Never Ever Be Put in a Position Where You Need Someone Else More Than They Need You

 

Ever! Why? Because it’s a trap and you set yourself up to be that person’s prisoner and to be discarded once you’ve served your purpose to them. You will put yourself at the other’s mercy. Anytime you allow your world to revolve around someone because you’re afraid that you won’t find another partner, you’re afraid that you won’t find other friends, or you seek attention because you feel deprived of it, you make yourself a slave to others. As a result, you lose your value in the eyes of others. In short, you make yourself expendable and replaceable.

Understand that people have a tendency not to place much value, if any at all, on someone who’s always readily available, who’s always around, and (gasp!) who’s always chasing after approval and human connection. On the other hand, a person who’s rare, scarce, mysterious, and allusive is usually the one who’s sought after.

Hey! I get it, I understand the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and despair when you’re being bullied and being thrown under the bus by others who’ve turned on you. And my heart goes out to you. However, the last thing you want is to give away what dignity you have left and to give these people the satisfaction of seeing your desperation. They may disparage you; they may judge you, they may gossip about you, but let them misunderstand you and let them look down their nose at you. Just don’t let them know that their bullying is ruining your life.

Nine time out of ten, the people who do these things to you want to know how it hurts you. They want to see your wounds. They want to see you beg and plead. They want to see you hurt- and hurt badly, because people who want to hurt you want confirmation that their abuse is working and that they have power over you. They want proof that they can determine how you feel about yourself. Most of all, they want you dependent on their say so.

Don’t give them the satisfaction!

I’ve known women with abusive husbands, who let their abusers talk them into quitting their jobs or dropping out of college. And, in doing that, she gave up her independence and became totally dependent on him. After that, he had free reign to do with her whatever he wanted.

My very narcissistic grandfather did the same to my grandmother when she worked for a T.V. manufacturing plant during the mid-sixties. She allowed him to sweet talk her into quitting her job, promising her that he would provide for all her needs and that he’d be a good husband to her if she’d only quit her job. And less than a month after she quit, he sold her candy apple red, ’66 Ford Mustang she had just paid off- behind her back! Right out from under her!

Young brunette woman wearing white sweater gagged and tied with duct tape around wrists, facing camera, hostage concept.

He wanted her to need him more than he needed her. Thankfully, my grandmother eventually ended the marriage.

My grandfather was the same to his oldest daughter, my aunt. He tried to keep her from marrying the love of her life when she was eighteen years old because he wanted to keep her under his roof and therefore, under his thumb. And when she married him, with my grandmother’s permission, but behind my grandfather’s back, he showed up at her new house and physically attacked her.

Why am I telling you this story? Because there’s a point to it and the point is that bullies, whether at home, in the workplace, in any form of government, or at school, want the same thing- they want their targets to need them more than the bullies need their targets.

Bullies in the home want their targets totally dependent on their approval to live in peace.

Bullies in the workplace want their targets to need their approval to keep and enjoy their jobs and to provide for themselves and their families.

Bullies in government, better known as tyrants, want their constituents to think they need permission from them for freedom and to enjoy human rights.

Bullies at school want their targets to depend on their say so not only to enjoy having friends and a good social life, but also for psychological and physical safety.

So, how do we ensure that we never become dependent on another person?

1. If you’re an abused wife, you keep your job, no matter how he may sweet talk you into quitting, no matter how he promises you that he’ll fulfill all your financial needs, and no matter how tough he makes life for you at home, or, if he wants you to drop out of college, don’t.

2. You quietly keep a private stash of money hidden away and keep saving until you can afford to bail out of the abusive marriage.

3. If you’re under the rule of a bully official, realize that the people outnumber this tyrant by the thousands and there is strength in numbers. Find a way to use that against them.

4. If you’re a target of bullying in the workplace, quietly update your resume and begin looking for another job. And whatever you do, find a way not to put the bully down as a reference. And when you find another job, quit!

