How to Deal with a Bully — Dr. Gail Beck

This is a great bullying story by Dr. Gail Beck. It’s about how she stood up to her bully and made a friend of him. Thank you, Dr. Beck for posting!

I had my first experience with bullying when I was 5 years old. Struggling with my high energy and tendency to experiment with dangerous household items, my mother was able to convince the school principal to let me start Grade 1 early. I was noticeably shorter than all the other kids around me and by […]

via How to Deal with a Bully — Dr. Gail Beck

My Bullies And Me: A Love Story — My World, My View

This is a story from the perspective of a survivor of bullying and is very sad. My heart goes out to this guy!

Another piece of article that follows a long line after ’13 Reasons Why’ released on Netflix. This article details my experience with bullying, and how I coped up with it, or rather didn’t. I hope you relate and realize, that even if no one else, you have one person who is willing to listen to […]

via My Bullies And Me: A Love Story — My World, My View

Only for Purposes of Self-Preservation

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“I could never be that desperate and you could never be that lucky.”

That was my comeback to a group of male bullies after one called out to me as I walked past them, “Hey! My buddy says he’s madly in love with you!” Being in the seventh grade and the smartass that I was, I made sure not to miss a chance to deliver a snappy and scathing one liner to someone acting like a total arse.

I knew that this was his cowardly way of instigating a conflict between me and his buddy, then standing back, at a safe distance to watch. It was also his way of baiting his buddy into insulting me in front of everyone and getting his kicks from my humiliation. Only it backfired in his face.

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Those that heard it either shouted, “BURN!” and laughed at the boys, or scowled at me and reminded me of how I’d “stooped just as low as them”, by countering with such a scathing return-fire.

Why am I telling you this story, you may wonder? It’s to make a point.

And my point is that sometimes, you have to go just as low as the bullies- you must not be afraid to get down and dirty and you mustn’t care what anyone else thinks about it.

Understand that with bullies, sometimes there’s no being polite and no being the bigger person. There’s no such thing as “playing fair” nor being nice about it.

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Bullies don’t comprehend the meaning of class or couth. They don’t understand morals and scruples. They have no concept of decency and respectability. The only language bullies understand is language that is cheap, tacky and unsavory.

Bullies (and anyone who is even remotely impressed by them) are a dime a dozen. They really are. And sometimes you must speak in the only language they understand before they’ll get the message and back the hell off!

I understand your discomfort in this. It sucks when you must get down and wallow in the bullies’ foulness and filth with them. But for purposes of self-preservation, sometimes there’s no other choice but to lower your own moral standards.

The good news is that you don’t have to stay in the mud but only reserve the nastiness for emergencies like the one in the above story.

Bullying Is A Form of Theft. But You Can Always Get It All Back!

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By nature, children are happy and carefree. Their only responsibilities are to obey their parents and guardians, and to complete homework and a few chores. Outside of those responsibilities, they engage in play and pretend, or they’re supposed to.
Bullying has a way of stealing everything that matters from you.

Bullying steals your happiness and takes the joy out of life.

It strips you of your confidence, and self-esteem, and with them your sense of safety, security and peace of mind.

Bullying takes away your dignity and respect, and with it your pride.

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Bullying gags you, silencing your voice and overall ability to communicate.
It robs you of self-expression.

Bullying snatches away love and belongingness.

It steals your ability to think for yourself and forge your own path in society.

After a while, it tires you out- wears you down and zaps you of energy.

Bullying steals your childhood and causes you to grow up way to fast. It takes away your innocence and faith in humanity.

In a nutshell, it robs you of power, of autonomy, and of freedom!

But!

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As with anything that is stolen, you can always get it back! And how you get it all back is by keeping company with those who love and uplift you, indulging in your hobbies, displaying your talents, focusing on your goals and dreams, and reciting affirmations every day! You also get it back by working on yourself. You do it by changing your thinking!

Here’s a quick note: I’ve found that when I focus on my goals and where I want to go in life, I don’t have time to focus on any bullying or negativity! Try it! You’ll love it!

I won’t lie to you. It will be tough, and it will take a while. But nothing worth anything is easy nor quick. Right?

