Ever been so angry (ragry) that your core feels like it is uncomfortably swelling? My vision gets blurry & my periphery goes cloudy. I have a hard time taking a normal breath, my head starts hurting and – even if I wanted to physically fight the person making me so angry, I couldn’t because my muscles get really weak. I get so angry I want to kill.
There is still a well practiced rational part of my mind that keeps me from doing anything extreme. Before I was educated about how my body works, I tried to act on the extreme things going through my mind – or at least taken steps to act on it … but I don’t have immediate access to weapons or chemicals that could kill anyone, plus I’m not a big person, so in the process of finding something, the time it takes to seek out a deadly weapon does always calm me down enough to just cut & run away rather than harm them physically.
I’m not a physically aggressive person; I am in my mind – my thoughts go toward imagining killing them, but I’ve never actually gone beyond imagining, mostly because my body won’t let me. My nervous & immune system act against me every time. I’ve thrown a few punches before, but when I’m angry my muscles get so weak that I just end up looking stupid. My past experiences with this keeps me from trying to physically fight anyone, even though a lot of the time they deserve a good sock in the face. I wish I could do it, but I can’t, and maybe it is for the best.
I suck at verbal confrontations too. My verbal communication is mediocre at the best of times. My social skills in general are ... well, let's just say I'm well intentioned, but people usually misinterpret my meaning.
The best situations I’ve encounter, where someone was trying to tick me off … the best way I’ve been able to handle it is staying calm, thinking to myself that their insults don’t matter to me, not letting my body get too out of hand in reacting, & coolly telling them to find someone else to be immature with because I have better things to do with my time. I walk away. I can’t win in situations like than no matter how I react, (mainly because the aggressor & the audience are so immature).
The situation gets handled ok, but then the aftermath starts bothering & eating at me – the original aggressor gets away with the probing insults, and recruits others to do it. They get away with it because I can’t do anything about it. We are adults, so there isn’t anyone I can tell – even if we were kids, telling never helped then either; just made it worse.
My question is – how can we get grown adults to stop being a-hole bullies? And what form of punishment is appropriate for an adult who is acting like a schoolyard bully? It isn’t exactly illegal to annoy people. What really gets under my skin is other grown adults siding with the bully because of good looks, money, and is a (selectively) nice person when it is beneficial. I am speaking about specific people who have been in my life (college professors mainly), but I pose this question about all the adult bullies out there and how to handle them -- given our ptsd & other issues, I have a hard time knowing what the right thing to do is AND take care of myself at the same time.
There is still a well practiced rational part of my mind that keeps me from doing anything extreme. Before I was educated about how my body works, I tried to act on the extreme things going through my mind – or at least taken steps to act on it … but I don’t have immediate access to weapons or chemicals that could kill anyone, plus I’m not a big person, so in the process of finding something, the time it takes to seek out a deadly weapon does always calm me down enough to just cut & run away rather than harm them physically.
I’m not a physically aggressive person; I am in my mind – my thoughts go toward imagining killing them, but I’ve never actually gone beyond imagining, mostly because my body won’t let me. My nervous & immune system act against me every time. I’ve thrown a few punches before, but when I’m angry my muscles get so weak that I just end up looking stupid. My past experiences with this keeps me from trying to physically fight anyone, even though a lot of the time they deserve a good sock in the face. I wish I could do it, but I can’t, and maybe it is for the best.
I suck at verbal confrontations too. My verbal communication is mediocre at the best of times. My social skills in general are ... well, let's just say I'm well intentioned, but people usually misinterpret my meaning.
The best situations I’ve encounter, where someone was trying to tick me off … the best way I’ve been able to handle it is staying calm, thinking to myself that their insults don’t matter to me, not letting my body get too out of hand in reacting, & coolly telling them to find someone else to be immature with because I have better things to do with my time. I walk away. I can’t win in situations like than no matter how I react, (mainly because the aggressor & the audience are so immature).
The situation gets handled ok, but then the aftermath starts bothering & eating at me – the original aggressor gets away with the probing insults, and recruits others to do it. They get away with it because I can’t do anything about it. We are adults, so there isn’t anyone I can tell – even if we were kids, telling never helped then either; just made it worse.
My question is – how can we get grown adults to stop being a-hole bullies? And what form of punishment is appropriate for an adult who is acting like a schoolyard bully? It isn’t exactly illegal to annoy people. What really gets under my skin is other grown adults siding with the bully because of good looks, money, and is a (selectively) nice person when it is beneficial. I am speaking about specific people who have been in my life (college professors mainly), but I pose this question about all the adult bullies out there and how to handle them -- given our ptsd & other issues, I have a hard time knowing what the right thing to do is AND take care of myself at the same time.