Buzzword: Bullying

I always cringe at the term 'bullying'; not because I think it doesn't exist but because the word seems to imply victimhood.  Children can be and are the main victims of bullying because they lack power just by being kids.  They are emotionally vulnerable and inexperienced in dealing with versions of social isolation and emotional cruelty.  They go from being in a family where they are (hopefully) nurtured and protected to a certain degree, to having to deal with school and loneliness, other people's problems and attitudes on a daily basis. 

It's hard to know where to turn when you are bullied as a child because no one but you is living it and, with social media, it follows you home and even into your bedroom and under the covers if you let it.

But adults are also bullied; except I refuse to believe adults are victims of it most of the time. You are only a victim if you let yourself be.  As an adult, we have life experiences and strengths to make our way through the world; other people's values constantly impinging on our own, challenging us and changing us.  You must find the centre core of yourself and hold true to that if you can.  But that doesn't mean you don't also have to look at yourself and your own attitudes to others in a cold, harsh light: are you being weak and insecure and what do you need to do about it?  Are you causing some of the problems you keep encountering and, if so, how can you learn to change?  Are you being kind and generous to yourself and making the best choices in your behaviour, demeanour and responses to the situation?  Or is this truly a matter of just being surrounded by arseholes who will never understand you?

My daughter has never felt the cold edge of isolation or cruelty; she seems to have missed out on such experiences in her years so far.  And she's lucky.  But, on the other hand, she hasn't learned first-hand what it means to feel such things and therefore has not the depth of compassion that others may have.

My son has experienced it all his school life; all the versions of bullying - physical, mental and emotional.  But yet he remains a non-victim in many ways.  I too have felt its knife-edge and I am certainly not a victim of it.  I have it at my present work place every day I work there.  Mine is a form of social isolation and being ignored.  I hold my head high, knowing (after much soul-searching) that I have done nothing wrong except do my honest best and tell the truth.  Sometimes that's all it takes.  To tell the truth and have someone else resent it.

My doctor said to me once that, if a situation keeps occurring over and over but in differing scenarios and with different people, then we really must look to ourselves to find the problem.  But if it happens only once and we deal with it as best we can without too many histrionics; just a calm, rational sense of self-awareness, then we can pretty much guarantee that it's not us, but someone who would like to gain control of us in some way. 

As a high school teacher, I have been bullied only once by a group of girls who acted towards me like a pack of hungry hyenas.  They surrounded me in a metaphorical way and took me by surprise.  And, like hyenas, they had a system to bring done their prey.  But I too found a system and it was stronger than theirs and they didn't succeed in breaking me.  Instead I found a strength I didn't know I had, but more surprisingly, didn't know I needed.

The teen singer, Taylor Swift said, “If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.” and I operate in that same way.  I don't write songs but I do find my feet and I keep, in my own quiet way, coming back and just silently staying there - successful and happy and at ease in my own company - and there's nothing that gets a bully's back up more than that: silence, watchfullness and resilience. I find my own way to turn the situation around and I have all the patience (and stubbornness) in the world with which to do it.

Some may call that 'passive-aggression', (another buzz-word); I like to think of it a emotional intelligence.  Something not many bullies have.