Why are we all such bullies?

The title of this article makes for uncomfortable reading, but it is true. We are all bullies and we are also all guilty of the abuse of neglect because to date there is no known human being that is or has been perfect 24 hours a day, seven days a week their entire lives. We get frustrated by everything that doesn’t go our way or that isn’t done in a way that we understand. We automatically get annoyed at the very least by anything that seems unfair or that simply does not suit us.

Like all species on our planet we are all bullies when we want something done our way. We justify that behaviour with an endless stream of ethical reasons which are do not hide the truth at all and throughout it all we snap at each other. We get vicious with others when they won’t stop and think about what they doing to us that upsets us. Worse still, we do these things as part of our daily routine to establish who is in charge and we do it most to those who have helped and supported us the most too.

To psychologists this highlights two unshakeable truths. We are an animal species which, in common with all species on our beautiful planet, fight for our own survival. In the small scale of things the bickers and squabbles over minor things like who’s turn is it to do the washing up do not matter. We are merely establishing who is taking responsibility for what for that hour, day or week. We’re for the most part, more often than not brilliant at doing that in our own homes without too much fuss... most of the time.

In our working lives it becomes a bit more frustrating if you are never given the opportunity to do anything else but make the tea and wash up for everyone else unless you happen to enjoy those roles most of all and some do as they usually get more thank-yous for doing that than anyone else gets for anything else. We argue to establish a hierarchy just like all other animals on the planet, except that they are far more accepting of where they fit best and we do all manner of things to prevent our fellow human beings from ever finding out where they fit best or what they are or could be good at.

This is very silly of us indeed because we also know that those who take on the responsibilities of vast numbers of people suffer from stress, a known cause of mental illness. Luckily most of them do not stay in their lofty positions for more than a few years before they have a change of scene to rest up from all the pressure placed upon them – some though are gluttons for punishment in that they are addicted to fixing things for everyone else... a bit like medical teams really.

It is fortunate that most people do not want and do not enjoy that level of responsibility so why bicker about it at all? Why not share the load instead and work together instead of against each other so that everyone does have the role (or rather roles) that they love or come to love best?

Leaders often want a rest from leading so, doesn’t that imply that everyone could get a chance to try for leadership if they want to enough and work hard enough for people to want them above all others to lead? And it’s the same with fame for just about any human activity... be imaginative, you don’t have to be famous for being a singer, good or bad. Nor though do you have to be famous for being a prat or a dangerous person to others. Choose you ambition according to what will make you happy without causing distress to others.

Primary Schooling

We can never entirely escape our most basic primary instinct which is to succeed and survive as the fittest of all. Therefore the process of bickering (not back stabbing) is set to repeat until the end of time itself. This may sound very grim until you step back from things a see that as a species we do survive and do it rather well overall, except for a few wars and long standing habits of abuse to taint our otherwise very good record.

Perhaps we cause the most damage by becoming envious of others around us which is a foolish thing to do as we actually know so little about what their lives are really like now or have been like as we are not with them every minute of every day. We are even less equipped to know what others make of the same things we are witnessing or experiencing. We resent people who are successful and seem determined to bide our time waiting for the day when they are feeling ill, or have been injured or abused or just not on top form to pounce and push the proverbial (and sometimes actual) knife in, just so that we as individuals get our share of revenge for our own perceived suffering and, if lucky an opportunity to become top dog or - in medical terms - the Alpha leader for a bit.

The irony is that we each stand a much better chance of running things  to lead others by working together and most of all by actually helping those we dislike the most! Psychologists across the globe have also realised that the most successful people in the world have often suffered abuse themselves. Think of Nelson Mandela, Ghandi or Rosa Parks as examples. It is their life stories that inspire us most because they work through their troubles by using their heads to rule their emotions, but they do so without ever losing their sense of compassion for anyone else.

