When someone tries so hard to prove that they’re not something (a coward, a racist, poor, lacks intelligence, etc.), it usually means they ARE that “something” and they’re only desperate to hide it! Because if they know themselves and know in their heart that they’re not, there’s no need to prove it to begin with. The truth is just there.
I’d be suspicious of anyone who panders, virtue signals, and bends over backwards in order to “prove” something.
With knowledge comes empowerment!
Bullies of the narcissistic variety truly believe they’re better than and more important than anyone else. They believe the world revolves around them and owes them. They believe that they deserve better treatment. They think people should favor them and bow down to their every whim. They really have grandiose delusions of themselves, how others are supposed to treat them, and how the world is supposed to work.
Narcissistic bullies will take advantage of others and exploit their weaknesses for their benefit. They have no empathy and have no care how they hurt their targets. They pass unfair and ridiculous judgements on their targets, or anyone they deem inferior.
Narcissists have very fragile egos, and they feel threatened by anyone who outshines them in any way. They put up mental walls to keep threatening messages and info from penetrating their grandiose sense of self-importance and those walls are supported by the insults they hurl at their targets.
(Narcissism as a protective barrier)*
Narcissistic bullies can’t handle social rejection and they react fiercely to people they feel threatened by. Less than perfect evaluations send them into a fury. They protect and re-enforce their grandiose but fragile egos by criticizing any negative evaluations and feedback.
Many narcissistic bullies use grandiosity as a cover-up for their feelings of vulnerability, inadequacy, and incompetence. They’re deathly afraid that their shortcomings will be exposed, so, they hurl disparaging remarks and ugly names at others to distract others from their own flaws.
That’s why they need targets to project their own issues of insecurity, fear, and self-loathing. They are really quite pathetic when you stop and think about it.
It’s so easy to see why narcissists are so hateful and hurtful. They need to hurt people to feel better about themselves.
Normal people, especially confident people, don’t feel the need to constantly fire off zingers to intentionally hurt other people. Therefore, they don’t have to have a target because they have a healthy sense of self.
No. People who are truly confident and not narcissists like to get along with everyone and enjoy seeing others happy. They have a love for other people and empathy for those who are hurting.
While narcissists degrade others and need a target, healthy and confident people have a more favorable view of everyone, including people who are targets of bullying. Confident people who love themselves do not need to put others down.
On the other hand, a narcissist feels that the only way they can love themselves is to put others down- including those who aren’t necessarily a threat to their grandiose views of themselves.
Narcissists feel their value comes from having power, riches, good looks, and popularity. Whereas, confident people get theirs from having healthy relationships with the people who mean the most to them and from having positive experiences with them.
And these are the differences between narcissists and people who are truly confident.
With knowledge comes empowerment!
Understand that outrageous tactics are deliberate, and there’s a reason behind them.
Bullies employ these shenanigans on their targets to gaslight them. They already know their tactics are so disgraceful and outlandish that they’re beyond all comprehension. They also know that people would have a difficult time believing it if it were spoken of.
However, if something is beyond all comprehension, you have to ask yourself how anyone could make this stuff up? And so many people in power forget this.
Understand that the use of tactics that seem a bit outlandish is a subtle form of gaslighting. These astonishing actions are meant to confuse and silence the target. Because when things that happen are so far outside human comprehension and experience, they’re the most difficult to talk about because “these kinds of things just don’t happen.”
Any member of authority to whom the target reports it is likely to tell himself:
1. “No! It’s a mistake!”
2. “There’s no way something like that can happen! It couldn’t have!”
3. “Wow! That sounds so far-fetched! It can’t be true!”
Again. Understand that bullies do these things deliberately! They design their tactics to be “shocking,” “unbelievable,” and “over the top” in case the target speaks out. It’s a way to bewilder the target and make him too scared to talk about it. And if he does report it, it’s likely to leave potential listeners too bewildered to believe it.
They force victims to doubt their perceptions and their sanity. Because if the tactic is so wild and unheard of that, we can hardly believe it ourselves. And if we can hardly believe it, how can we expect others to believe it when we tell them?
You must realize that bullies are slick and inventive! If you’re a target, you will know your bullies are employing such tactics when, at any time, you ask yourself such questions as:
“Whoa! Did this just happen?”
“Did she really just say that?”
“Did he really just do that?”
“Did I just see that?”
“Did I just hear what I thought I heard?”
Or you’ll think statements that begin with, “She did NOT just…”.
Another clue is that you ask yourself,
“Can I tell anyone else about what these people are doing without being laughed at and told that it’s all in my imagination?”
And these questions will gnaw at you. Also, you’ll wonder if you really were imagining or seeing things. Remember that the purpose of gaslighting is to make you doubt your perceptions and what you experienced.
If you experienced these things from bullies, know that it wasn’t all in your head. There is a way to speak out about it and do it with confidence and conviction. And when you speak up, put some conviction in it.
Here’s another way you can respond if the person you talk about this too doubts you’re telling the truth or suspects that you’re being “crazy.” You can simply say,
“You can’t make this stuff up!”
That’s the best thing to say any time you witness, hear, or experience these types of bully tactics.
