 2023; Rumahuru & Gaspersz, 2021). In post-conflict Ambon, collective memories of violence and vulnerability continue to inform everyday moral practices, emphasizing social harmony, emotional restraint, forgiveness, and spiritual submission as mechanisms for sustaining fragile peace (Keriapy & Tafonao, 2023; Riyanto, 2023). Adolescents growing up in this context inherit not only personal identities but also communal narratives about suffering, silence, and moral responsibility. Consequently, experiences of cyberbullying may resonate beyond individual emotional injury, activating deeper concerns related to public shame, social disruption, and moral transgression.

Within this sociohistorical landscape, silence may represent more than personal withdrawal; it can reflect historically learned strategies for survival in environments where speaking out has carried social or relational consequences (Pferner, 2026; Sampasa-Kanyinga et al., 2020; Sathyapal & Deb, 2026). Similarly, turning toward spirituality may function not only as an individual coping mechanism but also as a culturally endorsed pathway for restoring dignity, meaning, and moral order (Akbayram & Keten, 2024; Brewer-Smyth & Koenig, 2014; Massarwi & Gross-Manos, 2022). Interpreting these responses solely through individualistic or clinical lenses risks overlooking how resilience is culturally performed, morally negotiated, and socially constrained within post-conflict communities.

Much of the existing resilience literature conceptualizes recovery as an individual capacity characterized by assertiveness, problem-focused coping, or help-seeking behaviors (Duan, 2023; Napora & Kornacka-Skwara, 2023). While these models have generated valuable insights, they are largely grounded in Western assumptions about agency and empowerment. In collectivist and faith-oriented contexts such as Ambon, resilience may instead be expressed through quieter, relational, and morally framed practices, including endurance, restraint, spiritual reflection, and the careful management of social relationships (Sharma et al., 2024; Sleijpen et al., 2016). Recognizing these culturally embedded forms of resilience requires approaches that privilege meaning making rather than predefined behavioral outcomes.

Despite the growing body of research on cyberbullying, little is known about how adolescents in post-conflict, culturally rich settings narrate their experiences and reconstruct a sense of self following digital harm. Existing studies show that trauma exposure is strongly associated with adverse mental health outcomes among adolescents, including PTSD, depression, and anxiety, with recovery efforts often focused on symptom reduction (Abdi et al., 2023). At the same time, cyberbullying has been linked to significant emotional and psychosocial difficulties and is increasingly understood as a chronic and inescapable social stressor that can disrupt identity development (Badrakh et al., 2023; Eyuboglu et al., 2021; Wiederhold, 2024).

However, research in this area remains largely centered on individual-level outcomes, with limited attention to how cyberbullying intersects with prior trauma or post-conflict experiences. As a result, there is a lack of understanding of how adolescents in post-conflict contexts interpret and make meaning of cyberbullying within their broader life histories, particularly regarding the role of culturally embedded dimensions such as moral identity, spirituality, and communal values in shaping resilience.

Therefore, this study asks: How do adolescents in post-conflict settings construct meanings of resilience in response to their experiences of cyberbullying within the context of prior trauma and socio-cultural influences?

Methods

Study Design

This study employed a qualitative narrative inquiry design grounded in an interpretive–constructivist paradigm, which assumes that experiences are socially constructed and articulated through storytelling rather than discovered as objective facts. Within this paradigm, adolescents are positioned as active meaning-makers whose narratives are shaped by cultural, moral, and historical contexts (Creswell, 2017; Riessman, 2008). Narrative inquiry informed the overall methodological orientation of the study, guiding decisions related to data collection, reflexivity, and interpretation.

Narrative inquiry encompasses diverse analytic traditions, ranging from holistic, case-centered approaches that privilege the integrity of individual life stories to cross-narrative interpretive approaches that examine shared meaning-making practices across narratives (Riessman, 2008). This study is explicitly positioned within the latter tradition. It does not aim to construct a unified, chronological, or master narrative of adolescents’ experiences with cyberbullying, nor to preserve each life story as an intact analytic unit. Instead, the analytic focus is on interpretive cross-narrative structures through which adolescents narrated meaning, moral positioning, and endurance within culturally and historically constrained contexts.

Methodological Positioning

Guided by Riessman’s approach to narrative inquiry, this study focused on how adolescents narrated and interpreted their experiences, how events were sequenced within their stories, and how narrators positioned themselves morally and relationally (Riessman, 2008). The five narrative threads presented in this study should not be understood as thematic codes derived from fragmenting transcripts or from frequency-based coding. Rather, they represent analytically constructed cross-narrative structures that capture recurring ways adolescents made sense of cyberbullying, negotiated identity, and narrated resilience.

While this cross-narrative analytic orientation differs from holistic narrative approaches that privilege individual story coherence, it was considered methodologically appropriate given the study’s aim to examine culturally shared narrative resources shaping resilience in post-conflict Ambon rather than to reconstruct individual biographies or life histories.

