The first meaning of the term to harass mentioned by the DigoPaul in its dictionary refers to damaging or intoxicating with tósigo (poison, poison). The most common use of the concept, however, is associated with pressuring or overwhelming someone.
For example: “The company’s strategy is to harass debtors with phone calls, visits and court notifications”, “As a coach, I try not to harass players with directions in the middle of games”, “I think we should not harass to children with so many academic and extracurricular obligations ”.
When a person is harassed, they feel overwhelmed by the pressure that someone exerts on them or that is generated by a certain concern or requirement. Suppose a singer divorces her husband in the middle of an infidelity scandal. The news generates that many mass media want to have the testimony of the figure. In this way, when she leaves her house, dozens of journalists approach her violently and ask her many questions at the same time, placing microphones next to her face and photographing her constantly. This attitude of the press workers does nothing more than harass the singer, who tries to escape the harassment.
The economic problems also may harass a person. A man can feel harassed when he owes money to three different banks, is unemployed, and has to pay rent on his house to avoid being left on the streets. The discomfort can even be physical, with headaches, stomach problems and pain in the neck, to name a few possibilities.
The numerous synonyms that we can find of the term harass in dictionaries can be of great help to us to understand the nuances of its meaning and its applications; Let’s see some of them below: whip, harass, prod, harass, tire, goad, annoy, fatigue, fight, pester, annoy, urge, insist, annoy, assault, oppress, urge, compel, condemn and pressure. On the other hand, two of its antonyms are calm and reassure.
From this long list we can focus on the most common words, those that are usually part of everyday speech, to further explain the sensations that characterize the action of hounding. Perhaps the term annoy is the broadest of all those exposed in the previous paragraph, and that is why it is adequate to understand in which group of reactions a person is found when they are harassed.
Insistence is another of the traits of harassment; for example, if an individual stuns another with a series of questions, without taking into account the effect that this has on him and by repeating his speech unnecessarily or too often. There are certain nuances that separate the insistence that seeks to encourage someone to do something that they like and are interested in and that that generates an annoyance, a burden.
If we focus on the verb to oppress, also present in the previous list, we can explain the feeling of suffocation that is usually generated by harassment in those who receive it. It is an inability to think clearly, a lack of oxygen (both figuratively and literally), which can also be described by the terms “overwhelm, anguish ” or “suffocation.”
As a consequence of this action, there is a state of fatigue, generally characterized by a lack of clarity in making decisions. Choking someone is subjecting them to a situation that is not pleasant for them; While it is not always done intentionally, the results can be just as negative. When the culprit is a loved one, there is at least the possibility of asking them to stop; in business, protocol makes things difficult.