Stalking

I was just reading some websites. Like “Am I being Stalked?” and ones like that. They were somewhat helpful. They also went over the health affects it has on a person.

I feel this place of just wanting to get out of here, many of you have seen this by my constant writing of wanting to do so. I read some other sites and many said with stalking people “Move and change jobs”

And this is exactly the way my mind is working lately and dwells on.

The other part was Ive been wanting to escape these feelings. And Im lacking my support in B which made me feel some sense of safety and reassurance? And now that is gone, and Im reacting to that also. He even asked me last week “What will make it better?” I said “Id like you to comfort me and in a way protect me” was my answer. He just responded with “Yeah”

But it also spoke about how this tends to ruin relationships when a person is going through this, the other party does not know how to handle it, and it sets up a whole new set of problems and their denial or discrediting your feelings makes you feel even worse.

I was driving to work today, and thinking about what if I were to leave this world? I would be free of anymore of the pain.

Then all that can pop into my head is leaving two children behind who wont have me anymore, who I will have abandoned. And who will be raised by a sick man.

And the other part of that thought. Ive read before that Suicide is often a “Fuck You” response to the world or people. And its like it does feel that way, Its like “Im tired of the pain, Im tired of what you are doing, and Im going to make it known I hated what you did, blame you and try to cause you to feel guilt for my going to that place”

I know it sounds sick, but often times, many people make the attempts as a cry for help, or for attention, to be saying “LISTEN TO ME DAMMIT, THIS IS SERIOUS!!!”

Anyways, heres what I got off the net

Symptoms

main symptoms – stress, anxiety, sleeplessness, fatigue (including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – see below), trauma

physical symptoms – reduced immunity to infection leading to frequent colds, coughs, flu, glandular fever, etc (especially on days off, eg weekends and holidays), aches & pains (with no clear cause – this lack of attributability suggests stress as the cause), back pain, chest pains and angina, high blood pressure, headaches and migraines, sweating, palpitations, trembling, hormonal problems (disturbed menstrual cycle, loss of libido, impotence), physical numbness (especially in toes, fingers, and lips), emotional numbness (including anhedonia, an inability to feel joy and love), irritable bowel syndrome, thyroid problems, skin irritations and skin disorders (eg athlete’s foot, eczema, psoriasis, shingles, internal and external ulcers, urticaria), loss of appetite (although a few people react by overeating), excessive or abnormal thirst, waking up more tired than when you went to bed, etc

psychological symptoms – panic attacks, reactive depression, thoughts of suicide, stress breakdown (this is a psychiatric injury, not a mental illness), forgetfulness, impoverished or intermittently functioning memory, poor concentration, flashbacks and replays, excessive guilt, disbelief and confusion and bewilderment (“why me?” – click here for the answer), an unusual degree of fear, sense of isolation, insecurity, desperation, etc; one experiences acute anxiety at the prospect of meeting the bully or visiting the location where the bullying took place, or at the thought of touching the paperwork associated with the case; one is unable to attend disciplinary meetings and may vomit before, during or after the meeting, sometimes at the thought of the meeting or on receiving a threatening letter insisting one attends (these are PTSD diagnostic criteria B4 and B5)

behavioural symptoms – tearfulness, irritability, angry outbursts, obsessiveness (the experience takes over your life), hypervigilance (feels like but is not paranoia), hypersensitivity (almost every remark or action is perceived as critical even when it is not), sullenness (a sign the inner psyche has been damaged), mood swings, withdrawal, indecision, loss of humour, hyperawareness (acute awareness of time, seasons, distance travelled), excessive biting, teeth grinding, picking, scratching or tics, increased reliance on drugs (tannin, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sleeping tablets, tranquillisers, antidepressants, other substances), comfort spending (and consequent financial problems), etc

effects on personality – shattered self-confidence and self-esteem, low self-image, loss of self-worth and self-love

Other symptoms and disorders reported include sleep disorder, bipolar disorder, mood disorder, eating disorder, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, skin disorder.

The traumatising effect of bullying results in the target being unable to state clearly what is happening to them and who is responsible; the target may be so traumatised that they are unable to articulate their experience for a year or more after the event. This often frustrates or prevents legal action:

Bullying results in strong feelings of fear, shame, embarrassment, and guilt, which are encouraged by the bully to keep their target quiet. This is how all abusers (including child sex abusers) silence their targets.

