When you are or were bullied, did your bully ever justify their horrific treatment by making statements such as, “You ‘made me’ do it!”? I’ll bet that you have. Bullies often make the following statements to their targets to justify their behavior and intimidate the poor targets into keeping silent.
“You ‘made me’ or ‘make me’ hit you!”
“You ‘make’ people want to hurt you!”
“Don’t ‘make me’ hurt you!”
“Don’t ‘make me’ mad!”
“You make people want to yell at you!”
“You make me hate you!”
You get the point.
These are all statements bullies use to gaslight targets and to brainwash them into believing that it’s their (the target’s)fault. That the target made them (the bullies) lash out.
I can’t count the times I heard these from my classmates, and I must admit, it was very hurtful and intimidating. However, I look back now and realize that this was only my bullies’ way of shifting the blame my way because they were so afraid that I would call them out on their terrible behavior and expose them for the trash they truly were. They also wanted to maintain the upper hand.
The keywords in these sentences are either “made” or “make,” and they are very telling if you really stop and think about it.
If you are a victim of bullying, expect those kinds of remarks. But understand that these are classic statements bullies make to shift the blame your way and to avoid losing their power over you, being caught, and the possibility of facing the consequences.
There’s always a way to bust the bullies who try to shift blame onto you this way:
Simply counter the bully’s statement and say this:
“No! I didn’t make you do a damn thing! You did that all on your own!”
Say it point-blank and with conviction. If possible, say it in front of an audience. Call the bully out, and more than likely, the bully will think twice before saying anything else.
Once again, it sounds like the government… “you made me shut down restaurants again because COVID is spreading,” despite the fact that very few cases can be traced to restaurants.
😂🤣😂🤣 There ya go! 💯
Bullies should learn to control their temper rather than saying it was the victim that pushed them to do so.
Absolutely, they should. But most do not because they’re allowed to get away with their atrocious behavior. It’s sad.
Thanks for sharing this. I do this when I know someone is gaslighting me. Sometimes you really have to lay down the law to them
I totally agree! And I commend you for sticking to your guns.
Thank you! Took practice though
I have a different experience than the other commenters. I was a new immigrant and was trying to impress my husband’s family. I baked a huge cake for my parent’s in law but a certain member of the family had a meltdown, threw a tantrum and then blamed it on me. In a sense l was told l ‘made her’. It was silly because l like to avoid the limelight but my cake made an impression and all l wanted to do at the party was to eat cake😳
Wow! Sounds like some of your in-laws had mental issues.
Sadly, it is easy to be accused of provocation. The funny thing is that the cake was eaten by the same complainer because l wanted to leave the cake behind for my parents in law. So she ate my hard work. 😂
I’m so sorry that happened to you. The fact she ate the cake shows what a hypocrite she is. So she showed herself big! 🙂
Good point. I wish I had you to talk to at that time. You have such a wise way of looking at things. I wouldn’t have taken so long to recover from that episode.
Thank you so much. I had to go through years of being stupid before I finally wised up though. And it’s time consuming as heck too. It comes from years of being crapped on and not knowing what to do about it. 😂