Bullying is often measured on a scale from light antagonization to outright fighting with someone that is disproportionately small. It was viewed as a way to build confidence and work through self esteem issues in the past. Like most psychological methods that are over 30-50 years old, the methods can be looked at questionably. It most often onsets psychiatric disorder and can lead to life long self esteem issues which in turn results in a long term or permanent disability in a person caring for themselves.
Bullyism is all the behaviors that lead to bullying. These are the characteristics of the bully such as low self esteem, inferiority complex, anger issues, hatred, resentment, and superiority complex that lead to bullying.
On the last episode of the year, Salish presents 3 concepts of bullyism.
Offering food off the floor
People in Los Angeles have been seen doing this in their Downtown area. They walk around with a pizza box and find a person sitting on the floor or with worn or tattered clothing and offer them a slice. They then proceed to place the pizza box on the sidewalk, open the pizza box reach in and hand them a slice. They close the box and wait for them to take a big delicious bite, then nod their head and walk away looking for another hungry resident of the city.
While there was a 10 second rule for eating off the floor in the 1970s, between 2005 and 2011, it was discovered that bacteria immediately cover the object that touched the floor. Electrical particles for example travel in excess of 1000 miles per second and even if the bacteria is slower, its nearly instant to cover the whole object once it touches the floor.
Withholding Food
This is a bit more difficult concept because it would be from the context of a parent or spouse. Many people do not have kitchens or food in their home, they can only at at restaurants, pickup counters, and cafeterias. Other people might keep locks on the pantries and fridge, leaving only water bottles and small snacks on an accessible counter.
The reason it is more difficult is because a lot of parents have to make decisions between weight control and hunger. Girls often need the same amount of food as boys as a teenager, in their mid twenties, and early thirties. Outside of those time periods girls might eat less often than boys but food should not be withheld from them if they are hungry. They do need to learn appetite control when they are younger. One question to ask girls is if their stomach is hungry or if they feel like their bodies are stretching. Most people feel a certain level of hunger throughout the day but have a scheduled time they eat, mostly two times a day and people can fill in with snacks during growth spurts if necessary.
Exposure Therapy
This is often a good way to on set trauma and has been documented as a good way to isolate people from others in their environment. Many counselors or psychologists have had to undo trauma that was unset by someone experimenting with exposure therapy. A good way to help someone with a fear of something in their environment is through observation, invitation, interaction, and consent.
While anything can present a context of exposure therapy, two concepts should be kept in mind:
Two common areas of exposure therapy are drinking alcohol and dangerous animals. With alcohol, the person should be able to observe a party or be introduced to "drunkards" observing them while they are drunk. They should be invited to the party and not forced or coerced to consume, they can leave the party completely sober. During the party there might be an invitation or request to drink alcohol, the agreement should be mutually consensual meaning that both the person offering the alcohol and the person accepting the alcohol feel comfortable with that situation.
Alcohol is often consumed for digestive sanitation, as a mood alterer, and as a sedative. A side effect of over consumption is loss of voice control, altered distance perception, warped time contexts, and disorientation. Globally, the safe level to drink and drive is going up and measured by weight class. The legal drinking age in the UK and Germany is 16. Children consume wine in France in small quantities.
Dangerous animals require the same level of care in exposure therapy, both the animal and the person being introduced to the animal must consent to be in the presence of one another and have a low level of stress. This prevents the animal from activating defense expressions. A lot of the defense expressions are involuntary and can be reduced through mutual consent of interacting or being near each other.
The person is first allowed to observe the animal in its environment or cage, the animal is made aware that someone new is entering its environment, a handler gets the animals attention and is able to divert aggression, for example if stress levels are too high in the new person being introduced the animal may display defense expressions and the animal handler can address this issues to create a level of safety in a new introduction. Finally, the dangerous animal can interact with the new person in their environment, they are very unlikely to bite, sting, claw, or scratch. They may growl, gnaw, paw, or stance if they get uncomfortable. The animal handler will address these issues afterward or quietly remove the animal.
Other types of exposure therapy require a similar level of care even if its an inert object or concept such as height, confined space, dirt, germs, grime, or perceived harm.
These three concepts of bullyism were presented by Salish Matter in 2025 shortly after her 16th Birthday.