Thursday, October 6, 2011

Is there a bully for every victim? I don't think so.

I've been thinking about a woman with which I recently had "another" unfortunate encounter.  I've discovered she was reading my blog and, in her opinion, I hurt her feelings.  I didn't force her to read my blog.  I didn't even know she knew I blogged.  I've taken some time to look over my behavior in this encounter.  I was looking for my culpability.  I couldn't find any.  Seriously folks, this is a blog about Being Happy.  I don't rant.  My goal on this blog is to look at myself and discover how to turn negative situations into positives.  I focus on gratitude and how it changes my attitude.  And, every now and then, point out some absurdities in the world of social media and how it has changed our relationships with each other.  So, I looked at myself to see if I was being a "mean girl" and discovered, I was not.

On the other hand, I uncovered some information on why some women play the victim and perceive others as bullies.

Bullying has become a HUGE buzzword these days.  For every man, woman, or child out there in the world who is having social difficulties at school or work or on the internet, a bully is being created.  Are there really that many bullies out there?  Or, are there just a bunch of victims?  Here is what I'm getting at.

There are "professional victims" out there in the world.  Truth be told, these victims are, in reality, BULLIES.  How can we tell if someone is a professional victim?  (I'm going to use the female gender in this description, because, in my experience, I'm dealing with a woman.  I'm sure men can be professional victims, too.  But I'm not going to go there.  *wink* you know why)

1.  The victim never acknowledges when she hurts others.  She is the only injured party.  It is always someone else's fault.  Even though she posted the inflammatory fb status, it was the person making the negative or contrary comment that injured her.  Even though she is reading a blog of a person she doesn't either agree with or like, what they said made them a "hater" towards her.  She is the only one with feelings and everyone else is out to hurt her with their opinions.  Agree with her or else she will cry.

2.  The victim must be victimized.  She will poke and poke or harp and harp or blog and blog, whatever... until she gets a reaction from you.  She knows what the reaction will be.  She knows how sick of her crazy ideas you are.  She knows and she wants attention.  The type of attention she knows how to evoke best is negative attention, so she goes there.  You react to her prodding and, voila', she has been bullied.

3.  She blames others for her own shortcomings, failures, or the circumstance in which she finds herself.  She is not responsible for her own behavior.  She will blame her mother, her boss, her co-workers, the girls in her middle school class, the minister, her girlfriends, and, Lord help you if you are her husband.  If only her boss could see how talented she really is and didn't put so much focus on doing the paperwork correctly.  If only the co-workers didn't count on her to follow through with the committee agenda and could see how smart she is.  If only the minister who thinks the service is being run in a slipshod manner could see how talented an organizer she is.  If only, if only,... the list goes on and on.  It's never her action, it's those mean people out there.  Can't they see how good she is?  Maybe if she looked at herself in her mirror a little more closely, she'd see the truth.

It is not possible to have a positive relationship as equals with a professional victim.  She goes through life feeling slighted and angry, never taking responsibility for herself.  You won't be able to talk to her about this.  She will be defensive.  She will avoid a frank conversation.  She will cry, continually.  She will blame.  She will tell you it is your fault or someone else's fault.  And she will lie.  She is often a pathological liar.  Her identity is wrapped up in being a victim.  If she doesn't believe she is being victimized, then who is she?  My answer to the seemingly rhetorical question is this.  She's a person who treats other people like crap and is wasting her life.

This type of person should be avoided or kept at a healthy distance.


5 comments:

  1. Oh isn't that an interesting scenario. I definitely see your point - in my story the woman was a victim but did not see herself that way. In this story it's very much the other way around.

    But I want to stay Pollyanna-esque about the whole thing and suggest that maybe the professional victim acts that way because of some deep hurt that was not managed well somewhere in their past. I also like to think they can be won over. But maybe I'm just being naive...

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  2. Happy Girl, I know too well what you mean. I have, shall we say, an agressive-agressive personality :-p. Meaning, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I don't sugar-coat or try to make a private jab at someone. I fess up to my mistakes AND I expect you to fess up to yours on your own accord. So I have most definitely been in this same situation with a couple other women, so I agree with you on this matter 100%. 

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  3. Kati, sweet Kati.  I love your generous spirit.  I won't call it naivete'.  Personally, I think it is an immaturity this type of person is holding on to for dear life.  They just don't want to grow up and be adults.

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  4. great post happygirl - personally I think these people need our compassion as someone else said they have issues problems in their lives...these people can 'thrive' on drama...it is sad...we just have to rise above it....and feel compassion for them....

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  5. Interesting and thought provoking post.  I do think that if someone is angry all the time and feel the world owes them a favor, they are not really facing reality.  I agree that compassion is a good thing and avoidance is another good thing because life is too short to be around those who are constantly having a pity party. 

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