HOW DEAL WITH THE VERBAL BULLY OVER THE CHRISTMAS PERIOD

At the time of writing this, the Christmas holidays have just started for many people, a much needed break from the hassles (and unfortunately bullies) that they face at their work.  For many of these people, the time off might hopefully be enough for them to analyse the toxic relationship between themselves and the bully, as well as come up with some appropriate plan of action on how to beat the bully.

Unfortunately for others however the bullying would only just be starting, particularly when the bully is a family member; be it sibling, parent or even a distant cousin.  If you happen to be one of those people for whom the bully is a family member, than the Christmas holidays might not be that much of an exciting time at all.  Throughout the rest of the year, you might have been able to keep your distance from such person but come Christmas; you may be expected to attend the family functions (along with the bully).  And if the person in question is a verbal bully, they may openly be attacking you in the form of nasty comments right under the noses of others.

A perfect example of such a bully is the family member who openly makes comments about you in such a manner that while others in earshot would hear a perfectly innocent interpretation, only you and the bully would get the real interpretation behind the comment.  Such comments you may hear coming from the mouth of the bully include;

‘Please give us two fatties a smaller portion please’

Implying that you are fat and so should have a smaller portion, yet the adding of themselves in the equation lightens the directness of the comment at you.

‘Why aren’t you married yet like…’

This comment tends to be said more at female targets than male ones, probably due to the emphasis on getting married, raising children, etc.  To others it sounds like genuine concern but to you (and the bully) it is direct attack on your social status (and compare you with another is just rude)!

‘So you STILL working as…?.’

Emphasis here is on the still, showing concern to others yet to yourself, implying that you haven’t done any better in your career.

‘Why don’t you ever come around and see me more often?’

Another famous line, usually said just before or after the prior comments.  The aim is to try and get you to answer your apparent lack of caring in front of others.

‘I heard you are a ….?  Why do/don’t you …’

This statement is usually said when the bully is aware that you have done something (or don’t do something) which they and the rest of the family do.  For instance you are a vegetarian while we eat meat or you went to university while we didn’t.  The intent is to start a debate where you are singled out and victimised by them and others for doing what you do.

So if you happen to find yourself reluctantly facing another Christmas where you are going to be targeted by a bully on an on-going basis, what options do you have open to you?  Well one option of course is to simply tell everyone that you won’t be attending Christmas with them, but this in all likely is going to isolate you from the family (and god knows what the bully be saying about you when you are not around).   Of course there is always the second option of attending the family Christmas and simply put up with the bullying (not viable option either).

Well the first thing I would recommend is that you plan some defences in your mind should the bully start to openly attack you.  For instance, when they openly criticise you for instance with one of the comments mentioned above, simply respond by saying ‘Thanks … for your concern but I…’ ;

1.       Can look after my own weight thank you

2.       Feel that is personal and I don’t wish to discuss it with you

3.       I don’t wish to discuss that so can we please change the subject

4.       Feel that when I am in your company, you tend to put me down and as such, tend to spend time away (let the whole table know how their bullying affects you and so that is why you rarely visit them).

These are just four possible responses that you can give to the bullying family member when they are verbally attacking you in front of others.  The trick is to be creative and try to come up with a list of possible responses to the bullying comments that they may try and throw at you.

Usually on giving your response, the bully realising you have deflected their attack will throw several other comments at you in the form of either trying to dig into your reasons for not answering their initial bullying comment, else they will back off for few minutes before coming back with another such comment.  In the first instance, simply tell the person (and any interested family members) that you are not willing to talk about it and can you please change the subject.  If they don’t stop, calmly get up and leave the dinner table, etc, perhaps even heading off home.

Alternatively if they keep trying to come back with another comment, ask the bully in question (in front of the family) why they keep pushing you to answer personal details, etc about yourself, such as social status, career progression or implying that you are fat, etc.  The bully is trying to put you in the limelight (embarrassingly) so why not give them some limelight of their own.

Ultimately which options you choose to take are completely up to you though it ought to be worth mentioning that should you feel that the bully is gaining ground in their comments by others beginning to probe you further, simply say thank you for the meal but you are going to be leaving now!

At the time of writing this, the Christmas holidays have just started for many people, a much needed break from the hassles (and unfortunately bullies) that they face at their work.  For many of these people, the time off might hopefully be enough for them to analyse the toxic relationship between themselves and the bully, as well as come up with some appropriate plan of action on how to beat the bully.

