Adult Bullies
When we grow up, inevitably we’re faced with a bully that treats us like trash. This is something I’m pretty familiar with but to be honest with you, I think bullies can teach us many valuable lessons. When we’re kids though, we don’t know the reasons a kid is a bully since we’re not exactly “in tune” with our emotions, let alone the emotions another kid is experiencing. As kids, we just know that this other person isn’t treating us very well and hopefully we have some form of support system around to help us deal with the issues that may arise internally from the bullying. Unfortunately, many don’t have that support system.
There are many ways to define bullying but the definition, per Wikipedia, is “The use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, imbalance of power and repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally or emotionally.” In 2022, we can’t forget that cyberbullying is very common as well.
As adults though, bullying can be substantially different than dealing with a kid on the playground taunting us or making fun of our shoes. Adult bullying can have profound impacts on our mental health, especially if it’s from a loved one or someone we believed we could trust. I think many of us look at bullying like I described above but obviously it’s much, much different as an adult because our interactions with others are quite a bit different than as a kid. How bullying manifests itself in adulthood can look many different ways, especially with the advent of social media and cyberbullying.
I can say that for myself, I didn’t realize how often I’ve been bullied as an adult. I wanted to believe that the crap I dealt with as a kid couldn’t continue happening when I grew up but I was painfully wrong. In fact, the reason I’m a champion of mental health is because of bullying. Here’s where things get hard for me because bullying can put me in a really bad place, almost transporting me back to my childhood, which has made the impacts more difficult to handle since my childhood can still be a point of pain.
Now that I’ve done a lot of hard work on myself in the mental health space, I better understand why someone is a bully. Remember, what I’m talking about is based on my experience and opinion, I’m not a professional but I’ve experienced a lot in my life and want to use that to help others. Most of the time I think the reason an adult bullies someone is because, besides being a hurt person, they suffer from jealousy, ignorance and the biggest, cowardice. I know those aren’t clinical diagnoses but they’re likely the hard truth. Cowards that attempt to hurt another person likely suffer from self-hate, aren’t capable of communicating (like an adult) and project their weaknesses upon others to make themselves feel good. But, as we all know, at the end of the day they never feel good about themselves unless they’re a legit psychopath.
According to Happierhuman.com, here’s some of the reasons adults bully:
Past abuse or childhood experience
Self-esteem and self-confidence issues
Abandonment issues
Insecurity
Obsession for control
Enjoyment of the ill-gotten rewards
Lack of empathy, narcissistic traits, or mental illness
How we handle an adult bully differs on the type of bullying you’re experiencing. Is it physical, cyber, etc? It can be hard to avoid an adult bully because you may work with them, you’re related to them or must deal with them in one form or another. It’s on you to determine the best course of action; avoidance can be effective but if you must deal with them, that’s obviously hard. Do your best to remember that the bullying is *their* problem and don’t take it personally. They’re the weak person, the coward. I don’t think there’s a “playbook” to deal with a bully because there’s so many ways it can occur, so try and think of the reasons a person is a bully and develop your own playbook based on the factors you’re aware of. Always remember though, the bully is looking for a response and they usually want it to be at their level, so keep your head up and don’t sink.
One would hope if someone sees that you’re being bullied that they would feel compelled to defend you. This is one of the biggest mistake you can make in life and will lead you to a world of hurt in my opinion. Most of the time, people are too weak to defend another person (mentally, physically, emotionally) so if you’re counting on someone else to step up and defend you, you’re setting yourself up for a huge let down.
I think the biggest thing I’ve learned as an adult is that people will CONSTANTLY let me down. They’re selfish and don’t want to put themselves at risk to be bullied as well. I consider these folks cowards as well but at least they’re not hurting anyone but themselves. This is why I’m so vocal about these issues, I want folks to rely on themselves and nobody else because at the end of the day, all you’ve got is you. I don’t believe the vast, vast, vast majority of people would ever step up to defend me, or anyone else for that matter, so if we don’t want to be bullied, we’ve got to take the onus upon ourselves to deal with the cowardly bullies and set ourselves up for success. The way you prepare will likely be different than how I prepare or how another person prepares but the point is that you’re prepared.
Here comes the biggest irony in this piece: I feel a ton of sympathy for the adult bullies out there. See, I know they’re tortured souls, something deep down causing them to act in this manner. They’re hurt people and as I, and many others say, hurt people hurt people. I don’t want anyone to feel pain but ultimately, it’s a part of life. In fact, if we pay attention to our pain, many times it can teach us a lot about ourselves and help us to lead better, more fulfilling lives. That’s the way I look at the bullying I’ve received; I’ve had to look deep within to uncover how the bullying made me feel so I could learn from it and create ways to heal and deal with it in the future. If there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that I’m not going to change a single person on earth so I’ve got to be ready for the bullies out there. I think you’d be wise to do the same.
As I ponder adult bullying, I think the biggest way I like to handle it is by showing the bully that their tactics won’t work on me. They can throw everything but the kitchen sink at me and nothing, NOTHING, will ever cause me as much pain as holding my mom’s hand as she passed away or being told my dad died. Unless the bully plans on shooting me dead then they can take their threats, their slights at my hand or the way I look and completely, with reckless abandon, go fuck themselves. We gone!
Twitter: @onehandman
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Email: William at manvsmood dot com