Tag: talk

talk

Always Speak Your Truth No Matter What They May Call You

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Many targets of bullying have had their voices stolen from them. They’re intimidated into keeping silent while others abuse and take advantage of them.

But you can’t bite your tongue forever because it will eventually come spewing out. You will snap and the stress will be as lava pouring out of an erupting volcano. This will become a vicious cycle.

Here’s how it progresses:

The target is calm, and people see this calmness as a weakness. Bullies began to notice how laid back the target is and presume that if they violate his boundaries, there will be no consequences. So, the abuse starts subtly at first- so subtly that the victim doesn’t even notice he’s being abused.

1.Bullies and bystanders: “We’re sorry we forgot to send you an invite to the party Saturday night.”


Target: “That’s okay. Maybe next time.”

Target is mildly stressed.

What the target thinks: “Really? You’re sorry? That’s the fourth time already.”

 

2. Bullies and bystanders: “You’re such a loser! When are you going to realize that and change your ways?”

Target: “I’m sorry. I don’t want any trouble with you guys.”

Target is angry but manages to hide it.

What the target thinks: “I’m not a loser! I wish you’d go somewhere else and leave me alone.”

3. Bullies and bystanders: “Can’t you do anything right? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Target: “What the hell did I do to you?”

Target is very angry but still manages to stuff it down and bury it.

Bullies and bystanders: ”Just forget it!”

Target: “Fine.”

What the target thinks: “No! You brought it up! Now let’s finish it!”

4. Bystander: “How are you?”

Target is angry and depressed.

Target: “I’m fine”

What the target thinks: I’m angry and depressed, thanks to you!”

 

5. Bullies and bystanders: “You’re so weak! We’re going to destroy you!”

Target is anxious, furious, and upset.

Target: “Why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to any of you?”

What the target thinks: “I’ve had enough of your bullsh** and I’m about to go off on all of you! Now back the hell up!”

6. Bullies and bystanders: “Come here! We want to talk to you!”

Target is enraged. And can’t hold back any longer. This is the last straw.

Target: “(Yells) Go f*** yourselves! I have nothing to say to any of you! Now get the f*** out of here and don’t come back! I’m sick of you!”

What the target thinks: “Oh my God! This is so out of character for me! What’s happening to me!”

Bullies and bystanders: “Oh my God! Here we go again! He’s going crazy! He’s lost it! See! I told you he was a nutcase! See? He’s going off his rocker again! Hahahaha!”

And the bullying escalates because the target showed his ugly side and dared to respond to the bullies and their audience in kind. Now, people are using the target’s perfectly justified and normal human reaction to demonize him and make him look as if he’s mentally unstable.

This is why targets must speak out when the bullying first begins. I can’t stress this enough. Realize that these scenarios represent a pattern with bullies and their followers.

Bullies will push you and push you. They will keep digging at you until you snap on them. Then once you bite back, everyone is suddenly offended, and you are deemed the bad guy!

I want you to understand that this is all a part of the bully’s playbook. The more you know, the better you can predict their behavior, and the more you’ll be able to beat these monsters at their own game.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

Beware of the Big Mouth Person Who Airs Their Dirty Laundry

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If you’re a target of bullying, another type of person you should be aware of is the big mouth. These are people who air their own dirty laundry. Because if they air their own, you can be sure that they’ll air yours too.

Beware of the person who complains about their home life. Maybe they whine about their no-good, philandering husband or lazy wife who is a shopaholic or keeps a nasty house. Or they gripe about their unruly, disrespectful and out of control kids.

Maybe they brag about getting toilet-hugging drunk at a kegger last weekend. Maybe they give intimate details about their sex life (Yikes!). Or, equally shocking, they may give their medical history or details about their bodily functions (Yuck! Gross! Barf!).

Again, if they will trumpet embarrassing details about their own lives that are better kept private and make you want to “call Ralph,” you can bet dollars to doughnuts they’ll talk about any intimate details, they discover about yours too.

Avoid these people at all costs. Not only will they embarrass the crap out of you, but they’ll dig for information about you that’s equally humiliating. If they begin asking personal questions about your life, which they will often do, politely end the conversation, and excuse yourself.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs

How People Can Believe Lies About You

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education, bullying, social relations and people concept – students gossiping behind classmate back at school

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!

Judgemental girls tauting fellow student

Understand that anytime you’re a target of bullying, you’re at your absolute worst!  Anyone would be a total emotional wreck 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! You’ll have periods of crying. Your appetite will be gone, and you’ll get very little sleep. You’ll have 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 job 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 it comes from a person we trust or who has a little bit of power, we may feel shocked and disbelief at first but we will eventually believe 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 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.

We’re more prone to believe a big fat lie 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!

With knowledge comes empowerment!

When Bullies and Bystanders Talk Bad About You, Use Reverse Psychology.

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Businessman not listening to nonsense.

Bullies will always have something negative to say. So, instead of thinking, there is something wrong with you, why not look at it from these points of view?

