Tag: hypervigilence

Bullying and The Human Stress Response

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Bullying and the Human Stress Response go hand in hand as bullying automatically activates this response in targets. Whenever bullies accost their target, the targets body instinctively goes into survival mode.  Therefore, the automatic response is either to fight or flee. But what happens when their bodies stay in that state due to long-term bullying?

the effects of Long-term bullying on the sympathetic nervous system.

According to the Cleveland Clinic website, “Your sympathetic nervous system is a network of nerves that helps your body activate its “fight-or-flight” response. This system’s activity increases when you’re stressed, in danger or physically active. Its effects include increasing your heart rate and breathing ability, improving your eyesight and slowing down processes like digestion.”( https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23262-sympathetic-nervous-system-sns-fight-or-flight#:~:text=Your%20sympathetic%20nervous%20system%20is%20best%20known%20for%20its%20role,your%20get%20out%20of%20danger. )

After so long, bullying can screw up the target’s Sympathetic Nervous System. It can cause confusion and emotional numbness in targets. Moreover, the constant bullying puts the fight-or-flight response into overdrive.. After bullies have bullied a target for so long, adverse changes in the victim’s brain began to occur and the human mind begins to decline.

what long-term bullying does to mental health

Long-term bullying affects decision making and emotional control the most. Loss of cognitive abilities and a severely diminished ability to control emotions and think clearly and rationally will blind the target to any alternatives to their current situation. This is why targets often snap and do irrational things when the pressure builds to the breaking point.

Because children’s brains are still developing, kids stand a higher chance of damage to the mind and SNS. Relentless bullying can cause a child or teen to lose the ability to discern and make choices to get them to safety due to their brains’ negative changes.

If you’re a parent and you know your child is a target of bullying at school, you must help them leave that environment and get them into a new school so that their minds can begin healing and their abilities to make good decisions and reason can be restored!

Remember that a plant cannot grow in a hostile environment of no sunlight nor water. And neither can human beings grow in a hostile environment of bullying and abuse.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

20 Effects of Long-Term Bullying on Targets

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Bullying crushes the target’s spirit. It sucks the joy out of life and reprograms the mind.

After a while, the person begins to believe the lies bullies tell him about himself and see himself through his bullies’ eyes. Therefore, he believes that maybe the bullies have a justifiable reason to bully him but can’t figure what it is.

As a result, the target will make extra efforts to explain himself more clearly, but to no avail. He clings to the hope that the bullies will go away through the small reprieves they may give him.

On the occasions bullies act friendly to him, the target’s hopes go up, and he forgets about the past. Next, they blindside the target with another brutal attack.

Understand that the bullies are using the age-old push and pull technique to keep the target trying to make friends out of them and trapped inside the bully/victim dynamic. And they do this to keep him confused- this is how bullies can maintain power over their targets.

Realize that if your bullies can keep your hopes up, it’s likely that you’ll feel compelled to keep jumping through hoops to prove yourself worthy.

Here’s how it goes: Bullies stop bullying you for a while, and once you let your guard down and begin feeling safe and confident again, BAM! Once again, they attack! Realize abusers do this deliberately!

 Over time, bullying can cause these effects on the target:

1.Can no longer trust themselves to act on their own volition and spontaneity or make their own decisions

2. A state of being always on guard- hypervigilance

3. Uncertainty of how they come across to others

4. A loss of their zest for life

5. A false concern that something is wrong with them

6. Constantly replaying and reviewing bullying incidents to try and figure out what went wrong.

7. Increasing self-doubt

8. Loss of confidence

9. Having an internalized inner critic

10. Fear that they’re going crazy

11. A dreadful sense that time is passing and they’re missing out

bullied singled out surrounded

12. A growing sense that they aren’t happy but should be

13. Being extra careful not to be or sound too sensitive

14. Second, guessing themselves

15. An overwhelming desire to escape and get away from the bullying environment

16. A belief that they can’t do anything right

17. Living in the future- “things will be better when I graduate, turn eighteen, get another job, move away, get married, have children,” etc.

18. A distrust in relationships

19. Loss of faith in humanity (the belief that all people are inherently evil and enjoy seeing others suffer)

20. Feeling discombobulated and off-balance

If bullies have you feeling these ways, get out of their element if you can. When you’re so hurt and perplexed that you cannot tell which end is up, you’re living in hell, and it’s no way to live. You deserve peace, happiness, and confidence. Go where you can flourish, and your spirit can get the nourishment it desperately needs.

How Bullying Negatively Affects The Targets Performance in School

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As we all should know, bullying can have a devastating effect on grades and class performance. Here’s how:

Anytime you are a victim of bullying, you are forcibly put on constant alert for an attack. It feels as if you have a target on your back and you must grow eyes in the back of your head. You become hyper-vigilant, which breeds anxiety and leads to exhaustion. Not only is the body tired, but also the mind.

