Drama or is it.
Friends and readers. One of our associates has just returned from a long weekend in Birmingham,hardly the costa del plenty but never mind she enjoyed it.
It seems right now there is a small artistic festival going on at the moment. Wether it is city wide or not she was not sure. But we digress, Anna went to see a play at a church hall entitled walls of silence,which ironically was about bullying and its repercusions. It centred around a victim of bullying who had tried to take his life because he had no-one to turn to for help.
Anna described it as a moving piece of drama which had some of the audience visibly moved by the experience of the victim.
After the show she spoke to some of the players involved in it. Alan the guy who wrote the play told her that he wrote the play after his friend had tried to commit sucide because of bullying. Anna told him of our campaign against workplace bullying and its repercusions,and we have now recruited another associate,in Birmingham no less.
Such is the power of the bully that it can move people to contemplate suicide, we ourselves cannot begin to understand what is going through a victims mind at that point,but whatever it is, must be horrifying, we can only begin to wonder what these bullys think and feel as they push a victim to the very edge.
There is in our opinion an evil in them,that they can try and destroy another human being,it is almost unthinkable.
What it does to us,is strengthen our resolve to fight bullying and the sometimes dreadful concequences of such behaviour.
Is it any wonder the courts now take workplace bullying seriously,and so they should. We have said before, if it feels like bullying it probably is. We have reported to you on the change in the 1997 harrassment act,we have told you about the various campaigns round the country to act on workplace bullying,we have told you of the human cost and of less importance the financial cost,nothing is more important than human life and the right to live in dignity not fear.
We have reported to you how main stream newspapers are picking up and reporting workplace bullying.Trade Unions see it as a big issue.HR[human resources] report it as a serious issue,why then if all these people and organisations are taking this issue seriously,has workplace bullying been swept under the carpet for so long.
Nobody wants to do anything about it because it is to big a problem with the added factor of serious health issues surrounding the victims,the pitfalls are obvious.
But that is not an excuse nobody will fall for that one,and the more the problem is highlighted, the more the shortcomings of people charged to do something about it becomes apparent.
We at Pilton sucks are in contact with other organisations intent on stamping out this disease. We have related our experiences to them and they with us. One common thread seems to run through victims experiences, and that is it never leaves you,and may haunt you forever. It is now clear that victims need people they can trust to talk to. They also need professional help in some cases for a very long time,as they come to terms with what happened to them.
The more we research into workplace bullying and its concequences the sadder we become,not for the bullys,no certainly not,although we accept they need some sort of intervention in their lives,we feel sadness for the victim and their families,that is something we should not forget,the pain that this causes the victims family.
But sadness will not stop this creeping virus only vigliance and action will stop these individuals from destroying others.We cannot in all honesty begin to calculate the damage that is done to victims,but when we hear of suicide attempts ,we can only imagine the torment in the mind of the victim.
We at Pilton sucks always try to write it as we see it or as it is reported to us. But what really sticks in our throats,is the thought of a bully cowards that they are denying their behaviour,even in the face of what mabey overwhelming evidence,still they lie,still they hide behind anybody who will shield them, but beware for the noose may yet tighten,and as time goes by and this most terrible and destructive illness becomes more public,people will stand up and be counted.
All that you can be afraid of is fear itself. that is little to what the victims have suffered and will continue to suffer as they try to rebuild their lives. Those who turn away and deny any knowledge are as guilty as the criminal themselves.
If we are to live in a civilsed society,if we are to work in a bully free enviroment,you have to come forward and say what you seen.The invisible scars of the victims may never heal, the trauma of an experience so horrifying as to try and take your life,would make any fair minded persons stomach turn at the thought of bullys in their workplace.
So whether it is a piece of drama or real life the experience of bullying is all to real.The one difference is that you leave at the end of the play or film. the victim cant for them the suffering goes on,they cannot leave and go on into the night,their anguish is our anguish their pain is our pain.
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