I was bullied.
This is my story of resilience through understanding and choice. Bullying isn’t just between kids at school–abuse, narcissism and racism are forms of bullying, too.
Bullying is completely unnecessary and mean. Please share this article with young people. It doesn’t matter whether they are perpetrators of bullying or survivors of it; both groups need insight into the underpinnings of bullying. Even those who are not on either end of bullying can benefit because they may be able to help someone who is part of this sad, painful dynamic.
Bullying: A Lesson from Shakespeare
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
These are probably the most frequently quoted words from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. They were spoken by Hamlet’s mother in response to his question of what she thinks of the play they’re watching. She doesn’t know that Hamlet created the play in response to his belief that his uncle, now his mother’s new husband, killed Hamlet’s father. Her character in Hamlet’s play-within-a-play strongly protests that she’d never marry after her first husband dies. As we know, this turns out not to be true.
In psychology, we call it reaction formation, which means that impulses or feelings that are viewed as negative or unacceptable are masked or controlled by exaggerating the exact opposite response. In other words, if I really, really don’t like something inwardly, I act outwardly as though it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
This is how I see bullying: I feel really crappy about myself in one way or another, so I act like I’m God’s gift to the universe to cover up my true feelings. In order to make myself feel even better, I will belittle, demean or make fun of you. In my mind, this elevates me above you. This also serves to take the attention off me and put it on you, further assuring that no one sees who I truly am.
So that we are all on the same page, the dictionary definition of bullying is “treating abusively, affecting by means of force or coercion or using browbeating language or behavior.” I’ll shorten the definition to “treating abusively” because that sums up the other actions and more. Abuse is about power, and bullies need power to get what they want, despite what it does to others. Bullies are made, not born. Bullying in groups is called mobbing.
My Story
I’m a nerd. Always have been, always will be. I love learning, conceptualizing, pushing the limits of theories and experimenting. (I almost blew up a lab at The University of Texas at Austin once, but that’s a story for another day.) I also enjoy thinking outside the box and being different and creative. As a result of my nerdiness, I was bullied in junior high—mobbed, actually. I don’t see myself as a victim but a survivor. That’s the only way to see it. Life is too short to allow yourself to be a victim of what’s happened to you: Pain is inevitable; suffering is a choice. My experiences have made me who I am today and happened because they’re part of a larger plan that I may never know or understand. I have worked with plenty of survivors of bullying, and several of the bullies themselves, so I can only hope that helping them was part of this plan.
By the grace of God, I never hated my bullies back then and still don’t. I would suffer even more if I did because living in hatred and unforgiveness is exhausting and self-demeaning, not to mention a colossal waste of time. It would also mean that the offender has emotional control over me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen! Hatred comes from ignorance. I guess I always understood on some level how much bullies truly suffer on the inside. God gave me a heart for people like them, and it has saved me so much despair. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad, angry, hurt, confused or plenty tearful; I just didn’t have time for hatred. I was too busy being a nerd, after all.
So, why do people bully? Bottom line up front: Bullying is caused by what I call “The Three Is”: Immaturity, Insecurity and Ignorance. One could argue that it’s simply caused by immaturity, actually, because insecurity and ignorance come from psychological and emotional immaturity; but The Three Is breaks it down a bit more to give additional reference points in the moment bullying happens and after. Besides, it’s catchier. Let’s look at each in turn.
Immaturity
Immaturity is about a lack of information, knowledge and wisdom. For example, an adult can behave emotionally like a two-year-old if he doesn’t have knowledge of how to behave differently in order to get his needs met. It’s said that, without insight and help, we can stay stuck emotionally at the age at which trauma occurred in our lives. And trauma is very broadly defined and can be quite different from person to person.
We get something out of everything we do, good or bad. Children act out because they perceive that some need they have isn’t being met. (Let’s be honest, many adults do the same thing.) They truly are doing the best they can, at the time, with what they have available to them, in their own perception. Most people are not intentionally malicious. Of course, it comes down to choice, but a choice won’t be seen as such if the chooser doesn’t feel capable of executing it successfully. That’s why I say what they have available to them in their own perception.
Bullying is a coping skill, not a healthy or adaptive one, but a coping skill nonetheless. This is not intended to excuse bullying; you will NEVER hear me do that. Rather, it’s intended to convey the internal struggle of the bully and the idea that maturity, security and information over time can be antidotes to bullying behavior. As Maya Angelou said, “You did then what you knew how to do. Now that you know better, you can do better.”
Insecurity
Insecure people don’t want to feel insecure. They hate it. They truly do. They just don’t know how to feel any other way. It’s simply a way to get their needs met. Needs for attention, validation, power and control, feeling important, feeling strong, just feeling good or happy. Chances are, they’ve been bullied in some way also. Sometimes, people bully to avoid being bullied themselves. Again, we are back to insecurity. It’s sad, really. My heart goes out to those people because I now know how much they’re suffering. As Matthew 15:18 tells us, “The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.”