We are not just bullies or abusers - that is only part of what it is to be human. We are diverse, wonderful and full of creative, compassionate intentions too. We are nurturers, builders and healers; developers, teachers and inventors. It is our species alone that has the guardianship of the whole planet and in order to understand that role we have had to break virtually every rule Mother Nature sets out. In order to save life we’ve learned along the way how we can destroy it, in order to extend life, we learned how to shorten it because if we didn’t know how to kill how would we learn how not to kill?

To safeguard the planet from something bigger than us hitting it that could kill us, we have had to learn how to destroy things. We have learned so much about the building blocks of life itself but have learned the hard way as far  too with many brave souls have died in that endeavour simply by not realising the level of danger they were entering into e.g. Marie Curie who died from cancer in her research to find cures for it. We have risked everything for life itself in the past by not being vigilant enough and through letting our passions and emotions rule our heads. We also kill others who are merely doing their bit to help humanity by never letting them rest enough to think straight, even when they are the only ones who understand enough to help fix things! Talk about jack ass thinking – we have been very good at it, but it’s not anything to be proud of.

Taking up the challenge

So how do any of us stop the worst of our behaviours? The answer should be obvious to all by now... by giving ourselves a chance to think first and act only when we have thought everything through thoroughly we stand a much better chance of improving everything that currently troubles us. From  those who are on the frontline saving lives in one role or another to those right at the top trying to decide what’s best for the largest number of human beings possible and of course the rest of us somewhere in the middle – we all need to play a positive role in order to get things fixed according to where our skills and knowledge best fit.  A house won’t get mended if no one knows how to fix it. Nor can it be mended if people don’t know how to make repairs and it can’t ever be repaired if the family that lives there doesn’t tell anyone it needs help if they don’t know how to do it themselves.

It is not just silly to criticise such people. It is dangerous too and risks not only their health but our own lives to do so. Would you want to be treated by a doctor too tired to know what they are prescribing or too confused by what you or others think is wrong with you? Would you like to be talking to a person about abuse or report any crime to someone who has no training in dealing with them, or who will ignore you? Is it fair though on someone who tries to take you seriously if you are lying or are mistaken in what you think happened or is happening and will not listen to them?

The majority of people strive to be honest and law-abiding most of the time, but as stated in the very first paragraph of this article, no one can be on top form for everyone else 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Give each other time to think and rest to be able to make the right decisions and above all else, never take out your frustrations on anyone you see as being weaker or just wrong. You don’t know what they have been through enough to make such judgements, unless you happen to be part of a mental health team who is finding out or have experienced high levels of trauma in your own life AND worked through them with a mental health team.

Mental health teams, in common with all other medical, social service and community care teams can only ever be as good as the amount of work put in by those they try to help. If you as a patient insist on being lazy about putting any work in to get yourself well then you are not likely to ever get better, are you. In a way, health and happiness come down to if you want them more than the attention you get from being ill. Such attention really is a sad and poor substitute for the real thing but to date there are still many too ill to get very far at all as it can all to easily take a whole life to recover from any serious traumatic event. Some such sufferers over the years have shared their sufferings with us. It is high time we acknowledged a few of them for their sheer courage in just being with us still. We are so very glad and honoured to know you most of all. We think you are awesome.

Introducing the Mindwalking contributors

Time to introduce a few people in the Mindwalking team by initials only to safeguard their well deserved privacy and in the case of medics their off-duty time...

AA, AB, AC, AD, AE...

Get the idea? There is barely a two letter initials-only combination that we in Mindwalking haven’t supported either directly or indirectly as we’ll explain later.  More specifically, our most active contributors include...

AG, SC, AM, AW, JH, EE and an interesting pair sharing the same initials KB. One is someone who cannot move, while the other is a fully qualified doctor in psychology not even in the UK! Then there’s numerous MDs of one description or another, mostly doctors with initials such as DI (who probably fancies themselves as a detective as most physicians do), HI (who is always welcoming), LF (who is always up for laugh), PH (a litmus test, we think), PR (who is bound to enjoy marketing), RM (possibly a doctor in the Royal Marines? We’re not sure but it amuses us all to think so) and counsellors JB, PM (er no, not the UK prime minister... as far as we know, but an interesting idea!), SM, TW and VD!!!?  Moving on swiftly...