Participants and Recruitment

Twelve adolescents aged 16–19 years participated in this study, all residing in urban and semi-urban areas of Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia. Cyberbullying was identified using a self-identification approach, based on participants’ accounts of harmful online experiences within the past 12 months, consistent with the narrative inquiry focus on subjective meaning-making.

Participant screening was conducted in stages, beginning with initial conversations about online experiences, followed by assessment of whether the experience was personally meaningful and suitable for in-depth narrative sharing. Adolescents reporting only minor or non-impactful online conflicts were not included.

Inclusion criteria were: (1) self-reported experience of cyberbullying within the past 12 months, (2) willingness and ability to narrate experiences in depth, and (3) consent to participate in audio-recorded interviews. Adolescents with severe psychiatric conditions that could compromise narrative engagement were excluded.

Participants were recruited using purposive sampling through senior high schools, universities, and youth community networks. The screening process was conducted in multiple steps. First, potential participants were approached and asked about their general online experiences. Second, initial screening conversations were carried out to explore whether they had experienced cyberbullying and whether these experiences were perceived as personally meaningful rather than minor or transient events. Third, eligibility was determined based on the inclusion criteria, with particular attention to the participant’s ability to articulate their experience in a coherent narrative form. Adolescents who reported only brief, ambiguous, or non-impactful online conflicts were not included.

Maximum variation sampling was employed to capture diversity in gender, age, educational level, and living arrangements. Although participants were drawn from a similar urban and semi-urban context, the sample reflects a shared socio-cultural and post-conflict environment while still allowing for individual variation. The sample size was considered sufficient to achieve narrative depth and analytic adequacy, consistent with the study’s focus on meaning-making rather than thematic saturation.

Researcher Characteristics and Reflexivity

Prior to data collection, participants were informed that the study was conducted for academic purposes, that participation was voluntary, and that the aim was to understand adolescents’ personal stories and perspectives regarding experiences of cyberbullying. They were also informed about the researchers’ professional backgrounds in nursing and adolescent health, as well as the study’s focus on exploring how adolescents make meaning of cyberbullying experiences and resilience. The interviewer introduced himself as a local researcher from Ambon to facilitate trust and cultural understanding. No prior personal or professional relationships existed between the researchers and participants before the study.

The research team consisted of two researchers with complementary roles and expertise. The principal investigator is a female doctoral-level nurse researcher with extensive experience in school and community settings and expertise in adolescent health. She served as the primary analyst and led data interpretation and analytic synthesis. The second researcher is a male researcher with a master’s degree and Ambonese (Maluku) ethnicity, who served as the primary interviewer and was responsible for all data collection. His cultural familiarity and insider position facilitated rapport, trust, and sensitivity to local linguistic expressions, moral norms, and spiritual language during interviews.

Reflexivity was maintained throughout the research process. The research team acknowledged that their professional backgrounds in nursing and their cultural proximity to the research setting could shape interpretive assumptions. Analytic decisions were led by the principal investigator, while interpretive discussions and peer debriefing were conducted to critically examine emerging meanings and to challenge culturally normative or professionally comfortable interpretations, particularly those related to silence, spirituality, and moral restraint. A reflexive journal was maintained to document methodological decisions, emotional responses, and evolving interpretations throughout the analysis.

This reflexive shift became evident in the interpretation of adolescents’ spiritual narratives. Early readings tended to frame expressions of surrender to God as signs of resilience. However, through peer discussion, this view was reconsidered, as it risked reflecting normative assumptions about spirituality as inherently positive. Returning to the narratives with closer attention to tone and unresolved emotion revealed that such surrender often coexisted with distress and constraint rather than resolution. The interpretation was therefore reframed as “spiritual meaning-making as ambivalent endurance,” capturing both its sustaining and limiting dimensions, and informing the development of the corresponding narrative thread.

Data Collection

The interview guide was developed based on the study’s research question and narrative inquiry principles, emphasizing open-ended storytelling and participants’ meaning-making rather than structured questioning. It consisted of broad prompts and flexible probes to explore key moments, emotional responses, and narrative turning points. The guide was reviewed by two experts in qualitative research and adolescent mental health to ensure relevance, clarity, and cultural sensitivity, followed by minor revisions. It was then pilot-tested with two adolescents who met the inclusion criteria but were not included in the final sample, leading to further refinement of wording and probing to support narrative depth.

Data were collected through in-depth narrative interviews conducted in Bahasa Indonesia between July and December 2021, with all face-to-face interviews conducted in accordance with COVID-19 safety protocols. Interviews began with broad, open-ended prompts designed to elicit uninterrupted narratives, such as: “Can you tell me the story of your experience with cyberbullying from the beginning?” Follow-up prompts focused on key moments, emotional shifts, moral dilemmas, and turning points rather than eliciting short or categorical responses.

Interviews lasted between 45 and 70 minutes and were conducted in private and emotionally supportive settings. No parents, teachers, or other non-participants were present during the interviews. All interviews were audio-recorded with participants’ consent and transcribed verbatim. Field notes were written immediately after each interview to document contextual observations, emotional expressions, pauses, tone shifts, and notable narrative performances.

All audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and checked against the original recordings for accuracy. Non-verbal cues such as long pauses, emotional emphasis, or changes in tone were annotated to preserve narrative nuance. Transcripts were anonymized using pseudonyms, and identifying details were removed.

Data were stored in encrypted, password-protected digital folders accessible only to the research team, with secure offline backups. Each participant was assigned a unique identifier (P1–P12), and the identification key was stored separately to ensure confidentiality.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using an interpretive narrative approach informed by Riessman (2008), attending to how stories were told and how meaning unfolded through narrative form. Each transcript was read in full to trace how the story developed over time, including moments of disruption, shifts in tone, and participants’ positioning within their accounts. Narrative memos were developed to capture how events were sequenced, how emotions were expressed, and how meanings took shape within each story. The overall process is summarized in Table 1, which provides a structured overview to complement the narrative description presented here.

Table 1.

Analytic process from 12 narratives to 5 narrative threads

Stage	Analytic Process	Description of Activities	Output
1	Verbatim Transcription	Interviews were transcribed verbatim and checked against audio recordings to preserve narrative detail, including pauses, emphasis, and emotional tone.	12 complete narratives (P1–P12)
2	Data Organization	Narratives were anonymized and organized for repeated engagement while preserving their integrity as complete stories.	Organized narrative dataset
3	Holistic Narrative Reading	Each narrative was read as a whole to trace how the story unfolded, including moments of disruption, shifts in tone, and turning points.	In-depth understanding of individual narratives
4	Narrative Memo-Writing	Narrative memos were developed to capture how events were sequenced, how emotions were expressed, and how participants positioned themselves within their stories.	12 narrative memos
5	Cross-Narrative Reading	Narratives were read across cases to explore shared ways in which stories were told, while maintaining the uniqueness of each account.	Comparative understanding of narrative structures
6	Interpretive Engagement with Meaning	Analysis moved between narratives to interpret how meaning was constructed through the unfolding of stories, rather than through coding or categorization.	Interpretations of narrative meaning-making
7	Tracing Narrative Movements	Attention was given to how stories moved over time (e.g., disruption, silence, spiritual reflection), including shifts, tensions, and transitions within narratives.	Narrative movements and tensions
8	Interpretive Synthesis	Interpretations were refined through ongoing comparison and discussion, attending to convergences and divergences across narratives.	Cross-narrative meaning structures
9	Development of Narrative Threads	Five narrative threads were developed as interpretive representations of shared narrative movements, while preserving variation and complexity across accounts.	Five narrative threads
10	Reflexive Checking	Reflexive discussion, peer debriefing, and an audit trail were used to ensure interpretations remained grounded in the data.	Credible and transparent interpretation

Analysis moved back and forth between individual narratives and the dataset as a whole. Rather than grouping participants based on similar experiences, attention was directed to shared ways of narrating experiences and to how meaning was constructed across different accounts. Through this process, shared narrative movements began to emerge as the research team engaged in interpretive analysis of how stories unfolded over time.

One such movement, which later informed one of the central narrative threads, became visible in how participants turned toward silence. Although experiences of cyberbullying varied, many narratives included moments in which participants withdrew into silence at particular points in their stories. This silence carried no meaning. In some accounts, it followed emotional exposure and functioned as a way of protecting oneself from further harm. In others, it emerged more gradually, intertwined with exhaustion, resignation, or uncertainty about how to respond.

As these narrative movements were traced across accounts, the analysis turned toward considering how they might be meaningfully represented without losing their complexity. Alternative ways of organizing the narratives were explored, including more aggregated representations as well as more fine-grained distinctions. However, broader groupings tended to obscure important differences in how stories were told, while more detailed distinctions disrupted the narrative flow and reduced interpretive coherence.

The five narrative threads were therefore developed as interpretive representations of these shared narrative movements, capturing how stories unfolded while preserving variation and complexity across accounts. These narrative threads were developed by tracing how such movements were patterned and positioned across narratives, and by interpreting how they contributed to the unfolding of meaning over time. These threads are not presented as fixed or exhaustive categories, but as analytic constructions that reflect how meaning was shaped across narratives. Individual accounts could resonate with more than one thread, reflecting the non-linear and overlapping nature of narrative meaning-making.

