Again, if you aren’t careful, this repetition of bullying, abuse, and gaslighting will brainwash you. You’ll internalize it and be convinced of it.

Once your bullies finally convince you that you’re the lowest form of life on Earth, you will adopt a poor attitude and begin behaving in a way that matches your new beliefs about yourself. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.

• You’ll stop believing in yourself.
• You’ll have a condition known as “Learned Helplessness.”
• Your grades will plummet, and your performance will suffer.
• You’ll attract all kinds of bad fortune into your life.
• You’ll want so badly to get out of the bad environment and situation you’re in that you’ll begin making poor decisions and life choices out of desperation- choices that may alter the entire course of your life.
• You may drop out of school to get away from your bullies. I almost did.
• You may quit your job before you have time to find other employment.
• You may join a gang or extremist group to feel like you belong and to have friends.
• You may use drugs to fit in, or to dull the pain.

And what’s really sad is that you won’t even realize it’s happening until you’re already too far down the rabbit hole. That is, if you ever realize it.

Understand that bullying will change your life- either for better or worse.

It’s hard! I completely get that. I understand how hard it is to keep loving yourself when you’re surrounded by people who hate you. I know how difficult it is to believe in yourself when it seems that no one else does. And I realize that it’s overwhelming to continue trying when everyone else is constantly telling you to give up- that you’ll never make it.

Believe you me. I empathize with you because I was there. I almost gave up.

• I attempted suicide in the eighth grade and almost didn’t make it.
• I almost dropped out of school during the eleventh grade.
• I almost lost hope.

I did some desperate things back then- things that could have gotten me arrested or worse- killed!

If I’d held on to my love for and belief in myself, there’s no doubt that I would’ve spared myself a lot of pain.

But I eventually got mad- at myself! And when I got mad- it gave me the determination that they weren’t going to destroy the rest of my life. I wasn’t going to let them.

That’s what you have to do- get mad. Get determined. Dig in your heels and double down. Be determined not to lose yourself- not to let them destroy the parts of yourself that matter.

Because if you give into your bullies and cave into believing what they tell you, it will become a Self-Fulfilling Prophesy. You’ll end up living up to everything they tell you. That’s not what you want. You don’t want to give your bullies any more satisfaction than they’ve already gotten at your expense. No way!

Why are they so hell bend on making you believe their lies?

• Because they know they will succeed at brainwashing you.
• Bullies are very much aware that they will get what they want. And what they want is to break your spirit.
• The bully’s end goal- to bring you so low that you never recover.
• If they can do the above three, then you’re likely to prove them right.
• Know that it’s all an attempt to reprogram you and in a vast majority of cases, it works!

 

Self-fulfilling prophesies are real, and they can destroy your life if you let bullies cause you to have a losing, self-defeating and bitter attitude. On the other hand, having confidence, loving yourself, and having a positive attitude will bring good things into your life.

This is not to say that bad things won’t sometimes happen anyway because they do. Sometimes things happen that we have no control over, and it happens to all of us. However, with a positive attitude, your life won’t be one huge string of bad luck. You will have victories- and more of them then losses.

Attitude does attract things into your life. Like attracts like. How I wish I’d know this when I was young.