Suez
Experienced
- Feb 27, 2020
- 279
There has been a number of threads here talking about bullying. More recently I have read threads related to people saying they had been subjected to bullying in forums and indeed here and more recently a thread posted a few days ago asking whether bullying had bought anyone here causing them to want to CTB.
It was interesting as I have been writing my own personal thoughts on this over the last few days. I was talking to a friend the other day who happens to be a Psychiatrist, I have the most interesting conversations with her. The one thing I have always appreciated about her is that she has never used any of it on me, and ive always been so greatfull to her for that. Shes is very aware of where I am at right now, we have talked at length about it. She has no intention of talking me out of it, she says she respects my decision and that's why ive always considered her as perhaps my best friend, she has always listened to me, always. She is also someone that is not afraid to say what she thinks and I admire that about her. I used to be exactly the same, in some ways I still am, but over the years ive let people pick away at me and bit by bit my self esteem dived to an all time low that I find myself here and see no way out.
Bullying from people and the effects of that bullying are a big factor in why I am where I am today. I cant even believe that Im saying that. It doesn't feel like it was that long ago when I felt confident in myself and who I was. I felt so proud of what I had achieved in life. I fought so hard for everything I achieved, noone gave me anything, I did everything on my own. Growing up with a Mental Health condition made it a tough start to life. So my earlier years, and my teenage years were as bad as they could get.It wasn't until my late 20s that I was able to fight my way back into life. And I fought fucking hard to get where I did. The person I was then was full of pride for what I had achieved despite all the people pointing their fingers back at me, I had done what they told me I could never do. It was the best Fuck you moment of my life. My life from there on went from strength to strength. I finally had this life I had only dreamed of when I was younger and then the person I loved more than life itself, my mum, got cancer. My mum was the only person to ever stick by me throughout all the trauma I lived with growing up with a Mental Illness, she stuck by me even when I really didn't deserve her trust or love, when I came off the rails.The thought of losing her was more than I could bare and slowly that confidence started fading.As my confidence started fading I started letting things get to me that I normally wouldn't. I become vulnerable to people on the look out for someone to manipulate or beat up. I become the victim I swore I would never allow myself to be again. The bullys that plagued me growing up were back and they were back with a vengeance, because theres nothing a bully likes more than to knock someone off their perch, especially someone that appears to be doing well. At that time I had created an incredible life for myself, I was happy and I had an amazing career so what better time to fuck with someone. It was made that much harder when my mum became terminal and I moved in to look after and care for her until she died.
So lately Ive been doing a lot of reading about bullying. I thought for those of you for whom this is an issue you may find this revealing, so ill include some excerpts that Ive found interesting from these books. (Im not going to include refs here but if your interested in knowing more I can include the names of the books I read). I will also include my observations about my bullies as I learn about their behaviour in the books I read.
The Origins of Bullying
So I started off reading a book about the origins of bullying. They were saying that the universality of bullying across human societies indicates that it is a species typical human behaviour. However, while we have access to all sorts of fossil records, we cannot directly observe behaviours of our ancestors & therein lies the problem. So to determine if bullying was unique to the human species, it was necessary to look at whether it existed in other species. So by using "intimidation" as the litmus for bullying they were able to test for "bullying-like behaviours' in primates, rat, mice etc
What they found was really interesting. Firstly, and perhaps the most important fact about bullying in the animal kingdom, is that while animals do indeed bully to establish dominance over weaker animals , they do not do this "for pleasure". Human bullies on the other hand generally accomplish their heinous acts solely for pleasure and amusement, as well as for establishing dominance over other people that are considered "weak.
Bullying includes direct and indirect forms of aggression. Physical and verbal aggression are considered to be direct forms of bullying. Physical bullying is perhaps what we are most familiar with as it is the most overt form of bullying and it is the most obvious form of bullying for most people. Verbal bullying includes verbal harassment or intimidation.
