Dealing with Bullying: Coping Strategies

From Jim: This is fourteenth in a series of seventeen blog posts on workplace bullying and related topics running Monday, July 2, 2012 to Sunday, August 12, 2012.  
Events and people depicted are fictionalized composites from multiple sources.  Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.  

A pastor writes: 

I am thinking of leaving my church and leaving the ministry altogether. Even though I am in my early fifties I have only been in paid ministry for a few years. I work two jobs.  I preach on Sunday morning, lead a Sunday evening service, a Bible study Wednesday night & do just about everything else to keep the church going.  Demanding as it is, I don’t mind the long hours, the late nights, or the Saturdays lost to hours of sermon prep.  I love the ministry, mostly.  What is so hard is that I have been part of this church one way or another over 35 years, and the people who I love (and who I thought loved me) are the ones who give me the most trouble. It seems that every decision I make is contested, questioned, and gossiped about. The worst is an elder’s wife, a woman that I have known & loved for years. I am at the point where something has to give.  The vast majority of the people love and support me, but the few who do not are the key stakeholders – the ones who hold the power.  Do I just walk away or do I stand and fight?

The next few posts will include self-help and tactical ideas to help you during and after you have experienced bullying.  Today’s installment is adapted from Catherine Burr, Workplace Bullying, Social Science Staff Development.  

First, we’ll go over in-the-moment coping strategies for when you can't escape or until you do (developed further below):

1.      Reframe the problem: change your mindset:

2.      Look for small wins (to feel more in control, less hopeless and helpless).

3.      Protect yourself (to minimize exposure to nastiness).

Reframing – to reduce the damage to you, to help you become more resilient.

·     You are a "target," you are not a victim.  The word victim carries with it too much powerless baggage.  The language you use is important.  Avoid casting yourself in powerless terms.  Look for ways to speak power and competency back into your life. 

·    Don’t blame yourself.  Review my “Why Me?” Blog post.  Be encouraged.  You would not have been targeted if your competence, integrity, etc., were not a threat to someone.  

·     Remember that it's temporary.  It is now, not the rest of your life.  It is a page or chapter, not the whole story.  You get the last word; not them.  

·      It is specific to the bully(s), not everyone. Even if you are experiencing mobbing, the numbers are limited, and usually low in number however overwhelming it may feel.  

·        Hope for the best, but expect the worst: have low expectations. 

·      Detach emotionally: become indifferent (have no expectations), don’t care, depersonalize the experience, try “detached concern.”

Small wins – to help you feel more in control, less helpless, less hopeless. 

·         Be nice to yourself.  Take up yoga; get massages. These are natural ways to treat depression and  PTSD, they feel good, and are good for you.  Watch comedies that make you laugh out loud.  Avoid over-eating, over-drinking, etc. 

·         Journal.  Write it out. Cultivate your spiritual core, reclaim healthy solitude.  

·         Develop routines; take small actions you can control. Plan each day and work your plan.  Schedule rewards after goals or big events.  

·         Do things that are small and “under the bully’s radar.” 

·         Don’t play their game; be a “class act”, keep your cool, be calm, take the high road.  If you are in the moment and need an immediate break, excuse yourself and go. 

·         Open their eyes: reflect a basic right to dignity and respect; use “gentle re-education”.

·        Fight back: confront, payback/take revenge, sabotage, call their bluff.  Pray imprecatory prayers.  

·         Take a course on assertiveness to give you objective insight into appropriate behavior.  Review my series on assertiveness.  It starts with my Take a Stand blog post in August, 2011, goes through November, picks up again in February, 2012, and includes more than thirty blog posts on assertiveness.  For more in-depth work on assertiveness, try Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook, upon which my assertiveness series is based.    

Protect yourself – to minimize your exposure.

·         Limit how much and how often you have contact with the bully.  Don't say yes right away if they want to meet with you.  Tell them you'll get back to them (and do follow up).  

