The Bully cycle
Why bully complaints are never false

    First the bullies bully the target.
    Then the adults bully the target.
    Then the government bullies the target.
    Then the target bullies themselves.
    Then bad things happen.

Bullying is not a single event. Bullying is a series of repeated events that take place over a period of time. This period of time can be weeks, months and even years. Bullying never stops without intervention, something has to happen. Intervention of some form must take place or the bullying will simply evolve and grow. Eventually, the bullying grows to physical assaults and worse. Before a victim is seriously injured or killed, something usually happens.

 First the bullies bully the target

 In the beginning, a bully will search for someone that they feel they can pick on without getting hurt or in trouble. The initial bullying may consist of name calling, teasing, taunting, humiliating and insulting. When they see that no one cares or wants to stop it, the bullying grows and others will join in so as to avoid becoming the bully’s next victim. This is the popular phase. It is at this point, that the bully finds themselves surrounded by others that either want to watch the next attack, join in the next attack or just be associated with a popular person.  

 With support growing and an audience cheering, the bully will feel comfortable that no one will stop the attacks so he/she will start increase the repeated name calling, teasing, taunting, humiliating. Now they may start to include physical assaults of a minor nature. Hitting, kicking, tripping, damaging personal property etc all becomes part of the attacks.

  If the bully is asked why they are doing what they are doing, they will always have an excuse. Reasons for picking on someone include being fat, thin, tall, short, hair or skin color, being quiet, wearing glasses, having big ears, small ears, sticky-out ears, crooked teeth, being from a different culture, having different likes or dislikes, the 'wrong' clothes, unwillingness to use strength to defend him or herself, or any perceived or fabricated 'excuse.' These excuses have one thing in common: They are all irrelevant.

 Each reason is a deceptive justification for the bully to indulge in a predictable pattern of violent (physical or psychological) behavior against someone that has a lesser social status than the bully, such as someone new to the school or neighborhood. The target is simply a useful object onto which the bully can displace his or her aggression. In other words, if someone is picked on because they are allegedly 'fat,' then losing weight will make no difference; the bully simply invents another justification.

 The bully will never stop and will usually increase the aggression used to get a reaction. The attacks will become more frequent and will usually involve 3 or 4 kids all supporting the bully because it makes them popular. As time goes on, the targets health starts to fail. The target starts to show the typical symptoms of bullying.

 The child is hesitant or hates going certain places (school, playground, gym).

The child is unhappy or feels ill the same time every day or week.

Physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach-aches, anxiety and panic attacks

The child keeps losing their money or possessions.

The child has mysterious cuts, bruises torn clothing or other injuries.

The child has become quiet or nervous.

The child has difficulty sleeping at night.

The child cries at night or in secret.

The child become fearful, clingy and anxious about being separated from their parents

The child become preoccupied with thoughts and memories of the event

The child may be unable to concentrate

The child may be irritable and disobedient

 Eventually the child will ask an adult (parents) for help

 Then the adults bully the target

Once things reach a point where the victim feels they can’t take it anymore, they will approach their parents for help. When the child approaches the parent, the parent will discuss the situation with the child and then approach the source of the problem.

 The victim’s parents may approach the teacher, daycare provider or the parents of the bully. Usually the bullies will deny everything and use their friend to back their story that they haven’t done anything to the victim. Things get really rough now as the bullies will want to take revenge on the victim. The parents of the bully will probably be angry at the victim for reporting their child as there is an excellent chance that the bully’s parents won’t believe that their children are bullies, won’t see anything wrong with what their children are doing or simply think that bullying is an acceptable form of behavior. Both children and adults including the bully’s parents will condemn the victim for speaking up. The bully’s parents will now join in the bullying by glaring or staring at the victim. They will tell their friends what has happened with a proper spin to make the victim look bad. This will have a cascading effect as more and more adults start to dislike the victim. The victim will now not only have to endure the attacks from the bullies, but also from adults that will now go out of their way to be rude, threatening and intimidating to the victim. There is an excellent chance that adults in the community and school will also side with the bullies as the bullies are popular, will liked and probably a role model for others. The bullies will tell their friends that that victim told on them and now many, many other children will be angry at the victim. The victim will now become ostracized from their peer group.

 The adults will go out of their way to make the victim feel worse than before they complained and will repeated try to paint the victim as the problem by putting them under a microscope. The bullies will go out of their way to portray themselves as wonderful children when the authorities are watching, but attack the victim without mercy when no one is looking. The victim may try again to get help, but now the bully’s parents and the authorities will not believe the victim and will punish the victim for lying. The bullies will see this and take advantage of it. They may create elaborate setup to get the victim in trouble so that the victim is now bullied by the adults. This can take the form of school discipline, being banned from the school bus, sent to the principal’s office or simply humiliated in front of the class it can also include being harassed in the community as the bully’s parents and supporters will now make frivolous complaints to the local government who then join in.

 Then the government bullies the target

 The bullying has probably been going on for many, many, months and even years and the victim has probably suffered permanent physical and psychological injury. The victim’s parents will have lost all trust of the local adults and school or daycare staff and will resort to calling the authorities. This could be anyone from police, to municipal councilors to Child and Family Services. But before calling, the parents will probably have taken drastic action to remove their child from the bullying environment so they can be safe. The child is now sitting and waiting at home for someone to fix the problem so they can have their life back.

 The parents and victim have probably been dealing with the bully problem for a long time, but to the authorities, this is the first time they are hearing about it. The problem with our authorities is that they don’t care about what happened in the past and are only interested in the present they want to see it now! What happened before, no matter how bad, is irrelevant to the investigator.  They will want to go to the location where the bullying is occurring and will want to see it. If they don’t see what they consider bullying, they will call the parents and victim liars and will threaten them. Things can really get bad now as the authorities may now be talking to the bullies and their supporters and informing them that anything said by the victim will be ignored and if the parents of the victim try to stop the bullying, the government may have the parent arrested.

 Now the victim is being attacked by the bullies in school, on the street, at the playground and anywhere the victim goes. At the same time, the parent of the bullies as well as school or daycare staff will also join in by glaring at the victim and make them feel unsafe and uncomfortable anywhere they go. As if this isn’t enough, the authorities will now be joining in by helping launch frivolous complaints in order to torment the victim and family.

Then the target bullies them self

By now, the victim is destroyed; they no longer remember a normal live and live in constant fear. They become brainwashed into believing that they must be the problem, it can’t be everyone else. They become angry at everyone and everything, but mostly they become angry at themselves. They feel that somehow all these people can’t be wrong; there must be something wrong with them they must be a broken child. They start to think of themselves as a loser, a freak, or just a bad kid. They feel very, very bad and want the bad feeling to go away.

 Now they look for solutions to their feelings and miserable life. Anything the victim does is NOT the victims fault. It is the fault of all those in authority that could have stopped the bullying but choose not to. The victim searches for something to stop the pain and misery and now without proper help may start drinking, taking drugs and commit self harm. With enough anger and frustration, they may even strike back; they may attack the bully or the bully’s supporter. The number of actions that victim may take are infinite, but no matter what action they take, it is NOT their fault. A person, child or adult can only take so much for so long before something gives.

 What these victims need is support, understanding, a kind voice, a sympathetic ear and a proper solution. What the victim gets is condemnation, ridicule, invalidation and ostracized.