5. You make friends outside the bullying workplace or school. Just because your bullies and others at work don’t value you doesn’t mean that people outside of the toxic workplace won’t.

6. You may want to take a self-defense class to keep physically violent bullies at bay.

7. You keep your sense of self- continue to value and love yourself no matter how your bullies may mistreat you and degrade you.

Although you can never control how others see you or how they behave toward you, you can control how you see and treat yourself and you do have a choice of whether to keep them in your life or kick them out of it. Remember that your thoughts are free, and you choose the way you think of yourself. You control how you see yourself.

No one deserves to live, work, or learn in an unsafe environment. You’re well within your rights to walk away and never look back, or to at least, make changes that benefit you until you can walk away.

School Mobbing

The more I learn about bullying and mobbing, the more I realize that what I endured in Oakley schools went way beyond bullying. In other words, I wasn’t only bullied. I was mobbed.

Most people associate mobbing with the workplace and yes, mobbing does occur at work. However, it also occurs in schools. And a child or teen can be mobbed so intensely that his/her entire class and other classes above and below them will be out to severely hurt that child. I know this from firsthand experience.

When you’re mobbed at school or anywhere, it’s the feeling of being held hostage. You live in constant terror and there are days when you wonder if you’ll make it back home at the end of the school day because the death threats are real. Adults would fear for their lives if they were getting constant threats of being killed, that’s a given. But imagine what it does to a teenager who is still a child by all accounts.

Imagine what it does to a young person whose mind is still developing- a teenager who doesn’t quite have the concrete thinking skills nor the processing abilities to better deal with the situation. It’s hard enough for an adult to deal with being mobbed and many adults don’t know how to cope with it, so, how can we expect a kid to be able to withstand that kind of pressure? Can you imagine how tough it is for a child?

Imagine the sheer terror, the shame, the hopelessness, and the helplessness that poor boy or girl feels. Imagine how alone in the fight they feel when the adults, who are supposed to be there to protect them, turn their backs on that child and refuse to help, support, or even listen to them.

Imagine the gut-level humiliation and hurt a teenager feels when even a few of their teachers, who are supposed to be the adults, join their classmates in bullying and mobbing them. I had a small handful of teachers who did the same to me- one during the seventh, one during the eighth, and one during the eleventh grade. And let me tell you, it got so bad that I was almost driven to drop out of school and to suicide!

Back then, there wasn’t a name for this type of horrific bullying, so, they didn’t call it mobbing. This made it much more difficult to describe and explain what was happening. Without a name, the experience can be felt but never articulated because people don’t know how to describe it.

Once you can put a name to a situation that’s so difficult to experience and even harder to explain, it makes it so much easier to call out and talk about because it gives you a label to arrange your experiences around. With a name, the memories can take shape and come together. Then, your story can unfurl because you now have a foundation from which it can build.

With an experience as complex as getting mobbed, giving it a name is crucial.

For twenty-six years, I have researched bullying front, backwards and sideways- I have read countless books, articles, and victim testimonies. During the mid ‘90s, I came across a magazine article about a boy who was relentlessly bullied at his school. From this article, I finally got the answers to so many questions that had, for several years, gone unanswered and burned inside me.

The article also was my assurance that none of the bullying I’d suffered in school just a decade earlier was my fault, nor was there ever anything wrong with me. This was like a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders.

As a result, my interest in the phenomenon of bullying and social hierarchies took off from there, and I began reading every book and every magazine article I could get my hands on and every online article I came across about bullying. I was hungry and developed an insatiable appetite for the knowledge of it.

In my bullying research, I’ve discovered the term “mobbing” and researched that as well. I’ve found that mobbing is bullying- but it’s bullying to the highest extreme. A more popular definition of mobbing is “bullying on steroids.”

If there was a scale from 1 to 10 measuring the intensity, frequency, and severity; moderate bullying would be at levels 1-4, severe bullying would be at levels 5-8, and mobbing would be at levels 9-10.

