Break The Bully

[MacLeod]

Kestra wrote:

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I haven't been bullied, so I hope I'm not just coming across as extremely insensitive. But I think at a certain point it becomes something you just can't hold onto. I wasn't bullied in school but I have been treated badly by people and had trust betrayed and I absolutely get why it's difficult to trust again. Even without bullying I have so many self-esteem issues. But saying "These people did this to me," is also like giving them continued power in your life.

I think that human interaction leaves us vulnerable, no matter who you are. There's always that risk in order to achieve that reward. At some point you've got to say okay, these ten people were really shitty to me but that's such a small segment of the population. Everyone is not that way. Or if everyone is that way in your life, examine why. Is it because you live in a small town where you stand out too much? Is it because of something you can't control and that really isn't your fault?

I don't know what I'm trying to say exactly, just I think it's a little dangerous or unproductive to linger on this sort of pain too much. I think you'll also find trust can be difficult for anyone, bullied or not. We've all been burned by someone.

As an adult we are better able to reason out how people treat us, as a child we tend to lack that way of think or be weaker in that respect. Bullying can last years, so you suffer years of torment for something which is not your fault. As such to a certain extent patterns of thought begin to get established.

So you have this little (or not so little) voice at the back of your mind saying things like, what if they don't like, what if they won't accept me etc... and each time you overcome that voice and those fears are realised your confidence takes yet another knock making it harder next time.

From a rational/logical point of view yes of course not everyone is like that, but sometimes the heart (emotion) rules and says why bother risk getting hurt yet again, whilst your head is saying you've got to take the risk, this time will be different.

It's the emotional scars of bullying which last, and these can be the hardest to heal.

[Gul Re'jal]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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So you just have to learn to think of yourself as a classic character actor in the movie of life.

Let's try....

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Best zombie extra; doesn't even require make-up.



How am I doing?

[teacake]

I want to be Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen.

I'm going to practice my shrillness and whacking. Of weeds and men.

[Rhubarbodendron]

Gul Re'jal wrote:

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Best zombie extra; doesn't even require make-up.

How am I doing?

actually, quite good. A sense of humour helps a lot with every aspect of life.

JayOwl wrote:

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I did however, tear one apart publicly on facebook a few years back when he commented on one of my posts there and I just snapped. He was pretty damn stupid.

I made the same experience. Some guy and his cronies cyber-bullied me, actually attempting to drive me into suicide. A few years later the leader of the pack had lost his followers and I discovered that he was actually very stupid. He tried again to attack me but in every single post he said something I could twist and turn against him. I pwned him in every single post of a 3 pages thread
After that, he had completely lost face with his last supporters and I've never heard of him again.

It's far easier to do that online, though, because here you have time to think of a strategy and a mean reply. In real life you have no time and must quip something intelligent in an instant. That's much harder since as a general rule one finds the best replies an hour later.

[JayOwl]

^That is true. Mind you, all I needed was about 10-20 seconds whereas in real life I only had 1 or 2. It's not just the thinking them up, it's finding the courage to actually say it too. It's almost cowardly but it gets the job done.

[Gul Re'jal]

Rhubarbodendron wrote:

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actually, quite good. A sense of humour helps a lot with every aspect of life.

That's certainly my attempt of dealing with some nasty things. If you can't fight it, laugh it in the face

It doesn't work for everything, but it kept me sane when it did/does work

[Rhubarbodendron]

Same here. My great-grandmother used to say "there's scarcely a harm without something good" - basically your "every cloud has a silver lining". It's true surprisingly often. When you don't let the problem intimidate you, and keep cool enough to analyze the situation, you will often find an aspect you can take advantage of.
And positive thinking helps at least in preventing ulcers and nervous breakdowns.

[Nerys Ghemor]

MacLeod wrote:

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From a rational/logical point of view yes of course not everyone is like that, but sometimes the heart (emotion) rules and says why bother risk getting hurt yet again, whilst your head is saying you've got to take the risk, this time will be different.

It's the emotional scars of bullying which last, and these can be the hardest to heal.

And sometimes bullying is still perpetrated by adults. It's not a childhood-only phenomenon.

I would also add that studies have shown that when children are subjected to bullying, it actually affects the brain in a somewhat similar way to PTSD. The brain tends to be in fight-or-flight mode. That doesn't mean that with awareness you can't deal with it and try to change some of your responses. But it does underscore the point that the damage is very, very real, NOT a figment of the imagination or of your worth as a person, as some people like to say it is. (It's NOT as simple as what you may remember from Back to the Future!)

[Deranged Nasat]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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And sometimes bullying is still perpetrated by adults. It's not a childhood-only phenomenon.

I would also add that studies have shown that when children are subjected to bullying, it actually affects the brain in a somewhat similar way to PTSD. The brain tends to be in fight-or-flight mode. That doesn't mean that with awareness you can't deal with it and try to change some of your responses. But it does underscore the point that the damage is very, very real, NOT a figment of the imagination or of your worth as a person, as some people like to say it is. (It's NOT as simple as what you may remember from Back to the Future!)