Poor concentration, impaired memory, and fatigue are common and early signs of excessive stress.

Fight or flight: the stress response

The fight or flight mechanism, or stress response, is designed for responding to physical danger (eg being about to be attacked by a sabre-toothed tiger) but today is more likely to be activated by a psychological danger (eg bullying at work, harassment, stalking, abuse) for which it was not designed. The stress response can also be activated by anticipation of low-probability or long-term or non-life-threatening events such as financial problems (clinching the next big deal, how to pay the mortgage next month, wondering when the next benefit cheque will arrive), motorway traffic jams, job security, picking up a parking ticket for a car park overstay, etc.

Different people respond with different degrees of stress to different stressors, a fact which has dogged research. However, there are at least four factors which determine the degree to which one will feel stressed:

control: a person feels stressed to the extent to which they perceive they are not in control of the stressor; at work, employees have no control over their management

predictability: a person feels stressed to the extent to which they are unable to predict the behaviour or occurrence of the stressor (bullies are notoriously unpredictable in their behaviour)

expectation: a person feels stressed to the extent to which they perceive their circumstances are not improving and will not improve (a bullying situation almost always gets worse, especially as one gains insight into the cause)

support: a person feels stressed to the extent to which they lack support systems, including work colleagues, management, personnel, union, partner, family, friends, colleagues, persons in authority, official bodies, professionals, and the law

Once the stress response is activated, the body’s energy is diverted to where it is needed, thus heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate increase. All non-essential body functions are temporarily shut down or operate at reduced level; these include digestion, growth, sexual systems (menstrual cycle, libido, testosterone production), immune system, storage of energy as fat, etc. In response to threat, glucose, proteins and fats are rapidly released from storage (in muscles, fat cells and liver) and energy becomes abundantly available to those muscles which will help you fight the danger or run away from it. In extreme cases bowels and bladder will spontaneously evacuate to lighten the load; the smell may also help to deter the attacker. There is no point in digestion, reproduction and immune system etc continuing to operate if you’re likely to be the sabre-toothed tiger’s dinner in the next ten minutes – better divert that energy into avoiding being on the menu.

Therefore, the prospect of going to work, or the thought or sound of the bully approaching immediately activates the stress response, but fighting or flight are both inappropriate. In repeated bullying, the stress response prepares the body to respond physically when what is required is an anti-bullying policy, knowledge of bullying motivations and tactics, assertive responses to defend ourselves against unwarranted verbal and physical harassment, and effective laws against bullying as an ultimate deterrent or arbiter when all else fails.

Fatigue

The fatigue caused by bullying is understandable when you realise that the body’s fight or flight mechanism ultimately becomes activated for long periods, sometimes semi-permanently. For a person with a regular daytime job, the activation can last from Sunday evening – at the prospect of having to go to work the following day – through to the following Saturday morning – at the prospect of two days relief.

The fight or flight mechanism is designed to operate briefly and intermittently, but when activated for abnormally long periods, causes the body’s physical, mental and emotional batteries to drain dry. Energy stored in the body as protein, glycogen and triglycerides is rapidly converted back to amino acids, glucose and fatty acids etc to help the body deal with the perceived threat. The process of conversion, achieved via the release of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids, glucagon, epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline), itself consumes energy. The stress hormones also trigger the conversion of protein in those muscles not required for flight or fright into amino acids.

Whilst the human body is capable of withstanding considerable levels and periods of stress, when the stress response is turned on for long periods, the body inevitably sustains damage through prolonged raised levels of glucocorticoids (which are toxic to brain cells), excessive depletion of energy reserves, resulting in fatigue, loss of strength and stamina, muscle wastage (as in steroid myopathy when patients receive large doses of glucocorticoids to treat various illnesses), and adult-onset diabetes.