Throughout the process, analysis remained iterative and reflexive, with interpretations continuously revisited through comparison across narratives and discussions within the research team. Attention was given to tensions, contradictions, and unresolved meanings, allowing the analysis to remain grounded in the complexity of participants’ stories. Rather than being derived through coding or frequency-based categorization, interpretations emerged through sustained engagement with how narratives were structured and experienced and were continually examined against the full set of accounts to ensure coherence and grounding in the data.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness was approached as an integral part of the interpretive process, consistent with narrative inquiry (Riessman, 2008). Rather than seeking to verify accounts as fixed representations of experience, the analysis focused on how meaning was co-constructed through storytelling. Credibility was supported through close engagement with data, including repeated readings of narratives, use of excerpts to preserve context and emotion, and memos tracking how meanings evolved. Member checking was not used, as the goal was to interpret how experiences formed narratives within social and cultural contexts, not to reproduce participants’ intended meanings as definitive. Interpretive understandings, like narrative threads, emerged as analytic representations beyond individual accounts. These were revisited and refined through reflexive engagement and team discussions, noting tensions, ambiguities, and less explicit meanings. Reflexive journaling documented decisions and researchers’ perspectives shaping interpretation. Dependability was ensured by an audit trail of journals, memos, and decision records. Confirmability was strengthened through peer debriefing and examining researcher bias. Transferability was aided by detailed descriptions of Ambon’s cultural, moral, and historical context, helping readers evaluate relevance.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia (No. 183/EC/KEPK/FK-UNDIP/VI/2021, June 2, 2021). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants and from parents or legal guardians for participants under 18 years of age. Participants were informed of their right to pause or withdraw from the study at any time without consequence. Psychological support services were made available if interviews elicited distress. In cases where narratives indicated ongoing harm or severe emotional risk, appropriate referrals were prepared in accordance with institutional ethical guidelines. This study adheres to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) (Tong et al., 2007). Details regarding researcher characteristics, participant recruitment, interview context, reflexivity, and analytic transparency are reported accordingly.

Results

Participant Characteristics

Table 2 summarizes the demographic and contextual characteristics of the participants included in this study. The twelve adolescents ranged in age from 16 to 19 years and varied in gender, educational level, living arrangements, and social media platforms used, providing contextual background for the narrative analyses presented in the Results section.

Table 2.

Participant characteristics (n = 12)

Characteristic	Category	n
Gender	Female	7
	Male	5
Educational level	Senior high school student	9
	University student	3
Age (years)	16–17	7
	18–19	5
Living arrangement	Living with both parents	5
	Living with a single parent	3
	Living with a guardian	4
Social media platforms used	Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp	5
	Facebook and WhatsApp only	7

Overview of Narrative Patterns

The five narrative threads presented below reflect recurring ways in which adolescents structured meaning across their narratives, as identified through the analytic process. Consistent with the narrative inquiry approach, these threads are not presented as fixed or mutually exclusive categories, but as interpretive constructions that capture how experiences were organized, narrated, and made meaningful over time. Rather than representing a linear or unified trajectory, the narratives revealed different movements, tensions, and shifts in tone and positioning. Individual accounts could resonate with more than one thread, reflecting the non-linear and overlapping nature of narrative meaning-making. The findings, therefore, focus not only on what participants experienced but also on how their stories unfolded, including moments of disruption, silence, spiritual reflection, and efforts to reframe self-worth.

Emotional Wounding as an Opening Narrative Moment

For many adolescents, narratives of cyberbullying began with moments in which their sense of safety, dignity, or social belonging was disrupted. These moments were often described as sudden and destabilizing, particularly when harmful content became visible to peers or circulated beyond the adolescents’ control. Feelings of shame, exposure, and helplessness were prominent in these opening narrative segments. However, emotional wounding did not always appear at the beginning of adolescents’ stories. Some participants described harm as accumulating gradually through repeated online interactions, becoming recognizable only in retrospect. In these accounts, emotional injury was narrated as a slow erosion of self-worth rather than as a single event.

One participant described withdrawing from daily activities after an image was shared without consent:

“After they posted the edited photo, I was too ashamed to go to school. Even when my phone rang, I didn’t want to see who it was. I just stayed inside my room.” (P4, female, 16)

Across narratives, cyberbullying was framed not merely as an isolated incident but as an experience that reshaped how adolescents perceived themselves and their social worlds. These early moments of emotional wounding set the conditions under which subsequent responses, such as silence, moral reflection, or spiritual meaning-making, were narrated.

Silence as an Ambivalent Response

Silence emerged prominently across adolescents’ narratives, yet its meaning was neither singular nor stable. Silence in these narratives was shaped by influences operating at multiple levels. At a macro level, participants’ accounts reflected broader sociocultural expectations rooted in the post-conflict context, in which avoiding escalation and maintaining social harmony were highly valued. For instance, one participant explained,

“If we respond with violence or retaliatory remarks, we could also end up getting into trouble. So, it is better for us to stay silent and report it to the authorities.” (P10, female, 18)

This suggests that silence was understood as a socially informed strategy for preventing further escalation of conflict. Another participant described choosing to “sit quietly and just follow the flow, without getting involved in other people’s problems,” reflecting a preference for maintaining distance from potentially conflictual situations. At a micro level, silence was shaped by interpersonal concerns, including fear of parental judgment, peer stigma, or social exclusion.

