Why Should You Care About Pleasing Bullies?

August 1, 2022Leave a comment

Portrait of indifferent person shrugging her shoulders wearing yellow, turtleneck denim jeans overalls isolated purple violet background

Most bullies, unless they’re your boss or any member of authority, have no bearing on our lives. So, why should we care what they think? Why? Remember that your bullies hate you. Therefore, nothing you do, good or bad, will ever be right by them. In their minds, you are inherently bad because you are you. So, why do you care what they think?

Anytime you care what your bullies think, you give away your power. Once you begin conforming and twisting yourself into a pretzel to get them to accept you, they become your masters. You, in a sense, give your bullies undue value. In other words, you give your bullies value they never deserved and more so, haven’t earned!

Undue Value and Worth

Indifferent.

Basic human value is one thing. Every human being on earth in entitled to basic human value. However, anything above that, they must earn. It’s not freely given and never should be.

Never give your bullies anything they haven’t earned from you. And that includes your respect, your time, your friendship, and your consideration.

In short, never give anyone anything that isn’t reciprocated. For instance, if you’re polite to someone and they take that for weakness and treat you like dirt, then you should drop this person like a bad habit!

You don’t have to treat them like crap, but you don’t have to have anymore to do with them either. Again, you shouldn’t care about trying to please people who judge you and who hate you, because it’s a waste of time.

**They Must Earn It!**

Here’s something else: Anytime you get upset or angry when people insult you or have an unfavorable opinion of you, it means you unconsciously value their opinions. It means that what they think means something to you.

So, stop trying to seek approval from these people. Cease trying to be friends with them. Stop wasting so much for your precious energy on people who aren’t worth your consideration.

Remember, they hate you. And to bend over backwards trying to prove yourself to them and get their approval is a waste of your time and energy. They’re just aren’t worth it.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

I Made the Mistake of Turning to Romance to Compensate: Don’t Make the Same Mistake

April 24, 2022Leave a comment

Females are hardwired to nurture, maintain, and enjoy relationships, whether they be friendships, family, or romantic relationships. With teenagers, although family relationships are still meaningful, it is mostly about having close relationships with friends and romantic relationships.

Therefore, if a young girl is not getting those wants and needs met through her peers at school or family at home, she may try a different route to meet her needs.

Sadly, some girls, particularly those who are targets of bullies, think that having a dating partner makes up for the lack of friends and positive relationships at school. I say this because, unfortunately, I was one of those girls with the same mindset. I leaned on dating and romance for comfort.

At the time, being in a romantic relationship felt like such a welcome change, like a soft pillow to land on during a fall. It seemed to buffer my self-esteem from the attacks and take the sting out of the torment I endured.

Having dating partners and suitors gave me a much-needed rebuttal to the daily degradation and humiliation brought on by classmates and a few sadistic teachers. It assured me that I was a great person and worthy of being loved. Male attention was a testament to my beauty and confirmation of my value as a young woman.

I looked to these guys to rescue me. They were my refuge from a cold, cruel world that hated me. Looking back now, I realize how needy I was back then. Around young guys who didn’t know me from school, I acted like a totally different person. I smiled, batted my eyelashes, and flirted my behind off to get their attention.

During school, because I had no real friends, I turned to grown men of late teens and early twenties to get the acceptance I wasn’t getting at school, from people my age. Although I was a gorgeous girl to look upon, bullies and their followers had destroyed my once-good name and with it, any prospects for dating and love among peers my age.

But by dating guys who were already out of high school, I was able to get around my trashed reputation and have opportunities for romance. These college-aged men had never met me, nor were they aware of the falsehoods and labels tied to my name.

I’m ashamed to say that, back then, I felt that my good looks and feminine wiles were the only things I had going for me, and often used them to get what I wanted. I thought I had to use trickery and charm to attain what most others seemed to come by easily and effortlessly. And thirty years ago, underage dating was more accepted than it is today.

I want you to understand that when a person is beaten down for so long, they grow afraid to ask for or pursue their wants and needs the right way. As a result, manipulation and deceit become a way of survival. Realize that this is a person who doesn’t need judgment; they get enough of that already. What they need is help.

For bullied victims, partners are a proverbial band-aid to their feelings of hurt and inadequacy that come with the onslaught of bullies. Sexual partners and activity are a means to feel loved, wanted, sexy, and beautiful. And it works, if only temporarily.