I promise you! It’s worth it in the end and you’ll be so glad you were patient and put in the work!

How it Feels to Be Bullied and Gaslighted

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It’s not easy for people to distinguish between the real bully and the victim. Bullies are good at making victims look guilty, showing only the victim the worst, most brutal, and evil sides of themselves while showing everyone else their best, sweetest, and most loving halves of their personalities.

The bully may feign sympathy and compassion for her victim by making statements such as,
“I feel so terrible for (victim’s name). I sincerely hope she gets the help she needs before it’s too late.”

Bullies accuse their victims of attacking them when it’s the over way around, and people can quickly either get confused and not know who did what to who or blame the wrong person altogether.

Many times, if you’re a target of such torment, whether people believe you or not depends on their relationship with ou and with the bully. If the bully is someone they either like or love, they will, out of loyalty, take the bully’s word over yours. It won’t matter that the bully is in the wrong.

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People tend to believe those they care about and disbelieve those they don’t care about or don’t know. Even worse, they may know that the person is, in fact, an abuser but still side with them against you if they like them even a little more than they do you.

Bullies aren’t stupid. They know what they’re doing. Often, they will act as a great person around everyone else. In public, they present as fine, exemplary, upstanding, and respectable human beings. But only the poor, demonized victim knows the truth.

Victims are usually stressed and worn down. If the bully has gaslighted them for long enough, he has persuaded they victim himself that it’s all his fault. Many targets of bullying have had their realities distorted over time, and it’s the worst thing to happen to them.

Many victims believe themselves to be horrible people and deserving of the torture inflicted upon them because many times, they’re blamed and made responsible for their suffering. That’s what bullying and gaslighting do after so long. They brainwash you!

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That’s why Bullying and Gaslighting are such a deadly combination. Bullies and their allies force victims to believe that they’re so inherently evil that the only thing they can do is cause anger, hurt, and hatred.

Here’s what life is like for a target of such attrociousness:

You try. You try so hard to be the best person you can be. Yet you’re tortured and tormented by bullies every day. Deep inside, you know you’re a great person, but no one else can see inside you to make that determination.

Because your reputation is in the toilet, others consistently attack you because bullies have defamed you for so long that everyone believes the lies. And no one will tell you what you did wrong, nor will they tell you how to fix it.

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And because of the constant attacks, you live in continuous fight-or-flight mode. You can’t help but stay on the defense, and you’re a mess of emotions.

Because bullying leaves you so emotional, you cry, even sob- sometimes uncontrollably! You lash out at the bullies who attack you and at the bystanders who join them after they’ve all pushed you so far.

Although your emotional reaction is entirely normal and natural under the circumstances, they all have the nerve, the audacity, the chutzpah- to get angry at you! That’s right! They get pissed at you for the emotional outburst and use it against you.

Even worse, they use any signs of self-defense against you. And they use it as their confirmations that you’re the bad guy, you’re too sensitive, too emotional, or that you’re crazy.

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So, they punish you by escalating the bullying. How can a target- one who’s bullied to pieces and to the point of exhaustion- possibly defend himself against such forces if they don’t have any knowledge about how bullies operate and what they can do to counter them?

Understand that this is the plight of the target.

In bully-speak, targets are not allowed to be themselves. They’re not allowed to stand up for themselves nor speak out against the abuse. In the minds of bullies and bystanders, targets should take it, because they’re beneath everyone else and they deserve it. Bullies expect them to eat crap and enjoy it- just take it with a smile and a yes sir/ma’am, then ask for seconds.

Here’s another scenario to be aware of:

In some cases, you’re so marginalized and have so many people after you that when you’re in a crowded hallway and someone sneaks up behind you and wallops you between the shoulder blades hard enough to knock the wind out of you, and you look behind you to see who it was that hit you, no one points them out. The person who hit you only cowardly fades in the sea of people.

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As you look around for your attacker, everyone in the crowd is eyeing you with a mixture of hostility, hilarity, and contempt. And you know what they’re thinking just by the way their eyes seem to shoot firey bullets at you.

