What would be the outcome of a scenario where a stranger or acquaintance walked up to you and began to call you names and shove you. Maybe they even hit you? What would you do? You would call the authorities and the perpetrator would be charged with assault. If it was a first offense, there might be a light penalty and stern warning. However, if it was repeated, he or she would incur a much stronger penalty–maybe even prison.

This behavior is unacceptable at every level in the adult world, although there seems to be an increasingly common trend called “mobbing.” In this situation, co-workers or colleagues with gang up against a fellow worker and harass them.

Why is any level of this behavior tolerated in childhood? Any of it? I don’t have to give examples because every one of us has either witnessed bullying, been a part of it, or been a target. What is remarkable, is that the attacks are often emotionally intense and can involve physical contact. Usually, it is repetitive and can last for years. Make no mistake, the scars are permanent and there is a medical case that bullying should be treated as criminal assault right from the beginning, regardless of what age it begins. This does not necessarily mean severe consequences at the beginning but a clear pathway of consequences needs to be laid out.

Early on, it is the parent’s responsibility. Where are the kids learning this behavior? Who are they imitating? Are they being bullied at home? Remember, the basic role of a parent is to provide a safe, nurturing, and secure environment where everyone can thrive.

The consequences of being bullied

The core issue driving chronic disease, whether it is mental or physical is the body’s survival response to chronic threat. The solution lies in creating safety. Some of the consequences of remaining in a survival state are elevations of:

• Inflammatory cytokines (signaling proteins) that drive inflammation,
• Adrenaline and noradrenaline that increase heart rate, muscle tension, rate of breathing, and sweating.
• Histamines that fire up the immune response
• Cortisol, which drives a heightened metabolic state that destroys tissue in an effort to maintain a fuel supply for fight or flight.

The data

A 2014 paper out of Britain obtained 50–year follow up data on 7,771 participants whose parents reported bullying exposure between ages 7 and 11. Here is a partial list of the consequences and they were more severe if the bullying was frequent vs. occasional. (1)

One of the stark facts is that 28% of children had been exposed to occasional bullying and 15% had been frequently bullying. That is high percent. Life isn’t fair and the kids who were bullied were more likely to suffer from the following problems.

• Parents in manual occupations
• Low parental involvement
• Placed in foster care
• An ACE score of two or more (Adverse Childhood Experiences) indicating various forms of abuse
• They had lower IQ scores
• Difficulty in processing stress – either internalized or externalized it

Consequences

• Increased anxiety, depression, suicidality
• Poorer self-rated general health
• Lower cognitive functioning
• Alcohol dependence
• Lower educational level by midlife
• Higher unemployment rate
• Being single or without a partner
• Less social
• Poor social support
• Lower quality of life
• Lower satisfaction with life

Another paper by the same author looking at the same group of people who had been bullied showed that women who had been bullied showed elevated inflammatory markers and a higher chance of obesity, which leads to a host of other medical problems. It is becoming increasingly clear that persistently elevated inflammatory markers is associated with almost every chronic disease state­–both mental and physical. (2)

Over 40% of the population was exposed to some level of being bullied in this study and there are numerous other studies documenting the often devastating mental, physical, and social consequences. Why do so many people bully others? I could never figure out why someone would treat another person in a way that they would not like to be treated themselves. There are several reasons with the wounded chicken in the coop being one example. Animals of all species instinctively weed out the weaker members of the group.

Not thinking clearly

But humans have consciousness and have the capacity to override that impulse. But another problem is that when you are angry, the blood supply shifts away from the thinking centers of the brain and you cannot think clearly. You revert to non-human animal behavior and it is destructive. Anger is only about self-preservation and is temporary insanity.

The rewards of power

There is also a physiological reward for being bullied. One study showed that children who had been bullied had higher levels of  inflammation as measure by a blood test called C reactive protein (CRP) than children who had not been bullied. (3) As noted above, these levels can be sustained well into adulthood. What is more disturbing is that the bullies had significantly lower levels of CRP than students who were left alone. My assessment of this situation is the answer for anxiety is control, so as to take evasive action to survive. Anxiety is an inflammatory process. So, the more power you possess, the more control you have. What we call “socialization” in school is an early and ongoing power struggle. It is not subtle how this behavior carries into adulthood.

Kids will be kids

This is deadly phrase. It covers up a multitude of wrongs that have lasting consequences. Multiple studies have documented the issues. Many efforts have been made to clamp down on bullying but we all know how pervasive it is.

I am not going to list all the possible solutions and certainly many efforts had a lot of success. But they don’t go deep enough and don’t have the necessary reach. Why?

Parents hate bullying. They feel helpless. Teachers hate it. They can only do so much and unfortunately bullies love it when people try to stop them. They now have a lot of attention and control. Just policies and light penalties are no match for them.