However, this is dangerous because it can easily lead to co-dependency. Relying on a dating partner for confirmation of worth is never good because the person eventually comes to believe that if he/she is not half of a couple, they are nothing and this kind of thinking is wrong.

encouragement

This mindset only sprouts desperation, and there is no dignity in being desperate for a partner. No one should ever see a romantic relationship as the end all be all. They should never look outside of themselves for happiness. Men and women come and go, and if the person continues to depend solely on them for their fulfillment, they’ll be in for a huge disappointment.

When someone looks solely to a partner to validate them, it’s a sign that the person doesn’t know their worth as a young lady or young man. Potential dates can sense this, and are either repelled or see them as someone they can use and degrade.

The person risks attracting a predatory partner of low integrity, one who will hang around as long as it takes to get what they want before dumping them and leaving them devastated. Also, people of quality and integrity do not want a partner they have to fix or rescue, and if they sniff out the slightest bit of neediness, they will disappear, and fast!

If you are a bullied girl or boy, I can’t stress enough how important it is to fall in love with yourself and with life before you fall in love with anyone else. Love should come from within and never from the outside. A relationship doesn’t complete you, and just because a person has sex with you doesn’t mean that they love you.

You are just as beautiful and whole without a partner as you are with one. Just because you’re dateless doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Single doesn’t mean defective.

In the meantime, do plenty of deep soul searching and make positive affirmations daily. Count all your good qualities, talents, and gifts. Continuously remind yourself that you have value, and soon, you’ll start to believe it with your whole heart.

Be patient. Know that the right person will come into your life when you least expect it, and you aren’t looking for them. And when they do, they’ll be well worth the wait.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

You Should Never Try to Prove Yourself to a Bully

November 8, 2021Leave a comment

Bullies don’t deserve for you to expend so much effort to prove anything to them. Why? Because they’re not worthy of your best. Only the people who truly love you, uplift you and are proud of the person you’re becoming deserve that. Only the people who have your back and are in your cheering section are worthy of the kind of work you put in.

‘You see? Bullies are the type of people who must have a target. They must have power over someone, anyone, or they end up feeling inadequate and useless (but aren’t they already?).

Bullies have an insatiable hunger for power. If they don’t have it, they feel as if they’ll go insane (Again, aren’t they anyway?)

If you’re a target of bullying and you try to prove yourself to those who could care less either way and whose only wish is to keep you down, you’ll be on an endless and futile quest. You’ll end up wasting precious time, which is time better spent focusing and working on you.

Understand that no one can prove themselves to a bully. It’s impossible because bullies only see the negative in others. They never have anything positive to credit anyone but themselves. In fact, the better, stronger, smarter, braver, and more awesome you are, the more threatened your bullies feel, and the more they attack you to tighten their grip on your life and keep you under their control and domination.

Bullies hate strength, they hate smarts, and they hate any positive quality in anyone else but them, especially if the other person’s good points surpass theirs. To a bully, control isn’t just about forcing you to do what they want, it’s about controlling your mind- your thoughts, attitudes, and preferences. It’s about controlling your life and having the power to ruin it.

It’s about having the power to break you and wear you down. Bullies get off on that power. And when you consistently bend over backward to prove yourself to them, all it does is show them that they still have power over you.

Because, if they didn’t already have it, you wouldn’t be trying so hard. In fact, you wouldn’t try at all because you wouldn’t give a crap what they thought.

Remember! You have nothing to prove to anyone other than yourself.

The more you know, the more empowered you are!

4 Things That Happen When We Seek Approval and 3 Ways to Turn It Around

November 3, 2021Leave a comment

Too many targets are bullied so frequently and for so long they begin to look for any crumb of validation they can find. They think that somehow, kissing up will win them friends and allies. But it only ends up doing the opposite. It only gets them doubly ridiculed and bullied. Also, it attracts even more users and abusers into their lives.

But what else happens when you consistently seek approval?

1. You lose your freedom and autonomy to be yourself and to do what you want to do. You give away your personal power and become a slave to the thoughts and opinions of others.

2. You lose sight of your goals and aspirations and replace them with goals of being liked, approved of, and favored by others. And the fact is, there’s no guarantee that you will be liked, approved of, or favored because there’s no way you can control the thoughts, opinions, actions, or words of other people. You are the only person in the entire world that you can control, which makes it that much more important that you keep your focus on you because you are your only guarantee. At the end of the day, all you have is you.

