Category: retaliation

Why Bullies Sometimes Call You “Uppity”

6 Comments

Snobby group of cliquey girls with their ringleader pointing at you

Ever wonder why bullies sometimes call you “uppity?”

First, let’s examine the word, “uppity.” Uppity means arrogant, haughty, or pompous. It’s used to describe a person who thinks they are better than everyone else. However, a bully may label you “uppity, even though it isn’t who you are.

Understand that a bully’s definition of the word goes much deeper. You must look at the context in which the term is being used. Also, look at the circumstances which prompted the bully to make such a judgement of you. What would motivate a bully to refer to you as “uppity?”

Here are 3 reasons why bullies often accuse targets of being uppity:

Woman screaming and pointing an accusing finger at you

  1. The target displays confidence.

Confidence is power. When a person is confident and knows who they are, they’re least likely to allow others to control them. This is a huge threat to the bully’s power. Therefore, bullies will give targets the “uppity” label in hopes that the target will question themselves or worse, believe it, then feel guilty for it.

If the target falls for this BS and believes it, he will automatically “tone it down.” Consequently, he will unwittingly give the bullies the green light to gradually heap on more and more abuse.

Remember that a bully’s opinion of you means nothing unless you allow it to. Never buy into it! Keep your confidence no matter what!

Marginalized man putting out hands to block the fingers that are pointed at him

  1. The target refuses to comply with the bullies’ demands.

 Defiance is a huge threat to the bullies’ power. When a target refuses to comply with the bullies’ demands, mandates, or orders, he, in essence, gives the bully the middle finger. Then, he goes on doing what he wants and not what the bullies want him to do.

Ouch! This is painful to bullies. Why? Because, if the target doesn’t comply, then others just might feel emboldened not to comply. Defiance has a way of spreading and, once it spreads, the bully loses power. Bullies know this and, therefore, double down by labelling the target as uppity (among other labels).

Kids fighting with the quote, "Never fight until you have to. But when it's time to fight, you fight like you're the third monkey on the ramp to Noah's Ark... and brother, it's startin' to rain."

  1. The target defends himself.

When the target stands up for himself, this is also a threat to the bullies’ power. Why? Because the target just might put them in their place and make them look like punks. Therefore, the target takes back his power, leaving the bullies looking slack jawed and stupid. As a result, some bullies will retaliate to reinforce their dominance.

Therefore, you must keep your power. Resist the urge to comply. Push back when bullies attempt to abuse you. They may retaliate, but in you dig your heels in and continue to stand your ground, you keep your personal power, and with it, your self-esteem.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

6 Tactics Toxic People Use When You Finally Kick Them Out of Your Life

54 Comments

In movies and television, we see scenarios where targets stand up to bullies and automatically either get left alone or become friends with their former tormentors. However, in most cases, this is not reality. Remember that bullies are relentless.

Here are the tactics bullies use when a target stands up for themselves:

If you are a target, you must realize that bullies will not relinquish their power so easily. They will not be good sports and hand your human rights back over to you, nor will they bow out of your life gracefully. Bullies have an insatiable need to wield power over another, and without that power, they feel lost.

Why? Because bullies have no redeemable qualities and they’re losers in life. And since they can’t get power by their own merit, the only way left to get it is by ruining someone else’s life.

dreamstime_xs_11945657

Make no mistake about it. When you kick unsavory people out of your life, they will do the following:

1. They will gaslight you- by adding their spin to make you look and feel like the villain and maligning you to others to destroy your good name and credibility.

2. They will lay guilt trips- by trying to convince you that you are at fault or that the abuse is your imagination. Bullies are masters at this, especially female bullies who use feminine charm to deceive bystanders and authority figures.

