![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 18 of 18. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
"Children who are bullied are more likely to develop psychotic symptoms in early adolescence and there is a dose effect, with repeated bullying associated with greater risk."
"In the first prospective study to examine the relationship between childhood bullying and psychotic symptoms in early adolescence, investigators at the University of Warwick, in Coventry, the United Kingdom, found the risk for psychotic symptoms nearly doubled among children who were victims of bullying at age 8 or 10 years, independent of other psychiatric illness, family adversity, or the child's IQ, and increased nearly 4-fold when victimization was chronic or severe."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/702560?src=mpnews&spon=12&uac=41170BN
I was bullied beginning at age 10. I believe this acted synergistically with other psychosocial stresses to precipitate bipolar disorder by age 17. Of course, I had the biological vulnerability for this to occur. Howver, even were there no such vulnerability, I know that the bullying led to some pretty severe psychological damage.
- Scott
Posted by Dinah on May 9, 2009, at 7:47:40
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
I was bullied for more than three years beginning age 11. My therapist traces a lot of what is a problem for me now as going back to that time.
My psychiatrist at the time put in my charts that my tests showed me to be borderline psychotic and "must be attended to straightaway." For myself, I think he was incorrect. Sometimes when one exhibits signs of paranoia, it is because one is being persecuted. Particularly in middle school.
However, the large doses of antipsychotic I received for a year at that time did work fairly well for my out of control anxiety and incipient agoraphobia. So that part of it may have worked out ok.
I thought for a while back of going back to school and getting a degree in education concentrating on curriculum planning. And making it my life's work to see that schools adopted meaningful antibullying policies, so that no one else would have to live through the h*ll that was middle school for me.
Although I must admit that there was family upheaval at the time that may have made my reaction more extreme. Still, I was never good at dealing with bullying. Teachers said to not let it bother me. That wasn't in my ability. Teachers said to give as good as I got. I couldn't. My mother raised me in a way that not only would not allow me to behave that way myself, but didn't even allow me to fully comprehend how this was happening to me, or why the adults allowed it. When I was in my first year of school, my mother taught in the same grade, but not my class. I had a classmate who was voluntarily mute, wore the same dress every day, and didn't act like the other kids. The other kids weren't kind to her and neither was my teacher. I remember looking at my teacher, who I generally liked, with red fury one day when she held up this girl's paper and mocked it publicly. I befriended her, protected her as best I could, but I was just a kid myself. The girl was held back and my mother got her the next year. My mother did not tolerate bullying from others and would never have mocked a child. By the end of the year, the little girl was verbally participating in public performances, the other children were perfectly nice to her, and I was so d*mn proud of my mother. I knew what was going on with me didn't need to be going on with me, had the teachers been serious about not allowing bullying.
Posted by Phillipa on May 9, 2009, at 11:56:07
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by Dinah on May 9, 2009, at 7:47:40
I was ignored as the biggest kid and then chased by the younger boys and they tried to lift my shirt and check things out. Is that bullying? Love Phillipa
Posted by Sigismund on May 9, 2009, at 19:01:00
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
There's that poster which makes me uneasy which is headed 'Everything I know about life I learned in playschool' or something similar.
I feel the same about boarding school. Bullying, coldness, group dynamics, the few who are destroyed while everyone watches and does nothing. And King Lear, back when they knew how to teach it. A great education for life, though I would have preferred another.
Posted by garnet71 on May 9, 2009, at 21:04:32
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
When I gathered some information about hypervigilence (as a symptom of PTSD) for Yellowbird's thread above, I read that psychotic symptoms can manifest from PTSD hypervigilence..which is often mistaken for true psychosis; but it is not-there is a difference. There was a paper written on PTSD that describes the importance of getting the correct treatment for, or at least identifying, bv which of the 2 different types of psychoses is present. Maybe I can find the paper if anyone's interested. (or maybe it was in one of the links I posted above?)
Posted by Phillipa on May 9, 2009, at 21:13:49
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by garnet71 on May 9, 2009, at 21:04:32
Garnet well there you are missing in action. The article would be lovely. Love Phillipa
Posted by fleeting flutterby on May 10, 2009, at 11:31:51
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
> "Children who are bullied are more likely to develop psychotic symptoms in early adolescence and there is a dose effect, with repeated bullying associated with greater risk."
