Bullying knows no age limit. While most bullies wake up to the harm they've done & stop, some don't or rediscover their inner "mean girl" or aggressive guy as they tip into old age.
Others who never said a nasty word about others, never pushed others around can take to bullying as a way to vent frustration with declining health or reduced physical abilities or other limitations normal to getting older.
Whatever the age, inflicting verbal, emotional and/or physical pain can give a perverted sense of control. With the aging & elderly facing so many things outside of their control, even a perverted sense gleaned through damaging others can seem empowering.
Whether it is an over-55 apartment complex, a full-services extended living residence, or a traditional nursing home, senior living facilities are fertile ground for older-on-older bullying.
As explained by Diane Mapes in an MSNBC piece, causes go beyond longtime patterns & lost sense of control. Renee Garkinkel, a Washington, D.C.-base psychologist specializing in aging issues, points out in the report that elder bullying is often the byproduct of basic human nature - the strong picking on the weak.
Think Elderly Lord of the Flies. As analogy, that works pretty well. In Lord of the Flies, the lads who turned to idleness - rather than securing & building shelters - were the ones who first turned to barbarism. Their spiral downward started with nothing to do.
What happens when adults have no job to go to, no meals to make, no housekeeping to maintain, "no cares in the world"? With every need provided for, it's easy to flip leisure into idleness lassitude boredom.
What's the easiest way to liven things up, to get the blood flowing? Hmmm...
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