Some adolescents narrated silence as a deliberate effort to protect themselves within highly visible and morally regulated digital environments. Others described silence as shaped by fear, emotional exhaustion, or a perceived lack of viable alternatives. One adolescent explained:

“I didn’t tell anyone. Not my parents, not my friends. I was scared, maybe they would think I was weak or blame me. So, I cried alone, only at night.” (P9, male, 17)

In this account, silence functioned as a protective shield against judgment and further harm. In this narrative, the story does not simply report silence as an outcome but unfolds through a movement from fear and emotional exposure into withdrawal. The participant’s account shifts from anticipatory anxiety (“they would think I was weak”) toward a quieter, inward position, marked by temporal containment (“only at night”). This narrative movement illustrates how silence is not a static response but emerges as a situated way of managing vulnerability within socially evaluative contexts. However, other narratives revealed silence as intertwined with profound hopelessness rather than conscious self-protection. One participant stated:

“I don’t want to cause trouble or start problems with anyone. I don’t want to post about that person or criticize them, because I don’t see any point in it… I’d rather just stay quiet and sit in silence.” (P1, female, 18)

Here, silence reflected emotional depletion and resignation rather than agency. Across narratives, silence functioned as an ambivalent narrative position, at times offering temporary protection, and at other times signaling despair and constrained choices shaped by social and moral expectations. These varied meanings of silence provided the context for how adolescents subsequently turned toward spirituality as another way of making sense of harm.

Despite the predominance of silence and internalized coping, a small number of participants expressed intentions to seek more formal or external forms of support. For instance, one participant described a desire to report the incident to the authorities:

“I will report it to the police. Because he has damaged my reputation on social media…” (P6, female, 17)

Although such actions were not always enacted, these narratives reflect alternative ways of imagining responses to cyberbullying beyond endurance and restraint. They suggest that, under certain conditions, adolescents may consider more agentic and outward-oriented responses, even if these options are not ultimately pursued.

Spiritual Meaning-Making under Constraint

Across several narratives, adolescents described turning toward spiritual beliefs and practices following experiences of cyberbullying. However, spirituality did not function as a uniform coping strategy or a clear marker of resilience. Instead, it emerged as a narrative resource through which adolescents attempted to endure suffering, restore moral coherence, or make sense of experiences they felt unable to change.

For some participants, spiritual practices offered temporary emotional relief without resolving ongoing distress. One adolescent reflected:

“I kept praying, asking God why this happened to me. I felt calmer after praying, but the situation didn’t really change. I just tried to accept it.” (P6, female, 17)

Here, the narrative moves from questioning (“why this happened to me”) toward a form of partial acceptance. The tone shifts from emotional uncertainty to a more subdued, resigned stance (“I just tried to accept it”), indicating that spiritual framing does not resolve the experience but repositions it within a morally meaningful framework. This transition highlights how meaning is constructed through narrative progression rather than stated as a fixed belief.

In other narratives, spiritual surrender was framed as a moral obligation reinforced by family or community expectations, emphasizing patience, forgiveness, and emotional restraint. One participant explained:

“People told me that God would handle it, so I should not take revenge or fight back. I tried to believe that, even though I was still hurt.” (P11, male, 18)

Across narratives, turning toward the sacred functioned as an ambivalent turning point rather than a definitive solution. While spiritual meaning-making sometimes helped adolescents regain a sense of dignity or moral stability, it could also delay help-seeking and silence ongoing emotional pain.

While these accounts highlight the role of spirituality in fostering acceptance and emotional regulation, they also reveal that such processes were not always experienced as complete or resolved. At the same time, several narratives reflected ongoing tensions within adolescents’ spiritual meaning-making.

Although participants often expressed trust in divine justice and framed their experiences as part of a larger spiritual order, these accounts were not free from continuing emotional struggle. For example, one participant described persistent feelings of hurt and difficulty forgiving despite relying on prayer:

“Honestly, I still feel hurt… I haven’t been able to forgive them until now.” (P5, female, 16)

This coexistence of spiritual trust and unresolved distress suggests that meaning-making did not fully resolve the emotional impact of cyberbullying. Rather than representing a linear movement toward acceptance, these narratives reflect an ongoing negotiation between belief, emotional pain, and perceived injustice.

Moral Restraint and Identity Negotiation

Moral restraint emerged as a recurring narrative position through which adolescents negotiated who they were, and who they wished to be, in the aftermath of cyberbullying. Rather than presenting themselves as confrontational or retaliatory, many adolescents emphasized efforts to regulate their anger, suppress the impulse to respond publicly, and maintain moral composure.

For some participants, restraint was narrated as a strategic effort to limit further harm in digitally surveilled spaces. One adolescent stated:

“I wanted to reply and defend myself, but I kept thinking that it would only make things worse. People would screenshot everything. So, I chose to hold myself back.” (P7, female, 17)

The narrative is structured around a tension between impulse and restraint. The participant first expresses a desire to respond (“I wanted to reply”), followed by a reflective pause and a repositioning of self in relation to potential consequences. The tone shifts from immediacy to deliberation, illustrating how moral restraint is constructed narratively through internal negotiation rather than presented as a stable trait.