Indirect bullying, consists primarily of relational aggression which includes social exclusion. Gossiping, slandering and convincing peers to exclude victims are all forms of relational bullying. Another emerging form of bullying is Cyber bullying, which is threatening, harassing or intimidation through an electronic medium.What sets this types of bullying apart from what we know of the more traditional forms of bullying is its anonymity and that the bully never gets to see the impact their bullying is having on their victim.
The impact of bullying has been expanded and intensified by humans through the incorporation of language.
Language has allowed us to gossip and it is this gossip that is perhaps the key psychological element in bullying, that leaves long lasting and at times also lethal consequences.
Bullying also happens because some species of animals live in a strict hierarchical system. This system is commonly referred to as a "pecking order", a term that comes from the natural hierarchy that exists in some social groups like chickens. In humans, these "pecking orders" are otherwise known as "peer group hierarchies" or "top dog networks"
Bullying as a group phenomenon occurs in a social context. People participate in a variety of social contexts, including their family, peers, school, work, community and society. Social norms are people's beliefs about the attitudes and behaviors that are normal, acceptable or even expected in a particular social context. In human society, as in primate societies, proper socialization and conformity are critical for maintaining social order and consistency.When social norms are broken, this can result in violence. Studies in male chimpanzees show that in addition to using aggression to coerce others into conforming to the rest of the community, bullying like behaviours are also often utilized to accomplish the same goals or to enhance an individual or coalition's competitive ability.
Most of the bullying I get these days has been online. People who troll online apparently do it for the fun of upsetting someone. When they are challenged by someone who doesn't get upset, they just move on because they didn't get the reward they wanted. So fighting an online troll is pointless. Someone did a study of online trolls and found, not surprisingly, that many exhibit dark triad traits, meaning, sociopathy, psychopathy and narcissism. No surprises there.
One thing that is very true for me is the impact that language has had on intensifying bullying.People now choose to use words to hurt people. Some people are particularly adept at this. One of my bullies is very proficient in writing and knows the words to use to verbally cut someone down, while I imagine smiling at the same time. It truly is the key psychological element in bullying
It was interesting as I have been writing my own personal thoughts on this over the last few days. I was talking to a friend the other day who happens to be a Psychiatrist, I have the most interesting conversations with her. The one thing I have always appreciated about her is that she has never used any of it on me, and ive always been so greatfull to her for that. Shes is very aware of where I am at right now, we have talked at length about it. She has no intention of talking me out of it, she says she respects my decision and that's why ive always considered her as perhaps my best friend, she has always listened to me, always. She is also someone that is not afraid to say what she thinks and I admire that about her. I used to be exactly the same, in some ways I still am, but over the years ive let people pick away at me and bit by bit my self esteem dived to an all time low that I find myself here and see no way out.
Bullying from people and the effects of that bullying are a big factor in why I am where I am today. I cant even believe that Im saying that. It doesn't feel like it was that long ago when I felt confident in myself and who I was. I felt so proud of what I had achieved in life. I fought so hard for everything I achieved, noone gave me anything, I did everything on my own. Growing up with a Mental Health condition made it a tough start to life. So my earlier years, and my teenage years were as bad as they could get.It wasn't until my late 20s that I was able to fight my way back into life. And I fought fucking hard to get where I did. The person I was then was full of pride for what I had achieved despite all the people pointing their fingers back at me, I had done what they told me I could never do. It was the best Fuck you moment of my life. My life from there on went from strength to strength. I finally had this life I had only dreamed of when I was younger and then the person I loved more than life itself, my mum, got cancer. My mum was the only person to ever stick by me throughout all the trauma I lived with growing up with a Mental Illness, she stuck by me even when I really didn't deserve her trust or love, when I came off the rails.The thought of losing her was more than I could bare and slowly that confidence started fading.As my confidence started fading I started letting things get to me that I normally wouldn't. I become vulnerable to people on the look out for someone to manipulate or beat up. I become the victim I swore I would never allow myself to be again. The bullys that plagued me growing up were back and they were back with a vengeance, because theres nothing a bully likes more than to knock someone off their perch, especially someone that appears to be doing well. At that time I had created an incredible life for myself, I was happy and I had an amazing career so what better time to fuck with someone. It was made that much harder when my mum became terminal and I moved in to look after and care for her until she died.
