Living with the Physical Effects of Workplace Bullying

When I was a teenager, I experienced some bullying at my all-boys school. Aside from the usual almost-to-be-expected name-calling, ridiculing, and shaming, which upset me but that, in the main, I was able to brush off, I was also physically assaulted and required stitches to my right pinna.

So, when I left school and, indeed, when I left medical school, my notion of what bullying was really only included its physical manifestations and name-calling. Then, I joined the world of work and experienced workplace bullying at the hands of my medical seniors, and my field of vision as to what bullying could involve expanded beyond the common two forms.

As you would expect, when I was working as a trainee surgeon, there was no name-calling in the schoolyard sense of the term, but there were comments like those, which only served to magnify my already burgeoning feeling of impostor phenomenon.

But there were also the more subtle, less overt forms of workplace bullying, like gaslighting, ostracisation, and passive aggression, sometimes done one-to-one so as not to alert colleagues.

Added to these were the more specific work-related types of bullying, which included (but aren’t limited to) withholding praise, excessively or unjustly criticizing you, withholding training opportunities from you, undermining your decisions, over-monitoring your work, or setting unrealistic goals, deadlines, or workload for you.

Why is this relevant to an article on the invisible consequences of bullying, though?

Because all of those types of bullying in the workplace, whether physical or psychological, direct or indirect, overt or covert, can all lead to the same health-related consequences, which often go unnoticed by others due to physicians mostly being ‘high-functioning’ patients, i.e., they can hide their symptoms or persuade their managers/colleagues that they are fine.

In fact, according to a 2013 survey conducted by the US-based Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), ‘The Toll of Workplace Bullying on Employee Health, of the 516 respondents, 63% had been treated by a licensed mental health professional for work-related symptoms, and 49% of the respondents reported having been diagnosed with depression as a result of being bullied.

In the same WBI employee health survey, 71% of the 516 respondents reported having been treated by a doctor for work-related physical health symptoms, some of which, e.g., high blood pressure /irritable bowel syndrome/fibromyalgia/headaches, etc., can again be hidden by physicians who don’t want their colleagues to know about their illnesses.

For those victims targeted over a long period of time, repeatedly high-stress levels can persistently elevate hormones like cortisol, leading to conditions like type-2 diabetes, and chronically high levels of inflammatory proteins can cause long-term inflammatory conditions as well as cancers.

To conclude, regardless of the mode of bullying employed by the perpetrator, the effect on the target’s physical and/or mental health can be the same and often goes unseen. It is also, very sadly, the case that some of the conditions suffered by the target can be fatal, e.g., death by suicide, myocardial infarction, and cancers.

The most common physical health-related conditions:

• High blood pressure
• Heart palpitations
• Ischaemic heart disease
• Type-2 diabetes mellitus
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Fibromyalgia
• Migraine and tension headaches
• Sleep disturbances
• Loss of concentration/memory
• Types of cancer

General types of Workplace Bullying:

• Verbal/physical aggression, hostility, shouting, threats, or intimidation, e.g., fist-shaking / finger-pointing
• Uncontrolled anger or tantrums
• Public criticism, shaming, or berating
• Discriminating against / harassing people
• Gaslighting
• Ostracizing/excluding/socially isolating people (aka ‘silent treatment’)
• Mobbing
• Gossiping/spreading rumors about people
• Personal attack on a person’s private life and/or personal attributes
• Passive aggression or extreme sarcasm
• Offensive jokes