Unfortunately for others however the bullying would only just be starting, particularly when the bully is a family member; be it sibling, parent or even a distant cousin.  If you happen to be one of those people for whom the bully is a family member, than the Christmas holidays might not be that much of an exciting time at all.  Throughout the rest of the year, you might have been able to keep your distance from such person but come Christmas; you may be expected to attend the family functions (along with the bully).  And if the person in question is a verbal bully, they may openly be attacking you in the form of nasty comments right under the noses of others.

A perfect example of such a bully is the family member who openly makes comments about you in such a manner that while others in earshot would hear a perfectly innocent interpretation, only you and the bully would get the real interpretation behind the comment.  Such comments you may hear coming from the mouth of the bully include;

‘Please give us two fatties a smaller portion please’

Implying that you are fat and so should have a smaller portion, yet the adding of themselves in the equation lightens the directness of the comment at you.

‘Why aren’t you married yet like…’

This comment tends to be said more at female targets than male ones, probably due to the emphasis on getting married, raising children, etc.  To others it sounds like genuine concern but to you (and the bully) it is direct attack on your social status (and compare you with another is just rude)!

‘So you STILL working as…?.’

Emphasis here is on the still, showing concern to others yet to yourself, implying that you haven’t done any better in your career.

‘Why don’t you ever come around and see me more often?’

Another famous line, usually said just before or after the prior comments.  The aim is to try and get you to answer your apparent lack of caring in front of others.

‘I heard you are a ….?  Why do/don’t you …’

This statement is usually said when the bully is aware that you have done something (or don’t do something) which they and the rest of the family do.  For instance you are a vegetarian while we eat meat or you went to university while we didn’t.  The intent is to start a debate where you are singled out and victimised by them and others for doing what you do.

So if you happen to find yourself reluctantly facing another Christmas where you are going to be targeted by a bully on an on-going basis, what options do you have open to you?  Well one option of course is to simply tell everyone that you won’t be attending Christmas with them, but this in all likely is going to isolate you from the family (and god knows what the bully be saying about you when you are not around).   Of course there is always the second option of attending the family Christmas and simply put up with the bullying (not viable option either).

Well the first thing I would recommend is that you plan some defences in your mind should the bully start to openly attack you.  For instance, when they openly criticise you for instance with one of the comments mentioned above, simply respond by saying ‘Thanks … for your concern but I…’ ;

1.       Can look after my own weight thank you

2.       Feel that is personal and I don’t wish to discuss it with you

3.       I don’t wish to discuss that so can we please change the subject

4.       Feel that when I am in your company, you tend to put me down and as such, tend to spend time away (let the whole table know how their bullying affects you and so that is why you rarely visit them).

These are just four possible responses that you can give to the bullying family member when they are verbally attacking you in front of others.  The trick is to be creative and try to come up with a list of possible responses to the bullying comments that they may try and throw at you.

Usually on giving your response, the bully realising you have deflected their attack will throw several other comments at you in the form of either trying to dig into your reasons for not answering their initial bullying comment, else they will back off for few minutes before coming back with another such comment.  In the first instance, simply tell the person (and any interested family members) that you are not willing to talk about it and can you please change the subject.  If they don’t stop, calmly get up and leave the dinner table, etc, perhaps even heading off home.

Alternatively if they keep trying to come back with another comment, ask the bully in question (in front of the family) why they keep pushing you to answer personal details, etc about yourself, such as social status, career progression or implying that you are fat, etc.  The bully is trying to put you in the limelight (embarrassingly) so why not give them some limelight of their own.

Ultimately which options you choose to take are completely up to you though it ought to be worth mentioning that should you feel that the bully is gaining ground in their comments by others beginning to probe you further, simply say thank you for the meal but you are going to be leaving now!

BEAT THE BULLY WITH PEN & PAPER

In the previous post ‘Be In The Present Moment’ I mentioned how learning to be in the present moment can help one combat the damaging effect that bullying can have to your psychological well-being. Unfortunately if you are already being bullied (maybe for quite some time now) than trying to get your mind out of the mental fog and back into the present moment (the only true moment) can be very difficult

You may have noticed that I have put the term ‘mental fog’ in bold. The reason why I came up with this term is because on being bullied (especially on a consistent nature) one can find themselves living their day-to-day lives as if they were shrouded in a fog of anger, fear, despair, confusion, etc. It may sound far-fetched to many, but bullying does not only effect one when it is happening but can have further far reaching effects, affecting one throughout almost every waking moment.