So, what is mobbing exactly?

Mobbing is group violence. The entire school or workplace gangs up on a target by more than just physical violence- more by use of vicious rumors, gaslighting, and smear campaigns. Anytime a target is mobbed, they’re discredited, humiliated, isolated, and intimidated. Mobbing is designed to instill terror in the target.

It is also designed to make the target look like the guilty party- to make it look as if the target instigated the bullying or brought the bullying on him/herself. And the perpetrators or, more appropriately, “the mob” will vehemently claim that the target “deserved it.”

I’m thankful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He carried me through what were the worst years of my life, and I didn’t just survive, I overcame. I believe He allowed me to endure the gut-wrenching terrors of school mobbing because He knew that later, I would develop a thirst for knowledge of it and use what I endured to help those who would endure, in the future, what I was enduring and reclaim their personal power and very lives.

I now realize that in allowing me to suffer at the brutal hands of my schoolmates, The Lord was preparing me for my calling, passion, purpose, and life’s work!

Therefore, if you’re currently being mobbed at school, I have a message for you:

Know that you are worth fighting for and you are worth living for. Know that you have value even if others can’t see it. In spite of what your bullies and mobbers tell you, you are just as worthy of love, respect, dignity, and friendship as the next person. You are enough and you matter.

Your peers may not appreciate you now, but I promise you that if you hold on, there will come a day when things are going to change for the better. You will see the sun again. You will find your tribe and you will have friends who love you for you and see the good you bring to this world.

How do I know? Because I’m living proof!

What Life Is Like When You’re Bullied and Gaslighted

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 other 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 you 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.

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 the target himself that it’s all his fault. Many targets of bullying have had their realities distorted over time, and it’s the worst thing that can 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!

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 atrociousness:

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.

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.

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.

bullied victim crying tears

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 fiery 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 the bullies or their minions don’t kill you first, the stress of the torment will!

Why It’s So Important for Targets to Meet New People Outside the Bullying Environment

If you’ve ever been a target of relentless and excessive bullying, meeting people, especially new ones, can be paralyzing. I can relate because I’ve been there. It’s easy to withdraw from social situations because you’re afraid the new person you meet will reject you. After all, it seems that everyone else you know already has, and you just can’t take another chance of it happening again.

But never be afraid to meet new people because they are opportunities for you to make friends and allies. Total strangers are the best people to meet and establish connections with. They make the best potentials because you have no history with them. They don’t know you from the bullying environment, so, you aren’t a target to them and likely will never be one.

With total strangers, you can begin with a clean slate and have opportunities to put your best foot forward and get a fresh start.

Therefore, when you meet someone new, don’t be shy or nervous. Find out what you have in common with the person to establish common ground. Be genuinely interested in the person because people love the one who’s interested in them and their lives. Make small talk and show them the awesome, one in a million you.

I promise you that you’ll be glad you did, and your confidence and self-esteem will shoot up tenfold!

With knowledge comes empowerment.

Bullying and Collective Guilt Fallacy

 

Man scolding himself in a mirror, his reflection feeling guilty

Today, more than ever, we are seeing the age-old bullying tactic, called the Collective Guilt Fallacy, being played out all over the world. The global powers that be are targeting certain groups of people and trying their darnedest to make them believe that they should feel guilty for things that they had nothing to do with- that they should somehow take responsibility and atone for evils that were committed before they were even born. Also, these people demand that the entire group be punished for the sins of a few bad apples who so happen to share the same skin color.

This is wrong, and, at the same time, it’s racism, no matter how you slice it. It is also bullying and promotes such of innocent people who may share the same physical characteristic.

I want you to realize that if you share any physical characteristic as a few monsters who commit evil acts against innocent people. It does not mean that you are responsible for their atrocious behavior. Understand that it’s the individual who is responsible for their sins, not the entire group.

