The first question eve teasing victim has in their mind is how to cope with this stalking, or basically cyberbullying. So, when it comes to cyberbullying, anyone could be a part of it. But obviously, women are more likely to be victims nowadays, so the psychological problems that they can face are: continuous anxiety because most of the time they are asked, “What has happened?” You must have done something. Why do you keep your profile public? and you should have done better or you should have thought better. So these continuous messages keep telling a woman that she can not choose the way she wants to maintain her profile and with whom she can interact. People don’t talk about the one who is bullying but keep telling a woman to be more responsible. That bully is not taking her consent or permission to talk to her, Many people, particularly women, who are anxious about setting boundaries or saying no to people, fall victim to stalkers or bullies, and the psychological impact on their self-confidence causes them to shut down or become depressed. Many continue to blame themselves.The ways that women can deal with those things is, first of all, by understanding dynamics, setting boundaries and some of the rules for cyber precautions, where they should be conscious about adding strangers.
Yeah, at a time they will think that why are we getting this library, but sadly that happens that women are targeted more for these things, so we can just go for preventing these things, where we set boundaries, make sure that we don’t share personal information and if at all a woman is stalked or a woman is bullied, generally they take it to themselves and they think that now their entire life is ruined. One thing can’t ruin their lives. If anything has happened, you know we are talking about multiple things and multiple events here, so any undesirable event cannot define anyone’s life. same for women, so she should look beyond that event. She should not just limit herself to that event. At the same time, she should not limit her socializing. However, be mindful of her manner and behavior.
What to do when psychological symptoms turn into clinical symptoms?
Sometimes we need to understand if these symptoms are turning into clinical symptoms. If we say a concern or a healthy anxiety is with us all the time, we should take care of ourselves or our account privacy and stuff, but if something unfortunate happens and the symptoms you are talking about look like unhealthy anxiety, where a woman is limiting her entire life because of that event, here a view is formed generally that the world is not a safe place. Now in this therapy we call over generalisation, where you think this world is a bad place because this negative incident has happened. So if you look at the other aspects of the world, like being safe, where you have gone out and you were safe, and there have been instances where you trusted people and it turned out to be good, then look at all the incidences when you trusted people and it turned out to be good, so look at all the evidence rather than concluding on one thing that the world is unsafe. The world has a mixture of all these things. Surely we cannot overlook bad things, but just do not focus on that area. The world is a pretty safe place, but these unfortunate incidents happen. Do not cloud your judgement about the world. If the symptoms are too bad, where the sleep is affected and the activities are limited, seeking professional help is more beneficial because these one or two statements can be good to be followed, but it’s not therapy in itself, so if it becomes too much, definitely seek professional help.
If we specifically talk about Eve teasing as an unfortunate reality, it should not be there but many girls, rather than say every girl has gone through this process.
Do not blame yourself for being Eve teased because, as you know, it is generally assumed that why you go out at this time or wear this, so you cannot blame yourself for being Eve teased because it was not your fault. But obviously you said, what measures should she take is, not being alone is safe and having some self-defence skills is handy, but this will not work out if you are anxious. So manage your anxiety, tell yourself that you have the skills and whatever unfortunate might happen, you would not want it to happen, but that should not stop you from taking care of yourself. it’s not the movement where you should be thinking about what people will think if you shout, so work on your shyness, work on your anxiety because such incidents call for some loud gestures action for help from your end. So if you are too restricted, too much into thinking about others’ judgements, you won’t be able to use these skills. So psychologically work on your shyness, work on your anxiety, there are a lot of practical steps that can be taken, should be taken, so don’t go on demanding that the world be a safe place. Accept the reality that even teasing, talking abusive happens, so what can I do to keep myself safe? That will help you to be prepared rather than demanding a safe world.