·         Put “buffers” in between you and the bully.  Block them on Facebook.  Have friends run interference for you.  Minimize your contact with him or her. 

·         Find a safe place – in your mind, in physical reality.

·         Escape – get away, even for a morning if that’s all you can do, plan for temporary or permanent relocation. 

Have a story?  Email me. 

The Effects of Bullying (Part 3 of 3)

From Jim: This is thirteenth in a series of seventeen blog posts on workplace bullying and related topics running Monday, July 2, 2012 to Sunday, August 12, 2012.  
Events and people depicted are fictionalized composites from multiple sources.  Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.  

A pastor writes:

I'm so exhausted!  Not just mentally, mind you, but physically too.  I’m tired emotionally, spiritually, you name it.  I know that I am in a vulnerable place.  I don’t like where my thoughts are taking me, but I can't seem to do anything about it. I've done all the things that I know to do, but still I find myself down and dejected.

I’ve tried praying.  My words seem to bounce off the walls. 

I have tried reading the Bible. The words seem dead on the page. 

I talked to a friend – he gave me pious platitudes. 

I'm not managing anything well right now, and just when I think things are turning around I get a hateful voicemail from the choir director that is just awful. Another shot below the belt. 

Here is a summary of results from some studies on workplace bullying. What follows is adapted from The Psychology of Bullying at Work: Explaining the Detrimental Effects on Targets, by Einarsen, Mikkelsen & Matthiesen, Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway.  

Their introduction summarizes the work of previous studies on bullying in the workplace: 

• Effects of workplace bullying include social isolation and maladjustment, psychosomatic illnesses, depressions, compulsions, helplessness, anger, anxiety and despair.
• Acts of aggression and harassment by co-workers are associated with severe health problems in the target when occurring on a regular basis.
• To be the target of intentional and systematic psychological harm by another person, be it real or perceived, produces severe emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, helplessness, depression and shock.

Workplace bullying tends to change employees' perceptions of their work- environment and even life in general from one of safety, security and confidence to one involving threat, danger, insecurity and self-doubt. 

According to a number of studies, this can lead to pervasive emotional, psychosomatic and psychiatric problems in the targets.

Among Norwegian union members, 27% claimed that harassment had influenced negatively the productivity of their organisation. 

Also in their study among union members, significant relationships were found between those who experienced bullying and their experiencing psychological, psychosomatic and musculoskeletal health issues. The strongest relationship was found between bullying and psychological complaints. But targets also experienced musculoskeletal problems from exposure to bullying.

PTSD

Many targets of long term bullying at work may in fact suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.  The diagnosis PTSD refers to a constellation of stress symptoms following a traumatic event, where the trauma is initially relived by returning to persistent, painful memories of the event, recurring nightmares, or by intense psychological discomfort to reminders (triggers).

Second, the patient avoids situations associated with the trauma, which may extend to difficulty remembering what actually occurred.  

Third, the patient may lack the ability to react in an emotionally appropriate way.  For example, they may have reduced interest in activities that used to bring joy, or show a limited general range of emotions, or feel as if he or she has no future.

Patients with PTSD show hypersensitivity, with

• sleeping problems,
• difficulty concentrating,
• by being very tense and irritable and with bursts of fury,
• by having exaggerated reactions to unexpected stimuli or
• By reacting with physical symptoms to reminders of the actual traumatic situations (triggering events, like one of your bullies walks into the room and your stomach ties up in knots). 

Even 5 years after bullying has stopped, as many as 65% of respondents reported symptoms indicating PTSD. A total of 76.5% scored above the base level for psychiatric pathology on the Hopkins Symptoms CheckList as opposed to 21.4% of females and 12.4% of males in a control group.

The extent of post-traumatic symptoms correlated directly with the intensity of the reported aggressive behaviors, and was especially prominent if the aggressive behavior felt degrading to the target.   

Have a story?  Email me.