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Status:
"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,600,682 times
Reputation: 5697
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I can only give the barest outline of my views about bullying here, as this touches on MANY factors. At the end of the day, bullying seems very similar to bigotry against the weak, fragile, looks, poor social skills, whatever.
Contempt for these traits springs from our reptilian brainstem, not our brain’s higher-functioning rational and empathetic regions. That contempt is adapted for survival in Stone Age environments, not in safe, stable, wealthy ones. We modern humans have moved considerably beyond that dog-eat-dog level of physical existence, yet we're the same old human beings. Our biological and especially psychological evolution has not kept up with our technological development.
Nature Arguments - common among bullies and their enablers or apologists bring up to rationalize, excuse, or justify their cruelty. They forgetting that our unique basket of traits (especially our brains) let us transcend the other animals to a considerable, if incomplete, degree. That lets us better figure out what acts and speech ought to be proper or improper, especially with modern levels of education and material well-being. In short, nature arguments assume that humans have no more capacity for foresight, self-control, and self-correcting of attitudes than wild animals do.
Bullies and their apologists use poor analogies to support their views. They compare everyday life to extraordinary or narrowly specific situations (war, boot camp, sports, “nature”); unaware that analogies are simply clarifiers, not reasons for belief. In fact, wholehearted belief in an analogy, without limits, leads to strange conclusions. Good arguments address the facts and data said to make the two things said to be similar, not the two things themselves.
Other points
*"That's just the way it is". They confuse Utopia being impossible with an excuse to handwave all the nasty, ugly behaviors people engage in - thereby dismissing centuries of social progress against the worst of human behaviors.
* They have crude understandings of free will (and by extension personal responsibility). They think the old Nike "Just Do It!" slogan is the complete final word on the matter, completely ignoring that many factors - internal and external - influence a person's abilities and choices. On top of this, not all wills are equally free. Some people simply have more capacity than others. So we put an unreasonable burden on the victim when we tell them to "take care of it themselves" or "deal with it".
* Such scornful attitudes can have larger cultural, even political, ripple effects. People rarely express a connection between bullying and the rise of oppressive regimes. If in democracies, the people rule, that means the cultural attitudes influence the choices of our leaders. Thinking it appropriate to harass or scorn the “weak”, “stupid”, etc. is bordering on ableism. If translated into public policy, it would be inescapably oppressive, perhaps even outright fascist.
There's more I can say, but I have hit the highlights.
I was thinking about that as well. I don't know where is the difference. Maybe being bullied by a single group of people, while having the supporting ones makes it different? I didn't have anyone to support me, really. My parents didn't care and were criticising me for other things. I learned how to close myself in my inner world where I'm safe. That's how I live to this day, but at the same time I never accepted being perceived as such person, so I'm still trying.
I never chose to be like this. Yet, the universe punishes me for that. I spent lots of time and money on finding solutions to improve this. I improved lots of areas by that, but I still don't seem to get along with people. And most people just judge me as unfriendly or cocky. It really feels unfair that most people have for free what I can't have even by trying hard. I'm slowly growing up to conclusion that social life is just not for me. I imagine other people living without arms or with some serious disease. Maybe that's just my "disease" that I need to accept. I will never find peace if I never stop trying to fix this without success.
Get into a therapy. A group may be very helpful to you but one on one will also help tremendously.
Get into a therapy. A group may be very helpful to you but one on one will also help tremendously.
I have said before that I’ve been on a dozen of different therapies and somehow I haven’t seen a „tremendous help” you are talking about. I never get it why people assume that therapy always helps. In my case and many other cases, it doesn’t. How was it supposed to help when there was not even a thing like C-PTSD before?
I have said before that I’ve been on a dozen of different therapies and somehow I haven’t seen a „tremendous help” you are talking about. I never get it why people assume that therapy always helps. In my case and many other cases, it doesn’t. How was it supposed to help when there was not even a thing like C-PTSD before?
Complex PTSD. In was mentioned in this topic before. It's pretty new diagnosis in psychology.
It’s been around since 1992 so it’s hardly new but finding a therapist that understands child development and persistent trauma or bullying and knows how to treat ptsd is another issue.
You seem very antagonist towards the idea of therapy so obviously it’s not going to be beneficial for you. So my question to you is what steps do you think you can take to help cope with or redirect your defensive wiring?
I think everybody would be against the idea of therapy after so many fails and wasted money. I tried for 15 years, I've tried group therapy as well as private sessions. I even tried most expensive psychologists with best reputation in my country. Nothing. Please don't say "I'm not gonna benefit from it, because I'm against it". This is not true. I'm just tired of these "experts" asking me irrelevant questions and forcing me to believe things that are not true. You can easily tell these people have very stiff thinking patterns they have been taught and are trying them on everyone. Also, like I said before, 1 hour session once a week doesn't make any sense in my case. I'm sure therapies are the best solution for many, but I know many people who tried like me and just didn't find any help. You can call it my fault or the fault of the current state of psychology as a science. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.
What steps? I was thinking about trying neurofeedback and other techniques linked to C-PTSD. And maybe CBT? That's the type of therapy I haven't really tried, because after 10 weeks of the therapist asking me stupid questions about my entire family, including all cousins, I just didn't come to the session number 11.
I think everybody would be against the idea of therapy after so many fails and wasted money. I tried for 15 years, I've tried group therapy as well as private sessions. I even tried most expensive psychologists with best reputation in my country. Nothing. Please don't say "I'm not gonna benefit from it, because I'm against it". This is not true. I'm just tired of these "experts" asking me irrelevant questions and forcing me to believe things that are not true. You can easily tell these people have very stiff thinking patterns they have been taught and are trying them on everyone. Also, like I said before, 1 hour session once a week doesn't make any sense in my case. I'm sure therapies are the best solution for many, but I know many people who tried like me and just didn't find any help. You can call it my fault or the fault of the current state of psychology as a science. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.
What steps? I was thinking about trying neurofeedback and other techniques linked to C-PTSD. And maybe CBT? That's the type of therapy I haven't really tried, because after 10 weeks of the therapist asking me stupid questions about my entire family, including all cousins, I just didn't come to the session number 11.
I have heard neurofeedback can be really good. If you try it I hope you will come back and let is know how it goes.
A lot of people are in the same boat as yourself. Other people aren't in that boat, but other people have different sorts of problems.
The first thing to do is establish a couple meaningful friendships - if you acquire two or three friends who like you for who you are, perceived "rejection" from other people won't seem as important. Same thing goes for romantic relationships.
Second thing is to establish hobbies for yourself if you don't already have them. Hobbies take the mind off things, give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Third thing is to realize that you're living in the U.S., not exactly the most social-friendly country in the world.
Fourth thing is: do you really want all those people to like you? I mean, do you honestly really like them?
Fifthly, sometimes you gotta just cherish and relish your own uniqueness, your own outsider-ness.
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