Being bullied may lead to higher chance of adult psychological problems

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Being bullied when you are younger can cause more than childhood psychological trauma. A new study shows that bullied kids are at an increased risk of having anxiety disorders, depression and suicidal thoughts as adults.

"We were surprised at how profoundly bullying affects a person's long-term functioning," lead author William E. Copeland, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University, said in a press release. "This psychological damage doesn't just go away because a person grew up and is no longer bullied. This is something that stays with them. If we can address this now, we can prevent a whole host of problems down the road."

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), 20.1 percent of high school students surveyed had been bulled in 2011. Girls were more likely to be bullied than boys, with rates reaching 22.0 and 18.2 percent of their populations respectively. The rates have stayed similar compared to 2009 (19.9 percent) statistics.

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Researchers followed a population-based sample of 1,420 children aged 9, 11 and 13 from 11 counties in western North Carolina who were enrolled in the Great Smoky Mountain Study. Children and their caregivers were asked if the child had been bullied or teased in the three months before each interview session. The children had entered the study in 1993, were re-interviewed at age 16 and then were followed up with for more than 20 years. More than 1,270 subjects were followed into adulthood.

About 26 percent of the children (421 subjects) said they were bullied at least once, and 887 said they had never been tormented. Both boys and girls reported similar rates of bullying. Approximately 200 kids -- around 9.5 percent of the group -- admitted to bullying someone. Out of them, 112 were bullies only and the other 86 had been bullied themselves.

Once subjects were tracked as adults, bullies were associated with a four times higher risk of antisocial personality disorders.

Those who had been bullied and those who were both bullies and victims were at higher risk for psychiatric disorders than those who had not been bullied. In particular, those who had only been bullied had higher levels of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia. Those who were both bullies and bullied had the highest levels of suicidal thoughts, depressive disorders, generalized anxiety and panic disorder, and higher levels of anxiety and depressive disorders.

Particularly, 6 percent of those who were not bullied or bullies went on to have anxiety disorders, compared to 24 percent of those who had been bullied and 32 percent of those who were both bullies and victims. In addition, about 25 percent of those who were both bullies and bullied had suicidal thoughts as young adults and 38 percent had a panic disorder.

The associations stayed true even when other factors like poverty, abuse and unstable or dysfunctional home life were taken into account.

"It's not surprising that that would be the case, because in part they're reacting to the trauma of being bullied and they also carry with them the experience of having bullied," Dr. Mark Schuster, chief of general pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, said to Reuters.

Schuster, who was not involved in the study, said that these kids probably picked on others because they saw it as a way of getting more attention, especially because people weren't sympathetic to them when they were being bullied.

Dr. Victor Fornari, director of the division of child/adolescent psychiatry at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y., added to HealthDay that the study highlights how early intervention into bullying can benefit a kid not only in childhood but later in life as well.

"Parents who become aware that their child is either a bully or a victim of bullying should seek mental health care, because many of these young people will have disorders that would benefit from treatment," he said.

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry on Feb. 20.

[dufas_duck]

Can't win for losing... When I was In school:

Don't say or do anything and the bully keeps attacking at leasure.....

Play by the rules and tell a teacher when a bully attacks and the bully gets a pat on the head while being nicely asked not to bully any more which makes the bully more POed and he will get even... again and again and again... It becomes a vicious circle.

Wait for the bully to throw the first punch then take the bully out and you become the evil person while the original bully becomes the pampered victim..Although, that bully won't be messing with me anymore...and I enjoyed a months suspension..

The only thing I didn't like about school was the asnine thinking that if one defended one's self, then one was guilty of belligernt behavior. Yet it was different when our coach was attacked by a coach from another school and he defended himself.. I even asked him about it and he told me, "That is different..."

[PennyNickle]

I see your point.

[PennyNickle]

Someone tried to bully me once, it never bothered me. Maybe the problem is with the child before they were bullied or bullied someone. It seems like the person already had problems and was susceptible before they were bothered by others.

[ihearticecream]

What you say is true for one of my dearest friends who had a mother who never liked her. This has been extremely painful for my friend. The mother lacked that maternal instinct and maturity to understand her daughter as a separate individual. Even as a toddler, she projected adult motivations onto her. The examples are too detailed to relate here. But when the toddler did not meet her needs, the mother became resentful. Somewhere along the line the mother had stunted in her emotional growth. That's all we can figure out.

When she was about ten years old, a sibling became very bullying toward my girlfriend. The mother did nothing to help her, and even punished her for complaining. This caused deep complications for my friend who now has terrible wounds from being bullied by her sibling and also her mother who punished her for complaining.

That did make her a target for bullies when she was growing up. And she made bad choices in boyfriends too. As an adult it took years for her to connect the dots.

The trauma from being bullied seems to haunt her, though she knows she is now safe. Sometimes she withdraws for long periods of time. you can only imagine that there is something terribly abnormal about a parent who shows such indifference to their own child's suffering. Sometimes she needs room to cope with her past. Bullying is such a terrible anxiety to put on others. We know that it is wrong, but I think few people grasp how devastating it is for the victims. It is life changing and reaches deep into their souls.

[hypnotoad72]

Also, stop the bullies - it's ineffective to drug up the victims of the bullies.

Never mind the side-effects the medications can have. Why the horrendously inaccurate reporting, by effectively blaming the victim by pumping them full of drugs (and then whining about obesity a couple years later...)

[hypnotoad72]

The sampling is too small...

Why didn't anybody call me on this issue?

Still, it's nice to read about what's obvious... from an insider's POV. "Boys will be boys" - those people may as well say "anarchy is good"... until they are affected by someone else's belligerent behavior...