Back to the really important people - patients... AG (a different one) AP, AR, BW, CE, CL, DD, FC, HB, HS, JB, KT,  VK, MR, M (and just about any other letter actually), NC, NS, PD, PS, SE, SF, SW,  TC, TJ, TK, TP and even a ZE (to name but a few).

It’s been mathematically proven that it takes just six connections from you to be connected with just about anyone on the planet including... ALL world leaders. It has also been scientifically proven that we are all related to each other too. Er yeah, we’re not always comfortable with those facts either! However, from any and every angle it does prove one thing... it’s the height of human stupidity to be mean and nasty, vicious, vile, greedy or jealous of anyone as those very people might well be helping you to stay alive.

“We can never know who anyone else knows or may come to know. Therefore it makes no sense to be nasty to anyone.”

If you can’t be nice, either stay silent and do nothing at all, or book an appointment with someone who is trained to help even the most violent of people but in that event it’s best try not to attack them if you truly want to be happy and well. If you just want to be violent toward others, you might try phoning the police instead as it’s quicker for you to do it than it would be for anyone else. Professionals will never turn away someone that desperate to NOT be violent and NOT cause harm to others – FACT.

So from all at Mindwalking and beyond... have a safe and healthy December and rest of your life.
We have two more posts for you this month but we’ll see how we all feel in the New Year as it occurs to us that people are rather swamped with theories and medical concerns at the moment. Perhaps everyone needs a rest from even more information about mental health too, not least sufferers from those illnesses.  That is what we at Mindwalking collectively think and believe right now. There are plenty of brilliant sites on the internet though if you feel the need to know more.

Take very good care of YOUR health. Nothing is ever as precious to you than YOUR health unless it is the health of your loved ones. Remember to ask your nearest and dearest what they need rather than what they’d like best, won’t you – there is a huge difference.

We’ll be back on Christmas Eve with a remembrance post. If you are not in the mood for that... well you don’t have to read it, do you?  Stay calm, relax and be well and chat to your GP when you need to and anyone else you come to trust.

Three Little Pyrite Pigs

Pyrite is also known as fool's gold and the little pigs we all seem to fall foul of are far from little. In the fairytale wolf tries to invade the houses of three pigs. One house is made of straw and the wolf blows it away to get at the pig inside. The second pig makes his home out of sticks and the wolf succeeds by huffing and puffing in blowing that in too.  The third pig builds his home out of brick, but the wolf cannot huff and puff enough to succeed in demolishing a brick house, so the pig (or pigs, depending on which version of the story you go with) remain safe inside.

Wise Wolves

It's sometimes tricky using metaphors to explain things as the word pig has associations with greed and muck. So one analogy of this simple fairy tale might be that the wolf is a hero forcing the pigs to think more sensibly about what they want from life in order to be happy and safe. In such an interpretation it would be easy to view mental health teams as wolves with their nagging and eternal checks on every aspect of our existence until the time comes when their help is not required. 

No one likes to be analysed in such an intensive way, even if it is for our own well being. The process can and often does encourage us to blurt out everything and dwell on our nastiest memories and worst behaviours and this can result in new bad habits forming; much depends on how experienced the mental health practitioners are. If we are not careful we can become addicts to being ill as it is often easier than fighting the stigma, ignorance and prejudice of the rest of society. 

Luckily the days of ending up in a mental health hospital on anyone's hearsay are gone in the UK. It now takes three people to agree on any one person needing hospitalisation under the Mental Health Act of 1983. All have to be highly qualified. Once in hospital, it is likely to take a team of four or more people to get one patient well enough to return home. They usually include a psychiatrist, a GP (doctor), a psychologist, a Community Psychiatric Nurse and a Social Worker. Other medical staff can include nursing staff in the hospital and a variety of therapists or counsellors. All of them can seem as if they are the enemy with their prying questions which often get repeated by way of checking up on your progress.

