Bullying: Adults, Mindgames and Territorial Markings.

Bullying: Not Just for Kids – Adults Can (and Do) Play too

With recent headlines about youth suicides attributed to being bullied, I wanted to shed some light that this situation is not just for children on the playground. Adults also are bullied on a daily basis. Here are a few examples:

• Employment Management: Many situations that can occur that fall under this title. Perhaps, you have a supervisor that always gives you the undesirable busy work, and then complains that you did it incorrectly or that it took you too long to finish. Of course, they will always protect themselves by saying “I am only trying to encourage you to do the best job possible.” If that’s what they’re really trying to do, then they would throw out a compliment or reward from time to time. This is bullying and can be dealt with by contacting a manager above them, or directly with your Human Resources department.

• The Neighbor: Who hasn't experienced a bullying neighbor? You may not initially think of it as bullying, but their actions can many times be threatening. And if you’re “afraid” of them or not, they have no right to put you in fear of your life, family or property. A subtle way is mowing one extra stripe onto your property to make it appear as it is theirs. Also, the way they blow their leaves and debris onto your property when beautifying theirs. Bullying also can be found with parking spaces. Many people have a very aggressive approach when it comes to self-honored importance and saying that “you’re not important enough to park in the nearest spot” by always hogging one parking space (even if your unit number is assigned to it) – or maybe they park in their own spot, but just over the line into your space. This is bullying.

• Strangers with Rude Comments or Actions: This can happen anywhere and happen in a variety of ways. A group of people is normally more intimidating than a single person. They can laugh / make fun of you with a lot of spectators, making you want to crawl under a rock. They can see you walking down the sidewalk and decide to take up the entire width of the walkway and make you go around them. Sometimes, of course, this is just bad manners – but many times you know the intent of their moving into your equal public space. Store cashiers are infamous for bullying, believe it or not. This can range from the way they throw your purchase into the bag to announcing to everyone “This coupon doesn’t work, but if you’re willing to hold up the line I can check it for you.” knowing that you will say “no, that’s okay” and letting it go.

• Associates and Co-Workers with Rude Comments or Actions: Don’t you love those instances where your co-worker “jokes” about the geographical area or cleanliness of your home. This is them attempting to be better than you and is normally done with other co-workers on-looking. It could be that co-worker repeatedly taking objects from your desk and not giving them back until you ask for the return of them, and this does include lunch / drinks from the break room refrigerator.

There you have it, a few examples of adult bullying. If you see yourself as the bully, please take into consideration that you could be hurting someone. You don’t know their mental state, or what childhood memories you’re making them re-live. If you are the bully and think the ones you “tease” need professional health for allowing these simple everyday annoyances bother them, then you also need to seek professional help for having such low self-esteem that you need to belittle others to make yourself feel superior.

Advertisement

Psychiatric Disorders @

• Personality Disorders
• Psychiatric Disorders
• Depression
• Phobias
• Narcissistic Personality
• More

• Agoraphobia
• Antisocial Personality
• Bipolar Disorder
• Borderline Personality
• Somatoform Disorders
• Dissociative Disorders
• OCD
• Psychotic Disorders
• Post Traumatic Stress