3. They may recruit followers and start a smear campaign- by recruiting followers to spread rumors and lies. They will also try to turn your friends against you. It happened to me many times and it would come as retaliation for my having the gall to stand up to them and assert my God-given, divine right not to be abused or taken advantage of.

dreamstime_xs_75925110

4. They will turn your friends against you- Females, although becoming more and more physically violent with time, commit much of their bullying by Dividing and Conquering- attacking the targets’ relationships to turn everyone against the target to isolate them. Think about it. The chances are that your friends know your deepest, darkest secrets. They would know the most intimate details about your life. Friends are a GOLDMINE of information to bullies.

5. They will project their shortcomings onto you– Bullies have flaws and their greatest fear is having them exposed. What better way to keep their imperfections hidden than to either project them onto the target?

6. They will distract others’ attention away from their flaws by pointing out yours– What better way is there to hide their own shortcomings than putting the spotlight on yours? It shouldn’t be so easy but it is!

dreamstime_xs_159789174

If bullies can’t control you, they will control how others see you.

They use the above strategies not only to cover their backsides and to punish you for daring to grow a spine and defend yourself, but also to close you off from any possible help or protection.

Once the target is isolated, the bullies move in for the kill. Now, they can do with you whatever they choose to do, freely and with impunity because if everyone is against you, the least likely they are to report or stop the abuse. In the minds of others, you deserve what’s happening to you.

Bullies want to, figuratively, hold the target hostage, and they will resort to any means necessary to keep him/her on emotional lock down and “in their place.”

They will do it with physical violence when exclusion, subtle digs, verbal assaults, gaslighting, and other forms of psychological abuse no longer have an impact. Bullies will commit their violence either by committing bodily harm themselves or sending someone else to do their savagery for them.

This does not mean that you should not stand up for yourself because you should. However, when you do, be prepared. The torment will get worse before it gets better. Be strong. Be brave and know that none of it is your fault.
The more you know.

What School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them (Part 3)

8 Comments

Jealous Girls taking behind her back

(Continued from Part 3…)

Here are more ways we bullies assert and reinforce control over targets who step out of line.

3. We spread rumors and lies about the target. That’s right! We’ll demonize him. And he won’t even know about it until it’s too late and enough people are itching to take him apart. We’ll sow discord between him and all the other classmates. Hell! Even the teachers! We’ll make him public enemy number one!

Get this straight. All we have to do to demonize our target is to throw around a few offhand remarks and loaded words.

‘You see? We’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and some of us since we were babies. We are a family. We keep each other’s darkest secrets and fiercely protect each other, which means we cover each other’s butts.

Our parents know each other, and we have connections to quite a few city officials and local big shots. Everyone knows us and they love us- very much! We’re in cahoots with the right people and they tell us everything.

bullying bullied

Nothing is private. Not in this school and not in this town. This high school is our kingdom. And it’s crawling with lackeys, suck-ups, and wannabes. These people straddle the fence and they’re the ones he’ll least expect.

And he messed with one of us, so he messed with all of us!

4. Make him do degrading things with the promise of acceptance and inclusion. By this time, we’ll have him so rejected, alone and alienated that he’ll sell his soul to the devil just to get a crumb of acceptance. So, why not give him something to strive toward? Make him do something stupid. And trust us, we’re creative! We’re inventive!

We’ll think of something so humiliating and degrading! We’ll set him up to look pathetic, and we’ll film it for the entire free world to see. And he’ll never be able to get away from it.

We’ll also set him up to get in trouble with the principal by baiting him into a few fights. We’ll get in his face. One of us might even throw the first punch and force him to hit back, and then we’ve got him. We’ll all band together and say he started it, cook up a good story, and he’ll be the one blamed.

And what will be the icing on the cake is that after everyone finishes blaming and punishing the target, they’ll give us sympathy for being victimized by such a monster.

bullying ridicule

That’s just life at the high school. Some matter and some don’t. And if a target tries to defend himself, he’s just defensive, a whiner, or he’s crazy.
But those rules don’t apply to us because we can do no wrong. Remember. We’re royals. And the double-standards we held our target to are beneficial to us. Don’t be surprised and don’t catch an attitude. You’d do the same thing if you were one of us.