Unfortunately there are still old school thinkers about among medical staff, but they are steadily decreasing in number thanks to brave sufferers that refuse to be spoken to as if they are already lobotomised. In all cases staff and patients must be able to 'click' for any treatment to work. Staff cannot help those that 'confess' what they are thinking, feeling or doing that might be at the root of the suffering. No one can, but much relies upon staff listening carefully and thoroughly to what any patient finds so distressing. It is interesting to note that the mentally ill are seldom unable to function at something. However, while we continue to live in a world where the mentally ill are largely unwelcome, few are given the chance to function in society at all.

Pyrite Pigs

For the purposes of this article the pigs are the addictions that we are all susceptible to. They are the behaviours of people rather than the people themselves and with aggressive marketing techniques forever bombarding us all it is little wonder that people become disturbed, confessed, stressed and anxious. They are not little pigs at all, they are huge as there is no escaping them in mainstream society for they govern just about every aspect of our lives. Rather than think of ourselves as pigs, we should be thinking in terms of a 'pig of a problem' to overcome.

According the latest thinking among the good guys and gals of psychiatry (i.e. those that actually listen and work with the mentally ill and not dictate to them), everyone is suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and everyone is on the autistic scale too. It is just a matter of to what level and over what that can herald problems. One the best ways to illustrate this is to look at what we spend our money on.  

This little piggy is money

In the developed world we shop for our joys quite literally. Here’s a brief list of some of the things we spend our money on in order to reward ourselves to make our lives more comfortable, stimulating and of course pleasurable. 

Food, clothes and shoes, sports, games, crafts, books, specific interests (e.g. the history or mechanics), holidays, relaxation, alcohol, socialising, gambling, donating to charities, clubs and societies, business advice and events, illegal drugs, investments, cars, homes, tobacco, technology and the latest must have thing or experience.

Of these none of these treats are safe in excess.

People who do not have money or very little of it do not have those “cheer up” options. They will also seldom have much in the way of connections to support them by way of family, friends, neighbours or colleagues at work or indeed information with regard to support services which are already stretched. Hence we have all manner of charities and community initiatives to try to save those that would otherwise fall through the nets like a kind of holding pen for when professional support is freed up. It is debatable if it is enough while we remain in a recession especially when so many services have been whittled down to only offer crisis services. All support is also utterly pointless if people’s trust in the system has been betrayed, or if people do not or will not share what troubles them. In a recession, retail therapy is a high risk game to play if you do not stick to a manageable budget.

When any of us are depressed or low in mood our behaviours change to compensate us for being of low mood. Some will look for something to cheer themselves up (called the distraction technique in psychology). This can include an increase in our spending on items we find in shops and on sale on the internet, as well as an increase in our social and work activities. 

In moderation that is never anything to worry about, in excess it is.

This bigger piggy is power

It is surprising how few people even know or have thought of why people turn to alcohol and illegal drugs given how stressful the life can be at times. Put simply they do so to escape their sufferings without thinking about what it will end up costing them health wise, financially and socially with regard to stigma and prejudice. Thereby they end up reducing their chances of ever getting support exponentially. It is often the exact same behaviour that normal people engage in when they are having an off colour day but in excessive proportion; the difference is that that proportion is out of control. Some illegal drugs, such as cocaine can result in a person feeling invincible when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. When we turn to heavy weight drug abuse we are on the road to destroying everything good we already have.

Power can be addictive too. Those who have it generally fall into two distinct categories; philanthropists and do their best to give back to the community, and those who become so addicted to accumulating wealth that they become harmful to our societies and communities while becoming increasingly dissatisfied with everything around them. We often think of the latter as psychopaths or sociopaths but it isn’t the soul domain of the wealthy to be psychopaths. Not being permitted to care about anyone for long enough can result in even the poorest person not caring. Corporate psychopaths are by far the most damaging as they usually care so little that thousands suffer as a result of their business practices which can be brutal, vicious and dictatorial. 