Here’s why:

1.You, as an individual and separate person, have no control over the behavior of another individual person. The only person you have, have ever had, and will ever have control over is yourself and your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Each individual human being on Earth (past, present, and future) has their own mind and their own choices to make. You can never choose for them. Therefore, trying to control another person is like trying to control the weather- telling another person not to commit a horrific act is like telling the sun not to rise- it’s impossible!

 Therefore, it is a complete waste of your time to feel guilty over things you have absolutely no control over and the people who tell you that you should feel guilty obviously have no clue about humanness.

Here are a few other reasons why you shouldn’t feel guilty for the sins of others with whom, you may or may not share some sort of physical characteristic:

2. You only cause yourself unnecessary pain. Life already has enough pain in it and you’re not immune to that, so why compound it? You only hold yourself back.

3. Again, you take blame for things that are completely out of your hands. And, trust me, it’s a heavy load and not your burden to carry. The only person responsible for the sins of yesterday and today are the terrible and evil individuals who commit them. If you’ve done nothing wrong, haven’t harmed anyone, and you have the courage to speak out against evil, you’re not accountable for what a few pieces of human filth do. It doesn’t matter which ones, nor how many physical characteristics you may share with them.

4. You allow others to trick you into becoming a victim when you allow them to fool you into thinking you should make up for the sins of a few ignoramuses in your group: And this is utter lunacy. It’s also a sign of self-loathing and toxic shame.

5. In your willingness to pander and virtue signal, you become a scapegoat, a stooge, a pansy! In short, you give away your power. By kneeling and bowing down to people who claim to be “oppressed,” you put yourself in the position of being ridiculed and shamed, for doing just that- bowing down and becoming someone’s scapegoat. Know that you’re better than that!

6. You only show that you just might be trying to hide the same sins of your own: Anyone who feels they must virtue signal is only doing it to either get attention and fame, or they do it because they’re guilty of the same sins they’re being accused of. Ouch! Yes! I said that!

I want you to know that if you know who you are and you know deep in your heart that you aren’t the oppressor or evil person certain activist groups and individuals say you are, you won’t feel any need to prove it. You won’t feel like you must pander or virtue signal. Instead, you’ll refuse to do so because you know without a shadow of a doubt that what they label you isn’t who you are at all.

You will be confident in that. You will feel no guilt because you’ll never define yourself by the labels thrust on your group. And you will be comfortable with yourself and with the decisions you’ve made. Even better, you will be happy and you will let those insidious and false labels bounce off you and walk away.

You will also never let any SJW define you. Because believe it or not, no SJW can ever know your inner reality. And anytime they claim to know it and wrongful judge you, they only play God because they claim to know the unknowable.

Also understand that throwing off false guilt and labels starts at the individual level. Only you, the individual can determine your reality. And only you can choose whether to believe the false labels they thrust on you, or to reject them.

Take comfort is this. Be not afraid. Because in their labeling, they only confess their own bullying, their own bitterness, their own rage, and their own hate.

Bullying Is All About the Bully, Never the Target

Any form of bullying is always about the Bully, it’s never about the target. So, if you’re a target of bullying, it’s about your bullies, not you.

Let’s  break it down:

It’s about THEIR mental health issues.

Its about THEIR feelings of inferiority.

It’s about THEIR insecurities.

It’s about THEIR incompetence.

It’s about THEIR ignorance.

It’s about THEIR lack of intelligence.

It’s about THEIR cowardice.

It’s about THEIR jealousy.

Its about THEIR feelings of self-loathing.

Its about THEIR self-doubts.

It’s about THEIR false bravado.

Its about THEIR over-inflated but fragile egos.

It’s about THEIR overall pathetic-ness.

Remember that your bullies see you as a threat.

They’re afraid you’ll expose THEIR weaknesses and shortcomings.

They’re afraid your talents and gifts will outshine THEIRS.

In their efforts to make you feel inferior, they only make themselves more inferior.

Always remember that.