If you have been fortunate enough to never having being bullied to the point where you find yourself living in such a mental fog, you may well be wondering what exactly all the fuss is about. Surely when one is not being bullied at that specific moment in time, one should be able to focus themselves on something more positive. Unfortunately this is not always the case as the human mind is built to look out for threats and potential issues: thanks to our evolutionary past when we humans lived in caves and had to constantly be on the lookout for real threats to our survival. As such, when we get bullied on a consistent basis, our minds begin to label the threat and if the bullying is taking place on and on-going basis, the mind will see it as a threat still. As such it would do what evolutionary it was designed for, to consistently make us aware of the threat: and ready to fight or flight!

So how can you tell if you are mentally caught in a mental fog due to the bullying within your life? Well if you tend to spend a large part of your day (when the bully is not around) thinking about the bullying, perhaps feeling scared at what may happen next time you two meet, or instead feeling furious and imaging drastic revenge scenarios , than you are in a mental fog! (Hopefully you can now understand how simply trying to bring your mind back into the present moment won’t truly help when you are in such a state).

Fortunately if you do find yourself in such a state of mind, help is at hand and the key to getting out of this fog lies in getting a pen and piece of paper (or if you are a techie, than opening up a word document on your PC). Anyhow at the top of the paper, write down the question

‘What actually happened?’

While it may seem obvious to you what happened (i.e. PERSON IN QUESTION did this and said that against you, etc) the reason why it is vital to write down what actually happened is because when you replay the incident over in your mind, your imagination is likely to alter bits of the story, etc. The reason for this (as science has proven) is because our minds tend to delete, distort and generalise our memories in order to fit our own interpretation of reality.

So though it might seem hard, as you answer the question, put down what actually happened whilst trying to take as much emotion out of the description as possible! Than when you have answered this question, jot down

BE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve being explaining to a friend all your troubles, concerns and worries for the future and as such, simply received the response ‘Stop worrying and come back to now.’  Personally I can say that I have experienced these responses several times in my life from friends, etc, due to the fact that I am a high-strung person.  Fortunately for myself, I know that I am not the only one who chronically worries about the future for almost everyone does.

Actually worry (fear) is in itself an emotional concern about something that may happen to you in the future.  Or to put it this way, do you sit around worrying about something that happened yesterday?  Well no would be the answer, except if you feared that the previous event would still have coming repercussions in the future, which would be worrying about the future!

So what has this got to do with bullying?  Well one of the major emotions which people tend to feel in regards to bullying is fear.  If you have or are being bullied, than fear is a natural feeling to feel as in one form or another, what the bully is doing is intimidating you.  Hence during the bullying, you’d probably spend a large amount of your time worrying about your next encounter in the future. 

Another emotion which targets of bullies also have is anger about the past, about the prior encounters with the bully and the unjustified manner to which you treated in.  Ironically this emotion is based in the opposite linear direction of fear in that instead of looking at a future event, one is focused on the past and getting angry at what they are feeling.

What is interesting is how pretty much all negative emotions, i.e. fear, anger, jealousy, arrogance, etc is based around some point in the past or some potentially upcoming moment in the future.  Yet it is amazing how when we are lost in the emotion and our ruminating (thinking) minds, we forget that there is ever only one moment, this current moment.  The future never will come for when it does it will be the here and now.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to imply you are stupid by laying these facts about time out to you but it is simply amazing how we get so caught up in the past or future that we forget about these basic truths.

So how can learning to be more in the here and now help with overcoming the damaging effects bullying has on your level of well-being?  Well when you are more centred and focused on this moment, where you are, you are far less likely to spend your time thinking about your prior experiences with the bully and what will happen in the future. 

For example, how often have you spent the night awake, tossing and turning in bed over what may happen tomorrow when you are back in the company of the bully?  Well I certainly have had a few nights like that in my own past.  Yet looking back, what I know though is that during those moments in bed, I was lying there in states of anger and anxiety yet the bully was nowhere around.  The events I feared were not even happening that evening (and ultimately were nowhere near as bad as I imagined).  What a waste of a good night!

