Smear Campaigns In-Depth

November 18, 2021Leave a comment

It always starts subtly. Bullies start rumors by dropping a suggestion. And all it takes is one little rumor- just one! Because people will want to believe it.

If enough people do, it will become the truth even if it is a bald-faced lie. And there’s no getting away from public opinion no matter how false or unjustified it is.

Bullies ruin targets by making things up, leaking info they hear, or spreading ideas. Next, the bullies will fade into the background because they know that with everything put together, the rumor or whatever lie they spread will stick. They’ve done their part, and now they can sit back and let the rumor mill do the work for them. It’s that easy!

Let’s break it down.

The bullies start by suggesting that the target would be better off if he/she got professional help, moved, etc . They will say that it’s for his (the target’s) own good.

They may then drop an offhand comment here and another there.

In the beginning, the target may have friends and be very well-liked. And these friends may try to support the victim and speak on his behalf, but that’s when the bullies will tell them, “Oh, no. There’s more to it than what he told you.” Or, the bullies may lie to the friends by telling them that sometime in the past, the target criticized them (the friends) or stabbed them in the back.

Now it’s time for the bullies to stand back and let the old rumor mill do its handiwork. And, sure enough, the lies become the truth. People begin reporting things to the bullies and higher-ups in the social hierarchy- even things that never happened.

And as the rumors and lies spread from person to person, the bigger they get until they sound so bizarre and outlandish they’d be fit for a horror movie.

The target might say, “Aw, but they’re my friends. They’d never do that to me. They know I’m a good person, and I have a clean reputation. All I have to do is tell them my side of things, and this stuff will go away.”

Wrong!

Once the rumors get around, the target’s friends will no longer believe him to be right. They’ll only think the victim is a thorn in the side with a big mouth. By the time bullying is underway, your reputation is no longer clean.

Now, everyone thinks the target never deserved any respect or friendship. The people around him also feel that the reason he was so well-liked is that he conned his way into their hearts.

They’ll say that the target put on a front, and he only weaseled his way into everyone’s good graces. The bullies and their followers may even accuse the victim of being a kiss-arse.

The target’s past wins, accomplishments, successes, or accolades will be made irrelevant. And every mistake and failure will be maximized, along with many more he didn’t make. At the same time, they’ll rewrite the victim’s history.

When you’re a target, even if others see with their own eyes evidence of your successes, friendships- anything positive, they’ll only react by claiming that you’re only a smooth-talker who’s darn good at using fake charm to manipulate others.

And the friends that your bullies turn against you? Your former friends will claim that they never liked you from the start and that they were only kind to you because they were afraid of you, felt sorry for you, or because you smooth-talked and conned them.

Your so-called friends will tell others, “who you really are.” They’ll claim that the bullies you bitched about were only reacting to your sneaky provocations, and if they ever agreed with you about your bullies, they only did so because you fooled them into it.

And telling your side of things will do no good because they’ll never believe it anyway. Your embittered friends “may have fallen for it at first,” but now they claim to “know better.”

I want you to understand that their minds are already made up and there’s no changing it.

In cases like these, it’s best just to find a way to get out of the environment altogether and never look back, and to never have anything to do with any of these people again. You owe it to yourself to kick them all to the curb.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

A Detailed, Step-by-Step Description of Mobbing in Progress

November 15, 2021Leave a comment

Mobbing is THE severest form of bullying. Once the bullying reaches the stage of mobbing, this is when the bullying becomes life-threatening! And if you’ve ever been a target of it, you know firsthand how destructive it is.

The reason that mobbing is so hard to remedy is that not only has it already rendered us so distraught that we’re unable to think clearly, but we aren’t able to name, describe, nor communicate the steps bullies take to destroy us.

A successful smear campaign is started by a bully or bullies who are well-practiced in the arts of persuasion and influence and can last for years.

Here’s something I want you to realize. A smear campaign is nowhere near as tricky as it looks. You’d be amazed at just how simple it is to smear someone. It’s so easy that it shouldn’t be so effective, but it is!

To quote the old Geico commercial, it’s “so easy; a caveman can do it.”

Here’s a chronological, step-by-step recap of how bullies do it and succeed at it:

1. The bullies have a dislike for a specific individual who refuses to conform to their standard of who she should be.

Now all this time, the bullies have been able to influence everyone else and get them to submit to their will and every whim. Then, low and behold, along comes the target (we’ll call her “Cindy”) who’s stubborn and either unable to or won’t submit to the bullies’ control and allow them to change her personality into what they think it should be.

And Cindy may not realize the bullies’ motives and that just by doing her thing, she’s enraging the bullies. So, she goes on about her business, makes plans for her future, makes achievement after achievement, and maybe she gets loads of positive attention and praise from others because she’s so successful and well-liked.

2. Next, the bullies begin to smear Cindy. To implement their smear campaign, they watch Cindy, studying her behavior carefully until they’re able to anticipate her reactions.

3. The bullies then train their audience (i.e., the other classmates or coworkers to expect a specific type of behavior out of Cindy. They point out these behaviors when they occur. The bullies then associate Cindy’s completely innocent behavior with something bad or evil.

For example, let’s say that Cindy is sweet, playful, and likes to engage in a little banter. The bullies watch as Cindy banters with people in the school or workplace. She playfully calls someone a “dummy” or a “goofball,” but others know that it’s all for harmless jokes and think it’s funny because Cindy is a genuinely kind person.

4. So, the bullies begin making offhand comments. They remark that Cindy’s kindness is only an attempt to kiss ass because she wants something from people and that she thinks the people around her really are dummies, but only disguises it under a veil of fun jokes and playfulness.

The bullies also make statements that Cindy thinks she’s cute and that Cindy thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. Then repeat, repeat, repeat!

To quote a propaganda minister to a well-known dictator in history, “Tell a lie once, and it remains a lie. Tell a lie a thousand times, and it becomes the truth.”

