‘Want to know whether your school or workplace has a bullying culture? Here are all the things you should watch for.
Schools, workplaces, and even communities with a bullying culture can make for environments that are toxic and foster a sense of danger. In these kinds of environments, people tend to operate under the “laws of the jungle.”
The mentality is that “might makes right” and that you can only attain power through the use of brute force. Moreover, these toxic environments can negatively impact not only your mental health but your physical health as well.
In this post, you will learn how to read the environment and recognize whether you’re in a toxic environment with a culture of bullying.
Once you learn all the bad signs, you will be able to decide what measures you must take to keep yourself safe and if you even want to remain in this type of environment.
This post is all about bullying culture and how to recognize it so that you can take steps to better protect yourself.
Bullying Culture
Schools, workplaces, and communities that have this type of culture are places where people accept bullying. In other words, they consider it a normal part of life.
Moreover, the torment of a particular person can become status quo or habit with classmates because it has already gone unchecked. If you’re this “particular person,” know that you are in danger and should take steps to leave the environment.
You must go someplace new, where you can start fresh and be safe. I’ll explain further as we go.
In toxic places, the bullying of a certain individual is like a cancer that grows and spreads. In other words, like cancer, it always starts out small.
How It Progresses
The Early Stages:
For example, a bully scans the environment, seeking whom he can torment. When they spots a potential victim, they test the waters by way of small, snarky comments, backhanded or compliments.
They will take tiny nibbles at you, which are so subtle, they’ll be unnoticeable to others. However, they’ll make you feel uncomfortable.
Therefore, realize that bullies do this to see how you react. If you do nothing, the bullies will only see this as a green light to continue bullying you. This is when they will select you as their target.
Bullies then put the word out that you’re an easy target. Word soon spreads throughout the entire school, company, or community that you’re ripe for bullying. Therefore, a few others will join in.
Bullying Culture:
However, heed this warning!
If others continue bullying you over a certain amount of time, without repercussions, the abuse will become the status quo.
Even in as little time as short as a few weeks, it will likely become customary for these people to bully you. And once it becomes the status quo, it’s almost impossible to defend yourself without encountering a ton of resistance and reprisals.
Therefore, the trick is to stand up for yourself immediately. You must do it before people grow accustomed to tormenting you because once they do, it’s likely too late.
For example, people have bullied you for years. You finally get fed up, put your foot down, and stand up to your bullies. The abuse has gotten out of control and now, you refuse to bow down any longer.
One of your bullies takes it as a challenge and physically attacks you, only for you to beat the living hell out of them.
However, instead of accepting that you beat the crap out of them and going away, the bullies are outraged! They can’t accept that they got punked by someone they thought was inferior to them.
Therefore, they plot to re-enforce their power by retaliating. Not only do they want to re-enforce their dominance, they also have an insatiable desire to punish you severely.
How dare you! How dare you challenge their authority over you! This is the prevailing thought.
Bullying Culture
Middle Stages:
As time goes by, the torment you endure becomes more of a regular, everyday occurrence. Therefore, more and more people will assume that it’s okay to bully you.
You’ll notice that the taunts and verbal bullying grow more severe until they morph into physical attacks. Once this happens, others will become more and more brutal with their violence.
For example, they make begin with tripping you or running into you “accidentally on purpose.” The next thing you know, they are shoving you against the wall or to the floor.
After this goes on for a week or two, people begin punching and kicking you. Then, once they get bored with doing this, they graduate to brutally beating and choking you.
Thus, the attacks become harder to combat.
At the same time, the bullies and everyone else employ smear campaigns and set you up to get into trouble with authority.
Sadly, this set the stage for TDS, target derangement syndrome or you could call it VDS (victim derangement syndrome. Why, because, by this stage, everyone fosters a sick hatred for you.
Therefore, you have difficulty getting help and protecting yourself.
Again, heed this warning! Any time bullying is allowed to continue, it becomes a habit- a ritual. In other words, people get used to seeing it.
Therefore, when you muster up the spunk to say or do anything to assert, defend, or stand up for yourself, you are going against a status quo.
And once you dare to go against any status quo, you had better prepare yourself for an all-out war!
This is why the best time to defend yourself is during the early stages!
Bullying Culture
Late Stages:
The bullying has now become a ritual. In other words, people habitually bully you and have internal motivations to do so.
Moreover, they feel that bullying you brings a positive effect (on them). Put another way, they may think that abusing you is for the good of the school, workplace or community.
Therefore, the violence has become the status quo in the environment. Others refuse to help you because bullies have discredited you.
Moreover, the long-term abuse you have suffer has desensitize everyone else. Some openly enjoy seeing people persecute you. Also, because of the smear campaigns, they hold the widely-spread belief that you’re trouble. Yet, they don’t know how or why?
The prevailing thought is, “Well, no one likes you anyway, so there has to be some justification to it.”.
Therefore, they have set the power dynamic firmly put in place and they do desperate things to maintain the status quo.
Bullying Culture
Late-Late Stages:
In this stage, it’s almost impossible to defend yourself. Why? Because you’ve waited too long. Therefore, your bullies are comfortable with abusing you and bystanders have grown comfortable with seeing it.
You are a victim! And people refuse to see you as anything but.
When you become a victim, others either consciously or subconsciously expect you to stay one. They expect you to put your head down and take the abuse.
In other words, if you even attempt to grow a spine, they will do everything in their power to break it.
This is because any semblance of change frightens bullies, as it does most people. What frightens bullies the most is a change in the power dynamic which has long been set.
They want you to stay a victim because, “it’s just the way things are done here.”. Also, bullies benefit from victimizing you. Therefore, and they don’t want to lose those benefits.
The advantages can be social status, gratification, satisfaction, or entertainment.
Furthermore, people come to believe that they have a right to abuse you. Moreover, they believe that they have absolute authority over you. Therefore, they feel entitled to inflict misery on you.
In the mind of a bully, you don’t have the right to undermine, nor question their power and authority. Therefore, you should just shut your mouth and take it.
Sadly, it is in this stage that you either live in misery, get murdered, leave the environment, or takes your own life.
In Conclusion:
I hope that you choose to leave the environment and go someplace where you can start fresh, heal, and begin rebuilding your life.
Therefore, this bears repeating. You absolutely MUST address it early on, as soon as you begin to see a pattern forming. Do not make the same mistake many do and let it get so bad that you either fear for, or want to end your own life.
Here’s another thing to consider. If the bullying has gone on too long and you’ve tried standing up for your rights to no avail. It’s probably time to find a way to leave the environment. Granted, this may not be feasible. However, it might be the only way for you to finally be safe.
This is an absolute must!
This post was all about bullying culture, how you recognize it and what you must do to ensure your safety. Also, the purpose of this post is to instill in you the importance of taking action during the early stages.
Related posts you’ll enjoy:
1. Non Verbal Bullying: Hostile Body Language Head to Toe
2. Bullying by Teachers: 15 Proven Signs a Teacher is Bullying You
4. Setting Boundaries: 3 Powerful Practices to Hold Your Ground