1. When people talk about you, good or bad, at least you know you aren’t boring. And most people would rather be “bad” than boring. Also, you must be doing something right if you’re being mentioned all the time. When they talk about you, they make you relevant.

2. When people talk smack about you, it only means you still consume their minds.
So, who’s really in control here?

education, bullying, social relations and people concept – students gossiping behind classmate back at school

3. You have a lot of power if you can stir resentment or hate in someone without trying or meaning to. It only goes to show that the dummy doing the talking can easily be controlled with little effort.

4. They must really admire you and want to be like you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even be an afterthought to them.

5. It says more about them than it does about you. It says if that they don’t have lives of their own, they take an interest in yours, which means that your life must be more interesting than theirs!

6. People who consistently talk bad about you really have an obsession with you.

Like the old saying goes, “He who angers you controls you.”

So, why not feel good about it and, even better, take advantage of it by letting them talk. Because some things don’t need a defense, especially if the bullies are known for being gossips and troublemakers.

Just sit back, smile, and be quietly amused by the pettiness. Be your sweet self, and others will see through the gossip too. When I finally wised up and took this approach, I was so surprised at the results! My only regret is that I didn’t realize this earlier.

Attitude is what it’s all about. With the right attitude, you can beat your bullies without ever lifting a finger!

The more you know, the better you will protect yourself!

Believe it or Not, Bullies Get Talked About Too

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If there’s one thing small towns are known for, it’s gossip. If you find yourself unfortunate enough to be a victim of bullies in a small town, gossip about your (perceived) transgressions has reached from city limits to city limits…at light speed.

However, take it from someone who has been there. Bullies get talked about too, only people never talk openly about them. Because the talkers fear becoming the bullies’ next targets, the talk is always in secret.

Believe me, you aren’t the only one being victimized. There are others. But because the others more than likely won’t admit to being bullied and because bullies will never tell you if there are others, you never hear about it and, therefore, mistakenly think that you are the only one they pick on.

If you are a victim of bullies, it would be in your best interest to find out who your bullies’ enemies are and align yourself with them. It’s what I did, and boy, did I find out some really juicy tidbits about their lives…most of which is rather embarrassing information!

I didn’t have to ask. I would only sit or stand quietly, observe, and listen! Bullies may think they’re stars, but scratch the surface, and you’ll discover that they don’t shine so brightly after all.

One of my bullies is now a nurse, and I am good friends with several nurses who’ve had the displeasure of working with her. In their words, “she is as incompetent as they come.”. Also, she has a big family secret, and if you’ve lived in the same town that she lives in long enough, you know what that secret is.

I’ll stop here to protect privacy. For years, this woman has bounced from one job to another, either getting fired or quitting when things didn’t go her way. She has also been through five, maybe six marriages.

Another bully dropped out of high school and ended up working as a waitress. She now owns her own restaurant but barely breaks even. Several others are incarcerated or have been, with one being convicted of murder and another convicted of armed robbery, running guns, and possession of illegal substances.

The bullies I battled in school are only ordinary people. Yet, even today, most of them continue trying like mad to keep up with the Jones’s, making everyone think they have beaten the rat race and failing miserably. Most have never left the small town and still put on the facade of power and a perfect life. It’s hilarious when you really think about it.

Here’s some advice:

1. Befriend your bullies’ enemies. Befriend the other outcasts in your school, workplace, or community. Because I guarantee you that you aren’t the only one they’ve steamrolled. Bullies leave a lot of shattered lives in their wake and make lots of enemies. And strength always comes in numbers.

2. Listen out! You will hear many stories about your bullies from other outcasts and other people who cannot stand them. You will be surprised at what you find out. It may be that your bullies get laughed at too. People are only careful who they do it around and are quieter about it. They must be, or the bullies will target them too.

Bullies aren’t as important or invincible as they put on. It’s only an act! People such as these must work hard to maintain the facades they put on, and the reason they give victims a difficult time is that victims don’t have to work that hard. They simply choose to be themselves.

How do I know this? Because I ingratiated myself into the good graces of the enemies of my bullies and would get an ear-full every time we got together.

Any information you get about your bullies is valuable to you. Always! Because it can then be used as leverage should the bullies come for you.

Make no mistake. Bullies have enemies…LOTS of them! However, they will never in a million years tell you about it. They don’t want you to believe that others disrespect them behind their backs because it would shatter the image of invincibility they’ve set for themselves.

Instead, they want you to believe that everyone loves them and thinks they are the best things since the wheel’s invention. And they want you to believe it because they want you to feel bad about yourself.

Put another way, if bullies can make you think that everyone loves them, then you’re more likely to believe the lie they drum into your head every day. That you’re just plain garbage. Because a bully’s popularity and greatness (perceived or not) only serves to re-enforce any dislike the target has for themselves after they’ve been bullied for so long.

Please don’t let this happen to you. Befriend your bullies’ enemies. Open your eyes not only to your great value and worth but also to the facades your bullies hide behind and the acts they put on. I guarantee that your self-esteem will skyrocket.