5. The next time others see Cindy being kind to and playfully bantering with someone, she doesn’t look so cute, and the banter isn’t so funny anymore. Now people see a side of Cindy they can’t believe they never noticed before.

6. Now feeling smug with gratification, the bullies look at themselves, then at Cindy with smirks on their crooked faces and try the same thing all over again.

7. And before you know it, everyone wonders what they ever saw in Cindy, to begin with. They start having negative feelings toward the poor girl.

8. Cindy begins to pick up on the negative vibes around her and withdraws a little. She doesn’t speak to people as much as she did and doesn’t understand what she did or said to bring it all about. The bullies notice that Cindy is more distant than usual, and they point this out to everyone.

“Hey, look! Do you see that? Now, what did we tell you? Cindy really does think we’re all dummies! She really does think she’s smarter than the rest of us!”

“And her ass-kissing (Cindy’s sweet disposition) didn’t work, so now she’s too good to speak to anyone!”

9. Cindy’s withdrawal only inflames everyone’s feelings of dislike and resentment. Although her becoming distant is only out of self-protection, others mistake it for smugness and arrogance.

10. And it only snowballs from there, getting worse and worse over time. Understand that people are human, and they make mistakes. They misjudge innocent others all the time.

And when bullies condition the whole of a group, school, organization, workplace, or community to see any quality in a particular person as a bad thing, a smear campaign is most effective. So everyone, even those who aren’t bullies and are otherwise kind and compassionate, can become extremely cold and cruel to a target. And everyone repeats the same cruelty, over and over again.

Understand that smear campaigns are just too effective because they can quickly become bullying, then escalate to mobbing, which is the most severe kind of bullying. And once it increases to mobbing, it’s unstoppable, and the only way you can take your life back is to leave that toxic, poisonous environment altogether.

Mobbing is The Worst Kind of Bullying

November 15, 2021Leave a comment

Mobbing is bullying by large groups- it is a form of violence where either a vast majority of or whole of alumni in a school, a workforce in a workplace, a(n) entire organization, or community collectively harass and attack a single targeted individual. The mob often act under the influence of a ringleader or someone in a position of power. Mobbing almost always happens out of retaliation against a long-bullied target who became fed-up with the disrespect and cruelty and finally spoke out about or did something about it.

Mobbing has other names as well: Collective Bullying or Mass Bullying.

Remember that bullies and their followers expect the target to stay quiet about the abuse- even demand that he bow down to and submit to it. And when a targeted individual finally has enough and asserts his right to be treated as a human being, the bullies will punish him with mobbing.

Here’s a description of mobbing:

A large group of people (or mob) targets a person who opened his mouth about the bullying and abuse, and they become increasingly aggressive, and the number of attackers against the target grows until the targeted person is completely alone and stripped of power.

Group aggression, or collective bullying, serves to reinforce a shared negative view of the targeted person regardless of the victim’s prior value or reputation. As vicious gossip circulates throughout the environment about the target, destructive labels and damaging accusations will ensue and only isolate the target.

The mob will expand to include several teachers and school staff, or managers on many levels and large numbers of students or coworkers. People who are often peaceful and kind are encouraged to resent or hate the targeted person. A bully in power directs them to gossip about the person and to mistreat and bully him. Even the sweetest, most compassionate people can suddenly become mean and nasty.

And, one by one, the entire student body, workplace, or community judges, slanders, and accuses the target of one thing after another, and after another.

Understand that, in these cases, those who are generally good, kind people won’t see themselves as mean or as participants in bullying but rather, as defenders against an (alleged) evil enemy.

They view their own atrocious behavior as justified and necessary because to see themselves as bullying participants goes against their sense of decency.

Understand that people will always act differently when they’re in a group. Always! Because they feel they must conform. Also, understand that once bullying escalates to mobbing, it’s nearly impossible to stop.

And the reason why it’s the most damaging to a target is that he quickly loses support as more and more people jump on the hate bandwagon, until everyone avoids, defames, and blames the mark for any tiny thing that goes wrong.

School staff, the management, or community authorities then close ranks, thereby eliminating any help or escape from the abuse.

Sadly, there isn’t much you can do once the violence has escalated to this point. But in the next post, I will talk about mobbing in more detail. I’ll talk about the steps, stages, and signs that bullying is heading toward mobbing and how you can name it, describe it and raise your chances of heading the bullying off before it gets that far.

School Mobbing

October 26, 2021Leave a comment

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 School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them (Part 3)

August 5, 2021Leave a comment

Jealous Girls taking behind her back

(Continued from Part 3…)

Here are more ways we bullies assert and reinforce control over targets who step out of line.

3. We spread rumors and lies about the target. That’s right! We’ll demonize him. And he won’t even know about it until it’s too late and enough people are itching to take him apart. We’ll sow discord between him and all the other classmates. Hell! Even the teachers! We’ll make him public enemy number one!

Get this straight. All we have to do to demonize our target is to throw around a few offhand remarks and loaded words.

‘You see? We’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and some of us since we were babies. We are a family. We keep each other’s darkest secrets and fiercely protect each other, which means we cover each other’s butts.

Our parents know each other, and we have connections to quite a few city officials and local big shots. Everyone knows us and they love us- very much! We’re in cahoots with the right people and they tell us everything.

Nothing is private. Not in this school and not in this town. This high school is our kingdom. And it’s crawling with lackeys, suck-ups, and wannabes. These people straddle the fence and they’re the ones he’ll least expect.

And he messed with one of us, so he messed with all of us!

4. Make him do degrading things with the promise of acceptance and inclusion. By this time, we’ll have him so rejected, alone and alienated that he’ll sell his soul to the devil just to get a crumb of acceptance. So, why not give him something to strive toward? Make him do something stupid. And trust us, we’re creative! We’re inventive!

We’ll think of something so humiliating and degrading! We’ll set him up to look pathetic, and we’ll film it for the entire free world to see. And he’ll never be able to get away from it.

