Psychology
/ AUDIO NARRATION /Listen to this articleReady when you areAI-generated narration — this is not a human voice.
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Part of the long-term online survey was a question about the specific experience of bullying. Of course, the survey was anonymous. Now I will share stories of those who were brave enough to write about how they coped with their experiences. At first, I sincerely thank them for sharing their experiences. Some concrete data have been changed to preserve the participants’ anonymity.
“The bullying started with my dad when I was little. I am now in my twenties and various individuals have bullied me over the course of my life, in particular, violent emotionally abusive ex-partners. As a result, I am severely mentally ill and may never recover.”
Although the respondent is not sharing what mental disorder s/he is suffering from, taking the subjectivity into account let’s consider perception as the main initial objective assumption.
The purpose of a case scenario is to gain insights related to the shared experience. These are not conclusions, but small pieces of the whole picture. Some insights are based on previous articles about bullying.
The first one is a family dysfunctional influence from the respondent’s father. Emotionally abusive ex-partners are a signal of an unwanted projection. In other words, how the respondent perceived his father is actually an expectation in most relationships as part of a coping strategy. The question remains whether the main cause of developing a mental disorder was the experience of bullying.
The role of catalysts
What is meant here is that the individual is a catalyst for life events. That means that when a child sees inconsistent communication between parents and possibly emotionally intense happenings, this is an instinctive reason for the child to replace the other parent role in order to create balance. Such a moment is, in fact, a desire to make parents happy. And here starts the role of a catalyst. This is probably ultimately the control that keeps the child in a state of dissatisfaction. Because when things are right, the child and then adult finds that this is still not exactly what was expected. Therefore the child continues in his subconscious behaviour where the main element is control. For instance, someone is unusually talkative, and you feel that it is easy to talk in his presence.
The positive product of such aspect is that some individuals who play the role of a catalyst can ultimately find themselves in roles of doctors or healers. However, this will happen when the individual is able to remove his tendency to project.
We know that projections are related to each other as well as to their content elements. Knowing the reason is an opportunity to change the perception. However, the projection can also be described as an inner urge, yet unknown. We can continue with this idea that inner urge has the potential to develop addictive behaviour.
It’s a coping mechanism based on past experiences, one of many manifestations is the ability to distinguish only between absolute yes and absolute no. So when an expectation is not fulfilled on the surface, the next level is to find another way of satisfaction such as drugs or overeating.
Acceptance of something between an absolute yes and no is as if that was a trigger for the feeling of dissatisfaction that is undesirable.
Following the idea of the catalyst, it is possible to assume another unwanted effect – that there is a high chance of developing the disorder. When the more desired expectations aren’t met, the tendency to overexaggerate in order to finally attain desired control is actually a great trigger for dissatisfaction, therefore mental states, such as anxiety or depression take place.
One of many ways to change these pathways is to change focus, create a distraction – it’s actually a redirection of the thought process. And if appropriate, the following step could be using meditation that helps to focus inwardly.