5. We fantasize about the target transferring to another school or, even better, killing himself. Seriously, we do. But then again, we really don’t want that because, if he did either one, all the fun would end and it would be game over. We need our target to stick around so that we can continue getting our jollies and free entertainment.

We prefer to make things worse on our target slowly and gradually and drag it out for as long as possible. We’ll enjoy watching him withdraw from everyone, lose his appetite, lose weight, get sick, and shake from nervousness. And we know he will snap sooner or later.

We may be high school kids, but we’re far from stupid. We learned the laws of human nature early. How do you think we got so darned popular with kids and adults alike and rose to the top of the social totem pole? We knew the rules of the social game long before most people knew how to use the bathroom by themselves!

bullied snapped driven crazy

We also know that no one can keep that kind of pressure stuffed down inside forever. It’s impossible. Eventually, the target will explode. It always works better that way. And when he does blow up, we can only hope he does it in front of an audience.

We’re already building a case against the target. We can pick out small incidents, take them out of context, and spin them to make it bigger. We can craft a pattern out of them and make it look like evidence that is so damning.

Sure. Like, love and attractiveness are all subjective, but the system and social dynamic are rigged in our favor.

6. We would love nothing more than to beat the ever-loving crap out of our target but don’t want to risk getting caught. We’re too smart to do something so obvious and we don’t want to get our hands dirty. We’d much rather pick the creep apart in front of everyone and use his words against him. His intentions don’t matter. A screw-up is a screw-up and we’ll stick it to him. We’ll do it under the guise of friendly advice, the stealthier way to attack.

7. Pit what friends the target has against him. If we can’t turn his friends against him any other way, we’ll attack them too. We’ll accuse his friend of being in on the target’s little rebellion. Why should we do the dirty work ourselves when we have peer pressure on our side?

shame humiliate banish

His friends will then blame him for dragging them into it and causing them to become targets. They won’t care to hear any explanations or justifications. They’ll just want their lives back and they’ll ostracize and gang up on him to make that happen. Cause and effect is such a beautiful thing! Why not use it to your advantage?

8. Send henchmen to commit our violence for us. As much as we’d love to beat the target’s brains out with our bare hands, we’re too smart to get blood on our hands. In fact, we won’t even be there.

bullying fighting physical

We’ll just send some roughneck or a group of them to kick his tail for us. And why not? We’re the kings and queens of the school. Offer the right incentives and we can get anybody to do anything we want them to do.

Even better, we’ll get the toughest guy with the worst reputation and put a bug in his ear. We’ll make him think that the target is trying to put the moves on his girl. Then we won’t have to offer him anything in return.

It won’t matter what the truth is or whether the target even knows the girl. Because we have all the power, connections and trust, just our names and our word is golden.

The target gets his head kicked in and gets a ride in an ambulance. We fade into the woodwork. And if things get too hairy, we just let the tough guy take the fall! And if tough-guy tells the cops that we put him up to it, do you think they’ll believe him?

Brilliant, huh?

What School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them (Part 2)

8 Comments

clique bullying

(Continued from Part 1…)

So, how do we make our target submit?

Here’s how:

We make the little rebel’s life a living hell and use him as an example to the rest of the student body. But we can’t make it too visible. We must be cunning and covert! Our attacks must be deniable.

We’ll do this to teach this punk a lesson show him who’s boss while letting the other schoolmates know that this will happen to them if they dare get out of their places. You call it tit-for-tat, we call it high school justice.

Maybe you think that we don’t know we’re bullies. Well…you poor, clueless thing, you! Newsflash! We know we’re bullies. We know we’re bitches and assholes. We know we’re hell on wheels. And ya know what else? We’re damn PROUD of it!

Why? Because it’s cool to be cruel! Sorry. That’s reality and you can either deal with it or continue to be a hero and get treated worse!