We’ll also set him up to get in trouble with the principal by baiting him into a few fights. We’ll get in his face. One of us might even throw the first punch and force him to hit back, and then we’ve got him. We’ll all band together and say he started it, cook up a good story, and he’ll be the one blamed.

And what will be the icing on the cake is that after everyone finishes blaming and punishing the target, they’ll give us sympathy for being victimized by such a monster.

That’s just life at the high school. Some matter and some don’t. And if a target tries to defend himself, he’s just defensive, a whiner, or he’s crazy.
But those rules don’t apply to us because we can do no wrong. Remember. We’re royals. And the double-standards we held our target to are beneficial to us. Don’t be surprised and don’t catch an attitude. You’d do the same thing if you were one of us.

5. We fantasize about the target transferring to another school or, even better, killing himself. Seriously, we do. But then again, we really don’t want that because, if he did either one, all the fun would end and it would be game over. We need our target to stick around so that we can continue getting our jollies and free entertainment.

We prefer to make things worse on our target slowly and gradually and drag it out for as long as possible. We’ll enjoy watching him withdraw from everyone, lose his appetite, lose weight, get sick, and shake from nervousness. And we know he will snap sooner or later.

We may be high school kids, but we’re far from stupid. We learned the laws of human nature early. How do you think we got so darned popular with kids and adults alike and rose to the top of the social totem pole? We knew the rules of the social game long before most people knew how to use the bathroom by themselves!

We also know that no one can keep that kind of pressure stuffed down inside forever. It’s impossible. Eventually, the target will explode. It always works better that way. And when he does blow up, we can only hope he does it in front of an audience.

We’re already building a case against the target. We can pick out small incidents, take them out of context, and spin them to make it bigger. We can craft a pattern out of them and make it look like evidence that is so damning.

Sure. Like, love and attractiveness are all subjective, but the system and social dynamic are rigged in our favor.

6. We would love nothing more than to beat the ever-loving crap out of our target but don’t want to risk getting caught. We’re too smart to do something so obvious and we don’t want to get our hands dirty. We’d much rather pick the creep apart in front of everyone and use his words against him. His intentions don’t matter. A screw-up is a screw-up and we’ll stick it to him. We’ll do it under the guise of friendly advice, the stealthier way to attack.

7. Pit what friends the target has against him. If we can’t turn his friends against him any other way, we’ll attack them too. We’ll accuse his friend of being in on the target’s little rebellion. Why should we do the dirty work ourselves when we have peer pressure on our side?

His friends will then blame him for dragging them into it and causing them to become targets. They won’t care to hear any explanations or justifications. They’ll just want their lives back and they’ll ostracize and gang up on him to make that happen. Cause and effect is such a beautiful thing! Why not use it to your advantage?

8. Send henchmen to commit our violence for us. As much as we’d love to beat the target’s brains out with our bare hands, we’re too smart to get blood on our hands. In fact, we won’t even be there.

We’ll just send some roughneck or a group of them to kick his tail for us. And why not? We’re the kings and queens of the school. Offer the right incentives and we can get anybody to do anything we want them to do.

Even better, we’ll get the toughest guy with the worst reputation and put a bug in his ear. We’ll make him think that the target is trying to put the moves on his girl. Then we won’t have to offer him anything in return.

It won’t matter what the truth is or whether the target even knows the girl. Because we have all the power, connections and trust, just our names and our word is golden.

The target gets his head kicked in and gets a ride in an ambulance. We fade into the woodwork. And if things get too hairy, we just let the tough guy take the fall! And if tough-guy tells the cops that we put him up to it, do you think they’ll believe him?

Brilliant, huh?

What School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them (Part 2)

August 4, 2021Leave a comment

clique bullying

(Continued from Part 1…)

So, how do we make our target submit?

Here’s how:

We make the little rebel’s life a living hell and use him as an example to the rest of the student body. But we can’t make it too visible. We must be cunning and covert! Our attacks must be deniable.

We’ll do this to teach this punk a lesson show him who’s boss while letting the other schoolmates know that this will happen to them if they dare get out of their places. You call it tit-for-tat, we call it high school justice.

Maybe you think that we don’t know we’re bullies. Well…you poor, clueless thing, you! Newsflash! We know we’re bullies. We know we’re bitches and assholes. We know we’re hell on wheels. And ya know what else? We’re damn PROUD of it!

Why? Because it’s cool to be cruel! Sorry. That’s reality and you can either deal with it or continue to be a hero and get treated worse!

But the higher up on the social hierarchy we are, the more brutal we are, the more brazen we are, the more desperate we are, and the harder we’ll fight to keep the popularity, the attention, the favor, the having our butts kissed, and the social status we so enjoy.

You need to realize that the positions we hold and the friends and followers we have give us special treatment, rewards, and liberties that nobody else can get. And the power we have is too delicious to give up. Outside of our group, our high social status, and this school, we have nothing!

So, if this little geek thinks he’s going to man up and punk us out in front of the entire school, then we’re going to give him both barrels!

In this power struggle, we have an arsenal of power, reputation, connections, and favor. And we’ll use them all to bury this freak

Arrogant young Caucasian man with three female admirers

Here are some tricks we’ve mastered:

1. We hold the target down. It takes a long time to isolate a target. But we have the patience of Job. And we’ll get our kicks out of watching him suffer! He thinks he can win friends and respect? He thinks he’s cool? He thinks he’s better than us? Not in this lifetime! We decide who talks to who, who makes friends and when they do.

And we can kill any opportunity to make friends, get a date and even turn the teachers, coaches, and other staff against him if we so desire.

We can shut him up by ridiculing him every time he speaks or answers questions in class- even if he gets the answers correct. And if he gets the right answers and the teacher praises him for it, it’ll only further piss us off, and we’ll turn up the heat on his butt!

We’ll shame him by calling him a nerd or a bookworm. We’ll accuse him of being an arrogant know-it-all and being full of himself! By the time we’re through with him, he’ll be too afraid to open his smart mouth!

