Monday, 3 February 2014

How To Handle Mental Bullying

By Serena Price


Bullies have been around from the beginning of time, and will never go away. Nobody will forget the individual who was bigger and meaner than the rest of the kids in school. They were the ones that parents wanted to personally get their hands on and teach a lesson. However, in today's society, mental bullying is an abuse that continues to grow day by day.

Bullying of this nature is often used in order for a person to get what they want through intimidation or fear. But, don't just think that this pertains to kids on the school play ground only. Adults can experience bullying too. They can experience it in the home, on the job, or through relationships. It often takes on the form of a lie, humiliation, belittling, or sarcasm.

Bullies often try to make other people pay for things that they've done wrong and unintentional mistakes. Abusers use methods such as sarcasm when making someone feel small when they ask questions that are genuine. Office pranks are often a disguise for bullying that goes on in the workplace. Incidents that happen on the job aren't always innocent or coincidental.

Emotional bullying often seems very childish, but the mental effects linger on even into adulthood. They tend to leave scars and wounds that are very difficult to heal. Those that have experienced this type of mental abuse, often turn around and become mental abusers themselves. The effects that result on a person's mental health is tremendous. It can often bring about shame, low self-esteem, suicidal tendencies, poor job or academic performance, or even extreme shyness. Depression is often at the top of the list. Many times, the victim tends to over identify with the bully. They begin to defend the bully as well as their behavior.

How to deal with a bully is a question that never goes away. There are usually two choices. Victims can ignore their emotional attackers, or stand up to them.

Adults have more knowledge and insight when understanding the reasons behind the behavior of a bully. Children are innocent and not so wise when it comes to this topic. Just knowing that the attacks of an abuser really is not a personal attack on the victim. It all comes down to who the abuser is and what they've encountered. These individuals oftentimes abuse more than one person.

When an individual gains more knowledge of how a bully thinks, they will start to look at it more as an illness, and not necessarily a personal attack targeted towards the victim. Ignoring a bully may not be as hard anymore.

Standing up to a bully is no easy task, but most of the time the outcome will be positive. They bully is forced to change the way that they act. It may not be a 360 degree change, but there will be some type of alteration. It often causes the attacker to take a good look in the mirror and do a self-evaluation. The negative affects of mental bullying may even warrant the abuser to get the help that they need.




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