But the higher up on the social hierarchy we are, the more brutal we are, the more brazen we are, the more desperate we are, and the harder we’ll fight to keep the popularity, the attention, the favor, the having our butts kissed, and the social status we so enjoy.

You need to realize that the positions we hold and the friends and followers we have give us special treatment, rewards, and liberties that nobody else can get. And the power we have is too delicious to give up. Outside of our group, our high social status, and this school, we have nothing!

So, if this little geek thinks he’s going to man up and punk us out in front of the entire school, then we’re going to give him both barrels!

In this power struggle, we have an arsenal of power, reputation, connections, and favor. And we’ll use them all to bury this freak

bully bullies arrogant

Arrogant young Caucasian man with three female admirers

Here are some tricks we’ve mastered:

1. We hold the target down. It takes a long time to isolate a target. But we have the patience of Job. And we’ll get our kicks out of watching him suffer! He thinks he can win friends and respect? He thinks he’s cool? He thinks he’s better than us? Not in this lifetime! We decide who talks to who, who makes friends and when they do.

And we can kill any opportunity to make friends, get a date and even turn the teachers, coaches, and other staff against him if we so desire.

We can shut him up by ridiculing him every time he speaks or answers questions in class- even if he gets the answers correct. And if he gets the right answers and the teacher praises him for it, it’ll only further piss us off, and we’ll turn up the heat on his butt!

We’ll shame him by calling him a nerd or a bookworm. We’ll accuse him of being an arrogant know-it-all and being full of himself! By the time we’re through with him, he’ll be too afraid to open his smart mouth!

We can exclude him from school clubs, from ballgames, school dances, proms, and other school functions.

We’ll control his emotions. He won’t get any enjoyment at school unless we say so. We can make sure he does nowhere but down, then leave him to rot in his own loneliness and misery. We’ll make sure he’s stuck on the bottom of the pecking order and never moves up.

We’ll dim his shine, strip him of any confidence, change his smug attitude, and make him loathe himself! We’ll make him trash!

bullied target isolated excluded

Why Bullies Love to Isolate Their Victims

2. We isolate the target. He crossed us- that makes him a leper as far as anyone else is concerned. Does he really think anyone will stand by him? Sure, other kids in the student body may hate us because they can’t be us, but they fear us! They may talk smack about how they’d stand up to us, but talk’s cheap.

Oh, yeah! The other folks talk the talk. But we know that when the time comes to walk the walk, they’ll only tuck their tails between their legs and run. They’ll leave the little wuss to fend for himself. They’ll know better than to piss us off because they know that we have the power to make their lives just as hard as we made his (the target’s).

Nobody wants to be next on our hit list, and we don’t blame them! It isn’t their problem, and they don’t want to end up down in the basement with him (the target).

So, what’s he going to do about it? If he does manage to scrounge up a few friends, they’ll be the few no-counts who are just as desperate as he is, and they’ll hang with him only because they have no other options themselves, which gives us another juicy idea – Hmmm! Perhaps if we pretend to like and accept those other losers, they’ll throw his sorry butt under the bus too! Then what friends will he have?

Just as there are people who fight to be on top, there are also those who struggle just as hard to stay off the bottom.

Oh, the other losers may feel sorry for the target, but they need us to leave them alone and not to make them bigger laughing stocks than they already are. What few friends he has? They aren’t stupid. Anyone would be a fool to have a dog in this fight!

bully bullying narcissist

A selfish man walks the heads of people as on the steps to the highest post behind the crown. Conceptual scene is a narcissistic and selfish person

At this school, we are royalty! We’re the top dogs. If anyone else wants to be safe, they need our permission. The target’s friends don’t want us to make things any harder than what we already do. And they know that if at any time some blockhead is dumb enough to piss us off, we take no prisoners!

