Childhood bullying can affect people well into adulthood. Bullies hurt and harass their victims to inflict emotional trauma and make their lives as difficult as possible. Sadly, some people never entirely psychologically recover, even if they think they have. These 18 effects of bullying impact long-term adult behavior.
Deliberate Self-Isolation
Bullies rely on being able to find victims easily to taunt them, which is why many children are bullied at school or during social activities. The associated trauma response as an adult is to self-isolate to avoid being caught in those situations. Bullies frequently rob people of their safe social spaces for life.
Trust Issues
Sometimes, children are bullied by people they thought were their friends, which subsequently makes it difficult for them to trust and confide in people out of fear it will be used against them. As adults, these people share as little as possible with others and are far more self-reliant.
Fear of Showing Weakness
Bullying is all about having power over the victim. Psychology Today observes how bullies target people smaller, weaker, or younger than them to take advantage of their vulnerability. Victims believe they were bullied for being weak, so they become terrified of showing weaknesses in their adult behavior.
Moodiness
Bullies make it their job to bring their victims down and upset them through cruel verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. In the long term, victims experience increased moodiness, affecting their professional, romantic, and familial relationships. It also leads to a higher likelihood of developing depression.
Insecurities at Work
When you spend half of your life being bullied, you start to doubt your own worth. Adults who suffer from these insecurities often do so for life, particularly in their work performances. They worry about being singled out for not doing a good job, so they become perfectionists, people pleasers, or workaholics in response.
Short-Lived Friendships
Sadly, the long-term effects of bullying can impact everyone associated with you. Many past victims of bullying struggle to maintain friendships because they lack trust and don’t want to put themselves at anyone’s mercy. Even though people try to get close to them, they always question their motives.
Failed Relationships
Like friendships, romantic relationships are another thing people who were bullied struggle to maintain as adults. Again, this is primarily due to a lack of trust. It’s also due to a lack of self-worth because it’s hard to love someone else when you don’t love yourself. Insecurities sabotage relationships and further isolate the victims.
Development of PTSD
Nobody talks about the long-term stress associated with bullying enough. The American Addiction Centers warn that bullying can cause adult symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which can dismantle a person’s entire life. It alters a person’s mood, giving them flashbacks and constant anxiety. It can take years to get over PTSD.
Poor Self-Esteem
People sometimes try to excuse bullies by claiming they have low self-esteem, but it’s their victims who experience this worst of all. For no reason, they find themselves being verbally berated and sometimes physically assaulted for perceived flaws. This can shatter their self-esteem beyond repair well into adulthood.
Resistance to Compliments
Most adults who give others compliments are being genuine and kind, but you can’t blame victims of bullying for being skeptical. One cruel tactic bullies use is complimenting people on something like their hair or outfit, only to mock them for it later. As a result, victims resist compliments all their lives out of fear.
Obsession with the Past
When something terrible happens to you, you can’t stop thinking about it. Your brain is forever impacted by moments of psychological trauma and surprises you with it at random moments. As an adult, this becomes an obsession with the past, making you question what was wrong with you to cause the bullying.
Substance Abuse
Another long-term symptom of bullying is substance abuse. To escape the cycle of emotional torment caused by the bullying, victims may turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. This self-destructive behavior destroys relationships, careers, and families, sometimes irreparably. The victims are drawn deeper into the cycle of self-abuse.
Trouble Bonding with New People
Bullies seem to pick their victims randomly, sometimes without even speaking to them, so anyone is at risk of becoming a victim. In adulthood, people might seem standoffish when they meet new people because they’ve been bullied before and have trouble bonding as a result, which can sabotage them professionally and personally.
Overthinking
If you’ve been bullied, you’d likely do anything to stop it happening again. That’s why victims constantly overthink, even when they’re much older than they were when they were bullied. Verywell Family warns that some victims have a persistent feeling that something terrible will happen, and some even experience panic attacks.
Fear of Success
It’s often the highest achievers who are bullied, usually due to jealousy or a cruel desire to ruin someone’s happiness. Sometimes, those children don’t grow out of their behavior and bully other adults similarly in the workplace. This makes people scared of sharing their success, even though they deserve it.
Sleep and Diet Issues
One of the easiest ways to spot that a child is being bullied is sudden, random changes in their sleep pattern and diet. Victims have trouble sleeping due to nightmares or anxiety, and they also regularly lose their appetites. In the long term, these habits are hard to break, which can lead to health problems.
Constant Apologizing
Bullies enjoy the power they have over their victims, often to the point of making them beg. This turns into a need to constantly apologize as an adult to stop others from picking on every little mistake you make. It’s impossible for victims not to overthink everything they do because they’re so self-conscious.
Low Confidence
Bullies want their victims to feel powerless, so they deliberately destroy their self-confidence. Confidence is crucial because, as Verywell Mind teaches, it gives you a sense of control over your life. Having low confidence due to bullying makes it difficult to navigate the world as an adult, but it can be rebuilt.
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