As a so-called “strong” woman who used to be an over-developed, over-achieving, outspoken child, I experienced my share of bullying.
Four-Eyes, Coke Bottles, Turbo Tits, Hogs, Nerd, Dork, and Dweeb are some of the names I was called as a child. And of course Dyke, Homo, and Lesbo in hissing, whispery sorts of ways. Oh, and “hell-bound sinner” (in so many words) by my high school pastor!
I’ve been punched, kicked, spat on, shoved, had little boys flip eyelids inside out to scare me, tease me about werewolves and Bigfoots and ghosts waiting to get me, or taunt me about the monster at the end of the creek that ate my sister. I’m also certain that as a child, I did my own bullying. Such as when I wrote to my best friend in middle school and pretended to be a boy who had a crush on her …. I’m sorry, “Rita” ….
But the most painful bullying I’ve experienced isn’t the kind wielded by words, fists, legs, or nasty childhood jabs. It’s the psychological kind of bullying you encounter as an adult. The communication patterns, the jaunting along continuums of truth or fiction, the manipulative language, the shaming, intimidation, and status comparisons.
Adult bullying is often conducted covertly and in numerous ways
I felt a drive to explore this based on some recent personal experiences and encountered a plethora of information about adult bullying. I learned, for example, that I’m not alone: almost a third of adults believe they’ve been victims of adult bullying, says a Harris Poll. Almost half of us believe adult bullying has increased recently.
In the adult world, bullying isn’t as clear as who called who what, or whose fist first hit whose chin or nose, or who’s extorting whose lunch money. As Psychology Today explains, adult bullying is complicated, and often covert.
Here’s just a taste of the ways experts say adults bully each other:
- ignoring each other
- refusing or delaying return of phone calls, emails or messages
- cutting someone off
- intentionally and repeatedly being late or delayed
- sabotaging projects
- denying deserved praise or meting it out selectively
- taking credit for another’s work
- scapegoating issues on specific people
- refusing to acknowledge another’s ideas
- starting false rumors
- belittling someone in front of colleagues
- condescending eye contact
- facial expressions and gestures (eye-rolling, hand-waving)
- mimicking or vocal inflections
- telling negative jokes about someone
- deliberately causing embarrassment
- isolating someone professionally or socially
Even claiming that you’re being bullied can be a form of bullying, as President Trump is illustrating now almost daily. We’re to the point where any criticism of his words, decision-making or behavior is decried immediately as an unfair attack on him. There could not be a clearer example than Trump of how adult bullying is a wily creature.
Social media, challenges of intersectionality, childhood experiences amplify adult bullying
Understanding the subtleties of adult bullying are pivotal. The complexities are already so vast.
First, there’s the Tron-like maze created by social media. Nowadays, adult bullies have so many tools to use: smartphones, plus text, message, email, snapchat, a dozen or more other social media sites, and groups of all kinds that revolve around these communication structures.
Then, add the layer of intersectionality, which Latisha McDaniel Grife explores in her column. She walks us through the reality that making mistakes and accidentally offending someone or unintentionally trivializing their pain is almost assured to happen to anyone reaching outside of their comfort zone and seeking to connect with other marginalized people.
This can create a minefield of potential bullying waiting to be emitted and received.
Build in the difficult experiences most of us have as children, the effects of which stick with us long into adulthood, and we are talking about a morass of emotional and mental complexities that can trigger adult bullying or make it especially hard to cope with.
So we owe it to ourselves to continuously sort out what it means to be an adult bully and to experience adult bullying. We owe it to ourselves and our colleagues to identify adult bullying, prevent it, and even recognize when we’re experiencing “bully claiming to be bullied” syndrome of Trump.
Trump’s bullying behavior can help us learn how NOT to behave
Like the naïve little kid who walks with the bullies into the alley, thinking the other kids really do want to toss around the ball for a while instead of taking lunch money or poking fun, I often find myself lured into adult bullying situations before I know what’s hit me.
The pain is almost indescribable and always leaves me tempted to “harden up” and be more wary and suspicious of everyone. I’m always tempted to try and be more self-interested to avoid similar situations, and so I don’t get fooled again. I’m always tempted to build more false relationships purely for the sake of covering my ass and building a force field against more bullying.
Nevertheless, I resist.
And one surprise help is Trump himself. He is illustrating like never before the real ploys of adult bullies, which makes it harder for adult bullies to do their thing.
Watching him operate on the world and domestic stage is like a master class in adult bullying. Trump often:
- exaggerates and distorts by equating minor offense to major ones
- substitutes his own version of events for what actually happened
- accuses others of lying or gaslighting when they disagree with him and stand up for the truth
- takes credit for things related to his predecessors,
- shifts responsibility for his own shortcomings on to those who came before him
- speaks in clashing terms of good and bad, right and wrong, forcing everyone to choose between only two sides, even though there are more
- belittles the exploration of subtleties.
- focuses in on one physical characteristic and then ties it somehow to a moral challenge or blanket condemnation
- and most sneakily, most subversive and covert of all, converts every legitimate critique and complaint about him into a personal affront to him, stealing the bully label from the very people he is bullying.
Adult bullying is exhausting, the American Osteopathic Association reports, causing anxiety, depression, sick days and lower productivity. So I hope we all keep wising up, fessing up, facing up, and knocking it off.
We’re going to need each other these next few years of the never-ended and never-ending Trump campaign. We don’t need our valuable energy syphoned off by coping with adult bullying among ourselves.