They all look at you as if to say,
“Ha! Yeah! We know who hit you! Like we’ll ever tell you!” or
“So? Whadaya gonna do? Accuse all of us? Right! Like you’d have even a chance of making it home in one piece if you did!”

Maybe someone steals from you or keys your car. Again, you don’t know who to suspect because there are so many people out to hurt you. There’s no way you can pinpoint a specific person.

Understand that this is what it’s like once the bullying reaches a certain point. It’s as if the bullying has now taken on a life of its own. Because the idea of tormenting you seems to be so ingrained in everyone around you- bullies, bystanders, even authority figures- that they can no longer help themselves.

Anytime things have reached such a fever pitch, they’re signs that you’re in grave danger! In a situation like this, the bullying has escalated to a hazardous level, and it likely won’t get better but only worse. Your only recourse is to leave the environment and make a new start somewhere else.

Leave now while you still have your health- and maybe your life! Because if one of the bullies or their minions don’t kill you first, the stress of it will!

Rock Bottom

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There’s nowhere to go but up
You can’t go any lower
So what do you have to lose
Start over
It’s what you must choose
Make a new plan
You get to rise again.

Daily outburts.. — We Roar For KennyBug!

This is a heartwrenching post written straight from the broken heart of a grieving mother of a precious son who passed away from bullycide. By Angela at “KennyStrong”

Any given day, you could see me break down, bawl, get angry and hear my pleas with God.. atleast once, but noone sees. I hide my tears, fears that the days ahead seem to hard to face, and contempt with the fact that my son is gone. I hide it all. Why? No one seems […]

via Daily outburts.. — We Roar For KennyBug!

Your Worth 💙 — 🐠Lighthouse Survivors 🐠

A beautiful poem about self-worth from the “Lighthouse Survivors” blog.

Most people believe their self worth is measured with materialistic items, the amount of friends you have or by the money in their bank account. When in reality it comes from your soul and your heart. You are more than just the followers you have. You have a soul. You carry light. You are every […]

via Your Worth 💙 — 🐠Lighthouse Survivors 🐠

4 Changes That Bullying Causes in Targets – Beware!

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Once a person suffers bullying for so long, changes in the brain occur- changes that aren’t good. Here are these changes:

1. The target becomes exhausted and loses the will to fight back. Being bullied is extremely tiring. Bullies know this and deliberately wear their victims down to take the fight out of them and wrest control over their lives.

Although at first, the target may defend themselves and fiercely assert their rights to human dignity and respect, most bullies don’t recognize any human rights but only see self-defense and protection as an affront to their power. They then only double down- intensify the hatred until they mentally and physically exhaust their target.

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The target finally loses their will to fight back and acquiesces because he’s just worn slap out and no longer has the strength to fight anymore.

2. He loses the ability to recognize mistreatment. When we’re used to being treated well, we can more clearly see poor treatment and know the difference when it happens. But after so long of enduring bullying, the lines get blurred, and our eyes lose the ability to see aggression so clearly- especially if the hostility we face is subtle. We finally reach a point where we don’t recognize the bullying at all!

3. The target becomes conditioned to accept bad behavior from others. After so long, you come to believe what bullies tell you- that you’re a terrible person and that you somehow deserve to be treated shabbily.

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These damaging self-beliefs happen after the bullies, their followers, and bystanders have repeatedly prevented you from defending and taking care of yourself. They have, for so long, drummed into your head that you are worthless, useless, evil, mentally unstable- take your pick. They repeat the same lies over and over until they force you to believe it too.

4. The target begins to punish himself subconsciously. The victim does this by engaging in risky or self-destructive behaviors. He may hang with the wrong people and befriend those who only tolerate them. Targeted girls may participate in risky sexual behavior or having relationships with abusive partners.

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Understand that we must be vigilant to take care of our mental health and self-esteem if we want to avoid these results in the future. Make sure you have a friend outside of the bullying environment that you can talk to and that your family is supportive. Do things you enjoy and keep company with positive and uplifting people any time you’re away from the bullies.

Your goal is to balance the bullying you suffer by adding healthy and positive relationships and experiences outside the bullying environment. This balance will soften the blows to your self-esteem and provide a buffer to your bullies’ attacks.