Bullying

Fortunately I have not been a victim of bullying since I don't see myself as a victim in the first place. Rather I see the perpetrator as someone who wants attention in the effort to raise his or her self-esteem by targeting certain people with their rants and hate. For years as a blogger I've been a target of bullying-tactics by a few deaf people who have graced my blogsite of time's past. The same people who have attacked those commenting in my blog comment box and used profane language against them. Ultimately I was forced to ban them from my blogsite after warning them to cease against attacking people who leave comments in my blog. Even that didn't always work because they usually find a way to continue with the attacking and bullying. But in my own wisdom I've learned to ignore those people who insist on finding ways to target me.

What prompted me to blog about this was because of an article I read on the psychology of bullying asking an interesting question, "Bullies Have Low Self-Esteem Or High Self-Esteem?"

But current research shows that most bullies actually have high self-esteem. Bullies usually have a sense of entitlement and a feeling of superiority over others, and lack compassion, impulse control and social skills. They enjoy being cruel to others and sometimes use bullying as an anger management tool, the way a normally angry person would punch a pillow. Research does support the fact that bullies have low empathy and don’t know how it feels to be in someone else’s shoes.

I never realize that a person who bully sometimes uses it as an anger management tool. That one surprised me but I certainly understand that such attitudes and actions give them the feeling of superiority over others and enjoy being cruel to them in a variety of ways over the internet.  Such cruelties include name calling, put downs, smearing, lying or going after their families or spouses by targeting them in order to get to his/her main target.

More on bullying....

As long as bullies are able to manipulate another person or a situation, their self-esteem goes up. Once bullies lose control of their victim, or realize that they can’t manipulate situations to their liking, their self-esteem goes down. This causes them to look for new victims to manipulate and control so that their self-esteem can go up again. The bullying in itself almost becomes an emotional fix that bullies need in order to feel good about themselves.

Which is why it's important to ignore certain bullies for their bullying tactics because by doing so you are not giving them any opportunity for control or the opportunity to try and manipulate you.  If you can do this  try and block the person from your blog, YouTube, Facebook or anywhere else. The bullies I've come across in the past I see them almost as the equivalent of a druggie who seeks emotional fixes in order to get that same "high." It's almost a description of  stalker looking for his/her next fix.

If you come across a bully, do not try and engage with a bully. Best weapon is to put that online bully on ignore. Or, if you can, try and ban that person. That's what I did and I was able to take that control away from the few bullies who knew no better. It takes confidence to wrest control away from an online bully by the mere simple act of ignoring the bully in the first place. You have that power.