Bully-victims: bullying victims turned bullies

Violence can become so internalized that it is adopted as a form of protection against threats.

Peer harassment or bullying is becoming a common topic in our society.. At the European level, an epidemiological study with a sample of more than 16,000 adolescents found that 20% of them have suffered bullying at some point.

These data reflect the idea that a considerable number of adolescents in secondary education and high school are under high levels of interpersonal stress, living complex situations that can lead to emotional imbalance and alter, in some way, their psychological development.

The main objective of this article is to make bully-victims known.The "bullying" is the name given to adolescents or children who have suffered or continue to suffer bullying and who, for various reasons, have ended up becoming bullies and victims at the same time.

What are bully-sictims?

Before describing what bully-victims are, let us provide a definition of bullying.

According to Olweus (1978, cited in Olweus, 1998) bullying is a type of violence that occurs in a relationship of power imbalance. a relationship of imbalance of power between the bully and his or her victimIt is repeated and prolonged over time and includes behaviors of various kinds (physical, verbal and psychological aggression). In this sense, bullying is a sequence of repeated actions between some protagonists, aggressor/s and victim, whose relationship persists over time and develops a certain and known dynamic.

Bully-victims would be those young people who, after having been direct victims of bullying, end up becoming aggressors themselves, while at the same time they may continue to be victims of bullying. In other words: minors who have been bullied by others and who themselves bully their peers are called bully their peers are called bully-victims.

Types of bullies or aggressors

The specialized scientific literature on the subject states that bully-victims make up a different typology within the aggressors who bully. In general, 2 main types of aggressors can be distinguisheds (in English "bullies"):

"Pure" bullies

These are bullies who are self-confident. They intimidate others and bully them without hesitation. They fit better than the rest into the stereotype of the aggressive child eager to externalize his will to dominate others. In general, these children or adolescents are not usually victimized by other bullies..

Bully-victims

As we have explained above, in this group they can play both roles, as victims and aggressors, although as a general rule they do not attack their aggressors, but other minors. as a rule, they do not attack their aggressors, but rather other children they perceive as more vulnerable. they perceive as more vulnerable.

Characteristics of bully-victims

These victimized bullies suffer from a Wide range of problems; compared to "pure" bullies, bully-victims are more anxious, lonely, usually in heightened states of tension (hypervigilance) and (hypervigilance) and usually present more depressive symptoms than the rest. They have very little trust in others, which leads them to remain on alert in case a bullying episode occurs again.

Andreou (2004) affirms that bully-victims show more "Machiavellian" attitudesThe bully-victims: lack faith in human nature, tend to manipulate and deceive others more, are more distrustful and tend to hide the truth as a form of protection.

According to Stein et al. (2007) bully-victims have more physical injuries and, at the same time, pose a greater danger to their peers. at the same time pose a greater danger to their peers. For example, in a study conducted by Kochel et al. (2015) it was found that bully-victims tend to be involved in more acts in which they play the role of aggressors than "pure bullies".

The bully-victims, being victimized for so long, respond to their peers in a hostile manner. Some U.S. studies point out that these youths are more likely to carry weapons with them than bullies. are more likely to bring weapons to school with them, as they believe that in this wayThey believe that they will be protected in this way.

Psychological problems

Several studies have documented that victims of bullying often suffer from anxiety, depression (even leading to suicide), social isolation, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder compared to other children who have not been bullied.

In addition, children who are bullies within the bullying dynamics experience social rejection, behavioral problems, anxiety, academic difficulties, and are often defiant of others. and are often defiant in front of adults.

When a child is a victim and aggressor at the same time, in addition to experiencing all the symptoms described above, he/she tends to have more difficulties than all the others, they tend to have more difficulty than others in "fitting in" with their social group (they have fewer social skills and difficulty in "fitting in" with their peers). (they have fewer social skills and difficulty in establishing and maintaining positive friendships), suffer more intense states of overexcitement that they do not know how to handle, and have more academic difficulties at school.

How one becomes a bully-victim (the bullying cycle)

Emler (2009) refers that being a victim of bullying can have a negative impact on the empathic capacity of the victim, who, far from understanding the bully's behavior who, far from understanding the aggressor's behavior, will try to defend himself/herself by displaying an equally hostile behavior. This would be the specific case of bully-victims.

Some authors (Carroll, Green, Houghton and Wood, 2003; Lereya et al., 2013) have developed an explanatory hypothesis regarding the existence of "bully-victims": when the adolescent is being bullied and does not have the emotional support of an adequate social protection network (group of friends, parents, teachers) or does not accept such help, he/she may resort to the to seek an informal alternative of protection against bullying situations..

In this way, the adolescent will try to achieve a social reputation based on an image of a rebellious, strong and antisocial person; the implicit message to the aggressors would be that he/she is a brave, strong person who has the resources to defend him/herself. It could be that the victims start to behave aggressively as a form of self-defense as a form of self-defense against future attacks..

It has also been stated that bully-victims tend to come from violent or violent family environments. often come from violent or dysfunctional family environments.. They may have been abused by an older sibling, or have seen a family member mistreat another family member. In fact, many of the negative behaviors related to violence are learned in childhood-adolescence within the family environment, and this is also true in the case of bullying.