If you’re a target of bullying, I almost certain that you’ve had bullies tell the most outrageous and outright ridiculous falsehoods about you- lies which were laughable at best. And shockingly, everyone in the place actually believed that garbage! And you wondered, “How could anyone with even a lick of sense believe such moronic tales!”
It seemed as if everyone around you was smoking crack. They’d have to be to believe such tripe!
Understand that anytime you’re a target of bullying; you’re at your absolute worst! Anyone would be at their worst under the extreme pressure that bullying brings. Anytime a person is bullied by everyone, it doesn’t matter how strong they are, how brave they are, how beautiful, how awesome their personalities are, they will eventually be overcome with exhaustion and taken down.
If you’re bullied long enough, by enough people, you’ll only be able to stay strong and withstand it for so long. Because we’re all human, and no one can hold up under that kind of stress and adversity forever.
Bullies instinctively know this. So, they increase the abuse until you begin to crack. You will be overwhelmed with so many emotions. You’ll be completely paranoid- and with good reason!
You’ll be furious, you’ll be terrified, shocked, confused, and stressed to the extreme! Your appetite will be gone, and you’ll get very little sleep. You’ll have lots of your hair falling out, and your stomach will be in knots. You’ll have excruciating headaches. At times, you’ll feel nauseated and even vomit!
Should it be any wonder that people believe everything they hear about you?
They’ve seen you morph from a cheerful, reliable, responsible, and reasonable person to a stressed out, hot mess of a train wreck who’s barely able to function, much less concentrate on schoolwork or work projects.
Here’s another thing:
Joseph Goebbels, who was the minister of propaganda to Adolf Hitler, said it best when he made these statements,
“Tell a lie once, and it remains a lie. Tell a lie a thousand times, and it becomes the truth.”
“The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.”
Believe it or not, people will believe the big, outlandish lies before they accept the little white lies that make more sense. If we hear something about another person, especially if it’s something huge and horrible and comes from a person we trust and with a little bit of power, we may feel shocked and disbelief at first, we will eventually end up believing it.
And the reason we end up believing it is that the repercussions of severe wrongdoing are so enormous that we don’t want to think that anyone would tell such a big fat lie about someone if there isn’t some truth to it.
We cling to the belief that if a person is audacious enough to make such an accusation about another person, then somewhere, there must be evidence to back it up. Otherwise, they wouldn’t dare make such bold accusations and risk being proven wrong and made to look like a fool!
So, we hold on to the idea that where there’s smoke, there’s fire and allow caution and speculation to supersede any logic. And if we expect trouble to come from a specific place, that’s where we’re going to look.
And when we look for a specific thing, we usually find it.
Also, if a lie is something that goes against the target’s character, we’re more likely to believe it strictly because any story of hypocrisy has a certain amount of shock value and entertainment to it as long as the story is about someone else and not us.
Another reason we’re more prone to believe a big fat lie is because it frightens the crap out of us. When people hear a lie so big and outrageous, it makes them wonder if they ever really knew the target at all. And the idea that someone they know could do such a horrible thing scares people to death.
Is it all making sense now? Great!
The more you know, the better!
This is so true. I know I keep mentioning my experiences, but allow me one more. Back a lifetime ago when I worked, a manager of a different department was transferred to the one I worked in. She had worked there for years, I knew her but we were not friends. When she took over the department I asked her one favor. That should upper manager X make any questionable comments ask me first before becoming angry or upset over them. Less than a week later she came to me and without explanation told me “I see what you mean about X”. This didn’t stop X but it did slow them down greatly and prevented their making a working relationship impossible.
Sometimes bullies run into someone they don’t want to tangle with. Although it doesn’t stop them completely, it definitely slows them down. I’ve seen this happen lots of times.
In this, it only detoured him, but it made working with her easier.
Absolutely! Any progress is better than no progress at all. I’m glad that work got easier for you. When you’re bullied, any progress is welcome.
Yeah, I’ve definitely been here before lol. Frustrating.
That it is. You wonder how people can be this dumb. But I’ve come to find that people believe stiff because they want to believe it.
That it is. You wonder how people can be this dumb. But I’ve come to find that people believe stiff because they want to believe it.