Dealing with verbal bullies.

[johno]

A posting by someone who is being verbally bullied and belittled, prompted me to leave a comment. After writing it, I realized it deserved to be a slightly more verbose post in my own LJ.

As a child and teen, I was often bullied. A short, fat, nerd makes for a large target (no pun intended).

1) Don't let them see that they are "getting you." The delight bullies get is not from the torment, but the response.

2) Find your center, gather your strength and smile ever so sweetly and with a hint of condescension. Respond to the data in the stream, not the tone or the precise word choices.

3) Always remember the tormentors are the ones whose mind and spirit are poisoned. They deserve our sympathy and pity, they are not worth wasting the energy of anger.

That last bit is the one that took me till very recently to discover and incorporate into my mind and spirit.

The process of discovering these was not easy.

e1 can easily turn you into a emotionless zombie.
e2 requires lots of strength and self control.
e3 is the toughest, because it requires you to give something to the tormentors.

Comments

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

smile ever so sweetly and with a hint of condensation

Please don't fix this typo; it's way too fun an image.

[johno.livejournal.com]

As in "drips with sarcasm"?

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I meant that honestly. No sarcasm intended.

I think I might be strange.

[johno.livejournal.com]

I meant as the response to verbal bulling "sweet and sarcastic".

Though I also learned that could get you beat up to boot, but that's a different, but related, issue.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. I see you fixed it, but that was a good justification!

[pywacket.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I've had a bully following me around for four years now. I try to follow those same precepts, but it is hard not to lash out at times.

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

Having been harrassed mercilessly by bullies up through high school, I can relate. (Tall not short, skinny not fat, straight-A bookworm fannish nerd-girl with glasses.) But I never really got into #3 - more like I determined I'd end up having a much better life and the last laugh as Karma hopefully gets their sorry asses.......

Yes, I DO hold grudges. Especially when the bullying went beyond taunts into worse. Especially when I'm a girl and sometimes the bullies are boys....

[tuto.livejournal.com]

Seventh grade. Total hell for me. I had my two personal bullies, verbally and phisically abusive. I was the tall and gangly pizza face sort. I really don't know to this day what it was about me that made them treat me so. And to this day if I ever run into them in the street I would in a second bash their faces in. Nobody should go through what i went through.Yeah, I still hold a bit of a grudge. I felt totally isolated and didn't know where to turn to. I have an older brother and growing up we were never that close but I mentioned it to him (not really in detail) about these kids bothering me. He looks at me and says "I know who they are, I'll talk to them". They never bother me again. almost a year I put up with their crap and the whole time my brother could've help me. Go figure.
So, I guess my advise would be to talk to somebody however unlikely it may seem. Nobody deserves to be treated like less than human.

bullies

[alilbit.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm gonna be packing this one away into my memories stash. I had one bully in highschool, I just kept eye contact and didnt back down, and in the end she didnt do anything.

Ah!

[admiralmemo.livejournal.com]

Quite good advice!

[zyxwvut.livejournal.com]

I consider #2 and #3 to be good aikido. ;-D

Z

P.S.: You said "very recently" -- do you still experience bullying
in your adult life?

[johno.livejournal.com]

Not directly...

However, I held on to lots of anger for many years.

I'm stilling finding the areas where I'm still holding some.

When I started letting it go, a weight was removed.

When I started to see that it is the tormentors that are deserving of pity, I gained a lightness