When bullying gathers momentum and is not reported or challenged, it begins to effect you in a variety of ways.
In my experience many of these effects come from internalising the bullying.
Understanding the way bullying can effect people will allow you to spot the signs and take action before things become more serious.
Over time bullying can create profound personality change.
It can change a great deal about who you are and what you believe yourself to be capable of.
Bullying can create a 'before' and 'after' situation, where you may look at the person you were before the bullying started and the person you are since the bullying began and see a big change.
This is because bullying is designed to make you feel bad about yourself.
The success of bullying relies upon creating a situation where you as the victim have been encouraged to think very negatively about who you are.
This is what bullies do.
They paint a picture of you that is not true.
They insult you, intimidate you and subtly manipulate you and put you down until you start to believe in the picture.
A bully's words become your thoughts about yourself.
These thoughts begin to challenge your self-image until the negative thoughts entirely define it and you have a very negative self-image.
When you have a low self-image.
When you do not respect or value yourself.
When you do not encourage yourself and are very self-critical and harsh with yourself, you make yourself vulnerable.
It is when we are vulnerable that bullying can really start to effect us and create change.
When you have a low self-image it is significantly easier for people to bully you.
When you have a low self-image you tend to attract people and situations that reinforce that image.
You tend to attract people and situations that make you feel bad about yourself.
The more this happens, the worse you feel about yourself, the less respect you have for yourself as a person and the more you criticise yourself for being in that situation.
Bullying can ultimately make you feel worthless.
Bullying can take a very friendly, outgoing and happy person and turn them into the complete opposite.
Bullying can change you into a very shy, fearful, nervous, anxious, angry, withdrawn person.
When I was being bullied I experienced the full range of this - I became very withdrawn, I became so painfully shy I found it literally impossible to speak to certain people - even if I really wanted to.
And I really do mean impossible.
I was literally paralysed by fear at times! I was nervous and anxious for much of the day at school, if I was in a class or situation where I felt safe it wouldn't be long before I had to go into a class or situation where I felt unsafe and I felt constant nervous anticipation about that.
Bullying effected me to the point that I would go out of my way to avoid or escape certain situations where I would feel unsafe or could possibly be bullied.
I started to try and avoid school.
I would pretend to be ill and stay at home.
I would pretend to be ill at lunchtime so I could come home.
Eventually I started to go home every single lunchtime, even though by the time I arrived home I only had about thirty minutes before I had to return to school.
I had plenty of friends but I wouldn't speak to anyone outside of that group.
On top of the fear and anxiety I felt tremendous anger as well and I felt this anger so powerfully that I began to isolate myself.
I had a huge amount of anger bottled up inside me because deep down I knew the bullying was wrong.
I knew I wanted to be treated with respect.
What I didn't know was how to stop being bullied and that made me very angry because I felt powerless.
Bullying didn't create this situation straight away.
When it started happening I was much more resilient, but over time the persistent nature of bullying wears you down.
Feeling scared and anxious all the time tires you out.
It leaves you with little energy for taking any action against the bullying.
If you don't feel you have the skills or strategies to stop it, or even report it, you tend to try and endure it like I did, so bullying starts to have more serious effects.
Some of the things that people experience in bullying situations that are not stopped include: - Personality change - Weight loss - Mood swings.
Outbursts - School phobia - Loss of interest in favourite activities - Harsh self criticism - Going home with possessions destroyed - Asking parents for extra money - Unexplained cuts and bruises - Difficulty coping with schoolwork - Nightmares/Trouble sleeping - Unhappy but refuse to say what is wrong - Upset or secretive about email/text/phone messages - Self harm - Thoughts of suicide or planning a suicide In short, bullying can affect everything in your life.
People have different ways of coping with it.
Before I move onto these, I'm going to talk about something very important.
I'm going to explain what the main effect of bullying is and why this is a positive thing for anyone in a bullying situation.
In my experience many of these effects come from internalising the bullying.
Understanding the way bullying can effect people will allow you to spot the signs and take action before things become more serious.
Over time bullying can create profound personality change.
It can change a great deal about who you are and what you believe yourself to be capable of.
Bullying can create a 'before' and 'after' situation, where you may look at the person you were before the bullying started and the person you are since the bullying began and see a big change.
This is because bullying is designed to make you feel bad about yourself.
The success of bullying relies upon creating a situation where you as the victim have been encouraged to think very negatively about who you are.
This is what bullies do.
They paint a picture of you that is not true.
They insult you, intimidate you and subtly manipulate you and put you down until you start to believe in the picture.
A bully's words become your thoughts about yourself.
These thoughts begin to challenge your self-image until the negative thoughts entirely define it and you have a very negative self-image.
When you have a low self-image.
When you do not respect or value yourself.
When you do not encourage yourself and are very self-critical and harsh with yourself, you make yourself vulnerable.
It is when we are vulnerable that bullying can really start to effect us and create change.
When you have a low self-image it is significantly easier for people to bully you.
When you have a low self-image you tend to attract people and situations that reinforce that image.
You tend to attract people and situations that make you feel bad about yourself.
The more this happens, the worse you feel about yourself, the less respect you have for yourself as a person and the more you criticise yourself for being in that situation.
Bullying can ultimately make you feel worthless.
Bullying can take a very friendly, outgoing and happy person and turn them into the complete opposite.
Bullying can change you into a very shy, fearful, nervous, anxious, angry, withdrawn person.
When I was being bullied I experienced the full range of this - I became very withdrawn, I became so painfully shy I found it literally impossible to speak to certain people - even if I really wanted to.
And I really do mean impossible.
I was literally paralysed by fear at times! I was nervous and anxious for much of the day at school, if I was in a class or situation where I felt safe it wouldn't be long before I had to go into a class or situation where I felt unsafe and I felt constant nervous anticipation about that.
Bullying effected me to the point that I would go out of my way to avoid or escape certain situations where I would feel unsafe or could possibly be bullied.
I started to try and avoid school.
I would pretend to be ill and stay at home.
I would pretend to be ill at lunchtime so I could come home.
Eventually I started to go home every single lunchtime, even though by the time I arrived home I only had about thirty minutes before I had to return to school.
I had plenty of friends but I wouldn't speak to anyone outside of that group.
On top of the fear and anxiety I felt tremendous anger as well and I felt this anger so powerfully that I began to isolate myself.
I had a huge amount of anger bottled up inside me because deep down I knew the bullying was wrong.
I knew I wanted to be treated with respect.
What I didn't know was how to stop being bullied and that made me very angry because I felt powerless.
Bullying didn't create this situation straight away.
When it started happening I was much more resilient, but over time the persistent nature of bullying wears you down.
Feeling scared and anxious all the time tires you out.
It leaves you with little energy for taking any action against the bullying.
If you don't feel you have the skills or strategies to stop it, or even report it, you tend to try and endure it like I did, so bullying starts to have more serious effects.
Some of the things that people experience in bullying situations that are not stopped include: - Personality change - Weight loss - Mood swings.
Outbursts - School phobia - Loss of interest in favourite activities - Harsh self criticism - Going home with possessions destroyed - Asking parents for extra money - Unexplained cuts and bruises - Difficulty coping with schoolwork - Nightmares/Trouble sleeping - Unhappy but refuse to say what is wrong - Upset or secretive about email/text/phone messages - Self harm - Thoughts of suicide or planning a suicide In short, bullying can affect everything in your life.
People have different ways of coping with it.
Before I move onto these, I'm going to talk about something very important.
I'm going to explain what the main effect of bullying is and why this is a positive thing for anyone in a bullying situation.
Source...