Other narratives revealed moral restraint as a source of inner tension. Adolescents struggled to reconcile expectations of patience and forgiveness with persistent feelings of injustice. One participant reflected:

“They kept saying I should forgive and be patient, but inside I was still angry. I didn’t know if staying quiet meant I was strong or just weak.” (P10, male, 18)

Across narratives, moral restraint did not uniformly signify resilience or moral clarity. Instead, it functioned as a contested space where adolescents balanced social harmony, self-respect, and emotional survival.

Tentative Reclaiming of Self-Worth

In some narratives, adolescents described gradual and tentative efforts to reclaim a sense of self-worth following cyberbullying experiences. These moments did not signal recovery or closure but reflected subtle shifts in how adolescents related to their own stories.

For several participants, compassion, directed toward themselves or others, helped reduce anger and self-blame. One adolescent explained:

“I tried to tell myself that maybe they were also hurting or didn’t really understand what they were doing. Thinking like that made me less angry, even though it still hurt.” (P3, female, 16)

Other narratives emphasized small changes in self-perception rather than overt empowerment. One participant shared:

“I still remember what happened, but now I don’t think it defines me anymore. It’s just something that happened, not who I am.” (P8, male, 18)

In this account, the narrative unfolds as a gradual reworking of self-perception. Rather than presenting a clear turning point, the participant’s story moves tentatively from emotional injury toward a redefinition of identity (“it’s just something that happened”). The tone remains cautious and non-final, suggesting that reclaiming self-worth is framed as an ongoing, fragile process rather than a completed transformation.

Across narratives, reclaiming self-worth functioned as a provisional narrative position that coexisted with lingering vulnerability and unresolved emotions. Rather than representing an endpoint, these moments reflected ongoing processes of meaning-making shaped by cultural values emphasizing humility, compassion, and emotional regulation.

Discussion

This study explored how adolescents in post-conflict Ambon narrate and make meaning of cyberbullying experiences within cultural, moral, and spiritual contexts. Rather than framing cyberbullying as a collection of psychological symptoms or individual coping outcomes, the findings illuminate resilience as a narrative, relational, and culturally embedded process. Conceptualizing resilience in this way aligns with narrative approaches that emphasize meaning-making over outcomes (Riessman, 2008) and with scholarship highlighting how social and cultural contexts shape experiences of adversity (Sleijpen et al., 2016). By attending to how adolescents structured their stories through silence, spiritual reflection, moral restraint, and tentative self-reframing, this study extends existing literature beyond deficit-oriented and decontextualized models of adolescent cyberbullying.

Consistent with prior research, adolescents described cyberbullying as emotionally wounding and socially destabilizing (Kowalski et al., 2020; Li et al., 2024). However, the narratives also revealed that adolescents’ responses were deeply shaped by power-laden digital environments, where visibility and permanence amplify vulnerability (Du et al., 2024; Sulaiman & Mahfar, 2024). Digital platforms have been shown to function as spaces of moral surveillance, in which public exposure escalates harm and limits perceived response options (Cuadrado-Gordillo et al., 2020). Recent work further emphasizes how platform dynamics intensify asymmetries of power and control among adolescents (Cheng, 2024). Within such environments, confrontation or disclosure may carry substantial social risk, render withdrawal or silence a more intelligible response.

In this context, silence emerged as a central yet ambivalent narrative position. While some adolescents narrated silence as a temporary shield against further exposure, others revealed it as intertwined with despair, emotional exhaustion, and resignation. Rather than reflecting passivity, silence was often described as a deliberate strategy to protect oneself from further harm, in which withdrawal from peers, online spaces, and sometimes family served as a self-constructed refuge, particularly when social environments felt threatening (Jackson et al., 2025; Ribeiro Santiago et al., 2025). In some cases, emotionally distant or critical family dynamics further intensified this withdrawal (Choe & Yu, 2025; Wang et al., 2023).

Within these narratives, silence also served as a strategic means of evaluating risk, maintaining dignity, and avoiding further humiliation. Adolescents described remaining silent out of fear of judgment or invalidation, consistent with studies showing that young people conceal distress to protect privacy or avoid social penalties (Kim et al., 2018; Mahmood & Kalo, 2024). Such patterns are often reinforced in unsupportive family or school environments, which increase the likelihood of internalizing distress (Sampasa-Kanyinga et al., 2020), while gender norms may further encourage emotional restraint, particularly among girls (Tao et al., 2022). For some adolescents, earlier experiences of trauma intensified the need to manage emotions internally (Roques et al., 2022; Trompeter et al., 2024).

Although prior studies frequently interpret silence as avoidance or maladaptive coping (Kim et al., 2018), these findings highlight the broader social and historical conditions in which silence is learned and enacted. In post-conflict societies, silence has been understood as a culturally mediated response aimed at preserving social harmony and preventing renewed tension (De Nutte et al., 2022; Ugarriza et al., 2023). In Ambon, where collective memories of conflict remain salient, silence may reflect historically shaped moral expectations to avoid confrontation (Rumahuru & Gaspersz, 2021). Therefore, silence cannot be reduced to either resilience or vulnerability but must be interpreted within adolescents’ constrained social, cultural, and moral worlds. These findings reinforce the view of silence as a culturally and contextually shaped narrative position rather than a purely individual coping response.