We can exclude him from school clubs, from ballgames, school dances, proms, and other school functions.

We’ll control his emotions. He won’t get any enjoyment at school unless we say so. We can make sure he does nowhere but down, then leave him to rot in his own loneliness and misery. We’ll make sure he’s stuck on the bottom of the pecking order and never moves up.

We’ll dim his shine, strip him of any confidence, change his smug attitude, and make him loathe himself! We’ll make him trash!

Why Bullies Love to Isolate Their Victims

2. We isolate the target. He crossed us- that makes him a leper as far as anyone else is concerned. Does he really think anyone will stand by him? Sure, other kids in the student body may hate us because they can’t be us, but they fear us! They may talk smack about how they’d stand up to us, but talk’s cheap.

Oh, yeah! The other folks talk the talk. But we know that when the time comes to walk the walk, they’ll only tuck their tails between their legs and run. They’ll leave the little wuss to fend for himself. They’ll know better than to piss us off because they know that we have the power to make their lives just as hard as we made his (the target’s).

Nobody wants to be next on our hit list, and we don’t blame them! It isn’t their problem, and they don’t want to end up down in the basement with him (the target).

So, what’s he going to do about it? If he does manage to scrounge up a few friends, they’ll be the few no-counts who are just as desperate as he is, and they’ll hang with him only because they have no other options themselves, which gives us another juicy idea – Hmmm! Perhaps if we pretend to like and accept those other losers, they’ll throw his sorry butt under the bus too! Then what friends will he have?

Just as there are people who fight to be on top, there are also those who struggle just as hard to stay off the bottom.

Oh, the other losers may feel sorry for the target, but they need us to leave them alone and not to make them bigger laughing stocks than they already are. What few friends he has? They aren’t stupid. Anyone would be a fool to have a dog in this fight!

A selfish man walks the heads of people as on the steps to the highest post behind the crown. Conceptual scene is a narcissistic and selfish person

At this school, we are royalty! We’re the top dogs. If anyone else wants to be safe, they need our permission. The target’s friends don’t want us to make things any harder than what we already do. And they know that if at any time some blockhead is dumb enough to piss us off, we take no prisoners!

So, even his friends will turn a blind eye. They won’t be so stupid as to have his back. And if he shoots his mouth off to them or anyone else about any of us, many of them will report back to us for these reasons:

a. To get on our good side
b. In hopes that we’ll accept them
c. To stay off our hate-radar

And if we grill the target’s friends with questions about him, they’ll tell us anything they think we want to hear and they more than likely know all his deepest, darkest secrets!

Maybe these friends will know we’re only using them to get the deets from them, and maybe they won’t, but either way, it won’t matter. The only thing that will matter to them is keeping us satisfied, and keeping their butts off our hit list.

Do you see where we’re going with this? The fix is in. If the target continues to grow a pair and push back against us, the other students will stay wayyyy away from him to keep from arousing our wrath. And no matter how strong he thinks he is, he won’t be able to handle that for very long.

(More in Part 3…)

What School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them

August 4, 2021Leave a comment

Stop bullying

We warned you! We warned you not to rock the boat. We told you not to make waves. We made it clear that your place was beneath us and that you should take our abuse without question and without refusing.

But what did you do? You just had to push it! ‘Had to get uppity! ‘Had to be a hero and challenge our authority! ‘You want to make trouble? ‘You want to diss us? ‘Grow some spine and step up to us?

Now, because of you, there’s a risk that everyone in the student body will doubt and question our power!

What would you do if someone on a lower level than you just up and got some guts, and challenged you by fighting back? ‘Caused you embarrassment and made you look like a punk in front of everybody?

Yeah, yeah! Teachers may advise us to just “let it go” or “overlook it!” But this is personal, and there’s no coming back from it!

Do you really think you won any respect by clapping back at us? Uh-uh! Nope! What you did was start a war!

Don’t talk to us about right or wrong! Don’t speak to us about fairness! Because right and wrong, just don’t come into it! And fairness is a fairytale for babies!

no bullying stop

We’re going to teach you that there’s a social order in this place! And there’s a certain way things are done around here! You’ve forgotten who you are, and you need to be taught that some people matter, and some don’t! Some people can, and some can’t!

Don’t say a word because you’d feel the same way we do!

“This loser doesn’t know his place! He’s forgotten who he is! ‘Gotten too big for his britches and too smart for his own good! He don’t know when to leave well enough alone!”

“He’s gotten too cocky, too sure of himself, too bold and too arrogant! In short, he’s become a threat to our positions at the top of the social totem pole! And threats must be contained!”

bully narcissist narcissistic narcissism

During the Medieval period, anyone who disrespected any member of a royal family would be dragged off to the guillotine. And the remaining peasants would know that they would be next if they even mentioned the troublemaker’s name.

The “Divine Right of Kings” rule still stands today, in this school.

Kids in our positions are allowed to beat our chests and throw our weight around freely and with impunity. It’s okay for us to abuse anyone we deem unworthy of humane treatment. If you were any one of us, you’d think,

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“But (target’s name)! Who the hell does that freak think he is! Because he opened his smart mouth and dissed us, now all the losers may rise up and demand their rights to equal treatment, as if allowing them to get through a single day without getting their brains beat in isn’t enough! Shoot! They should be down on their knees, thanking us for not making things worse for them!”

“Losers like him (the target) report you to the principal and get you in trouble, even with your parents! They join anti-bullying groups and get involved in anti-bullying programs at school! Shyeah! Like that’s gonna help them any! And don’t EVEN get me started on those groups! They’re always looking for publicity!”

“They even write journals, publish books, and post on their blogs, calling you and your friends out on things you’d rather people inside or outside the school not find out!”

So, with the bullying awareness movement (Ugh! What a joke!) that’s sweeping the globe, surveillance and since virtually everyone has a smartphone with a camera, how can bullies at the top, like us, punish our target without further exposure and the risk of getting kicked out of school and ruining our prospects for college? How can we reinforce our dominance over this creep, and make him cave in and bow down to us?