3. You stop being creative. You only become a carbon copy of someone else, their style, and their way of thinking and doing things. When you do this, your creativity suffers. It’s much better to be original!

4. You copy others. You give up the ability to think for yourself. Instead of having opinions of your own, you conform to the opinions and beliefs that are most popular. You say what others want to hear and do what others want you to do and how they want you to do it. In short, you allow yourself to be programmed and become a robot!

Understand that not everyone will like you or support you. And not everyone will want the best from you or for you. Some may, in fact, hate you and judge you harshly. They may even derail you from your goals and sabotage your success.

When you seek validation and approval, you only look for permission from others, which will leave you feeling controlled and imprisoned. It’ll also erode your self-esteem. Each time you engage in approval-seeking behavior, you lose a piece of yourself until you completely forget who you are. Not good!

So, how do you break this nasty habit?

1. You start by accepting and loving yourself. All parts of yourself- the good, the bad, and the ugly!

2. Count all the qualities of yourself that you’re proud of. Everyone has great qualities. Find yours, and list them.

Vector illustration of a grovel in business

3. Ditch and Switch. Walk away from the negative people who make you feel bad about yourself. And don’t look back! Rid yourself of the haters, the naysayers, the whiners, complainers, and those with self-defeating attitudes. Replace them with people who love you, who want nothing but your best. Seek people who lift you up and those you feel safe around. Choose people who are happy and who take responsibility for their lives instead of those who bellyache and blame others for their misfortunes.

Understand that no one wants a copy. They want an original!

Realize that once you do these things, you might get a lot of pushback at first. Many people get threatened and angry anytime you make positive changes in your life, and they may give you tons of grief for it.

But understand that they give you a hard time because they were benefiting somehow when you sought approval and they don’t want to lose those benefits. Also, understand that we live in a world full of copies- where most people only conform and seek approval themselves. So, it’s only natural that you get pushback.

Embrace the pushback and keep doing what’s right for you. To hell with what others might think, say, or how they act! Only you can know what’s right for you. No one else knows your inner reality but you. So, trust that and trust yourself. I guarantee that you’ll be surprised at how it’ll change your life for the better. And you’ll only thank yourself for it later!

Knowledge is empowering!

4 Reasons Why Neediness is Not Only Bad for You, But Also Unattractive and Repelling

September 14, 2021Leave a comment

Closeup portrait unhappy woman giving loser sign on forehead, looking at you with anger and hatred on face isolated on gray background.

Neediness is not a good look on anyone. It’s unattractive and off-putting. To be blunt, it’s downright gross! It’s the equivalent of an overpowering stench one must hold their nose and run from to keep from getting sick.

When a target is bullied, they often become needy. Because they’re shunned and rejected for so long, they become ravenously hungry for any morsel of approval and will lap up anything that even looks like it. But they often see acceptance when it’s really only tolerance.

Anytime a target becomes needy, some people might include them in their groups, but not because they like them or want to be around them. They’ll only pretend to like the target because they feel sorry for him. And the last thing the target should want is someone’s pity. Yuck! Who in their right mind would want to settle for that?

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But wait! It gets worse!

After a while, the pity that his (the target’s) so-called friends have for him may wear thin.

Here are a few reasons why neediness is not only unattractive and humiliating but downright dangerous:

1. Any time you’re a target of bullying by everyone- the group of so-called friends who pretend to like you put themselves at risk of being made targets themselves. And they know it. In the minds of the bullies and others, they’re guilty by association. Instead of being an asset to the group, you become a liability!

2. The group is having to pretend to like having you around because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. But their real feelings about you will only seep out in ways that are not so obvious. It’ll be so subtle that you may not even know it’s happening. And you can bet that if you make the slightest mistake or they perceive the tiniest slight from you, the floodgates will open and their real feelings of dislike and hatred will come rushing out like a raging torrent. And they’ll look for any reason to make you go away even if they must treat you with blatant brutality.

3. Your so-called friends will never have your back. They’ll disappear at the first sign of trouble. When your bullies come calling, your fake friends will throw you under the bus, then get behind the wheel and run you over a few times. Understand that these people will not value you as a person.

disgust repulsion yuck

4. You’ll only draw people who are predators. Users and abusers are drawn to the needy like vultures to a carcass. They seek out people who are desperate to exploit their needs and weaknesses to get what they want from them. And once they’ve gotten all they want out of the person, they discard them like a dirty piece of toilet paper. You may not realize it, but you can do better than a bunch of scavengers!