Spiritual meaning-making occupied a significant place in adolescents’ narratives. Turning toward the sacred did not operate as a uniform coping strategy or a straightforward marker of resilience, as is sometimes suggested in the health literature (Brewer-Smyth & Koenig, 2014). Instead, spirituality functioned as a narrative resource through which adolescents attempted to restore moral coherence, endure emotional pain, or make sense of suffering when other responses felt inaccessible. Similar patterns have been observed among youth facing adversity in culturally religious contexts, where spirituality supports endurance rather than resolution (Massarwi & Gross-Manos, 2022). In several narratives, spiritual surrender provided emotional relief without addressing ongoing distress, suggesting acceptance under constraint rather than empowerment.

The concept of “spiritual meaning-making under constraint” requires further clarification. Unlike positive religious coping, which is often associated with empowerment, active efforts, and an enhanced sense of agency (Pargament et al., 1990; Pargament et al., 1998), recent studies suggest that spirituality in certain contexts may function as a way of enduring conditions of constraint rather than as a means of transformation (Mahmood & Kalo, 2024; Sharma et al., 2024). The narratives in this study reflect a more constrained and ambivalent form of spiritual engagement.

Within these narratives, turning toward the spiritual did not primarily function to change circumstances or assert control, but rather to endure situations perceived as unchangeable. Acceptance was not always experienced as an autonomous or empowering choice; instead, it often emerged as a response shaped by limited perceived alternatives, social expectations, and moral obligations to maintain harmony and avoid conflict.

In this sense, spiritual meaning-making is more appropriately understood as a form of constrained acceptance or culturally mediated endurance, rather than empowerment-oriented coping. Spiritual practices enabled adolescents to maintain dignity and emotional stability, while also reflecting restricted agency and unresolved distress. This distinction is important to avoid assuming that all forms of spiritual engagement are inherently adaptive, and to situate spirituality within the moral, relational, and post-conflict contexts that shape adolescents’ perceived possibilities for action.

The findings further show that this form of spiritual surrender often emerged as a narrative turning point through which adolescents reorganized their experiences of cyberbullying. Feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and shame (Kowalski et al., 2020) prompted participants to turn inward, where prayer and belief in divine justice offered a moral framework for interpreting suffering. Rather than functioning simply as a coping strategy, these narratives revealed how adolescents situated their experiences within broader moral and existential meanings, often interpreting suffering as part of a spiritual test or divine plan (Alshareef & Alfuqaha, 2024; Leung & Chiu, 2023). Spirituality was also described as providing an emotionally safe space free from judgment (Schille‐Hudson et al., 2024), particularly for adolescents raised in religious or collectivist contexts where such systems of meaning are deeply embedded (Buenconsejo & Datu, 2023; Massarwi & Gross-Manos, 2022).

At the same time, these spiritual meanings were embedded within broader cultural discourses that valorize patience, forgiveness, and emotional restraint as foundations of social harmony. In post-conflict Ambon, such values are closely tied to collective efforts to maintain peace and prevent renewed violence (Keriapy & Tafonao, 2023). While these moral frameworks may sustain communal stability, they may also discourage expressions of anger and delay help-seeking among adolescents (Sharma et al., 2024). In this sense, spiritual meaning-making operates under constraint, shaped by moral expectations, limited relational options, and the sociocultural realities of post-conflict Ambon.

Moral restraint emerged as a key site through which adolescents negotiated identity following cyberbullying. Participants frequently positioned themselves as patient, forgiving, or emotionally controlled, identities shaped by family teachings, religious norms, and community expectations. In digitally surveilled environments, such restraint sometimes functioned to protect public identity; however, these narratives also revealed significant internal tensions. Adolescents described struggles between moral ideals and persistent feelings of anger, shame, or injustice, at times accompanied by impulses toward retaliation. Yet many ultimately chose not to respond aggressively, guided by moral teachings and a desire to preserve their integrity. These accounts reflect an ongoing negotiation between emotional responses and moral identity rather than a fixed or stable outcome (Merlici & Maftei, 2025; Sharma et al., 2024).

This pattern aligns with prior research suggesting that moral regulation operates as a form of social power, particularly in collectivist and post-conflict contexts (Sleijpen et al., 2016). While moral disengagement has been shown to facilitate retaliatory behavior, strong moral identity, empathy, and self-regulation can mitigate such responses (Cuadrado-Gordillo et al., 2020; Li et al., 2024). Peer dynamics may further shape these responses, either reinforcing retaliation or supporting prosocial restraint depending on prevailing group norms (Cheng, 2024). In several narratives, feelings of guilt about revenge prompted adolescents to step back and regulate their reactions (Parlangeli et al., 2020).