(I’ll tell you how bullies do it in Part 2)

How Bullying of a Particular Person Can Become Status Quo and Why You Must Assert Yourself (Part 2)

May 9, 2021Leave a comment

Continued from Part 1…

If a certain student’s bullying is allowed to continue over a certain amount of time, even for as short as a few weeks, it will likely become the status quo with his/her peers at school. Once it becomes the status quo, it’s virtually impossible to assert your rights without encountering a ton of resistance and reprisals.

The trick is to assert yourself immediately before the bully or bullies grow(s) accustomed to tormenting you because once they do, in most cases, it’s too late. Once it is too late, anytime you are brave and refuse to bow down to a bully, expect retaliation…expect to be severely punished for undermining the bully’s perceived authority or power over you.

This is a warning that you absolutely must heed. Any time one certain student is repeatedly bullied over a certain period of time, it becomes a habit…a ritual for any and everyone at the school.

And when you muster up the spunk to say and/or do anything to assert, defend, or stand up for yourself, you are going against a status quo or perceived norm. And once you dare to go against any status quo, you had better prepare yourself for an all-out war!

You are a target! And bullies see you as anything but. As much as it may suck, when a person becomes a target of bullying, people- bullies, bystanders, and yes, sometimes even teachers and staff, consciously or subconsciously expect the person to stay a target.

They expect you to put your head down and take it…to just accept it, and if you even attempt to grow a spine, they will do everything in their power to break it.

Anytime a person, who has been a target of bullies over a long period of time, takes steps to take back their power, the unspoken message of the bully is this:

“No! Wait a minute! You’ve been a lowlife loser all this time, and NOW you decide to better yourself?” or “Whoa! You’ve been a doormat this long, so why NOW do you get uppity and decide to grow a spine?”

All of which translates to an even deeper message that says:

“Holy Crap! We’re not used to him/her being so outspoken! This scares us! We’ve tried A, now we have to do B, and if B doesn’t work, then we will have to resort to C to put this person back in his/her place and do it quickly before we lose our foothold on her and therefore, lose the benefits that we have enjoyed at her expense!”

This is because bullies are extremely frightened by change, especially a change in the power dynamic which has long been set. They and others want you to stay a victim because “it’s just the way things are done at this school.”. Also, bullies benefit from your victimization, and they do not want to lose those benefits (social status, gratification, satisfaction, etc.)

Your bullies’ degradation of you has become a habit…a ritual…a tradition, so to speak. And your defending your right to be safe from harm poses the threat of change, and most people cannot easily accept change, bullies especially.

Furthermore, bullies believe that it is their right to abuse their target. Yes! They honestly believe that they have a right to mistreat the person because they assume that they have absolute authority over their victim and are entitled to inflict misery on him/her.

In the mind of a bully, you as the target do not have the right to undermine nor question their perceived authority over you. Others believe that you deserve the ill-treatment and that you owe it to them to put your head down and “just shut up and take it.”

If this does not tick you off enough to make you want to snatch your power back, I do not know what will. But before you can do so, you must know the inner workings of these types of individuals. You must be wise to what it is that makes this type of person tick.

You must get abreast on the psychology of the typical school bully, his/her background, motives, how and why the bully seems to escape accountability and a host of other important and possibly life-saving information.

You absolutely MUST address it early on, as soon as you begin to see a pattern forming. Do not make the same mistake I did and let it get so bad that you either fear for or want to end your own life.

How I wish I knew this back then!

Triumphing Over Workplace Bullying and Mobbing- How I Did It (Part 5)

March 23, 2021Leave a comment

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(Continued from Part 4…)

Six months after Darnell and I walked away from the workplace cesspool, that was Shady Grove Living Center, the fit finally hit the shan. I was outside walking my dog when a neighbor, who still worked at the nursing home, stopped me to relay some exciting news.

Beau, Harry, and Cammie, better known as “The Thieving Three,” had all been fired from the facility earlier that day- only an hour or two earlier, in fact. The news had traveled that fast!
She told me that the owners of the facility had suddenly shown up and had the three of them escorted off the property. An Acting Administrator took Beau’s place. A temporary Bookkeeper/Payroll Clerk and Head of Maintenance took the positions of Cammie and Harry.

Over the next few weeks, several others were fired as well. The DON (Director of Nursing) was let go after stealing narcotics to feed her addiction to pain pills, as were a few other nurses. The owners also terminated the dietary manager and several CNAs- who had all been loyal flying monkeys to The Thieving Three.

So many got the ax and within such a short amount of time. The owners cleaned that place out. After it was all said and done, I could probably count on one hand the people spared.

It was the buzz around town for well over a month. After they were terminated, Harry and Cammie were so scared and humiliated that they threw everything into two U-hauls and skipped town. Surprisingly, Shady Grove never pressed charges and I was told that it was because the nursing home was afraid that pressing charges might tarnish it’s reputation.

Harry and Cammie moved somewhere around middle, TN, somewhere close to the Tennessee River. Cammie ended up working for the County Medical Center there, in the same position she had at Shady Grove. Later, she committed the same crimes there; only the Medical Center didn’t let it slide as Shady Grove had.

They pressed charges and Cammie was found guilty. The judge sentenced her to three years in state prison but she only served two.

I’ll never forget the tyrannical reign of The Thieving Three over the employees of Shady Grove, and neither will I forget their downfall. This is why I firmly believe that most bullies usually get their just desserts in the end, just as these bullies did.

Sometimes, you must let your bullies do what they do until they get too cocky, too careless, and end up falling on their own swords.

Triumphing Over Workplace Bullying and Mobbing- How I Did It (Part 4)

March 22, 2021Leave a comment

(Continued from Part 3…)

I remember a night when one of the flying monkeys, Shelly, a CNA, approached me in the hall, from behind and began screaming, cursing, and threatening to jump me over a rumor that had it that I was stabbing her in the back.

