Donald Trump, Megyn Kelly and the Realities of Adult Bullying

While the GOP candidates, including Donald Trump, focused on national security and ISIS during the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, Trump once again turned his attention to publicly attacking Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly earlier that morning.

Trump posted about Kelly five times in less than three hours. First, he tweeted:

(All Images: Twitter/realDonaldTrump)

The next four posts also included attacks on Kelly, calling her “dopey” and “highly overrated.”

Many people — from your liberal Facebook friends to bullying experts — have criticized Trump for acting like a schoolyard bully throughout his campaign.

But one thing that’s not up for debate is the effect that bullying can have on a person’s mental health.

The PBS series “This Emotional Life” notes that one form of bullying experienced by adults in particular is what is known as workplace bullying. This unique form of bullying occurs when a person finds themselves the subject of persistent personal attention from a professional aggressor whose words and actions focus not on the work they’ve performed, but on the person themselves.

While Trump and Kelly are not direct colleagues, their relationship is a professional one: journalist and subject, reporter and candidate.

Workplace bullying can include getting ignored, put down, left out, talked about, or humiliated, notes PBS, drawing from research published in the Ivey Business Journal. They add that workplace bullying can lead to stroke, heart attacks, chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety, panic attacks, clinical depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), defines bullying as a repetitive, aggressive act done to abuse or intimidate others.

Take a look at the posts from Tuesday morning, and decide for yourself.

Then:

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