Now many of you reading this would think that what I am saying is foolish in that while it logically makes sense, I am also abdicating that one doesn’t plan how to deal with the bully but simply take each bullying experience as and when it happens!  Honestly nothing could be further from the truth for I am by no means saying that you should not have a plan of action for next time the bully targets you, etc.  What I am trying to say though is that once you have worked out your plan, than let it go.  Don’t fall into the mental habit of ruminating over the plan from various different aspects, adding imaginary what-ifs to the plan.  Once you have created your plan, simply try and bring your attention back to this moment, knowing that when the time does come for you to come face-to-face with your perpetrator, you can than implement your plan of action.

So how does one bring their attention back into the present moment?  Unfortunately if trying to keep your attention in the moment for a sustained period of time, it will be extremely hard.  Zen monks, meditators, etc have spent years trying to master this ability for any true length of time.  Yet one technique that may help is to simply focus on your breathing.  Every moment that you are alive, you are breathing and you are only breathing in this moment.  Hence by focusing on your breathing, looking out sensations, rate of breath, etc, you are bringing your attention back into the current moment.  The trick afterwards is to realise when your attention has drifted away from your breathing and back onto the bullying, etc and then bringing your attention back onto the breathe.

Over time, focusing your mind on the present moment and away from the bullying will severely reduce (and even heal) any damage done to your psyche and sense of well-being!

WE ALL NEED SOMEBODY TO LEAN ON

If you look back in history at human achievement, one thing which you may find quite common is the notion that very few of those achievements were ever actually done by one person alone.  Even if one person was at the helms of the achievement (such as Charles Lindbergh who did the first ever solo flight across the Atlantic in his plane ‘The Spirit of St Louis’) there was always a team of people in the background helping to make the achievement come true.  To achieve anything great in life, one needs a support network of people who can guide them or lend support when needed.

The power behind having a team or network of supportive people who wish the best for you, be it only 1-2 people or 10,000 people, cannot be underestimated.  Having such a network can make even the highest of highs just that slightly bit more exhilarating, while helping you out from the lowest of lows.  And the same can also be said for confronting bullies as well.

Having people for support can help combat the effects of bullying

So if you are currently being targeted by a bully, be it at work, socially or even at home, than having a team of people you can turn to for help and support is of real help to your psychological well-being.  In many cases, people who have being pushed to the edge of suicide have been saved merely by informing someone else of their problems and been talked out of such an act. 

Evolutionary psychologists, psychiatrists, etc, all agree that as a species, we humans are naturally social animals; we need to be around others once in a while.  Personally I can see this instinct of ours after I have witnessed my pet cat having just had a fight with the neighbour’s cat whom is a bit of a ‘Cat Bully.’ 

Anyhow, after the two cats have squared up and fought one another, my cat naturally wouldn’t go up to me for comfort.  Instead she tends to go into solitary hiding under the bushes in the garden where I can only guess she is somehow calming herself down and psychologically overcoming what just occurred for after a few minutes, she seems happy enough to come out of the bushes and walks into the house as if nothing has just happened; if only we humans could overcome the effects of bullying so easily.

Fortunately it is still possible to undo and overcome the damaging effects that bullying has on your psyche and well-being and as you may have guessed, one such method is to develop a social network of friends and family.  Now before you say that you don’t have anyone who you can actually turn towards, I can assure you that in actual fact, there are people you can turn towards.  In fact, I can say this with greatest of confidence, even though I don’t know you.

How can I perceivably be so confident? Well for one thing, I know that the chances are you probably have some family member or friend who’d you can express your concerns about bullying to.  The chances are that you just probably never considered approaching them beforehand with your ideas and suggestions.

Yet even if I am wrong and personally you don’t have any known family or friends at all, than there are many different bullying charities and mental health organisations who would be able to assist you.  Now please don’t get me wrong for by mental health organisations, I am not referring to ‘Nut Houses.’  Instead I am referring to support groups set up by NHS, etc who will be willing to sit down and talk with you over the bullying issue and how you can resolve it.  A brief search online (Google is my recommendation) would supply you with a list of such groups.

However, the chances are that you probably won’t have to even consult such groups unless you truly want too for most probably there are people you personally know that you can approach for help.  If there is such a person you feel you can approach for support but don’t want to be a strain on their time, than simply imagine how you would feel if someone came to you for support due to being bullied.  Ask yourself ‘Would I try and help that person out or simply tell them to go away and sort the problem out themselves?’  Like you’d probably do yourself if approached by someone in need, most people in my experience are only too willing to help in the best way that they can!