She threatened to attack me there on the spot physically, and there were bystanders!
When I turned around, faced her, and called her out for being unprofessional, Shelly became twice as angry.

Later, I was afraid that I might face termination because Shelly had escalated the confrontation to an unprecedented level. Also, I’d seen so many others whom these people had pulled the same tactic on getting fired left and right!

I remember thinking,

“Well, if I do get canned, they won’t be able to say they didn’t have to work hard at achieving that goal! At the very least, I’ll leave here knowing I put up one hell of a fight!”

One of the bystanders was Deb, the charge nurse, and Shelly’s supervisor and buddy. Therefore, I knew that Deb would sweep Shelly’s behavior under the rug and paint me as the instigator.

Sure enough, she did. These people had a way of turning everything around to fit their narrative and getting others to agree with it.

The other guy was always to blame.
It was always the other guy’s fault.
It was never their fault, and they were never wrong.

They reported the incident to Darnell and suggested that he terminate me right then and there. When he talked to me about it, I calmly explained that Shelly had approached me from behind in a very threatening manner, that I feared for my physical safety, and didn’t know what she would do had I not faced her down.

And by this time, I’d worked under Darnell long enough that he knew the kind of person I was and that I was only taking care of myself.

A crowd of people surrounded the red man. Accusation of crime, mob law over a person, lynch court. The leader in the center of the crowd, the leader, an example for diving. Angry crowd

So, again, Darnell had my back and went to bat for me. Also, I had made an awesome friend out of Jane, who was another charge nurse at the nursing home. She, too, went to bat for me as did several of my coworkers.

Each time nothing happened to me, the bullies only became angrier and crazier, until they were all out for blood!

It was then that I starting noticing Jules hovering around in the hall just outside the door to the laundry room. Later, I’d see him milling around nearby anytime I’d stop in the hallway to greet and talk to friends. And I’ve got to tell you! He gave me such a creepy vibe!

Next, I began seeing him standing across the street from my apartment, smoking a cigarette. And I could tell he was watching my apartment. Now that freaked me out!

I found out that he and the neighbor across the street had begun dating and that he was there to see her. She didn’t allow smoking in her house, so he had no choice but to smoke outside. Still, I didn’t feel any better. I felt as if I was being stalked!

I knew why he was hanging around so close. Jules was an eavesdropper for Cammie and her group, listening in on our convos in the laundry room and my discussions with friends in the hallway. Everybody knew it because he’d eavesdropped on many others.

My instinct also told me they’d enlisted him to watch my house. He was watching to see what company I had over- looking for any information with which to report back to Cammie.

The fact that Jules’ girlfriend lived across the street from me was a convenient cover for him and they knew it. Although I knew what was going on, I didn’t speak of it because I knew I couldn’t without sounding completely nuts. I did the best thing by keeping it to myself but filing it in the back of my mind. The only people I told were my closest family and they knew I wasn’t kidding.

Luckily, his girlfriend was a good friend of mine and I knew she only kept him around because she was lonely. So, I used it to my advantage, and cozied up to her a little bit more so she would volunteer to tell me little tidbits about what he was doing. Sure enough, she confirmed my suspicions.

Not much later, Darnell, having himself become a target of the vitriol that inflected the workplace, announced to us that he had put in his two-week notice of resignation and was moving on to a better job and a better work environment.

Although we were happy that he’d finally found something better and was getting out of that hellhole, we were also deeply saddened because we’d miss him so much. We saw Darnell as our fearless leader, our Captain Ahab, and our hero!

What kind of leader would the new supervisor be? And would they protect us from those devils down the hall as Darnell had?

Choosing not to leave anything to chance, I decided that I’d put in my notice as well. Being the type of woman who would always think ahead, I knew that once Darnell was gone, I’d be totally at their mercy. I had a sickening feeling that the next supervisor would toady up to the bullies in the upper echelons of management and the social order.

Strict Boss: Angry upset young business woman with blank speech bubble on white on gray background. Vector illustration.

I knew that Cammie had long waited, with bated breath, for the day when Darnell would either quit or get fired. Then, she could begin working on the new supervisor, ingratiate herself in them, and turn them against us.

Sure enough, my closest coworker told me she’d overheard Cammie saying precisely that, and she was recommending that the new supervisor terminate three of us. Knowing I was one of the three, I quickly filled out my two weeks notice of resignation and gave it to Darnell.

Darnell introduced us to the new supervisor. She was a short, dumpy woman in her forties and by her facial expression, which was hard and cold, I made the conclusion that putting in my notice was the smartest thing to do and gave myself a pat on the back.

Off and on during the last two weeks, I’d catch those tiny micro flashes of suspicion and contempt the new supervisor would flash toward me and a few others. And the bullies were completely enraged once word of my pending exit reached their ears. But once I was out of there, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I was quite proud of myself for having escaped that toxic place and walked away from the job with confidence and my self-esteem still intact.

But the best and juiciest part is yet to be told!

(Continued in Part 5…)

Triumphing Over Workplace Bullying and Mobbing- How I Did It (Part 2)

March 21, 2021Leave a comment

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(Continued from Part 1…)

In the last post, I talked about how everything started out great and that I was well-liked by almost everyone. I also mentioned the incident when I responded in kind after Candi, a CNA, caught a bad attitude. Needless to say, I found out that, right or wrong, talking down to her was a no-no because she had connections.

And over several months, one by one, many people turned against me. Luckily, several of my real friends knew how Candi was and had no respect for her. They were the people who had my back, so I can say that I did have allies who took care of me.

However, there was a clear division at Shady Grove Living Center. There was the administrator, who I’ll call *Beau, *Cammie, the payroll clerk, the department heads,*Harry (who was Cammie’s husband), one maintenance guy, whose name was *Jules, and two CNAs, *Shelly was one and *Cheryl who were two flying monkeys. On our side were my supervisor Darnell, all of my coworkers (except for one suck up), a charge nurse, and the rest of the CNAs who had my back.