So lately Ive been doing a lot of reading about bullying. I thought for those of you for whom this is an issue you may find this revealing, so ill include some excerpts that Ive found interesting from these books. (Im not going to include refs here but if your interested in knowing more I can include the names of the books I read). I will also include my observations about my bullies as I learn about their behaviour in the books I read.
The Origins of Bullying
So I started off reading a book about the origins of bullying. They were saying that the universality of bullying across human societies indicates that it is a species typical human behaviour. However, while we have access to all sorts of fossil records, we cannot directly observe behaviours of our ancestors & therein lies the problem. So to determine if bullying was unique to the human species, it was necessary to look at whether it existed in other species. So by using "intimidation" as the litmus for bullying they were able to test for "bullying-like behaviours' in primates, rat, mice etc
What they found was really interesting. Firstly, and perhaps the most important fact about bullying in the animal kingdom, is that while animals do indeed bully to establish dominance over weaker animals , they do not do this "for pleasure". Human bullies on the other hand generally accomplish their heinous acts solely for pleasure and amusement, as well as for establishing dominance over other people that are considered "weak.
Bullying includes direct and indirect forms of aggression. Physical and verbal aggression are considered to be direct forms of bullying. Physical bullying is perhaps what we are most familiar with as it is the most overt form of bullying and it is the most obvious form of bullying for most people. Verbal bullying includes verbal harassment or intimidation.
Indirect bullying, consists primarily of relational aggression which includes social exclusion. Gossiping, slandering and convincing peers to exclude victims are all forms of relational bullying. Another emerging form of bullying is Cyber bullying, which is threatening, harassing or intimidation through an electronic medium.What sets this types of bullying apart from what we know of the more traditional forms of bullying is its anonymity and that the bully never gets to see the impact their bullying is having on their victim.
The impact of bullying has been expanded and intensified by humans through the incorporation of language.
Language has allowed us to gossip and it is this gossip that is perhaps the key psychological element in bullying, that leaves long lasting and at times also lethal consequences.
Bullying also happens because some species of animals live in a strict hierarchical system. This system is commonly referred to as a "pecking order", a term that comes from the natural hierarchy that exists in some social groups like chickens. In humans, these "pecking orders" are otherwise known as "peer group hierarchies" or "top dog networks"
Bullying as a group phenomenon occurs in a social context. People participate in a variety of social contexts, including their family, peers, school, work, community and society. Social norms are people's beliefs about the attitudes and behaviors that are normal, acceptable or even expected in a particular social context. In human society, as in primate societies, proper socialization and conformity are critical for maintaining social order and consistency.When social norms are broken, this can result in violence. Studies in male chimpanzees show that in addition to using aggression to coerce others into conforming to the rest of the community, bullying like behaviours are also often utilized to accomplish the same goals or to enhance an individual or coalition's competitive ability.
Most of the bullying I get these days has been online. People who troll online apparently do it for the fun of upsetting someone. When they are challenged by someone who doesn't get upset, they just move on because they didn't get the reward they wanted. So fighting an online troll is pointless. Someone did a study of online trolls and found, not surprisingly, that many exhibit dark triad traits, meaning, sociopathy, psychopathy and narcissism. No surprises there.
One thing that is very true for me is the impact that language has had on intensifying bullying.People now choose to use words to hurt people. Some people are particularly adept at this. One of my bullies is very proficient in writing and knows the words to use to verbally cut someone down, while I imagine smiling at the same time. It truly is the key psychological element in bullying
