With many victims, the bullying they suffer is a vicious and continuous cycle. Now you might ask, “What do you mean? How can bullying become a cycle?” Here’s how.
Bullies often stick victims in a cycle in which they can’t escape. And when bullies know that the victim is trapped, that’s when they know they have them where they want them. Therefore, you must know how bullying is a cycle that only repeats itself.
In this post, you will learn all about the cycle of bullying. Moreover, you will learn how victims get stuck and how bullies take advantage of it.
After you learn how that cycle repeats itself, you will be prompted to take steps to either take care of yourself or escape the environment altogether.
This post is all about the cycle of bullying so that you can recognize when you’re stuck in it and find ways to remedy your situation.
The cycle of Bullying
Let’s describe it like this.
A victim is selected and is bullied relentlessly. Every morning, she arrives at school others only greet her with a barrage of name-calling, taunts, cruel jokes, and ridicule. Moreover, they force her to endure physical assaults and beatings.
Nevertheless, she holds up for a year or two, trying to be strong and brave. She manages to remain calm and cool, and seems to do quite well at it.
However, the bullies are relentless because they want so badly for her to react the way they want her too. So, they escalate the attacks and the abuse becomes more frequent and intense.
It is as if they are trying to bring her down. And the truth is, they are.
The Breaking Point
Finally, so many of her peers have bullied her so much for so long that they finally succeed in driving her to the breaking point.
The target either attempts suicide or has a breakdown of some sort. Maybe she breaks down crying and her sobs are so deep and so uncontrollable that she can’t stop crying. It’s as if a dam has burst and the raging torrent of tears continues to pour forth.
In fact, she’s crying so hard her entire body shakes, quakes, and writhes.
The Cycle of Bullying:
Psychological Treatment and progress of the victim
The victim is admitted to a treatment center for severe depression. She stays there for a couple of months.
Moreover, while she’s there, she makes progress. She opens up about the bullying she suffers, and people listen. In the treatment center, she is safe.
The victim makes friends out of the other kids there and of the staff as well. They all support her, and she begins to feel good about herself again. Therefore, it seems like she’s beginning to heal and get better.
A couple of months go by and for the first time since she left the bullying environment and arrived at the treatment center, the bullying victim feels like herself again.
She feels re-empowered.
The Victim’s Release and return to the same place that made her sick
The center finally discharges the victim. However, she must return to school, back to the same people who made her sick to begin with.
As soon as she goes back to school, she’s nervous because she knows what’s waiting for her. Moreover, although the others at school can’t prove where she’s been, they can figure it out.
Now there’s the mental health stigma hanging over her. Therefore, the bullies instantly use it against her and only pick up where they left off.
They begin mobbing her again. Additionally, even a few teachers and the principal look down on her, just like before.
The Cycle of Bullying:
The Bullies, Student Body, and Teachers only pick up where they left off.
The principal warns her aloud, in the crowded hall, as she’s changing classes. He says to the victim, “I’m going to be watching you closely.”
Even worse, he tells her this in front of the other students where they can overhear.
The victim continues to behave well. However, the principal, a few teachers, and the student body, view her with suspicion. Instead of acknowledging and encouraging her success, the principal and teachers only continue to let her know that she’s on their radar.
The two months away in the treatment center was intended to help her get well and put her life back together. Moreover, returning to school was supposed to be a chance to start over.
The School Only Uses Mental Health Stigma to Undo Any Progress the victim has made.
But the school has only branded the victim a mental case. As a result, some of the teachers and the principal, knowingly or unknowingly, begin the process of undoing all the progress this girl has made.
What they should do is pull her aside and tell her in private that they are watching her, but that they admire her for getting help and trying to turn her life around.
However, their justification for their emotional abuse is that it’s to protect the other students who fit in to what’s “normal” and who obey the rules.
In other words, they use this justification to defend the emotional abuse they inflict on the victim and continue to single her out for humiliation.
Therefore, the school is willingly participating in destroying another human being.
The Cycle of Bullying:
The school only justifies their abuse and continues to discriminate based on mental health.
The girl’s “loony bin trip” now follows her around like a stalking wildcat. School officials either don’t realize or don’t care about the impact their attitudes and prejudices have on young students.
Therefore, bullies begin the evil process again. They begin trying to break this girl down for a second time.
So, the victim continues to hide her emotions. Therefore, she continues to pretend that everything is okay and that the bullying she suffers isn’t such a big deal.
She does her level best to stay strong and hide the tears which beg to poor forth like a raging torrent. Why? Because she knows that if she ever shows the hurt, the bullies will only bask in it.
They’ll have her where they want her, and the bullies will then move in for the death blow.
Fighting a Losing Battle
Therefore, she holds up for as long as she can. But the reality is that no one can hold up under that kind of pressure for long.
But she continues to stuff her emotions deep down inside, even though it’s tearing her up inside. As time goes on, the bullies escalate their attacks because they see her stoicism as a challenge.
Therefore, the cruel attacks become a game to the bullies. The goal is to break this girl and they want to see what it’s going to take to achieve that goal.
Then, once again, it happens! The victim has another breakdown. After all, no one can bury all that pain forever.
The Cycle of Bullying:
Return to the treatment center
The doctors admit her to the treatment center for the second time. A few months pass and she gets the help she needs.
Again, she is in a safe environment. Therefore, she speaks again about the bullying she has suffered. Caring staff and fellow patients give her support and she begins to heal and get better.
After some time at the center, they finally send her home and her parents take her back to school. The very school where his bullies run amuck. And once she’s back, the bullies have a go at her once again.
Why? Because the poor target is trapped in a school she isn’t safe in. And chances are, she will break down and only return to the treatment center a third time.
Therefore, here’s the cycle.
The victim endures bullying and she has a breakdown. She then goes somewhere and gets help, then heals and gets released. She returns to the same toxic environment and the bullies start the process of breaking her until they succeed and she returns to the center.
Therefore, the cycle replays itself again and again.
The Cycle of Bullying:
To Resolve this problem, the victim will need to transfer schools.
In cases like this, targets must be either transfer to a new school or home school, otherwise, the cycle only continues.
Thankfully, when my eldest son began to be bullied in middle school, his father, stepmother, and I got together and made a plan to transfer him before the bullying had a chance to escalate to a dangerous level. Moreover, it worked!
His grades skyrocketed at his new school and when he graduated, he did so with scholarships! We were so proud!
Therefore, a school transfer is always best when a target suffers bullying and it morphs into a pattern. Why, because once people grow comfortable with bullying a certain victim, it will only intensify.
Moreover, if the target goes to a hospital and gets help, then released back into the same environment that made them sick, they will end up returning to the hospital…again, again, and again, until he leaves the toxic school.
It may take some sacrifice to transfer your child to a new school. Moreover, it may be more expensive. However, it’s a small price to pay compared to a stack of psychiatric bills, or worse, funeral and burial costs.
This post is all about the cycle of bullying so that you can understand the cyclical nature of bullying and peer abuse.
Related posts you’ll enjoy:
1. Why do Schools Ignore Bullying? 7 Reasons Schools Do Nothing
2. The Horns Effect: Bully-Induced Bias Against Victims of Bullying
3. Bullying Culture: When Bullying is the Status Quo
4. Bullying by Teachers: 15 Proven Signs a Teacher is Bullying You
5. Why do Bullies Bully? 7 Reasons They Won’t Leave You Alone