Effects of Extreme Isolation Induced by Bullying - Research Paper Example

no. The effects of extreme isolation induced by bullying Thesis The act of bullying causes serious mental problems to victims. Bullied people often feel insecure and unworthy of belonging to social groups, thus many end up isolated from social activities. Isolation could be engineered by peers who fail to include the victims of bullying in social activities, or the isolation could stem from the victim’s decision to isolate themselves from such activities. Either way, isolation leads to a sense of loneliness on the part of the victim who in turn continues to shy away from social groups. This often leads to extreme isolation, a psychological condition in which a bullied person totally avoids interacting with other people and always keeps to themselves. Accordingly, this paper aims at analyzing how bullying induces extreme isolation, and the effects of this isolation on an individual. Introduction Bullying is the act of persistently abusing, intimidating, insulting, and sometimes causing physical harm to someone, thus causing them to feel humiliated and embarrassed. Bullying exists in several areas, for example, in schools, at the workplace, and most recently, over the internet, through cyber bullying. In bullying, the bully is usually the stronger person, physically or otherwise, while the bullied is the weaker party. According to Kids Health, bullies often isolate their victim from target groups, for example, by separating them from their colleagues, excluding them from group activities, ignoring them, and marginalizing their status in the group. As a result of extreme isolation, the bullied person suffers a lot of psychological harm resulting in conditions such depression, anxiety, despair, and even suicide (Newman, Holden & Delville 344). Extreme isolation refers to the process by which bullied people keep their feelings to themselves and do not reach out to other for help on how to deal with bullying. Review of literature Bullying causes untold psychological torture on a victim. According to Newman, Holden & Delville, bullying acts a chronic stressor, whose outcomes are termed as the responses to a traumatic experience (344). As a result, a bullied person will use a number of strategies, both negative and positive, to cope with the stress of being bullied. On the negative spectrum, social isolation is one of the worst coping strategies that a bullied person can adopt. Unfortunately, according to the WHO, social isolation is the most common behavioral response that bullied people exhibit, whereby these victims start avoiding social meetings and have difficulties forging relationships with others (16-20). Bullies target everyone at first, yet the way that a targeted person responds to the bully determines whether the bullying stops or continues. Those targets who exhibit extreme fear and anxiety towards the bully are the ones who become the chronic victims (House of Commons 112). According to Kids Health, people abused by their peers have higher chances of developing mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and even suicide. Social isolation, according to the NIMH, contributes high death rates among bullied people. According to Rigby, extremely isolated and bullied people begin to nurture suicidal thoughts, sometimes leading to actual suicide (116). Method Participants I mostly conducted research on my friends and family, although I incorporated the response of a few strangers who were willing to respond. I interviewed a total of 15 people, 10 of them males and 5 females. Of the 15 participants, 2 were in elementary school, 3 were in high school, and 5 were in college, while the remaining five were working adults. Data collection In conducting this research, I mostly relied on qualitative methods such as interviews and questionnaires. In this respect, I interviewed and distributed questionnaires to the participants asking them questions on their experiences and reactions to bullying. Basically, during the interviews I asked the participants question concerning whether they have ever been bullied. If so, how early did the bulling start and for how long did the bullying take place. For those who hade never been bullied, questions were centered on whether they had experienced someone else being bullied and what their reactions to the bullying were at the time. Additionally, both groups were asked questions centered on whether the cases of bullying they identified ever led to extreme isolation, and what effects such isolation had on the victims. Results Out of the 15 participants, 6 reported to have experienced some degree of bullying during their lifetime. The remaining 9 reported that they had witnessed other people being bullied. It is also important to note that only one female among the 6 who had been bullied was a female, while all the others were males. As for the elementary school participants, none had been bullied although both reported “minor” case of bullying among their peers. The participants from elementary school gave examples of name calling and yelling as the most common forms of bullying in school. For example, one elementary school girl told of how a girl in her class used to pick on a girl shorter than her and would constantly yell at her and order her around. From the research, 60 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had experienced most cases of bullying during their high school years, as evidenced by all the 3 participants still in high school who reported extreme cases of bulling at their schools. By extreme, these participants talked of how victims of bullying would have their money stolen; while others would be beaten up, or both. In college, 2 of the participants had been personally bullied, while the other 3 had not experienced bullying cases. College bullying took a different perspective as those who reported bullying in college claim that bullies would threaten the lives of the victims, in addition to making the