substitute
New member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,601
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
I'm pretty sure that everyone experiences instances of bullying at some point in their lives. Some deal with it better than others; some head it off at the pass and it becomes just a series of isolated and rare events, whilst others don't manage to neutralize it early enough or at all, and end up being ground down by it for years.
I suffered from ruthless bullying all the way through school and it cut my self-esteem into ribbons and contributed to my spending the first 20 years of my life pretty downtrodden and very isolated.
I've learned that the choice of who gets bullied can be pretty arbitrary and is mainly nothing to do with the actual qualities or characteristics of the victim themselves. But if there is any deciding factor it's this: bullies only pick on people who they believe will not fight back. But the crucial factor in 'successful' bullying is that the victim must not glimpse this thruth: the victim must absolutely believe that they really ARE ugly, dumb, that nobody likes them, that they're not worthy of being treated as a human being. Because if they begin to realize the BS level of what the bullies tell them then they just might start fighting back.
But I've learned that simply losing my temper and yelling doesn't help - it didn't work at school either. If I did that, the bullies would just laugh at me and then I'd feel ten times worse. So the only way to check-mate it is to unleash my inner sadist and throw some barb that makes them feel ten times shittier than they wanted to make me feel. But not everyone has it in them to do this.
Is that it then? It's rather sad if that's it; if the choice is to either bully or be bullied. There must be another way.
I'd like if people here could talk about their experiences of bullying, and if anyone's found a way to deal with it, what is it?
Parents - how do you deal with it when your children get bullied?
I'm interested in comments from people who might be or have been bullies themselves. I want to explore the mindset of both bully and victim, in the hope that I'll be inspired with *something* to tell my 11 year old daughter when she comes home crying again tomorrow
I suffered from ruthless bullying all the way through school and it cut my self-esteem into ribbons and contributed to my spending the first 20 years of my life pretty downtrodden and very isolated.
I've learned that the choice of who gets bullied can be pretty arbitrary and is mainly nothing to do with the actual qualities or characteristics of the victim themselves. But if there is any deciding factor it's this: bullies only pick on people who they believe will not fight back. But the crucial factor in 'successful' bullying is that the victim must not glimpse this thruth: the victim must absolutely believe that they really ARE ugly, dumb, that nobody likes them, that they're not worthy of being treated as a human being. Because if they begin to realize the BS level of what the bullies tell them then they just might start fighting back.
But I've learned that simply losing my temper and yelling doesn't help - it didn't work at school either. If I did that, the bullies would just laugh at me and then I'd feel ten times worse. So the only way to check-mate it is to unleash my inner sadist and throw some barb that makes them feel ten times shittier than they wanted to make me feel. But not everyone has it in them to do this.
Is that it then? It's rather sad if that's it; if the choice is to either bully or be bullied. There must be another way.
I'd like if people here could talk about their experiences of bullying, and if anyone's found a way to deal with it, what is it?
Parents - how do you deal with it when your children get bullied?
I'm interested in comments from people who might be or have been bullies themselves. I want to explore the mindset of both bully and victim, in the hope that I'll be inspired with *something* to tell my 11 year old daughter when she comes home crying again tomorrow