At first, the bullies made false reports about me to Darnell. On the days after my shift (I worked part-time in the evening), the third shift CNAs would complain that I hadn’t stocked the linen closets on each of the halls and that they had no clean bed pads, bedsheets, nor gowns for the residents who soiled their beds during the night.

But because I always thought ahead and could easily predict what these people would do, I had made sure to pull out my cellphone and take pictures of all my finished work at the end of my shift.

Once I was done stocking the linen closets, I took photos of all the shelves inside, chock full of freshly clean linens. I then took pictures inside all the empty barrels that were marked “dirty laundry,” before clocking out and going home. And, with the time-stamps on each image, there was no question I’d done my job.

I took pictures every night, at the end of the shift. And I had proof to show Darnell every time they lied.

When that didn’t work, the bullies only turned up the harassment, as word quickly spread throughout the nursing home that I’d taken pictures of all finished work.

In a way, it was funny because each of the linen closets was directly across from a nurse’s desk, where the bullies would sit around and gossip. And I remember overhearing them make snide remarks about my camera and my taking pictures, to which I’d only snicker and chuckle to myself.

Harry, the head of maintenance, would talk pretty ugly to me, but I knew I wasn’t the only one because many times, I’d see him talk terrible to several others- even a few who worked for the nursing home. So, I didn’t feel like the Lone Ranger.

And because I’d already been a target of bullying in school, I knew what to expect as all bullies pull pretty much the same tactics, only adult bullies are much more sophisticated with it. Therefore, I was able to prepare, stay a few steps ahead, and outflank them.

During this time, I began to witness a couple of the bullies in this workplace clique commit a few illegal activities. On one instance, I worked a double shift to cover for a coworker who was sick.

Early one Saturday morning, I saw with my own eyes Harry walk into the back door of the nursing home, dressed in camouflage and his bright orange hunting vest. He crept down the hall past the laundry room, then stopped at the time clock and clocked in. Harry then filled out a bogus work order, then left.

He didn’t return until late that evening to clock out and leave again. I’ll never forget the look on his mug when he saw me sitting outside on my last break as he drove by in his shiny new pickup. And when I told a trusted friend at work a day or two later about what I’d seen, she wasn’t at all surprised.

“Girl! He’s been clocking out and going home on the weekends since I’ve been here! And I’ll tell you something else,” *Brenda told me, “Cammie’s been embezzling from this facility, and she’s been ripping off some of the residents who don’t have families- weaseling them into signing papers to leave their assets to her when they leave this world!”

I felt my eyes pop out of my head as Brenda gave me an ear full!

(Continued in Part 3…)

Triumphing Over Workplace Bullying and Mobbing- How I Did It (Part 1)

March 21, 2021Leave a comment

Before I go into the story, I want to tell you that very few people ever come out the winner if they’re a target of bullying in the workplace. I say this because when I worked in the toxic and poisonous environment, I’m about to tell you of, I saw so many people who fell victim.

Droves of innocent workers ended up losing their jobs and some, their careers because of the evil actions of a clique of psychopaths who were handed power they had no business having.

These employees were the best and the kindest people, and my heart broke for them. It still does when I think back.

In late 2007, I began working for a sanitation company that contracted with *Shady Grove Living Center in Oakley. My supervisor, *Darnell, and my coworkers were the best. Sure, we had our disagreements and our spats. Still, I could never have dreamed of working with a better supervisor and team. And on many occasions, we’d have so much fun together!

Another great thing was that we didn’t work for the nursing home, only for a separate company contracted with them. So, in reality, no one at the nursing home had any power over us, though they loved to think they did.

I was already well aware that the site was very toxic, but I always stood back and observed the people and the goings-on around me. And during my first week of employment there, it didn’t take long to figure out who the troublemakers were.

I made sure to avoid the drama queens, the gossips, and the bullies and went on with my business. Another beauty was that there was a long corridor between the actual nursing facility and the sanitation area, so we didn’t have to work with them nor be around them much at all.

The only time I saw any of them was toward the end of the shift when I’d roll the laundry cart full of clean linens down to the main building to stock the linen closets.

Therefore, for the first year and three months, everything went smoothly, and no one bothered me. I got along with everyone and was seemingly well-liked. That is until I put one snarky CNA in her place for trying to be a smart alick.

This CNA, whom we’ll call, *Candi, had it in her mind that those who worked in the laundry department, were beneath her and expected them to carry hers and everyone else’s water. Although the CNAs didn’t make any more than we did, Candi and a few others had no regard for us. They didn’t see us as human beings because we worked in sanitation.

After I schooled her, Candi felt anger and indignation. So, she stormed away and cried to her buddies in the nursing home clique. She couldn’t stand that I’d smart-mouthed her, and “how dare” I talk to her like that. Oh! “The nerve of” me!

And she took the rest of the day off as a stress leave because she was so upset. And I knew why she was so peeved. She was the type who couldn’t handle being told a thing or two by someone she deemed inferior.

It’s hilarious when I think of it! But that’s when the bullying began.

(More in Part 2…)

* Not the real name of the person or entity.

Chronic Bullying is Mobbing

March 16, 2021Leave a comment

Bullying becomes Chronic when the bullying has gone on over time and has escalated such that it has now reached a dangerous level. In short, bullying has reached epic proportions.

When there’s Chronic Bullying, bullies have grown so comfortable with bullying the target that they skyrocket the torment and pursue their targets obsessively and non-stop. Where there’s Chronic Bullying, there’s no accountability. And where there’s no accountability, there’s simply no incentive to stop.

In the case of Chronic Bullying, the bullies’ behavior has gone ignored and unaddressed by an authority. The bullies have become so brazen, cocky, and encouraged that their actions have grown in strength, frequency, and cruelty over several years.