Psychiatric injury

Over time, the symptoms described above result in psychiatric injury, which is not a mental illness. Despite superficial similarity, and comments (both direct and implied) from those around you, there are many distinct differences between psychiatric injury and mental illness including

a) mental illness is assumed to be inherent (internal) whereas psychiatric injury is caused by something or someone else (external) – who is liable;

b) an injury is likely to get better;

c) the person suffering mental illness exhibits a range of symptoms associated with mental illness (paranoia, schizophrenia, delusions, etc) but not with psychiatric injury, whereas the person suffering psychiatric injury will typically exhibit a range of symptoms (eg hypervigilance, hypersensitivity, obsessiveness, irritability, fatigue, sleeplessness) associated with psychiatric injury but not with mental illness.

A table showing the differences between psychiatric injury and mental illness is on the PTSD page – click here.

Reactive depression

One of the symptoms of psychiatric injury is reactive depression – it is a reaction to an external event. The chemistry of reactive depression is different to clinical or endogenous depression

If you are diagnosed as suffering depression as a result of bullying, make sure it is diagnosed (eg on your sick note) as reactive depression. The word “depression” on its own is usually (mis)interpreted (especially by the bully) as “endogenous depression”.

The mental health trap

In every workplace bullying relationship the symptoms suffered by the target eventually become sufficiently noticeable that people start to ask questions. At this moment, the bully will try and portray their target as mentally ill as a way of abdicating and denying their responsibility for the injury which they have caused. I call this the mental health trap.

To handle the mental health trap, on every occasion that the bully implies you are “mentally ill” or “mentally unstable” or are a person with a “mental health problem”, look the bully in the eye and (preferably with a witness present) say:

The state of my physical and mental wellbeing today is a direct consequence of your behaviour towards me over the last xx months/years.

Put this in writing, with support from your union or other representative. You may need to repeat it. If you are coerced into reporting to occupational health, use this phrase to identify the cause of your injury. Do not have any qualms about naming the individual whose behaviour is the cause of your psychiatric injury. Bullies are skilled at finding and exploiting your forgiving streak in order to get you to retract allegations. This is a deliberate tactic – so don’t be fooled.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

With bullying, the injury is caused by an accumulation of small events rather than one major event. The related diagnosis of Prolonged Duress Stress Disorder (PDSD, which is PTSD over time) may be more appropriate. However, whereas PTSD is in DSM-IV, PDSD is not – yet. PDSD, or Complex PTSD as it is now becoming known, is a more appropriate diagnosis for people who experience distressing events every day, such as the emergency services (eg fire, ambulance and police officers etc), as well as those in abuse situations.

As well as PTSD caused by accident, disaster, violence and rape,

Suicide

We know that at least sixteen children in the UK kill themselves each year because of bullying at school. Each of these deaths is foreseeable, preventable and unnecessary. The true total could be as high as 80 or more. These estimates, which are published in the book Bullycide: death at playtime by Neil Marr and Tim Field, are endorsed by leading childcare charities.

People who are bullied have many common characteristics including an unwillingness to resort to violence (or legal action) to resolve conflict, and a tendency to internalise anger rather than express it outwardly. Focusing anger inward is a recognised cause of depression. Bullying is perpetrated over a long period of time, perhaps measured in years, and the internalised anger builds to the point where one of these three occur:

the target starts to exhibit all the symptoms of stress as the internal pressure causes the body to go out of stasis (this happens in every case)

the target focuses the anger onto themselves and self-harms, either by using drugs (usually alcohol), or by attempting or committing suicide (the UK has the highest suicide rate in Europe)

in rare cases, and the target “flips” and starts to exhibit the same behaviours as the bully; in extremely rare but well-publicised cases, the target returns to the workplace to carry out a spree killing

How many adult suicides are caused by bullying? Consider the following:

bullying (an abdication and denial for the effect of one’s behaviour on others)

…causes…

prolonged negative stress (psychiatric injury)

…which includes…

reactive depression (the cause is external – someone is responsible and liable)

…which results in…

fluctuating baseline of one’s objectivity (balance of the mind disturbed)

…which leads to…

contemplated suicide (being viewed as suffering mental illness)

…culminating in…

attempted suicide (cry for help)

…which may end in…

suicide (manslaughter – causation)

It’s likely that many suicides are the result of bullying, but the target’s lack of awareness of what is going on, their unwillingness to confide what is happening, the traumatization, and the inability to articulate, everyone else’s denial, the bully’s accomplished lying and Jekyll and Hyde nature, plus the general lack of knowledge and awareness of society, prevent the real cause from being identified.