- Emotional/psychological health
- Physical health
- Social relations
- Economic-Financial health

Work Shouldn't Hurt!

1. Emotional-Psychological Health Damage

- Poor concentration, forgetfulness
- Loss of sleep, fatigue
- Stress, irritability
- Mood swings, bursts of anger
- Spontaneous crying, lost sense of humor
- Indecisiveness
- Panic attacks, anxiety
- Clinical depression
- Feelings of insecurity, being out of control
- Nightmares about the bully
- Obsessive thinking about the bully
- Always anticipating the next attack (hyper-vigilance)
- Shattered faith in self-competence, feelings of worthlessness
- Shame, embarrassment, and guilt
- Self-destructive habits: Substance abuse, workaholism
- Altered personality, unrecognizable to family & friends
- PDSD/PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders)
- Suicidal thoughts
- Violence: suicide or violence against others

Psychological pain should not be minimized or denied by Targets themselves or by others. Stoic bravery or toughness are no match for suicidal thoughts or feelings of terror when you turn into the company parking lot in the morning. Seek help. You owe it to yourself and the people who love you. They recognize and want the very real pain you endure from bullying to stop.

The greater the severity of psychological pain, the more dangerous and the longer the effects seem to last. It is a fact that those exposed to domestic violence are hurt more by the verbal abuse rather than physical wounds which heal easily.

2. Physical Health Damage

- Reduced immunity to infection: more colds, flu
- Menstrual difficulties
- Itching, skin disorders
- Stress headaches
- Increased allergies, asthma
- Indigestion, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome
- Rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia
- Hair loss
- Weight swings
- Hyperthyroidism: overactive thyroid gland
- Migraine headaches
- Hypertension: high blood pressure
- Diabetes mellitus
- Peptic ulcers
- Heart palpitations
- Micro-shredding: weakened heart
- Heart attack

Read recent medical research linking increased heart disease risk with psychosocial factors.

3. Damage to Social Relations

- Co-worker isolation from personal fear
- Parents encourage compromise with bully
- Co-worker resentment, attempts to silence you
- Spouse questions your role in dispute with bully
- Children and friends outside work show strain
- Wavering support from family
- Abandonment/Betrayal by co-workers
- Separation/Divorce by immediate family
- Abandonment by friends outside work

4. Economic-Financial Damage

- Sympathetic medical provider's off-work for job stress
- Paid Time Off accounts begin to be used
- Sick leave exhausted, switch to short-term disability
- Employer encourages unpaid leave under FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act)
- Employer orders you to choose termination vs. Workers' Compensation (WC)
- PTO accounts exhausted, no days left
- Placed on long-term disability, income cut
- Personal savings tapped
- Creditors renegotiate payment structure
- File for WC, potentially lose right to sue
- Formally terminated in a way so employer can deny unemployment compensation
- Disability payments run out
- House and property sold
- Personal savings depleted

In a matter of a few months, it is possible that a vibrant, healthy, competent employee can be driven to ruin--economic, personal health and the loss of a support network. And this is all due to the unilateral decisions made by an incompetent, insecure, vicious individual backed by the power of an employer who did not want to get involved in a "personality conflict" between two people.

Stages of Stress

The Bully is the source of stress, the Stressor. It's the body and mind's response to stressors that determines the extent of damage inflicted. The sequence of biological stress is well known. There are three stages (Hans Selye):

1. Alarm--the turning on of the body's defense systems, that is designed to be brief for it is truly widespread in its effects throughout the body--it enables the "flight or fight" response in the face of danger--physical or psychological. The body reacts the same to fright from the impending pounce of a tiger as it does to an insult from the bully. Alarm triggers the sympathetic nervous system that releases adrenaline, in addition to many other functions.

2. Resistance--the maintenance of an alert stage that the body expected, and needs, to be turned off. Resistance to the bully and all that that requires depletes the body's defenses. If you stay in the resistance stage too long, the body will rebound then it's finally turned off, the body rebounds and the actual damage occurs when the stressor is gone. The parasympathetic nervous system restores normalcy; it turns off the sympathetic.

3. Exhaustion-- which can lead to death if the stressor never disappears and the body and mind must fight indefinitely. Exhaustion is a full system breakdown, mentally and physically. It demands that the stressor be removed or it will claim your life. To get to exhaustion, you have to ignore all the warning signs that your body gives you (see above psychological and physical effects).

A cautionary word about stress "management." It is usually the wrongdoer's prescribed solution for the Target. No amount of cognitive distortion or discounting will stop life-jeopardizing stress caused by a bully and her accomplices. The only long-term solution to stress is to REMOVE THE STRESSOR. Separation from the bully is an imperative first step. To argue otherwise prolongs the Target's misery.