Bullying is already not fun, but when the bullying behavior has the opportunity to go viral, it is no fun at all for the recipient. The bullying behavior stays registered and can therefore cause problems for years.
To suffer less from these problems, in this blog I will discuss online bullying, what you can do about it, and how hypnosis can help you if you suffer from it.
What is online bullying?
In online bullying, the bullying behavior takes place online. Usually on social media, but this can also be through email or chat programs.
Online bullying is particularly well known among youth. 400,000 young people in the Netherlands say they have received online bullying behavior at one time or another. Girls are bullied twice as often as boys online, and most of the time it involves slander.
Slander is the spreading of lies about a particular person.
Photos, videos and other (slanderous) gossip are also often spread on the Internet.
Stalking, threats and blackmail also occur, but less frequently. In the 18- to 25-year-old group, stalking does occur most often.
More and more adults are also experiencing online bullying. Of those over the age of 25, between 2 and 3 percent are bullied online.
Consequences of online bullying
People who are bullied online are more likely to think about suicide than those who are not bullied. This is precisely why it is important to have a shield against bullying behavior.
This is because you may think your reputation is completely ruined if people have shared inaccurate information about you or something that should have remained private. This can cause you to see no future salvation.
As a result, people often become depressed and socially withdrawn because their trust in their peers is incredibly damaged.
Victims of bullying also often feel less connected to their friends. The consequences are just as bad as offline or normal bullying, according to research.
According to the 2012 study Coping with Cyberbullying: Differences Between Victims, Bully-victims and Children not Involved in Bullying, online bullying has the following effects:
- Depression
- Loneliness
- Uncertainty
- Hopelessness
- embarrassment
- Frustration
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Feelings of being socially incapable (not being good at doing things socially).
Trauma from online bullying
Because of this, people can also experience trauma from online bullying. You may find it scary to go online and use social media. This is very unfortunate because social media is also a great way to stay in touch with family and friends. In some cases, it is even necessary for your job to take advantage of online opportunities.
This is precisely why it is important to process this trauma. This is something that hypnosis can play a supportive role in. In fact, hypnosis is used to process all kinds of trauma. From a minor fear to a trauma suffered in the military.
A hypnosis expert does this by looking at your beliefs related to the trauma. In this case, that is, the beliefs you have about the Internet and its influence on your life.
Then you can get other beliefs that you repeat during self-hypnosis, these so-called hypnotic suggestions can go as follows:
"Recruiters look no further than the1st page of Google."
"I can put my social media on private."
"I don't have to share my political opinions online."
"People who are annoying I block."
Dealing with cyberbullying
According to researchers, children and young adults naturally have a number of strategies that help them deal with online bullying, namely:
- Social help
- Ignore/Block
- Find creative outlet
- Positive self-talk
Social help
Your social environment is incredibly important if you are being bullied. After all, a bully has less influence if your family and friends have a rebuttal "You are nice and smart" and this allows you to ignore what is said online.
In the process, your social circle can also help by actually complimenting you online or telling stories (last weekend...) in which you emerge as a super nice person.
Ignore/Block
Especially online, blocking people is the way to get rid of online bullying. If they can't message you, they can't hit you with their comments either. Super convenient!
Find creative outlet
That creative outlet doesn't even have to be very creative; sports, for example, can be too. All those negative emotions you get when you are bullied need to get out. You can do this through sports, but also by being creative. Art, poetry, dancing, singing it all helps.
Positive self-talk
Talking to yourself in your mind is something many people do. The annoying thing is that that little voice can be very negative. Instead, by thinking positively about yourself you ensure that you suffer less from memories of the negative experience online.
If you find it difficult to apply these techniques, hypnosis can be a helping hand. For positive self-talk, for example, you have hypnotic suggestions that you repeat during self-hypnosis. These can address your self-confidence, social skills and other complaints you have from online bullying.
Before you receive hypnotic suggestions, you will have a conversation with the hypnosis expert. During this conversation, your insecurities and beliefs are revealed, allowing the expert to determine which suggestions suit you and what other hypnosis techniques can help you suffer less from online bullying or the memories of it.
These may include suggestions such as:
"I have a listening ear for my friends."
"I am a social person."
"I'm smart."
"I am handsome."
"I am not alone."
"I'm allowed to be angry."
You practice these types of suggestions with the hypnosis expert first before repeating them at home during self-hypnosis for the best effect. These are just examples depending on your symptoms you may be given other suggestions to use during self-hypnosis.
Other helpful tips for putting online bullying behind you
In addition to your social environment and the strategies many people naturally employ to deal with online bullying, there are other steps you can take to put online bullying behind you.
You're allowed to be angry
The last suggestion, if that was something you looked up to, this tip is for you. Being bullied is not fun and you don't have to endure it resignedly. It's okay to get angry that this is happening to you. Anger is in fact a motivating emotion, so use this emotion to figure out how to deal with the bullying behavior. Do you just block the person or do you say something back first?
Take care of yourself
Take care of yourself and get yourself taken care of. By talking to friends and family about what happened, you soon realize that the bullying behavior is nothing and says nothing about you. It helps you boost your self-confidence.
Do those around you not understand or get anywhere with this? Then a hypnosis expert can help you.
This can include visualizations on how to cope with online bullying or in other areas of your life about which bullying has made you less confident. Say you've been bullied about how smart you are, a visualization about doing your job in a successful way can already boost your sense of having that skill tremendously.
What's important now?
To put everything in perspective, ask yourself, what matters now? The opinion of bullies? What strangers think about you? Or rather what your family and friends think of you?
There will always be people who want to bring you down. This may be because they are jealous or just mean or want to take their own problems out on you. Victims, for example, like to blame other people for something they caused themselves.
What a bully person thinks of you is just unimportant.
If you find it difficult to move online bullying down your priority list, it is wise to examine your beliefs about what is important in life. With this, a hypnosis expert can help you, for example with a Socratic conversation in which the why question is repeated several times.
Write it off
Bottling up everything inside you doesn't help. By describing your feelings, you can already feel a lot of relief. One way to get rid of your fear of online bullying is to put this story on the Internet, for example in a blog post. You will find that you actually get a lot of support from other people. After all, 1 in 10 young people are bullied online and 1 in 30 adults also suffer from it. So you are definitely not the only one.
Confronting your anxiety is also something you can do step by step with hypnosis. A hypnosis expert will then ask you for a kind of top 10 fears that have been created by bullying that you will then confront to get over the fear.
Want to learn more about exactly how hypnosis works? Then come to the hypnosis playshop or another Hypnosis Institute Netherlands event.
Sources:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12310-015-9157-9
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shame-nation/201709/5-ways-heal-online-shame-and-digital-hate?collection=1118034
https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2017/38/een-op-de-acht-meisjes-wordt-online-gepest
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2014.952657
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/casp.2142
