How do you handle bullies, teasers and meanies?

[mylunareclipse]

Bullying at work is so hard and it's rarely recognized. I have never seen hurt like this. One single psychopath turned the whole work against me. It hurts most with people you once considered friends. I was also helping them with their job while getting abused and yelled at by the same people and told should feel lucky to be in a position I can help them. My brain went crazy. I stopped talking to them. But the abuse got worse.
Thanks for writing about this. The things is for a long time I blamed myself. Especially when I started reading that bullies use the silent treatment to bully I started wondering if actually I was the bully for not talking to three anymore? Thanks for sharing this and hope things get better for you and you can move on and heal.

 

[Changing4Best]

Oh yes, the silent treatment is meant to control, to make one feel uneasy and self conscious and a host of other bad feelings too. My therapist pointed out that the silent treatment is also called "pouting" and is often a very immature method by which children try to control their parents. When used by adults, it is like some kind of reversion to that stage in childhood, hoping to get whatever it is that the person wants, but sometimes that is hard to figure out (what it is that the person is trying to achieve by pouting).

PS. There is a difference, of course, between giving someone the silent treatment and choosing not to communicate with someone in order to preserve one's sanity or health in general. Pouting has an attitude with it, along with probably some bad mouthing going on behind your back, that a person who is avoiding conversation with others for reasons of self preservation does not do. There is a huge difference between the two things. One is a survival activity while the other is a nasty habit that is used to make others uncomfortable and "punish" them for some imagined wrong.

 

[Changing4Best]

I suppose I should add to my OP that I was mercilessly bullied and teased all throughout my 6th grade year in school. I also was mistreated quite a bit during other school years, sometimes by neglect, sometimes by outright teasing or sometimes by things like being the last one chosen to be on a team for softball in Gym class or something like that.

The boys in 6th grade were the worst. I know that the teacher must have had some kind of clue that this was going on, but she never did anything to correct the situation. They said things to me like "You stink." or "You are the ugliest girl I have ever seen." or they would call me by my last name and say it with derision in their voices. One kid in particular was super nasty. He started the whole thing, was kind of the "ring leader" and got all the rest of the boys to do to me whatever he did.

They carried this on for the whole school year, day in, day out.... but finally during that summer after the year was over, when one of them did it to me in front of my own home, on our front lawn, I lost it. I beat the living daylights out of him, so much so, that I ended up jumping up and down on his chest. He begged me to stop, so I finally did. He ended up in the hospital, I heard, with broken ribs and a concussion, but I never got in trouble. He was too embarrassed to admit he had been beaten up by a girl, so he told a story about having fallen off the top of a 2 story building instead.

However, there was a downside to this too. The real story was known by his close friends and word probably got around, because no boys from my high school dated me but 2 of them, each only for a very short time and ended the relationships with total silence and no reason for their departure. Each relationship lasted for less than 2 weeks. Also, I was never invited to the proms, and in those days no one went to a prom unless a boy invited them.

So I was scarred for life by this and every time bullying comes up NOW in my life, this whole nightmare gets triggered and it hurts all over again.... plus I have to deal with what is going on in my life presently, as well as do my job, and it is really difficult to hold it all together while all this goes on around me and inside my head.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I hope that you can tell yourself that you're not in the 6th grade anymore.... you are a grown woman now. And god damn I loved reading that you beat the snot out of that bully!!!!! He deserved it!!!

 

[Changing4Best]

I only wish I could have beat the snot out of the one that started it all! That would have been sweeter. However, unlike the one I did beat up, he probably would have fought back, and so I would have been injured too. So it is probably best that I never had the opportunity.

 

[Friday]

A 10yo teased you, so you jumped up and down on their chest breaking their ribs and giving them a concussion, which means you were also what? Kicking them in the head? All. While. They. Begged. You. To. Stop.

You put this kid in the hospital.

And you're proud of this?

Shit there's more, you specifically targeted a kid who wouldn't fight back.

Kids do all kinds of cruel terrible horrifically abusive things to each other, like physically assault and beat them badly enough they could easily have died from a punctured lung... But that you're still happy you hurt this kid as badly as you did... as an adult? Have no remorse or sense of proportion whatsoever? Teasing vs Extremely violent physical assault. Is seriously f*cked up.

 

[EveHarrington]

"Teasing" is what spurns on a lot of gun violence in schools. I think it's time we stop with the "it's just teasing" bit as if it's nothing. These are kids who feel helpless and just....SNAP.

 

[Suzetig]

And god damn I loved reading that you beat the snot out of that bully!!!!! He deserved it!!!

Really? Deserved to sustain injuries consistent with a fall from a 2 storey building? Think about that for a moment.

I'm not surprised you were given a wide berth @SheilaKathy, you're fortunate you didn't end up with a criminal charge.

 

[Deleted member 541]

@Suzetig The incident was probably 40 yrs ago! Having been bullied myself at a young age, yes, I would have done the same thing at THE TIME!!!!! Today, it wouldn't be an accepted behavior, but neither is bullying. How many children have committed suicide because of being bullied??? Maybe had they been able to stand up for themselves, they wouldn't have the need to go kill themselves.

I'm not advocating fighting, but one person can only handle so much. Times have changed, and people are more aware of these things going on, but there needs to be more done for the person being bullied....

 

[Mach123]

I call them emotional vampires. They do that to suck the life out of you. I hate to keep repeating this but it's dominance and submission again. By making you submit with words they feed on you. It's so gross I hate people who do this and I think it goes on in most groups so guess what? I spend a lot of time alone these days.

 

[Changing4Best]

I was 12 years old when I beat the living daylights out of that kid. So criminal charges could not have been filed, though I could have ended up in Juvenile court, that is true. I could have been sent to a detention center for youth, yes. @Suzetig However, that did not happen. What I did there was take out on one kid, what I felt toward all of them for bullying me all year long, every day, non-stop. Even some kids from other classes joined in, if I recall. It was the most horrible year of my life in many ways, because I had buried the memories of being molested. Those were not uncovered until I was in my 30s.

 

[Changing4Best]

Well, @Friday, I did what I did and I cannot change the fact. However, many years later I did find the kid on FB and I apologized to him, so I did do something right.

I know now that I have to watch my temper. I do understand that. I have a long fuse, but it does eventually blow and when it does, I know it is dangerous. I do realize that.

That is why I started this thread, because I wanted to find a solution, not blow a fuse.