I can tell you the metaphors I often used to describe my bullies at school. I often called them:
“Teenage Hitlers”
“Devils”
“Demon possessed”
I remember how they’d get in my face, nose to nose, and scream obscenities and curses while bushwhacking me with their funky breath and spraying me with misty micro-balls of their saliva. How their eyes would bulge so far out of their heads, you’d think they were going to pop out.
How they’d jump out of their seats at me, slinging textbooks and papers everywhere and sometimes flinging their chairs backwards!
I remember one bully picking up a metal waste can and hurling it at me with all their strength. The waste can flew past me, barely missing my head by less than an inch. How their faces would contort and how they’d fly into screaming tirades with long diatribes of obscenities, threats of bodily harm, and personal attacks. It was both bizarre and terrifying!
That’s what overt bullying looks like, especially to targets.
Overt bullying looks like angry and snarling faces that bare their teeth and spit on you as they scream, yell and threaten you while balling a fist in your face.
And they called me crazy? I see it so clearly now. They were the crazy ones.
Then, there was covert bullying.
I remember how the covert bullies would come to me with smiles on their faces. How they would act so sincere as they asked such personal questions about my private life. If I was dating, they’d ask such personal questions:
“Have you given it up to him yet?”
“Have you gotten horizontal yet?”
“Are you still a virgin?”
I didn’t answer those questions, of course. However, the questions alone made me feel violated. For them to think they could ask me such questions so openly made me feel disrespected.
The covert bullying looked like smiling faces with a gleam in their eyes as they hurled zingers and backhanded compliments. Covert bullying was the shaking of your hand with one hand and hiding the knife behind their back with the other. It was the tiny nibbles and little violations of my boundaries that would arouse my anger and provoke me to tell them to piss off, or to mind their own damned business.
I was very ugly to people when they’d pull this crap, and I reacted very harshly. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the covert bullies were looking for- a reaction.
The overt bullies, however, were looking for submission and compliance, and if they didn’t get it, God help the person they wanted it from. And the covert bullies always became more and more overt as time went on. Until they too eventually became just as crazy.
Many of them were so unpredictable. They were like Jekyll and Hide, or like ticking time-bombs. The bullying I suffered was shocking and surreal.
It was as if they were all using black magic- like they had dark powers and they would unleash a legion of demons from the pits of hell. They could magically morph into whatever character they wished, it depended on the audience present at the time.
Understand that those metaphors are just a few examples of how all targets describe their tormentors and if they use those metaphors, listen to them because they’re not lying, nor are they “making it up.” You can’t make this stuff up.
And if you’re a target of this kind of evil, you should always stand up to the mini-micro violations because, if you don’t, the violations will only grow bigger until they become out of control. Never accept even the tiniest of offenses from a bully because if you give an inch, they will take ten miles.
If it’s overt, find a way to remove yourself from the situation for your personal safety.
Remember that you teach people how to treat you and you do it by what you’ll put up with. Always put yourself first and stand up for your rights. You’ll thank yourself for it later. I’m living proof of it.
Thank goodness I don’t get that behavior from anyone anymore because I know how to keep my cool and tell someone in a politer way to get lost any time they stick as much as a toe over my boundary line. And know that you won’t be a target forever either if you continue to stand firm and refuse to accept bad treatment.
Again, if you’re listening to someone who describes the bullying they’ve suffered and refers to their bullies as either of the above metaphors or even as dictators or tyrants, listen to them and more importantly, believe them! They’re telling the truth and they know what they’re talking about!
With knowledge comes empowerment!
I saw this happen and yes, while I was at Oakley High School, even in the workplace. When there are no targets available to degrade and dehumanize, bullies will begin to turn on one of their own in the clique.
Understand that even the inner circle of the clique has a pecking order. Every clique has a leader, second in command, third and so forth (depending on how many members in the group), all the way down to the bottom rat. And if their targets aren’t available, the members of the clique will turn on that bottom rat and she will be the target of the day.
And if it so happens that the bottom rat’s not available either, then the poor sucker on the second rung up is the one who will catch hell. And so on. Crap always rolls downhill and lands on whoever is unfortunate enough to be in the basement.
And what was really scandalous is that sometimes, the targets didn’t have to be unavailable. I stood back and watched a lot of back-biting between the members of the bully cliques, a few would go out with the other friends’ boyfriends or girlfriends behind their backs then smile in their faces at school the following Monday. But that was their business and any sane person would no part of such strange, twisted, and dysfunctional friendships.
With them it was back to back ego trips and while most targets, sheople, and wannabes at OHS considered a curse, a few others considered a blessing. I could deal with not being in the in-crowd, that was fine and dandy. What I had an issue with was that none of those creeps would leave me alone, go on about their business, and get a life.
Remember that bullies must always have a target- someone to look down on, someone to dump on, and someone to tell what to do and ride roughshod over. Therefore, if their usual targets aren’t available on any given day, the bullies at the top will turn on the lowest members of their own group and continue demeaning them until their regular targets return.
This is yet another reason why you should never accept being in one of the in-cliques. Must you be in one to feel validated? No. You’re just as awesome without them. You’re also freer! Because if you’re not in a clique, you don’t have to live up to anyone’s unwritten rules or standards. You’re free to be yourself and do your own thing. And there is nothing better!