‘Want to know all the effects of bullying on the victim? Here are the symptoms you have if people constantly bully you.
When you endure bullying, especially after a long time, you go through so many emotions. Moreover, you know you must bury those emotions or people will punish you for them.
In this post, you will learn the effects of bullying on the victim. If you’re a victim, you must know these effects so that you’ll be able to express them better to a therapist or to a confidant.
Once you learn about these negative impacts, you’ll be able to talk to someone about it without rambling. You’ll also be motivated to take steps to either stand up for yourself or leave the environment.
This post is all about the effects of bullying on the victim so that you can effectively speak out about it. Also, you can begin doing what you must do to take care of yourself.
Effects of Bullying on the Victim
1. fear
It’s the intense fear you feel but don’t dare show. Moreover, it’s the paralyzing social fear that sets in. It only shuts you down and leaves you withdrawn from the rest of the world.
2. Hyper-Vigilance
Once people have bullied you for so long, you become intensely suspicious of every person you meet. Any laughter you hear, you automatically think, is directed at you. This is no way to live.
3. Pinned up Rage
After people bully you for so long, you become angry. In fact, you become enraged. But you don’t dare show it. Instead, you keep it buried deep, because you know that any show of emotion will bring even more bullying.
Therefore, you constantly keep your emotions in check.
4. confusion and bewilderment
Your bullies’ behavior confuses you. You often wonder what you did to make them so hateful and irate.
Moreover, you know that you should take a stand against the bullies. You know that you should speak out about it, only you don’t know how to do it, and you’re terrified that it will only make things worse.
5. Effects of Bullying on the Victim:
unanswered questions
A thousand questions play in your mind several times daily.
“Why me?” “What have I done to these people” and “How do I fix this?” are the questions you have in your head every time bullies surround you and harass you.
Moreover, you know what you want to say to the bullies.
“Look! Leave me the &%$# alone!” you scream inside your head but don’t’ dare say it because you know what’s likely to come next.
6. feelings of loneliness and isolation
When you suffer bullying, bullies smear you to keep you isolated and from making any new friends. At the same time, you automatically put up walls of protection to keep others out.
This only reinforces the separation from others.
7. loss of your entire personhood
In other words, you forget how to smile, laugh, and have a good time. In short, you forget how to connect with and interact with others.
Once bullies have browbeaten you for so long, you lose the vibrant, happy, and healthy person you once were.
Moreover, each insult, each rumor, each physical attack, each joke, and each prank cuts a little deeper. It chips away at your self-esteem, bringing you even lower.
You feel trapped, as if your bullies are holding you hostage!
8. Effects of Bullying on the Victim:
Constant Living in Survival Mode
Living in survival mode can make for a hellish life. Sadly, many targets of bullying go through day-to-day life surviving instead of thriving.
Consequently, this can have an impact on your successes with your family and relationships. You’re also likely to lose opportunities for advancement and for friendships.
Living in survival mode can also effect your mental and physical health.
Being stuck in survival mode can rob you of your personal power. Why?
Because personal power is essential to personal freedom. It’s the last vestige of power you have. Therefore, without it, you’re completely powerless.
9. Mental and physical exhaustion
And when you’re exhausted, you’re only running on fumes. You need extra sleep and have trouble getting out of bed in the mornings.
Moreover, you go into work or school at 8am dreading the day. Your butt drags around like an old, tired dog. You have zero energy, and constantly feel sluggish.
Living off raw adrenaline every day is never good. It can cause health problems, such as autoimmune disorders, hypertension, and heart issues.
10. Effects of Bullying On the Victim:
Instead of living, you only exist.
Instead of living a purposeful life, you only go through the motions. Circumstances beyond your control force you to only get by.
You have no chance of reaching your full potential and happiness quotient. Therefore, if you feel you can’t reach those levels, you don’t really live.
11. You either don’t have time to think about personal goals or you give up on them altogether.
When you busy living in survival mode, you’ll more than likely give up on your goals. Once you resign yourself, then the goal simply becomes just to survive and get through the day.
If you do think about your goals, those goals are only passing thoughts. Or you wish for your goals to materialize.
But here’s the thing about wishing instead of goal setting. Wishing denotes a spirit of lack instead of the spirit of abundance. A spirit of lack only invites more lack to come into your life.
You must understand that thoughts and feelings become our circumstances. In other words, what you think about, if even subconsciously, comes about.
12. You feel you must lie to people for your safety.
If people target you for bullying, chances are that you don’t like telling falsehoods. In fact, most victims of bullying hate lying! However, they do so out of fear and terror. Therefore, they lie out of self-preservation.
You see, a person who is under the threat of being harmed will do anything to remove that threat. Therefore, if they have to lie to save themselves, they’ll do it.
You must tell lie after lie just to survive! Why? Because you know the truth could get you hurt. So, you lie to make the bullying stop.
Consequently, if you aren’t careful, lying will eventually become a survival method.Moreover, it will turn into a terrible habit that’s hard to break.
13. Effects of Bullying on the Victim:
Learned Helplessness
After people have bullied and abused you for so long, you develop a condition called “Learned Helplessness.” In other words, you give up and forego any options you have to make a better life for yourself.
The only things you may know are bullying and abuse. Therefore, if those are the only things you know, you’re likely to stay stuck in relationships that hurt.
Moreover, you’ll probably stay in harmful environments. Why? Because bullies and abusers have conditioned you to believe that abuse is normal. Also, they make you think that it’s all you deserve and are ever going to get.
This happens to animals as well. Here’s a piece from the book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M. D.
“Maier and Seligman had repeatedly administered painful electrical shocks to dogs who were trapped in locked cages. They called this condition, ‘inescapable shock.’”
“After administering several courses of electric shock, the researchers opened the doors of the cages and then shocked the dogs again. A group of control dogs who had never been shocked before immediately ran away, but the dogs who had earlier been subjected to inescapable shock made no attempt to flee, even when the door was wide open- they just lay there, whimpering and defecating. The mere opportunity to escape does not necessarily make traumatized animals, or people, take the road to freedom.
Like Maier and Seligman’s dogs, many traumatized people give up. Rather than risk experimenting with new options, they stay stuck in the fear they know.”
In other words, you allow the abuse because you think that there’s nothing you can do about it. Therefore, you give up and stop fighting.
Effects of Bullying On the Victim
In Conclusion:
This is why you must recognize the horrible effects of bullying when you feel them. Moreover, you should never to allow bullies and abusers to drive you to giving up.
In other words, never let these people brainwash you into believing that you’re helpless. Why? Because it will have devastating consequences for your entire life.
No matter how others treat you and how bad things get, you must hold on to your self-belief. And you must do it everything you have.
Also, you must hold on to hope and keep your eyes on your goals and dreams. Only then will you break the hold any bullies or abusers have on you.
You may not physically be able to escape the bullying and abuse. However, you still have control over your mind. You still have a say over what goes into your mind and what you choose to kick out of it.
Know that you have more power than you know. Use it! Realize that you’re worth it and you deserve to live in peace.
This post was all about the effects of bullying on the victim so that you can recognize the symptoms and call them by name if you have fallen victim.
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