Tag: toxic environment

bullying and the fight or flight response system

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response

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‘Want to know all about bullying and the fight or flight response? Here’s all the information you need to know.

bullying and the fight or flight response

When you suffer bullying, you automatically go into fight or flight mode.

Therefore, in this post, you will learn all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response so that you can use this as cause when you defend yourself from bullying.

Once you learn all about this crucial information, you will be able to speak on your own behalf when you are called to the principal’s office or charged by police after a fight with a bully.

This post is all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response, so that you can have a good reason to defend yourself against any bully who corners you and attacks you.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response

Bullying and the fight-or-flight response go hand in hand.

According to the Psychology Tools website, “The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening.

The perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervous system. It triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. These responses are evolutionary adaptations to increase chances of survival in threatening situations.”

Any time bullies target a person with relentless bullying at work or school over an extended period of time, they force that person into a constant state of high alert. Although useful in short, immediate circumstances, this hyper-vigilance is unhealthy if the person remains in this state for too long. As a result, it causes stomach issues, headaches, and fatigue, among many other ailments.

Even worse, facing continuous danger can also cause the person to overreact in response to certain occurrences.

The Fight or Flight Response is Innate. Every Creature on earth has it.

Every living creature has an innate and perfectly natural physiological reaction in the event of a threat or attack. Called the Fight or Flight Response, it protects us from harm in dangerous situations.

And it does so by releasing adrenaline. When adrenaline is released into the blood, it’s nearly impossible not to do either of two things: fight or flee.

When others are consistently bullying and abusing you, escape is usually not an option. Your bullies will corner and surround you.

With flight cut off as an option, what do you have left? Fight! Long-term bullying can cause a person to live on this adrenaline every day, all day long.

All your aggressors have to do is come around you, and they can put your body and mind on constant alert. It’s a horrible way to live.

Getting on the school bus and walking through the school’s entrance can feel like a death march. Moreover, horrible headaches and violent nausea will plague you.

You may shake uncontrollably, and your palms may sweat. Also, you may feel a lump in your throat. All of these are signs of being in fight-or-flight mode.

For example, you may feel that lump in your throat when your bully boss calls you into his office. Or, you may even feel nauseated. If you’re in school and your bullies come near you, you may begin to shake uncontrollably.

Again, it’s only adrenaline pumping through you, preparing you for a possible fight.

Bullying and the fight-or-flight response:

You live in a constant state of survival mode.

Even teachers can join the other kids against you once they hear enough rumors and falsehoods that bullies spread about you. This can place you in a very lonely and heartbreaking position.

As time passes, the fear of going to school or work and facing your bullies grows. It’s like an infected tumor that grows bigger with each passing day. Your stomach draws up every morning when you walk out of your house.

The next eight hours are like walking through a minefield. You never know when your next step could be your last. Others begin bombarding you with a torrent of taunts, insults, and names. Or, they may start hitting, kicking, and shoving you.

It is a situation that seems endless, and to say you are afraid is an understatement. You are petrified.

Unless you have experienced it firsthand, you can’t imagine the fear. Also, there are health consequences of living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. The impact on your physical health may not be immediately apparent. However, it may rear its ugly head later in life.

But this doesn’t only happen in school; it also occurs in the workplace. What people once believed only happened to children and teens also happens to adults in the workplace. Bullying knows no age group.

superiors usually blame you for defending yourself.

You may get into serious trouble when the bullying finally escalates and becomes physical. Every day, school staff unjustly suspend or expel innocent students for defending themselves against unjust actions.  Moreover, managers in the workplace often terminate innocent employees for trying to protect themselves.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

But why do they usually punish you for self-defense?

It’s because bullies are talented at charming superiors and making them like them. They lie convincingly and make you look like the bad guy. Therefore, the higher-ups may punish you for nothing more than trying to protect yourself.

If, on the off chance, they do punish your bullies, they usually give them a mild reprimand. However, most bullies escape with impunity. This is because others typically side with the bullies, and you have no support whatsoever!

Just like all God’s creatures, you have this fight-or-flight instinct. And you have the right to defend yourself if you can’t run from an attack.

And when bullies are attacking you left and right, it’s up to you to take care of yourself. You cannot just stand there and let these creeps beat the living daylights out of you. You must fight back to keep from getting hurt!

Even animals have the fight-or-flight instinct.

For example, you corner a dog and kick it. And you keep kicking it. Sooner or later, that dog is going to bite you! It’s all a part of nature. Humans also have the right to self-defense.

People can’t expect you to roll over and let bullies have their way with you. They should expect you to fight back if you can’t run.

Bullying and the Human Stress Response go hand in hand. Why? Because bullying automatically activates this response in targets. Whenever bullies accost you, your body instinctively goes into survival mode.

Therefore, the automatic response is either to fight or flee. But what happens when your body stays in that state due to long-term bullying?

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

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. It also improves your eyesight and slows down processes like digestion.

After so long, bullying can screw up your Sympathetic Nervous System. It can cause you confusion and emotional numbness.

Moreover, the constant bullying puts the fight-or-flight response into overdrive. After bullies have bullied you for so long, adverse changes in the victim’s brain begin to occur. Your brain rewires itself to prepare for a hostile environment.

You come to expect threats. Your first instinct is flight. If flight isn’t possible, then you go into fight mode. When this happens, the logical brain shuts down and the primal brain takes over.

And when that part of your brain is turned on all the time, your mind starts to decline.

what long-term bullying does to mental health

Long-term bullying affects your decision-making and emotional control the most. Why? Because your mind is in a constant state of survival mode.

Moreover, you lose your cognitive abilities, ability to control emotions, and ability to think clearly and rationally. Once this happens, it will blind you to any alternatives to your situation.

This is why you will often snap and do irrational things when the pressure of bullying builds to the breaking point. And, because children’s brains are still developing, kids stand a higher chance of damage to the mind and the sympathetic nervous system.

Bullying and the Fight-or-Flight Response:

People cannot thrive in a bullying environment.

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 brain’s negative changes. Look up Pavlov’s dogs and you’ll see what I mean.

If this is happening to you at work, you must find a way to leave the toxic environment and find employment elsewhere. If you’re a parent and you know your child is being bullied, you must help them transfer.

A new learning environment will help their minds begin to heal and restore their ability to make good decisions. Moreover, their cognitive and reasoning abilities will also improve.

Remember that a plant cannot thrive in a climate of no sunlight or water. And neither can human beings grow in a hostile environment of bullying and abuse.

This post was all about bullying and the fight-or-flight response, so that you can use it to justify self-defense. This post will also help you to recognize when it’s time to TRANSFER YOUR CHILD, IF you are a parent of a bullied child.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. Self-Preservation Instinct: Defending Yourself from Bullies is Okay!

2. Fight Flight Freeze Fawn: 4 Stress Responses of Bullying Victims

3. The Bullied Brain: 7 Ways Bullying Effects Mental Health

4. Bullying Survival Mode: 5 Things Victims of Bullying Do Wrong

bullying culture at work

Bullying Culture: When Bullying is the Status Quo

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‘Want to know whether your school or workplace has a bullying culture? Here are all the things you should watch for.

bullying culture

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

3. The 4 Stages of Bullying

4. Setting Boundaries: 3 Powerful Practices to Hold Your Ground

5. Asserting Boundaries: The Pros Outweigh the Cons