These findings illustrate how moral restraint functions not only as behavioral regulation but as an ongoing process of identity negotiation. Adolescents were actively constructing who they were becoming, positioning themselves as morally responsible individuals within socially and culturally defined expectations. At the same time, this restraint reflects both moral commitment and social pressure, highlighting identity as a negotiated and contextually situated process rather than an unambiguous indicator of adaptive coping (Cohen-Almagor, 2020).

In this context, moments of compassion and reframing were tentative efforts through which adolescents re-authored their identities and began to reclaim a sense of self-worth after emotional disruption. Compassion reduced self-blame and enabled adolescents to reposition themselves as morally reflective individuals and to become more attentive to others’ suffering, consistent with research showing that empathy protects dignity and reduces moral disengagement (de Dios Benítez-Sillero et al., 2024). For some, this process extended into action, such as defending peers online, reflecting emerging ethical awareness and social competence (Leung & Chiu, 2023). Dignity further anchored this transformation by reinforcing adolescents’ sense of inherent worth (Milosevic et al., 2023).

Rather than representing closure or full recovery, these shifts reflected a cyclical and ongoing process of meaning-making, in which adolescents moved between vulnerability and emerging self-understanding. Reclaiming self-worth coexisted with lingering emotional distress, highlighting that resilience in this context is neither linear nor uniformly positive. These processes were often fragile and provisional, reflecting not a stable transformation but a tentative and ongoing reconstruction of self-worth. Taken together, these findings suggest that resilience is narrated through endurance, moral negotiation, spiritual reflection, and the partial re-authoring of self. This challenges Western-centric models that equate resilience with empowerment or assertive coping (Duan, 2023; Napora & Kornacka-Skwara, 2023), and underscores the importance of culturally grounded and context-sensitive approaches to understanding adolescent cyberbullying in post-conflict settings (Mahmood & Kalo, 2024).

Implications

This study highlights key implications for nursing practice and adolescent mental health care in post-conflict and religious settings. Adolescents’ responses to cyberbullying, such as silence, spiritual reflection, and moral restraint, should be viewed as culturally rooted strategies to manage harm, not quickly labeled as good or bad. Nurses should prioritize psychological safety through privacy, nonjudgmental attitudes, and flexible pacing of disclosure. Silence needs to be understood as a meaningful response that may signal protection, constraint, or a lack of perceived options. Narrative processing should be supported by helping adolescents tell their stories in their own words, validating their emotions, and respecting culturally embedded coping strategies.

Spiritual meaning-making can both support dignity and emotional control and sometimes delay help-seeking. Care should integrate additional support without undermining beliefs. Interventions should gradually expand perceived options, focusing on acceptable actions such as managing digital exposure, seeking trusted support, and rebuilding self-worth.

Brief narrative-based approaches in routine care, including reflective conversations and ongoing follow-up, can help adolescents process experiences and reshape identity after cyberbullying. Interventions that push immediate assertiveness or disclosure may not fit their realities; nursing care should center on relational safety, interpretation, and culturally grounded meaning-making.

Limitations

This study has limitations, including a homogeneous adolescent sample from urban/post-conflict Ambon, which may limit generalizability. Cultural responses such as silence and spirituality may be context-specific and differ in other settings. It relied on self-narratives at one point, which can change over time, suggesting the need for longitudinal research. Interpretation depended on researchers' perspectives, though it was based on thorough analysis. Only willing adolescents participated, so silent or disengaged youths’ experiences, particularly regarding cyberbullying, may be underrepresented.

Conclusion

This study highlights that adolescents’ experiences of cyberbullying in post-conflict Ambon are narrated not as linear pathways toward recovery or empowerment, but as complex, ongoing processes of meaning-making shaped by cultural, moral, and spiritual contexts. Through cross-narrative patterns, adolescents described emotional wounding, ambivalent silence, constrained spiritual meaning-making, moral restraint, and tentative efforts to reclaim self-worth. These accounts illustrate that resilience is lived and narrated as endurance, negotiation, and partial re-authoring of identity rather than as an outcome achieved. By foregrounding adolescents’ own narratives, this study underscores the importance of narrative-sensitive and culturally responsive nursing practices that attend to adolescents’ silence, spiritual expressions, and moral worlds without prematurely pathologizing or romanticizing their responses, particularly in contexts marked by collective trauma and strong moral expectations.

Funding Statement

Funding This work was supported by the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia, under grant (No. 1653/UN7.5.4.2.1/PP/2021).

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest in this study.

Author Contribution

Nur Setiawati Dewi: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Formal analysis, Supervision. Roland Lekatompessy: Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft. All authors approved the final version of the article to be published.

Author Biography

Nur Setiawati Dewi, Ph.D., RN, is an Associate Professor at the Division of Community and Mental Health Nursing, Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Diponegoro.

Roland Lekatompessy, MN, RN, is a Lecturer at the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Tanjungpura.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the authors. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Declaration of Use of AI in Scientific Writing

The authors used Paperpal during the preparation of this work to enhance the language and readability of this article.