Cyberbullying is a whole different level of insecurity. These bullies can’t even say it to another’s face. They have to hide behind a wall of technology. “Keyboard warriors,” I’ve heard them called.
This is where Shakespeare comes in. Bullies are protesting too much, methinks. If I have to do all this blustering and mustering to make you feel small, how must I truly feel about myself? If I have to spend my time and energy trying to make you feel less than, what must I really think about myself? True confidence doesn’t need an expression; it speaks for itself.
We are our own worst critics, and bullies are no exception. They just don’t realize their own issues. Or maybe they do, but they are ignorant as to how to help themselves feel better. Saying how awful others are diverts attention from themselves. If I can ridicule someone else and point out her flaws, I don’t have to look at myself or think about how crappy I feel about myself. And, hopefully, no one else is looking at me and seeing my flaws either.
Politicians are often perfect examples of bullies. No matter which party you side with or which candidate you like, there is always mudslinging going on. The mentality is that if I can point out the flaws of another, it makes me look better. Politicians know they have their own flaws, but if they can divert attention away from themselves and on to others, maybe their flaws stay hidden a little longer or at least don’t look as bad as another’s—or so they think anyway.
As I said earlier, immaturity plays the primary role in bullying. Again, people don’t know another way to handle their own inadequacies. I know bullies who have turned out to be fine people, having a heart for Jesus and seeing the error of their ways. Others, sadly, will go to their graves as bullies because they couldn’t see any other way to be. They weren’t able to take a look at themselves and find another way to get their needs met. That is truly heartbreaking.
Ignorance
Ignorance comes into play when a bully bashes another person’s lifestyle. They might attack someone’s religion, race, sexuality, ideology and so forth. Let’s take race. Racism, prejudice and discrimination are forms of bullying. Racists like to promote their strong views, which invariably include stereotypes and other generalizations. This is ignorant. Ignorance is not be confused with stupidity or a lack of intelligence. Ignorance is simply a lack of awareness. As an example, I believe I am a smart person in general, but there are many things about which I am ignorant. I don’t know how to fly a plane, engineer a building, sail a boat or blow glass. That doesn’t mean I’m not smart; I just haven’t learned how to do these things. It also doesn’t mean I couldn’t do these things at one point in my life if I so desired; I just haven’t learned it yet.
Many racists are very bright people in other areas. They are just brainwashed, uninformed, unaware and/or uneducated about diversity. Generally, they’ve been bred to hate at first sight rather than seek to understand, explore and appreciate life’s diversity. I’ve talked to more than a few prejudicial people over the years, and they’re quite interesting. If you ask them to really explore their views—their meanings and origins—they often have no real grounding in reality. In an attempt to make their point, they’ll present statistics that are actually erroneous or share sentiments and opinions that are uninformed. Often, when presented with an alternative perspective, they really have nothing substantial with which to respond. Other times, they’ll staunchly base their viewpoint on one or two experiences in their lives. Never mind the countless people of the same race with whom they’ve had good experiences OR the negative experiences they’ve had with people of their own race.
Abuse is bullying. Take verbal abuse in a marriage, for starters. (Note: Wives and husbands can both be abused; my choice of pronoun in this discussion is based on the most common pattern of abuse, which is from husband to wife.) The abused person in the marriage is made to feel small, inept, inadequate or otherwise unworthy or less than. This puts the abuser in a position of power. Abuse is the abuser’s attempt at making himself feel the exact opposite of all of those things he truly feels about himself and serves to keep the abused person thinking she’s unworthy, can’t do any better and that she should do whatever it takes to prove to her husband that she is good, valuable and worth having as a partner. This is an impossible task, however, because she can never prove something he doesn’t want to believe. That is, his abusive belief system keeps him in charge, so nothing she does will ever be good enough because he’s unwilling to give up that control. The message is this: Don’t you get too big for your britches and go thinking you can do any better.
Narcissism is another form of bullying. It comes from caring too much about yourself and not enough about other people. In child development, it’s called egocentrism, which is that stage when young children believe the world revolves around them. A narcissist develops when the child gets “stuck” there for one reason or another, usually a trauma of some sort. The narcissist has a great deal of insecurity that he tries to cover up by professing to be awesome. Sometimes, the need for that belief that he’s great and better than others means he comes across as a complete jerk. Some people say that bullies are confident. I disagree. They look confident, but their confidence is feigned. (Reference the blustering and mustering comment I made earlier.) Narcissists look confident, too, but I know from working with many of them that they are sad, hurting, little people on the inside.
Over the years, I’ve spoken to many young people about bullying. I’ve helped them cope with the behavior through understanding it and knowing what to do in the face of it. I’ve even been blessed with the task of trying to help bullies see the error of their ways and talk them out of their behavior and into a better one. My hope is that one day I can speak to audiences of young people and their parents about this and do what I can to help put an end to this problem.
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