Bullying

Firstly the most important thing to understand is that there are things you can do to protect yourself from bullying. The big first step is talking to someone you can trust such as a friend, parent or therapist. Often if bullying is taking place within the workplace or at school there are procedures in place to help protect the person being bullied and address the situation with the perpetrator/s.

There are three different types of bullying, physical bullying, verbal bullying and non-verbal bullying. Non- verbal bullying can often be the one that is harder to understand and this is when the bully or bullies may say nothing but behave in a certain way to intentionally hurt someone. An example of this could be excluding or embarrassing someone again this could happen at school, home or in the workplace or even among friends.

The symptoms of bullying are often very serious. Some symptoms are depression, stress and anxiety, developing feelings of loneliness, low-self esteem and lack of confidence, suicidal ideation, poor performance at school or work, missing days due to not being able to face the bully, sleep problems and relationship problems.

If you are suffering from any of the symptoms above speaking with a counsellor can help.