Speaking personally, this is the most terrible thing about long-term bullying. Even when you manage to regain a rational perspective on your own worth you still have to struggle against deeper patterns that have embedded themselves into your brain, into your mind...those are still there, self-perpetuating. The thoughts, the feelings they provoke, even the physiological responses - they don't go away just because you learn to identify and evaluate them. It becomes an ogoing war against yourself, and that can cause further psychological problems, because as awful as being miserable is, being aware of your misery - and concscious of the problems with your thoughts and feelings but unable to stop experiencing them - is even worse.

I think it's tragic, too, that it's sensitive people - particularly sensitive people who are also of high intelligence - who are likely targets for bullying, while they're also the ones who are most vulnerable to these long-term issues. After all, people who are highly intelligent and emotionally sensitive have minds that are very keyed in to their suroundings and environments, they easily find significance in patterns and their minds work so fast and so readily that it's easy to start a thought pattern off self-perpetuating to the degree that making it stop can feel impossible.

[Kestra]

I get what you guys are saying and some of it is more specific to bullying (PTSD). But I'm just saying that a lot of people deal with those sort of irrational thought processes and have to work to overcome them. I'm not saying forget the bullying, but I feel like there's a point in life where you stop focusing so much on what caused the problems and how horrible that was, and look more to how you can repair the damage and change those thought processes for the future.

I dunno, maybe people don't really dwell on it as much as I'm thinking. I just feel like every time these threads come up, people have these stories that are conveyed in ways that imply there are still many things that haven't been dealt with.

[iguana_tonante]

Kestra wrote:

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I get what you guys are saying and some of it is more specific to bullying (PTSD). But I'm just saying that a lot of people deal with those sort of irrational thought processes and have to work to overcome them. I'm not saying forget the bullying, but I feel like there's a point in life where you stop focusing so much on what caused the problems and how horrible that was, and look more to how you can repair the damage and change those thought processes for the future.

I dunno, maybe people don't really dwell on it as much as I'm thinking. I just feel like every time these threads come up, people have these stories that are conveyed in ways that imply there are still many things that haven't been dealt with.

Also, and I know I'm the guy who says the unpleasant things that nobody wants to say but have to be said anyway, there is a tendency to use previous instances of bullying as excuses for a person's issues. "I'm shy and nervous and I have no self-esteem, but it's just because I was bullied in middle school. So I'm not going to work on improving myself when I can just sit on my hands and commiserate myself." Of course, that's not always the case, every experience is different, people react in very different ways, and no one wants to trivialize people's traumas. But no one should emphasize them either, to the point they become integral to one's identity, and the lens through which they see their whole life.

[Deranged Nasat]

iguana_tonante wrote:

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Also, and I know I'm the guy who says the unpleasant things that nobody wants to say but have to be said anyway, there is a tendency to use previous instances of bullying as excuses for a person's issues. "I'm shy and nervous and I have no self-esteem, but it's just because I was bullied in middle school. So I'm not going to work on improving myself when I can just sit on my hands and commiserate myself." Of course, that's not always the case, every experience is different, people react in very different ways, and no one wants to trivialize people's traumas. But no one should emphasize them either, to the point they become integral to one's identity, and the lens through which they see their whole life.

That's a very good point, Iguana, and a problem I've had first-hand experience with. It's a sobering truth, but I agree it's one we definitely have to keep in mind. The tendency to latch onto maladaptive thoughts can pull one over on us in more ways than one - not only leading to damage in the first place but blocking our will to truly deal with that damage or move past it. You can become so used to turning your traumas over in your mind that, as you say, they become integral to your identity. And the wounds that have been inflicted on you won't be allowed to heal, because you come to need them, and jealously guard and defend them as something sacred, something precious. Holding onto the pain feels comforting - it's familiar, and more than that you feel it's something you have a right to, that in letting it go you're betraying yourself or excusing what was done to you. You invest it with a moral righteousness that can be quite addictive. It's a difficult trap indeed.

[Kestra]

iguana_tonante wrote:

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Also, and I know I'm the guy who says the unpleasant things that nobody wants to say but have to be said anyway, there is a tendency to use previous instances of bullying as excuses for a person's issues. "I'm shy and nervous and I have no self-esteem, but it's just because I was bullied in middle school. So I'm not going to work on improving myself when I can just sit on my hands and commiserate myself." Of course, that's not always the case, every experience is different, people react in very different ways, and no one wants to trivialize people's traumas. But no one should emphasize them either, to the point they become integral to one's identity, and the lens through which they see their whole life.

You articulated it better than me with the lens thing. I think viewing all interactions through that lens is what I am trying to discourage. That doesn't take away from what happened, but everything doesn't need to be viewed through that lens either.

[RJDiogenes]

Gul Re'jal wrote:

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Let's try....

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Best zombie extra; doesn't even require make-up.



How am I doing?

Awesome.

I definitely agree that a sense of humor is the best medicine.

teacake wrote:

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I want to be Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen.

Leeches!

[teacake]

I don't see how people are "dwelling" any more than any other topic on this board. I've certainly never posted about being bullied before so I'm not going to own any dwelling having posted a couple times in this thread

Stuff is posted, people respond. I think it's been a helpful and interesting conversation. I think people minimize the effect bullying has and if this was a conversation about dealing with being cheated on, or sexually harassed or any number of things it would be more acceptable.

The last bullying conversation I remember was when that kid in Queensland picked up his tormentor and trashed him and that was many months ago, if not a year.