There would be no need to place a cap on any income if it was law that businesses as well as individuals must give back to the community – punishment for failing to do so could be a cap on income and level of responsibility instead of what is currently and commonly the reverse. Surely we collectively have wit enough to make that happen without any need to totally ruin that person’s life forever. Make it compulsory for such people to see a psychologist and we would minimise the risk of millions suffering while and helping them at the same time.

In the middle of rich and poor we have the ordinary folk who get sucked into things they think they need in order to reach the upper echelons of society and who end up having to field the extremes of those at the top of tree and those who are poor, often destitute and above all desperate. Keeping up with the Joneses is a power game.

Everyone makes mistakes but when anyone is disallowed to function sufficiently it leads to resentment, deep unhappiness and ultimately huge problems for the individual, those who know them and for our societies. A maxim from the world of business and industry that is thankfully beginning to catch on is:

 “Look after the others and the others will take care of you”. 

It has been proved and is proving to work. Joseph Rowntree (look him up on Wikipedia) in the 19^th century proved it by not only providing its labour force work, but also homes, education and access to basic health care.

This biggest piggy it the hardest piggy of all - relationships 

If the first pig is money and the second pig is power then the third pig is the hardest and toughest of all - relationships. 


As individuals all of us have a degree of responsibility to correct our own and group behaviours. None of us can do it alone, but together we might be able to make a far happier and fairer world. How and where do we even begin to start? Who and what do we start with?

We start by acknowledging our most basic of instincts is to survive as a species. In order to survive most of us are governed my the desire to have sex and sexual relationships can be the trickiest of all to get just right. Sexual relationships are so complicated that it warrants a separate article. Here though it is enough to note that impressing the person who is the target of our dreams often leads us to shop 'til we drop or push ourselves career wise. Some argue that having many sexual partners is the only way they can be happy, however while that may be fine for them it is seldom fine for all their sexual partners. Promiscuity often causes many long term damage. 

To get any relationship right requires consideration, communication that is clear and up to date and acknowledgement of everyone's right to be themselves. This applies within our social and work circles and most of all in our relationships with our families.

When it comes to relationships is it less a question of “Is it something you can change in that person”, more a question of "Am I being fair to that person?" when tensions run high. Then we need to think about “Do I want to do something about it, yes or no?” Therein lies the key. Do we? For without that desire to consider other people's needs and change for the better nothing can ever change for the better.

This is at the crux of mental health as no medical team on this planet can change anyone. We have to be resolute in wanting to ditch what makes us unhappy in the first place that is within ourselves rather than enter into blaming everyone else. If others are that damaging to you - leave. Get support to do so if you need to.

Next is to identify in precise and minute detail what it is that we want to change about ourselves, then what to and only afterwards comes the how, who to seek support from, when and so on. This process is the same whether we are trying to overcome difficulties in any type of relationship or emotional distress.

We will never stand a cat in hell’s chance to get the formula right while we are bickering and competing for attention or being in anyway emotional. We need to don our thinking hats first, however, often we need another outlet for our emotions first before our thinking hat can sit comfortably without pinching or giving us a headache. 

We need to communicate, calmly, clearly and coherently which sadly is not usually the domain of people who are desperate for help, but the first step toward helping anyone recover is to listen first to what isn’t or hasn’t worked isn’t it? That way we identify exactly what it is that needs sorting. When we are mentally well we are all capable of this. When we are concerned for others we do this whether we are well or not, so it follows that we could be doing this more of the time when we are ill. That little bit of difference can in the long run make the biggest difference of all.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way.” 

There is no person or section of society that is without risk to their mental well being. The latest thinking in mental health circles is that "We are all potentially a car crash waiting to happen.” To put it another way – life’s a lottery and instead of thinking why me, what we should be thinking is why shouldn’t it be me that suffers next? What am I doing to prevent this happening to me or my loved ones? We already do this with regard to many physical ailments, diseases and illnesses, but seldom stop to think about what we can do to prevent the most important organ in our bodies - our brains.

Our brains define who we are and they are the control centre for everything else. If we can master it to adopt a helpful attitude to combat whatever life may throw at us, then wouldn't we also be equipping ourselves to overcome whatever we perceive to be the worst happening?