So, even his friends will turn a blind eye. They won’t be so stupid as to have his back. And if he shoots his mouth off to them or anyone else about any of us, many of them will report back to us for these reasons:

a. To get on our good side
b. In hopes that we’ll accept them
c. To stay off our hate-radar

And if we grill the target’s friends with questions about him, they’ll tell us anything they think we want to hear and they more than likely know all his deepest, darkest secrets!

Maybe these friends will know we’re only using them to get the deets from them, and maybe they won’t, but either way, it won’t matter. The only thing that will matter to them is keeping us satisfied, and keeping their butts off our hit list.

Do you see where we’re going with this? The fix is in. If the target continues to grow a pair and push back against us, the other students will stay wayyyy away from him to keep from arousing our wrath. And no matter how strong he thinks he is, he won’t be able to handle that for very long.

(More in Part 3…)

What School Bullies Really Want to Say to Targets Who Stand Up to Them

10 Comments

Stop bullying

We warned you! We warned you not to rock the boat. We told you not to make waves. We made it clear that your place was beneath us and that you should take our abuse without question and without refusing.

But what did you do? You just had to push it! ‘Had to get uppity! ‘Had to be a hero and challenge our authority! ‘You want to make trouble? ‘You want to diss us? ‘Grow some spine and step up to us?

Now, because of you, there’s a risk that everyone in the student body will doubt and question our power!

What would you do if someone on a lower level than you just up and got some guts, and challenged you by fighting back? ‘Caused you embarrassment and made you look like a punk in front of everybody?

Yeah, yeah! Teachers may advise us to just “let it go” or “overlook it!” But this is personal, and there’s no coming back from it!

Do you really think you won any respect by clapping back at us? Uh-uh! Nope! What you did was start a war!

Don’t talk to us about right or wrong! Don’t speak to us about fairness! Because right and wrong, just don’t come into it! And fairness is a fairytale for babies!

no bullying stop

We’re going to teach you that there’s a social order in this place! And there’s a certain way things are done around here! You’ve forgotten who you are, and you need to be taught that some people matter, and some don’t! Some people can, and some can’t!

Don’t say a word because you’d feel the same way we do!

“This loser doesn’t know his place! He’s forgotten who he is! ‘Gotten too big for his britches and too smart for his own good! He don’t know when to leave well enough alone!”

“He’s gotten too cocky, too sure of himself, too bold and too arrogant! In short, he’s become a threat to our positions at the top of the social totem pole! And threats must be contained!”

bully narcissist narcissistic narcissism

During the Medieval period, anyone who disrespected any member of a royal family would be dragged off to the guillotine. And the remaining peasants would know that they would be next if they even mentioned the troublemaker’s name.

The “Divine Right of Kings” rule still stands today, in this school.

Kids in our positions are allowed to beat our chests and throw our weight around freely and with impunity. It’s okay for us to abuse anyone we deem unworthy of humane treatment. If you were any one of us, you’d think,

bullying

“But (target’s name)! Who the hell does that freak think he is! Because he opened his smart mouth and dissed us, now all the losers may rise up and demand their rights to equal treatment, as if allowing them to get through a single day without getting their brains beat in isn’t enough! Shoot! They should be down on their knees, thanking us for not making things worse for them!”

“Losers like him (the target) report you to the principal and get you in trouble, even with your parents! They join anti-bullying groups and get involved in anti-bullying programs at school! Shyeah! Like that’s gonna help them any! And don’t EVEN get me started on those groups! They’re always looking for publicity!”

“They even write journals, publish books, and post on their blogs, calling you and your friends out on things you’d rather people inside or outside the school not find out!”

So, with the bullying awareness movement (Ugh! What a joke!) that’s sweeping the globe, surveillance and since virtually everyone has a smartphone with a camera, how can bullies at the top, like us, punish our target without further exposure and the risk of getting kicked out of school and ruining our prospects for college? How can we reinforce our dominance over this creep, and make him cave in and bow down to us?

(I’ll tell you how bullies do it in Part 2)