latter do illegal activities on the bully’s behalf. Work place bullying was reported by 3 of the five working participants. Bullying in the work place mostly involved being picked on by other s and being blamed for anything that went wrong in the organization. For example, my uncle narrated how he worked in a certain organization, in which, however perfectly he did his work, the manager would always find fault in the work and order him to redo the work countless times. The amazing thing was that in case my uncle did work on someone’s behalf, the manager would never complain and would even commend the person. In as far as extreme isolation is concerned, only 5 participants reported having experiences people suffer mental problems such as depression, attempted suicide, and actual suicide due to extreme isolation caused by bullying. Discussion The results from the research gave more insight into the bullying trend among various populations, how bullying causes extreme isolation, and the effects of the latter. One of the effects of extreme isolation is hyper-vigilance and oversensitivity by the victim (Biordi & Nicholson 86). For example, in the case of the girl who constantly picked on the shorter girl, the respondent told of how the bully told the shorter girl that she will never grow tall and would always serve people taller than her. Lynch writes that toxic talk is a form of bullying which makes an individual feel unworthy and unwanted (4). As a consequence the bullied girl would always avoid tall people fearing that they might subjugate her. This according to Rigby is a common practice among bullies, who choose to focus on people they deemed weaker (65). This case made me think of how small I was in elementary school and how frightened I would have been if a taller girl had taken advantage of my stature and always intimated me; it would have left me scarred for life. Another effect of extreme isolation is emotional instability which often leads to loneliness and depression. For example, my friend told of how they usually make fun of a certain student who stammers, by repeating every word he says. As a result, the student never speaks to anyone in the class, is always seated at the corner by himself, and does not even participate in class discussions. In short, the “stammerer” has totally isolated himself from the rest of the class. According to the House of Commons, such a student becomes lonely and consequently becomes the worst performing student in class (187). What amazed me was how my friend did not seem to realize that he is also a bully since he engages in teasing that particular student. My friend could unknowingly be contributing towards the death of the student who stammers, if Lynch’s theory that social isolation and educational failure are risk factors for heart disease is anything to go by (193). Suicide and attempted suicide is the other effect that extreme isolation can have on a bullied person (NIMH). For example in college, people start identifying through social classes, meaning that those deemed of a lower social class are at a higher risk of being bullied (Rigby 172). While interviewing my mother, she told of how in her college days, a certain teenager from a minority community was constantly targeted because of the color of his skin and the fact that he came from a poor background. Unfortunately, the teenager could not take the ridicule anymore and he committed suicide because as per his suicide note, he could “fit in”. According to Lynch, class often denotes the socio-economic status that a person belongs to in relation with others (121). It is therefore, a pity that people can bully others and lead them to take such drastic measures over issues they have no control over, such as race and familial economic status. Another suicide case from the research is by my uncle who attempted suicide at one time, after he had worked for close to 48 hours writing a report only for the manager to tear it to pieces and ask for a fresh report. My uncle had had enough so he went home, took an overdose of sleeping pills and went to bed. He is just lucky that his wife came home early from work and took him to the hospital. This story made me think how close to us bullying actually is, yet we sometimes do not even realize it. No one in the family had realized that my uncle was undergoing depression due to workplace bullying, because he did not disclose it to anybody. This according to Lynch is the “conspiracy of human silence” in which the victim of bullying believes that others will consider them weak if they disclose their suffering (335). Conclusion It is evident that bullying contributes a lot towards extreme isolation of the victims of bullying. As a result of isolation, the victims feel lonely and many end up developing serious health issues such as depression, oversensitivity, heart diseases, and suicide tendencies. It is for this reason that intensive campaigns should be carried out in an effort to stop bullying right from elementary school, high school, college, right up to the work place. Works cited Biordi, Diana Luskin, and Nicholas R. Nicholson. "Social isolation." Chronic Illness 8e (2012): 97. Print. House of Commons, Education and Skills Committee. Bullying: Third Report of Session 2006-07. London: The Stationery Office. 2007. Print. Kids Health. Bullying Is A Big Problem. 2013. Web. 2013. Lynch, James. A Cry Unheard: New Insights into the Medical Consequences of Loneliness. Baltimore, MD: Bancroft press. 2010. Print. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Bullying Exerts Psychiatric Effects Into Adulthood. 2013. Web. 2013. Newman, Matthew, Holden, George & Delville,Yvon. Isolation and the Stress of Being Bullied. Journal of Adolescence 28 (2005): 343-357. Print. Rigby, Ken. New Perspectives on Bullying. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 2002. Print. The World Health Organization (Who). Raising Awareness of Psychological Harassment at Work. Protecting Workers Health 4 (2003):1-40. Print. Read More