It is a crime

I am not a fan of our criminal justice system. Teaching life skills to those in prison is critical and it is not widely being done. So, these comments are made with this in mind – rehab first. However, in addition to the “zero-tolerance” approach that has been attempted for over a decade, bullying is a crime and should be treated as such. It is the logical starting point.

References

The post Bullying is Assault and Should be treated as Such first appeared on Back in Control.

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Can’t escape your thoughts

It turns out in recent neuroscience research that thoughts are also sensory inputs that create the same bodily responses as other physical sensations. Pleasant input yields reward chemicals and a feeling of contentment. Unpleasant input stimulates stress hormones and you’ll feel anxious. What you’re experiencing is the body’s chemical surges. The problem with human consciousness is that you cannot escape your thoughts. They will progressively become stronger over your lifetime regardless of your defense mechanisms – unless you address them correctly.

One of the “solutions” for anxiety, or rather the normal response to it, is control. The reaction to a threat is to control the situation or your response in order to resolve it. So, all the players in this game are focused on gaining more control, which means that more power is desirable. So what we call “socialization” is simply a massive power struggle. This set of behaviors continues to play out in adulthood with horrendous results. Why would these early patterns change even though we intellectually know that love, peace and compassion are better principles by which to live our lives? Because these survival behaviors are part of the unconscious brain and are about a million times stronger than the conscious brain. Anxiety basics

Anger is anxiety with a chemical kick

When you lose control or are trapped by anything, including your thoughts you will become angry. Anger = loss of control It is the body’s survival response to elevate the stress chemicals that will improve your chances of solving a problem. Since we cannot escape our thoughts, we are all under an endless adrenaline/ cortisol / histamine assault. These sustained levels of stress chemicals affect every cell in the body and translate into many different physical symptoms. You’ll eventually become physically ill. Mental or physical health – which is more critical?

The patterns of behavior are established on the school ground and play out through adulthood. Every child has anxiety with it being more of a problem if he or she is from an abusive family. Aced Out They are thrown into the school system without any awareness what it is or how to process it. Then they are taught that having more self-esteem is a desirable trait – except that it isn’t. Achieving self-esteem now means that your self-worth is dependent on the approval of others who are also searching for an identity. You are also trying to utilize conscious means to solve a problem that originates in the powerful unconscious brain. It’s a mismatch and is an endless deadly loop. The myth of self-esteem

The need for power and control

Bullying is one of the earliest individual manifestations of the need to gain power to deal with anxiety. There’s even a physiological reward for being a bully. It has been shown that children who are bullied have an elevated C-reactive protein compared to those who haven’t been bullied. This is a marker of inflammation and high levels are associated with many disease states. What I find particularly disturbing is that the bullies had significantly lower levels of these markers. (1) Power has its rewards. School or prison – what is the difference? Bullying

What is even more problematic is the cultural effect of untreated anxiety / anger has on the human condition. Human history is one of unending power struggles and violence. People in power use fear to subjugate other people. This occurs in families, at work and at a societal level. It is the history of the human existence. For example, it has been the custom of nations to systematically torture conquered populations as the first act of rule. Do you think this is outdated and irrelevant? Seattle has a remarkable center that treats the survivors of torture from around the world. Their data shows that there are still over 118 nations that utilize political torture.

The Future

Although statistics show that the world has less violence than it ever has, it’s still pretty awful and seems to be getting worse. The basic power struggle at the individual and collective level hasn’t changed. We are also headed down a dangerous path in that teen anxiety / chronic pain has gone up over 800% in a decade. Many people in their late teens, twenties and early thirties are suffering from crippling anxiety. I’m seeing this play out in my office every week. They are also angry, reactive and often not open to new ideas. This group is headed into taking charge in their family and workplace with a large percent lacking resilience skills. I am seeing many buckle quickly and also am seeing a disturbing trend of workers being bullied by managers.

We have to get this right – and soon. Every person has anxiety, whether they feel connected to it or not. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the incredible comforts of living in this modern era we are becoming more reactive and angry (destructive).

Although psychology has a role in dealing with anxiety, the current paradigm of addressing it can’t work and it isn’t working. If anxiety is the survival sensation created by your body’s stress chemicals, the correct approach is to use tools to decrease these hormones. Psychology has to be combined with these other strategies. There are numerous effective ways of accomplishing this and these form the essence of the DOC process.

Implementing methods to regulate the body’s stress chemicals are simple and could be taught in school starting as early as pre-school. This would decrease the need for more power and creativity could flourish. Consider the impact of treating this as a public health issue and teaching how to effectively calm down the nervous as a part of the basic school curriculum.

Untreated anxiety is the most important public health issue on our planet. It’s the root cause of destructive behavior. Our human survival will depend on us addressing it correctly as a neurochemical survival response. We do have the knowledge and means to accomplish this task.