When so much focus must be placed on ways to protect yourself and maintain dignity, safety takes priority over studying lessons. How can one concentrate on schoolwork when they’re constantly bombarded with threats, taunts, name-calling, and physical violence? How can a student study and learn effectively when the mind is tired from being stuck in what seems to be a never-ending fight-or-flight mode? It’s almost impossible!

I can tell you this because it happened to me.

In my book, “From Victim to Victor”, I talk about having been on the honor roll before I began attending school in *Oakley (The school I was bullied in). I also talk about the transfer to *Roseburg High School during my senior year and how my grades skyrocketed overnight! After leaving that toxic learning environment and moving to a new school, my grades went from ‘C’s and ‘D’s to all ‘A’s with maybe one ‘B’. I made honor roll again for the first time in five long years!

Here is an excerpt from my book, “From Victim to Victor”, which explains things a little deeper:

bullied victim tortured

“…when anyone, even the most logical and rational of anyone is under a large amount of stress over a long period of time, the glucocorticoids that have flooded the brain and body for so long will cause the atrophy of areas responsible for memory, emotional regulation and ability to maintain positive relationships…”

Therefore, should it be any wonder that the majority of victims of bullying have such poor grades and class performance?

Second, after being told repeatedly and for so long that they don’t and never will amount to anything, victims begin to believe it themselves. A condition, known as “Learned Helplessness” develops and victims simply stop trying altogether.

In conclusion, bullying can affect ALL areas of a victim’s life. Not just social, but academics and achievements as well.

(*Not the real name of the town.)

Bullying and Changes in the Brain

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PTSD

As we know, bullying is highly traumatic to targets. However, bystanders also suffer a degree of trauma as well, just by witnessing it.

For now, let’s talk about what bullying does to targets, since they’re most affected by it.

Any form of psychological trauma, whether it comes from combat, rape, or bullying, brings about actual changes in the physiology of the brain. It reprograms the brain’s alarm system, causes a sharp increase in stress hormones and activation, and changes the way the brain distinguishes real information from fake information, and the relevant from irrelevant.

Because of these changes and disruptions, people become hypervigilant. And the hypervigilance in some survivors is so bad they aren’t able to function day to day. It’s also the reason why trauma can cause one to repeat the same negative and destructive behaviors over and over again- survivors of trauma have a difficult time learning from experience.

Survivors of bullying who often repeat the same behaviors due to changes in their brains are often accused of being “bad” people – they’re accused of laziness, stubbornness, bad character, and immorality.

Understand that when a person is bullied for long periods of time, it rewires the brain to prepare for a hostile environment and expect hostility from others. This is why targets and survivors of bullying have a difficult time trusting other people.

Targets and survivors of bullying are accused of being lazy when what they’re really dealing with is “learned helplessness” as a result of being bullied and verbally abused repeatedly.

They’re accused of being hotheaded or crazy when they’re actually experiencing the release of pinned up rage from being abused, then being silenced and punished for speaking out about it.

They’re often accused of being defiant and stubborn when they’re actually shutting down.

All this comes from being repeatedly bullied and abused and having no way of fighting back to defend themselves, no way of fleeing the bullies and abusers, and no way of escaping the toxic environment. Learned helplessness comes not only from being bullied and abused repeatedly, but more so, it comes from being trapped and powerless to do anything to better your situation.

For examples: If a group of bullies lock the door of the bathroom or surround the target, blocking any escape, then hold the target down as they attack him/her, this is likely to cause “learned helplessness.”

Or, if the target reports the bullying to the school principal or teacher and they blame him and refuse to give him protection- then the bullies retaliate against him the next day and beat him even more severely for snitching, this also causes “learned helplessness.”

If a battered wife is constantly threatened by her abusive husband that, if she leaves, he will take the children from her, or kill her, or worse, kill her entire family, than she’s trapped with no way out. She is likely to develop “learned helplessness.”

Therefore, it’s not so much the bullying and abuse that causes this condition called “Learned Helplessness.” There have been many abused and bullied people who have escaped their situations and later because highly dependable, healthy, and successful people.

What causes “Learned Helplessness” is the inability to oppose, stand against, or escape bullying and abuse. Being trapped, held down, having no one to turn to for help, or constantly having possible paths of escape blocked, with no other recourse than to take the abuse just to survive- that is what causes “learned helplessness.”

With knowledge comes empowerment!

Targets of Bullying and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

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You don’t have to be a combat soldier or veteran to have PTSD. Victims and survivors of rape and incest can develop it. Targets and survivors of severe bullying and abuse can also have it.

Although many of us survive and, better yet, overcome whatever or whoever tried to harm us, it still leaves scars on our psyches. Our abilities to regulate emotions are deeply affected as is our abilities to find stability, happiness, joy, love, and intimacy.

I know this from firsthand experience. Because of the severe bullying I had suffered at school, I was a very angry, hypervigilant, and vengeful twenty-something back in the 1990’s.