----flutterby: I imagine there are still many studies to come that will show how very devastating bullying can be. My heart breaks for every child that is going through this and for every adult that is left to deal with such painful memories.
>
> "In the first prospective study to examine the relationship between childhood bullying and psychotic symptoms in early adolescence, investigators at the University of Warwick, in Coventry, the United Kingdom, found the risk for psychotic symptoms nearly doubled among children who were victims of bullying at age 8 or 10 years, independent of other psychiatric illness, family adversity, or the child's IQ, and increased nearly 4-fold when victimization was chronic or severe."----flutterby: my experience was very chronic-- I lived with the bully. :o( an older sister that was unrelenting in her degrading and emotional tortures-- as parents stood by saying nothing. I even became fearful of doors as she so often would hide behind them and jump out as I walked by and use her ear-shattering scream to cause me to fall to the floor in fear with my insides shaking. I was called stupid and loser daily. was told how no one will ever want to be my friend.
I was never taken to get help, I coped in the best way I could-- seeking isolation. by mid-school I was just the girl in the back of the room that never talked to anyone. never invited to a single party all through mid shcool and high school..... I learned to fear people.... no place was safe...... especially not home-- as I spent my time either in my room or out in the field all alone, near our house.
>
> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/702560?src=mpnews&spon=12&uac=41170BN
>---flutterby: darn-- looks like you have to be a member to read this. :o(
> I was bullied beginning at age 10. I believe this acted synergistically with other psychosocial stresses to precipitate bipolar disorder by age 17. Of course, I had the biological vulnerability for this to occur. Howver, even were there no such vulnerability, I know that the bullying led to some pretty severe psychological damage.<<---flutterby: I'm so sorry you were bullied. I do believe it can have long lasting effects on many.
flutterby-mandy
Posted by Dinah on May 10, 2009, at 11:42:38
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
Did they account for the uncanny ability of children to notice small differences in others?
I seem to remember from my bullying books that children who were later to develop mental illness were more likely to be picked on by classmates, because classmates had noticed small clues to innate biological vulnerabilities.
Which would make some evolutionary sense.
Posted by nellie7 on May 10, 2009, at 11:51:08
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
Is it possible that certain kids are more likely to be bullied because their classmates sense they are innately sensitive, different or exhibit lack of social skills?
I wasn't bullied as a kid but was always scorned and ridiculed, or ignored at best, due to my severe shyness and inability to relate. The kids were responding to what I now know to be a psychotic classmate. My case may have been extreme, but perhaps being bullied can sometimes be a symptom of a developing problem rather than a cause.
Posted by Dinah on May 10, 2009, at 12:07:07
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis » SLS, posted by Dinah on May 10, 2009, at 11:42:38
> Which would make some evolutionary sense.
I'm not trying to excuse it of course. There is no excuse.
Posted by Sigismund on May 11, 2009, at 1:59:32
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
I wonder if the prevalence of bullying has anything to do with whether the group is at the atomized or communitarian end of the scale.
I think it might.
Posted by SLS on May 11, 2009, at 6:14:03
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis » SLS, posted by Dinah on May 10, 2009, at 11:42:38
> Did they account for the uncanny ability of children to notice small differences in others?
>
> I seem to remember from my bullying books that children who were later to develop mental illness were more likely to be picked on by classmates, because classmates had noticed small clues to innate biological vulnerabilities.Interesting. I think you are right. That is not to say that all children who are bullied have such vulnerabilites. However, it might be true that the majority of those who do have vulnerabilities are bullied.
> Which would make some evolutionary sense.
Yes. Unfortunately, as a species, we have not yet shed our primate instincts for many biologically programmed social behaviors. However, as is true of so many other human behaviors, the frontal cortex of the brain can modify instincts through learned executive functioning. People learn not to act on every impulse. Evolution has selected for more complex social interactions that tend to involve cooperation and compromise. Without these behaviors, a biologically fragile species such as ourselves would never have been so successful as to take over an entire planet. In this case, it is behavioral evolution that is at work and not physiological evolution. This natural selection is still at work.