The bullies’ apathy toward the victim grows to a point where they lose all empathy and come to feel nothing but blind hatred and fury toward the target. The attitude has now become that anything they do to the victim, no matter how cruel or dangerous, is good because, to the bullies, the victim has no value, and his life is worth nothing.

People who bully to these extremes usually have followers and minions backing them up. And they enlist members of their following to do their dirty work. The bullying becomes so significant, so ingrained, and so severe that it seemingly takes on a life of its own.

The bullies are seemingly drunk on their own power and their hatred that the bullying and torment of you seem to be all the bullies can focus on.

Instead of the bullies controlling their evil emotions and actions, their feelings and actions begin to control them! The bullies are controlled by hatred and blinded by senseless rage. They have become so addicted to the power and control over another human being that the bullying becomes constant for the bullies to get their fix and maintain the high that the power over the target gives them.

Understand that when bullying becomes chronic, bullies don’t see the target as a human being; they see him as so worthless and inferior that, in their minds, the target doesn’t deserve the time of day, much less any respect. As far as the bullies are concerned, the target doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as them! Even worse- the target doesn’t deserve to breathe, period!

This is why chronic bullying can be especially dangerous to the target because the victim runs the chance of either breaking and committing suicide or being murdered by their bullies.

This is why it’s so important to get out anytime bullying becomes chronic. Get out of that environment- transfer to another school, go to work for another company, or move to another area.

Again, because once bullying becomes chronic, it becomes so out of control that it takes on a life all it’s own. There’s no stopping it at this stage.

The only way you’ll ever find peace is to leave without telling anyone. Only then will you be safe and have peace of mind.

When Bullying Becomes Mobbing: Detailed Steps Bullies Take to Destroy You

February 14, 2021Leave a comment

The reasons that mobbing is so hard to remedy is because not only has it already rendered us so distraught that we’re unable to think clearly, but we aren’t able to name, describe, nor communicate the steps bullies take to destroy us.

A successful smear campaign is started by a bully or bullies who are well-practiced in the arts of persuasion and influence and can last for years.

To quote the old Geico commercial, it’s “so easy; a caveman can do it.”

Here’s a chronological, step-by-step recap of how bullies do it and succeed at it:

1. The bullies have a dislike for a specific individual who refuses to conform to their standard of who she should be.

And Cindy may not realize the bullies’ motives and that just by being herself and doing her thing, she’s enraging the bullies. So, she goes on about her business, makes plans for her future, makes achievement after achievement, and maybe she gets loads of positive attention and praise from others because she’s so successful and well-liked.

2. Next, the bullies begin to smear Cindy. To implement their smear campaign, they watch Cindy, studying her behavior carefully until they’re able to anticipate her reactions.

The bullies also make statements that Cindy thinks she’s cute and that Cindy thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. Then repeat, repeat, repeat!

To quote a propaganda minister to a well-known dictator in history, “Tell a lie once, and it remains a lie. Tell a lie a thousand times, and it becomes the truth.”

6. Now feeling smug with gratification, the bullies look at themselves, then at Cindy with smirks on their crooked faces and try the same thing all over again.

7. And before you know it, everyone wonders what they ever saw in Cindy, to begin with, and begins to have negative feelings toward the poor girl.

8. Cindy begins to pick up on the negative vibes around her and withdraws a little. She doesn’t speak to people as much as she did and doesn’t understand what she did or said to bring it all about. The bullies notice that Cindy is more distant than usual, and they point this out to everyone.

“Hey, look! Do you see that? Now, what did we tell you? Cindy really does think we’re all dummies! She really does think she’s smarter than the rest of us!”

“And her ass-kissing (Cindy’s sweet disposition) didn’t work, so now she’s too good to speak to anyone!”

9. Cindy’s withdrawal only inflames everyone’s feelings of dislike and resentment. Although her becoming distant is only out of self-protection, others mistake it for smugness and arrogance.

10. And it only snowballs from there, getting worse and worse over time. Understand that people are human, and they make mistakes. They misjudge innocent others all the time.

Mobbing- “Bullying On Steroids”

February 13, 2021Leave a comment

Mobbing is bullying by large groups- it is a form of violence where either a vast majority of or all alumni in a school, a workforce in a workplace, a(n) entire organization, or a community collectively harass and attack a single targeted individual.

The mob often act under the influence of a ringleader or someone in a position of power. Mobbing almost always happens out of retaliation against a long-bullied target who became fed-up with the disrespect and cruelty and finally spoke out about or did something about it.

Mobbing has other names as well: Collective Bullying or Mass Bullying.

Here’s a description of mobbing:

A large group of people (or mob) targets a person who opened his mouth about bullying and abuse. They become increasingly aggressive, and the number of attackers against the target grows until the targeted person is completely stripped of power.

The mob will expand to include several teachers and school staff, or managers on many levels and large numbers of students or coworkers. People who are often peaceful and kind are encouraged to avoid, resent, or hate the targeted person. A bully in power directs them to gossip about the person and to mistreat and bully him. Even the kindest, sweetest, most compassionate people can suddenly become vicious and nasty.

And, one by one, the entire student body, workplace, or community avoids slanders and accuses the target of one thing after another, and after another.

Understand that, in these cases, those who are generally good, kind people won’t see themselves as mean or as participants in bullying but rather as defenders against an (alleged) evil enemy. They view their own atrocious behavior as justified and necessary because to see themselves as bullying participants goes against their sense of morality and identity.

Understand that people will always act differently when they’re in a group. Always! Because they feel they must conform. Also, understand that once bullying escalates to mobbing, it’s nearly impossible to stop.

And the reason why it’s the most damaging to a target is that he quickly loses support as more and more people jump on the hate bandwagon until everyone avoids, defames, and blames the mark for any tiny thing that goes wrong.

School staff, the management, or community authorities then close ranks, eliminating any help or escape from the abuse.

Cherie White

Author and Anti-Bullying Advocate

Tag: Mobbing