What I have learned over the past year as a Reverend, College student, Tutor/Teacher of children k-12, and Journalist is that bullying has profound negative effects that are hard to recover from period. It is important that people know about positive stress vs. negative stress, methods of bullying, signs and symptoms from being bullied, and how to stop being bullied.
This experience is near and dear to my heart; because recently I have dealt with bullying in college and while tutoring. The effects of bullying on me as a person was excessive; however, my bullying was not coming from the place that people would expect—my peers. My bullying was coming from Instructors and Supervisors. Before coming to this city, I have never experienced this type of bullying. The effects of bullying immediately manifested itself when my grades went from straight A’s to B’s and C’s, and my attendance went from showing up every day to barely attending. Moreover, I stopped eating for a while, and became unhappy with my current situation. The stress was unbelievably high and almost unbearable. Luckily, I am pretty tough coming through scarred, but capable of healing. Some people are not so lucky.
Bullying among teenagers has increased the rate of teen suicide; however, bullying is not age specific. Tim Field states, “There's only one way of dealing with stress - that's to identify the cause and then work to reduce or eliminate that cause. I believe bullying is the main, but least recognized, cause of stress in the workplace today."
Stress can be positive or negative. Dr. Peter Graham says, “Positive stress enhances well-being and can be harnessed to enhance performance and fuel achievement. Negative stress diminishes quality of life and causes injury to health resulting in the symptoms” like poor academic or work-related performance, depression, tardiness, and other issues. Dr. Peter Graham, further, states, “Stress is not the employee's inability to cope with excessive workloads and the unreasonable demands of incompetent and bullying managers; stress is a consequence of the employer's failure to provide a safe system of work. Blaming the sufferer of stress for suffering stress is an admission of failure to fulfill this obligation of duty of care.”
Methods of bullying utilized in the workplace include public humiliation, verbal assault, physical assault like hitting, sexual assault like booty grabbing, shame like giving others credit for the bullied individuals work, and threat of loss of finances or grades if the person being bullied do not take it and like it. Moreover, another method of bullying is emotional assault where the individual is degraded for his/her personal interest and existence like making it clear that no matter what that individual does is wrong even when it is correct.
Signs and symptoms from bullying are numerous: stress, anxiety ,fatigue, irritability, reactive depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, psychiatric injury, poor concentration, forgetfulness, confusion, withdrawal from people, excessive biting, panic attacks, mood swings, comfort spending, insecurity, low self-confidence, angry outburst, loss of self-love, and possibly suicide,” according to Dr. Patrick Graham and Dr. Daniel A. Peterson. Dr. Patrick Graham says, “false diagnoses commonly given include schizophrenia, paranoia, work phobia, school phobia, borderline personality disorder (as a cause rather than a symptom).” In fact,” these neurological scars, it turns out, closely resemble those borne by children who are physically and sexually abused in early childhood,” states Dr. Daniel A. Peterson. “Poor concentration, impaired memory, and fatigue are common and early signs of excessive stress,” reinterates Dr. Patrick Graham. Moreover, Dr. Graham continues, work colleagues often withdraw their support and then join in with the bullying, which increases the stress and consequent psychiatric injury.
Work colleagues often support the bullying for fear of being bullied, fired, or ridiculed. In addition, the bully encourages and manipulates bystanders to lie, act dishonourably and dishonestly, withhold information and spread misinformation.”
The best way to deal with bullying is to remove himself/herself from the situation. However, if removing himself/herself from the situation is not an option, the bullied individual can report to his/her superior’s superior or bring a lawsuit. In the college setting, the chain of command is the Dean of the department, then the Vice President of Academic Affairs.
What should be learned from this article is that bullying should not be tolerate or joined. The effects of bullying are long-lasting and damaging. Knowing what to do and how to stop bullying is the only way to gain control over a negative situation and turn it back into a positive situation.
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