- Scott
Posted by Dinah on May 11, 2009, at 10:08:47
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis » Dinah, posted by SLS on May 11, 2009, at 6:14:03
Quite true.
That's why I'm so ambivalent about the phrase "only human". I use it myself sometimes, but I also generally rebel a bit about it. We're not "only human", we're *human*. We have the primitive urges of animals, but we also are blessed with the ability to make different choices, and ones that have their own evolutionary advantages.
My mother showed me, and anyone who cared to look, that kids don't necessarily have to be kids. I think about that little girl often, and hope that the difference my mother made in how she was treated lasted for longer than that year. Sometimes I even dare to hope that I helped in some way.
Posted by desolationrower on May 13, 2009, at 15:00:13
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by Sigismund on May 11, 2009, at 1:59:32
> I wonder if the prevalence of bullying has anything to do with whether the group is at the atomized or communitarian end of the scale.
>
> I think it might.yeah, i think the difference between a zero-sum hierarchy and a group situation where sink or swim together is important. thus something like high school where theres no sense of group purpose the most important thing is make clear one's higher status relative to someone else. various organizations/teams had much less of this, though the larger team had more since the worst players really didn't contribute anything. and lots of this is picked up from larger cultural values/parents/staff.
-d/r
Posted by Sigismund on May 14, 2009, at 21:20:31
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by desolationrower on May 13, 2009, at 15:00:13
>a group situation where sink or swim together is important
I was thinking of life in a Thai village in the country. The mother spends much of the day finding the food and preparing it. Every person has their own jobs to do. When there are times off people find a tractor and put something behind it and go out together to the nearest fun thing. When there is nothing to save you but each other, that's what you do. It's when we have absurd ideas about life that not living up to causes anger that there are problems.....you put henna in your hair, therefore you will become a prostitute and so on.
Posted by Amelia_in_StPaul on May 15, 2009, at 18:20:09
In reply to Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by SLS on May 9, 2009, at 6:03:56
Coincidentally, I was just reading about this stuff. I have been working hard in therapy lately on PTSD. I have been experiencing some quasi-paranoia, that is, paranoia that I know is paranoia and so isn't quite true paranoia. In the context of reading about PTSD and paranoia, I came across a whole web site on bullying and PTSD. While you are referencing true psychosis, it is interesting to note that bullying does often result in PTSD, which can create symptoms that look a lot like psychosis, and which, in turn, can actually become psychosis, if left unchecked.
Like you, I was bullied. I think it certainly has contributed to my PTSD, which was diagnosed on the basis of other things.
Posted by garnet71 on May 15, 2009, at 20:42:44
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis, posted by Amelia_in_StPaul on May 15, 2009, at 18:20:09
Hey-I've been wondering how you were doing--nice to see you here Amelia!
Well quasi-paranio is really hypervigilence in context with PTSD. Maybe it would be helpful for you to read up on hypervigilence? I know when my very first therapist pointed this out to me, it was very helpful. Come here more often, ok? Let me know how you are doing. : )
Posted by Amelia_in_StPaul on May 17, 2009, at 19:36:49
In reply to Re: Bullying and subsequent psychosis » Amelia_in_StPaul, posted by garnet71 on May 15, 2009, at 20:42:44
Hello garnet!! So nice to see your message!! I'm doing a little better than before, thank you. Just needed some sunshine, good therapy, and a bit of self-care. New pdoc next week--I'm hopeful!
Ah...hypervigilance...you know that's what my therapist was saying to me. That, for instance, hypervigilance is going into a room and wanting to choose the one seat where you can see where absolutely everyone is. That's me!! I think sometimes it's hard to register when my mood is low--that what I'm experiencing is not my worst fear, but an explainable set of symptoms that I CAN work through. Thank you for that reminder; one day, it will work its way through this thick skull of mine. :)
Garnet, so good to hear from you. How are you doing???
> Hey-I've been wondering how you were doing--nice to see you here Amelia!
>
> Well quasi-paranio is really hypervigilence in context with PTSD. Maybe it would be helpful for you to read up on hypervigilence? I know when my very first therapist pointed this out to me, it was very helpful. Come here more often, ok? Let me know how you are doing. : )
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.