Ryu Takizawa, Barbara Maughan, Louise Arseneault. Adult Health Outcomes of Childhood Bullying Victimization: Evidence From a Five-Decade Longitudinal British Birth Cohort. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2014; DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13101401
The negative social, physical and mental health effects of childhood bullying are still evident nearly 40 years later, according to new research. The study is the first to look at the effects of bullying beyond early adulthood. Just over a quarter of children in the study (28%) had been bullied occasionally, and 15% bullied frequently -- similar to rates in the UK today. Individuals who were bullied in childhood were more likely to have poorer physical and psychological health and cognitive functioning at age 50. Individuals who were frequently bullied in childhood were at an increased risk of depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal thoughts.
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My older brother may have been born to be a bully, but he was certainly facilitated in his development by abusive, demeaning parenting. As the oldest, he was frequently the pre-teen in-charge when my parents left, and he used all their tactics, but with absolutely no thought or moderation. When I was 6, he broke my jaw and knocked out 4 of my teeth. I was coerced into not telling, but an infection set in and attacked my gums leaving a wound open to the bone for months. It was found by a dentist assistant during a school based dental check-up program. At that point people got upset, but not my parents. While sitting between them in the principal's office as they were talking to a CPS rep the cover story was I hurt myself when I fell out of a tree.
It seems, neither the effect of being bullied, or the turning into a bully ever really resolve. In 2005 my mother died, and that older brother at age 58, became the executor of my mother's estate by right of primogenitor. He said to our sister, who at that time was 54 years old...'take whatever you want, I don't care about keeping track of dividing up the household goods'. So, she started to take whatever she wanted and it made him -extraordinarily- mad as she wanted things he had no idea she might claim. And he was mad enough to hit her in the face with a closed fist which knocked her down.
Now, one might assume that would have resulted in a call to police and a criminal charge with the brother's likely removal from the position of executor. But it didn't. Neither she, or a younger brother who was present (and who related the incident to me years later) ever called the police and apparently neither did anything but get out of the way of his rampage.
Since my mother's death, I've been contacted by one or another sibling, niece of nephew, or cousin and my answer is identical to the younger daughter in your story. "I don't want to see or communicate with any of you because it ALWAYS results in pain". And it does sometimes physical.
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