All it took was for someone to stare or look at me the wrong way and I’d very rudely and belligerently ask them what their major malfunction was. If someone got in my face, approached me in a threatening manner- did anything to provoke me, I would want to put up my fists.

Because of the trauma I had gotten from the bullying I had suffered in the past, I was determined that no one would ever bully me again.

I remember when I was 23 years old. While standing in the checkout line at the supermarket and having my groceries rung up, another young woman, who happened to be a neighbor I was at odds with, kept standing in line behind me, cursing and shouting at me to “hurry up.”

Sadly, she was one of those people who seemingly stayed into it with everyone in our neighborhood. In a way, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

When I handed the cashier my cash to pay for the groceries and the woman put a finger in my face, I grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed her face down across the checkout counter so hard, the machine beeped.

Honestly, I don’t know how I kept from going to jail but I was lucky. No. I was blessed!

Fortunately, other than splashing a bully’s face with a fountain drink after work a year or so before, this was the only altercation I’d gotten into at the time.

When I look back, I’m pretty embarrassed of it now. Being young and not having enough life experience yet, I let some idiot cause me to get violent. ‘Definitely not one of my finest moments!

But that’s what trauma from past bullying can do. It makes you hypervigilant, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And when it does, you react. You tell the person off, maybe curse a blue streak in them, calling the person every name but a child of God. Or you double up your fist and give the jerk in front of you a fat lip.

You don’t want to react that way, of course, but it’s kneejerk. Then you end up feeling like a complete heel later. This is what happens when you allow ignorant people to push your buttons and it’s too easy to do when you’ve been traumatized.

Now that I’m older, anytime some creep crosses a line, I usually tell the person to get a life then walk away. But I never stay silent. I’ve found that I can get my point across in only a few words, keep it moving, and continue to feel good about myself. There’s no need to get physical.

And that’s what I would recommend anyone to do when someone is running off at the mouth. If they put a finger in your face, however, there’s no law that says you can’t grab their finger and shove it away. And if the person tries to hit you, then it’s time to throw up those dukes and defend yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with self-defense. It’s how we set boundaries. It’s how we teach people to stay out of our personal space and keep their hands off.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

Targets and Survivors of Bullying and Self-Defeating Behavior

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Targets and many survivors of bullying have self-esteems that have been repeatedly injured, and when one’s self-esteem is injured, sometimes they will have trouble making friends and attracting suitors for dates and romance.

This can be because of two things, the person either becomes angry because they feel they were judged unfairly, or they resign themselves as social failures and withdraw.

The anger helps to protect the target’s self-esteem. Moreover, the target’s anger is heightened due to having been programmed by bad life experiences to sometimes mistake comments for insults.

If it’s constructive criticism, the target may wonder if the person doing the criticizing is trying to help them or only trying to show them that they’re smarter or implying that he (the target) is stupid.

Many targets are bullied for so long that their social development has been stunted. Therefore, many targets and survivors may be successful in everything except relationships with others. This is because they’ve been made to believe that they’re unlovable and thus, don’t trust anyone else when they show them affection and profess love.

These people only see other people’s attempts at love and friendship as manipulation because it’s what they’ve come to expect.

Many targets and survivors of bullying are often looked at as standoffish, stuck-up, or snobbish because they feel safer keeping other people at arm’s length. Because of this arm’s-length approach to social situations, people see the target or survivor of bullying as being wrapped up in themselves when, in fact, they’re insecure because of mistreatment they endure.

The unspoken message from the person is “don’t get too close” and it comes from their fear of being rejected, hurt, and worse- bullied again. So, they put on a cool front to hide their nervousness.

On top of being bullied by peers, many targets and survivors have or have had a parent overcriticize and belittle them, which only doubles the insecurity. So, they find it much safer to overprotect themselves and build a wall to keep potential enemies out. They go out of their way to avoid exposing themselves to rejection, and thus, appear to others as cold and detached.

Like anyone else, targets and survivors desire love, and they have a bigger desire for it than most. However, their intense fear of being bullied blocks them from getting that love because to get love requires a degree of vulnerability.

Being able to enjoy friendship, love, and affection means letting down your guard and taking risks. Sadly, many targets and survivors are too afraid to lower their defenses.

If this post describes you, I want you to know that I completely understand because I’ve been right where you are now. However, I can’t stress enough the importance and necessity of putting yourself out there and taking the risk.

To see positive change, you must shed this protective armor if you want to attain the friendship and love you so desire. Because the self-protective measures that you have taken are exactly what is repelling others and keeping you isolated. Being aloof and distant may indeed feel safe, but it’s also self-defeating because it keeps love out.

So, step out in faith and I promise you that you will see change you never thought possible. You’ll have good friends who will love you for simply being you. Hey! It happened for me and it will happen for you too!

😊