Bullies Will Sometimes Use Tactics That Are Outrageous, Outlandish, and Unheard Of

bullied victim trapped spider's web

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.”

red flag warning

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?

bullying outrageous outlandish unbelievable shocking WTF W

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?”

shock embarrassment unbelievable outlandish

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.

When People Believe the Most Outrageous Lies About You

bullying gossip rumors

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.

bullying school

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.

dreamstime_xs_23879094

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.

bullying outrageous outlandish unbelievable shocking

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.

shock embarrassment

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!

How People Come to Believe the Bullies’ Lies About You

bullying gossip rumors

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.

bullying school

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.

dreamstime_xs_23879094

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.

bullying outrageous outlandish unbelievable shocking

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.

shock embarrassment

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!