Wouldn’t you rather be alone than to have friends like those? I wound hope you would.

Real courage and real self-worth sometimes require that you be alone for a while. But let me assure you that it won’t always be this way. Be patient and eventually, the right people will find you. It may not happen quickly, but it will happen. I guarantee it.

It happened for me and it will happen for you too!

Never Try to Prove Yourself to a Bully

November 11, 2020Leave a comment

‘You see? Bullies are the type of people who must have a target. They must have power over someone, anyone, or they end up feeling inadequate and useless (but aren’t they already?).

Bullies have an insatiable hunger for power. If they don’t have it, they feel as if they’ll go insane (Again, aren’t they anyway?)

Because, if they didn’t already have it, you wouldn’t be trying so hard. In fact, you wouldn’t try at all because you wouldn’t give a crap what they thought.

Remember! You have nothing to prove to anyone other than yourself.

The more you know, the more empowered you are!

What Many Victims of Bullying Do Wrong and Why They Stay Victims

November 5, 2020Leave a comment

Many targets of bullying suffer such vicious bullying and for so long that they’re willing to lap up anything that even looks or sounds like approval from others. They give undue value to anyone’s opinions, even those whose opinions should never be valued.

But when a person is desperate for friends and approval, they’ll latch onto anyone who shows their teeth to them. Worse, they’re willing to kiss butt and eat doody if it means they don’t have to be alone and friendless.

They’ll chase people who don’t give a crap about them and allow people to use them for what they can get from them. They’ll overlook it when their so-called friends stab them in the back.

They’ll even put up with overt abuse. Sadly, victims hold on to people who only tolerate them, which only invites more bullying. Anytime you have to crawl behind people who don’t care about you, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice!

I want you to understand this:

If you feel you must beg anyone to be your friend

If you think you must give them your delicious dessert at lunch

If you believe you have to do someone’s homework for them, give them money or do something that you don’t want to do to win their friendship

If you have to chase someone or go out of your way to get them to see the good in you

If you put up with being abused, disrespected, and humiliated by people who are supposed to be your friends

If you have friends who never have your back, who disappear and always throw you under the bus when trouble comes for you

In a nutshell, if at any time a friendship doesn’t feel right, these people do not deserve the time of day!

You don’t need enemies with friends like that! Ditch these losers fast! They don’t deserve the privilege of being in your life!

When you’re that hard-up for friends, it shows. Anytime you’re willing to put up with crappy treatment to keep from being by yourself, it decreases your worth as a person. Other people see it and immediately think you’re pathetic. You come off to others as clingy and needy. Even worse, the desperate vibes you put out only attracts people who want to use and abuse you, which invites even more bullying and alienation.

Neediness just plain stinks! It is off-putting and repels even the people who would otherwise be good friends. There’s an old saying, “I can do bad by myself.”

It’s a saying I’ve heard for ions and it rings so true. Wouldn’t you much rather be alone than to put up with people who only pretend to be your friends and treat you like garbage? I sure as hell would!

I promise you that if you eighty-six people who treat you less than how you deserve to be treated, your value will go up and you will feel so much better about yourself. Also, either the people you ditch will realize what they lost and come back to apologize, or they won’t.

If they do, it’s your choice whether to allow them back in but understand that you do not have to take them back because some things you can never come back from. If they don’t, it’s no loss to you.

I say this because out of about four hundred classmates at Oakley High, I can count on one hand those I could ever trust again, and that’s without using all five fingers! Other than two or three, the rest of them I could care less if I ever saw again, even if they were the last four hundred people on the face of the earth!

I forgive my classmates, yes. But I will never trust them, and I’d be a fool to have anything to do with anyone I couldn’t trust.

The point is that you must value and love yourself enough to protect yourself and command better treatment from others. If that means being alone and friendless for a while, then so be it.

You deserve people who genuinely care for you, and if you have the courage to get rid of toxic people, life will eventually reward you and bring better people into your life- people who will love, respect you and feel so blessed to know you. It happened to me and it can happen for you too!

Don’t settle for fake friends who use, abuse, and only tolerate you to keep from being alone! Find people who celebrate you! Be friends with people who value you and see the good you bring to a friendship! You’re worth it! Believe it! Believe in yourself!

Neediness is Unattractive and Repelling!

October 2, 2020Leave a comment