Listen to the Back in Control Radio podcast Societal Disintegration – Untreated Anxiety.

1. Copeland W, et al.” Childhood bullying involvement predicts low-grade systemic inflammation into adulthood.” PNAS (2014); 111: 7570-7575.

The post Societal Disintegration – Untreated Anxiety first appeared on Back in Control.

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The rhetoric

Some of the historical rhetoric used around bullying as included:

• “We just don’t have the resources to monitor everyone.”
• “Defending yourself is a part of growing up.”
• “It is important to learn to stand up for yourself.”
• “Kids will be kids.”

In defense of the teachers, schools are understaffed and teachers are overworked. Much of this behavior occurs at a level that is impossible to monitor. Fortunately, this conversation is changing.

Schools versus prison

From the perspective of the person being constantly bullied at school, it can be compared to serving prison time. You spend much of your awake time in a place you hate and you aren’t allowed to leave; the authority commanding you to stay in this desperate place does’t have adequate systems in place to protect you from the relentless attacks of your peers.

BTW, even prison can be a place of learning. This is a commentary that prison doesn’t have to be the way it is in the United States. Norway is far ahead of the US regarding the way they treat their prisoners. This video was sent to me by one of my friends from the Charter for Compassion.

Rite of passage?

There is an ill-defined mindset that seems to suggest that attending school is where you become “socialized”.  Enduring bullying results in dysfunctional survival skills. I wonder what percentage of patients suffering from chronic pain were bullied during their teen years.

Bullies are cowards. They are amongst the most insecure anxiety-ridden people on the planet. Their anger is an attempt to mask their vulnerability and helplessness, to regain a feeling of power and control. The angry bully is so anxious and scared that he’ll inflict wanton violence on the physically weak to hide his own anxiety. The bigger the bully, the more anxiety he or she is trying to cover up. Humans hate the feeling of anxiety so much that they will do anything possible to avoid it. It’s no accident that the weakest of the crowd often gets picked on the most. The weak remind bullies of what they are trying to run from—their own vulnerability. On the other hand though, bullies hate the secure and self-assured. It is a grim reminder of who they are not.

All this being said, I have tremendous compassion for bullies.

• They can’t face their own anxiety and vulnerability.
• They cannot experience any meaningful depth of relationships—especially long-term.
• There is a lot of noise and chaos in their brains.
• There is a high chance that their home is probably not overflowing with peace and love.
• They must be hyper-vigilant to maintain their power.

It’s not a great life.

Can’t give it up

It is also difficult to break out of the bullying pattern. It is powerful and addicting. Why would bullies want to give it up? Since the bullies are not going to willingly give up their power, the only short-term choice is to face it with power. There can be no tolerance of this behavior by anyone at any level at any time. Even if we cannot change the bully, we must protect the classmates that are being permanently injured by this incredibly cowardly behavior. Fellow classmates are a potential resource to stop the abuse. Addressing the root cause of unrelenting anxiety is the longer-term solution.

Pain and your family

I wrote a post, “Pain = Anger = Abuse.” The main point of the article was that while you are angry, you are detached from the current reality immediately in front of you. You do not have any awareness of the needs of those who are close to you. It is this lack of awareness that is the essence of abuse. Unfortunately, chronic pain creates a lot of legitimate anxiety and anger. The chronic nature of it makes it much worse and often patients are essentially in a rage. In that state of mind, it is almost impossible not to be abusive. (For more on the connection between anxiety and anger, check out “Your Hand Stuck Over the Stove”).

During my Hoffman Process, I learned that your family’s behavioral patterns and attitudes are passed down to you. For the first 12 years of your life, you are downloading your family patterns into your own behavior. You don’t have much say in the behavioral influences the get etched into your brain. From that point on, these behavioral patterns are your data base. The rest of your life is spent either adopting or rejecting these patterns. Consequently, your children are a direct reflection of you. Is your child is a bully? If so, where did he or she learn that behavior? Is there a chance he or she learned it from you, your partner, or both.

Maybe your child is a bully and you don’t even recognize it, because aggressive bullying behavior is normal behavior to you. Were you a bully in middle school or high school? Bullying behavior does not spontaneously disappear. It often just takes on different forms. What is your behavior like now? Are you willing to look at it?

“Cool Kid”

This video is a parody of the recent Justin Bieber video, “Boyfriend.” It was created by my nephew and is titled, “Cool Kid.” It is a well-done commentary reflecting the views of many students trapped in our school system.

Bullying is deeply woven into the fabric of chronic pain. It is each person’s challenge and responsibility to define and face up to his or her role in this pervasive problem.

The post School or Prison – What’s the Difference? first appeared on Back in Control.

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