Today's post covers my thoughts about bullying.
I'm happy about the observation I made. If you are bullied and you feel that your strength is wearing out, you're persecuted and you experience injustice, this is a reminder for you.
I want to raise some discussion about a theme that I've pondered about for quite a long time, listening to many peoples' experiences and thinking of my own decades of experience with my own bullies.
Humorously I take the liberty of naming this state as the "bully syndrome".
This "bully syndrome" is really a strange chronic disease, and it can be observed in many even when they are adults. I've diagnosed this illness/disease in my own thoughts as the "bully syndrome". A disease which is a mental condition created by a broken mind, envy, poor self esteem, and self loathing, in which one enjoys the misfortune of another, attempting to create a better and more influential feeling for oneself by crushing the bullied completely mentally. A disease which distorts the truth and makes the bully tell lies one after the other for their own benefit. A disease which makes the lies turn into truths in their own mind. A disease which also makes this text turn into bitching and nitpicking so that they can keep the self-created truths as the real truth inside their sick mind.
There's a saying in Finnish about the dog that gets hit with the stick is the one that cries out, and this applies pretty well with bullies: if you mention the topic, they are the first to cry out in opposition. This reaction is completely normal and there's no need to wonder about it.
I believe that the "bully syndrome" is a long-term condition, which eases once in a while when the "patient" has other things in their life to focus on and that way finds happiness. A disease which can't be cured unless you yourself notice that you've become ill. A disease which is very easy to transfer on to your own children by showing a fine example with your own behavior.
I believe that the people who succumb to this disease can be divided into two groups, outsider bullies and bullies within your circle of friends. Outsider bullies have some sort of link to the target, something which they envy, something which they themselves aspire to, or some other need for bombing to raise their own self esteem. Most often these are strongly present in the internet world, as commenters on websites, and even openly badmouth their target proudly in social media. They waste their own life on this daily defaming and shouting, wishing they would get attention from others and possibly from the target themself. On the internet, everything appears to be big, and this is felt to help out with crushing the target and the open shouting. The bully often imagines that their own worth and respect grows by pointing out faults in the target. The more likes an aggressive and demeaning post about the victim gets, the more the mind of the bully clears and the feeling of worth grows. The self esteem of an online bully is greatly dependent on the amount of support they get for continuing to say mean things and mocking the target. Starting up groups and especially gathering allies against the target in groups is very normal for these individuals. Systematic negative commenting and actual direct putting down of the target is completely normal behavior for an online bully suffering from bully syndrome. Most often the greatest satisfaction is achieved when one gets up the nerve to write a direct letter to the target. When the tag "seen" or "read" by the target shows up, it makes the day for the bully. A happy thought: "Now I've told them off", brings a sickly smile to the writer's lips, as if a war cry had been answered. However, often the victim doesn't go along with the messaging, knowing that it's completely meaningless. The online bully gets satisfaction already from writing the message and often they feel they are more worthy than their victim, supposedly telling them the truth about themselves. What makes this amusing is that an online bully suffering from the bully syndrome believes they are entitled to announce their own opinion and feels they are completely correct no matter how far from the truth or absurd the content of the message is.
An empowering reminder to the victims: "even a thousand strikes with a stick won't cure a stupid person, while a wise person learns from one". You can't therefore assume that a person with a sick mind would understand your reply to their message, if you feel the need to answer their war cry. Often it's best not to really react to the comments and messages, because however hard you try to defend yourself, it's like yelling at the wind with these sick people. For a wise person, correcting the mistake or a short clarification about the subject is enough. The comments and messages of a wise person are usually written in a different tone which makes it easier to to identify the mental state of the writer before reacting.
Bullies within your circle of friends choose their target, gain trust, get very close to your heart, until they sink their teeth into the deepest point. A deep trust is created before complete crushing.
A situation that often begins with so-called friendship slowly changes into devious association, a mind combining scheming and envy finally turns against the one being bullied and can also gather other friends of the target to join in the act. Complete isolation of the target is usually to be expected as well as dissing and a systematic breaking down of self esteem as well as mental submission. The frightening part is how systematic and unscrupulously devious everything is. The victim is left in a very unknowing state, wondering how it all began and how someone so close suddenly turned against them and continues the slow mental destruction. In the end, the victim gets tired of questions and not knowing what happened to the friendship and why. The victim will not necessarily ever get an answer, and are the things a sick mind does really worth an answer anyway.
The mind of someone suffering from the bully syndrome is broken, so why bother asking for reasons behind the actions of someone suffering from mental health issues. The only thing the victim can do is to understand they've been betrayed by a sick person and recognize this fact, after which forgive, bravely continue their own life, and bring their own state back to normal again.
Envy and self-loathing in the bully are often the greatest motives behind the mind getting sick. The reasons are the lack of color in their own life and a complete dissatisfaction with the content of their own life.
Is a friendship really a gainship, without the victim realizing this? Is the reason behind the bully's own delusion that you can gain the same kind of energy or other benefit from someone else? In the end, when things don't go as imagined for the bully, it's easy to begin haunting the friend you thought to gain from about your failure to achieve your fantasy. So the friend didn't actually change at all during the process, but the one suffering from bully syndrome changed in the way dictated by the disease.
It's still good to notice that it's possible for the "bully syndrome" to be cured, when the patient themself first of all notices the symptoms in themself and changes their way of thinking. Often an ex-bully then begins to focus on their own life and bettering their own quality of life. In the best cases, the process also includes deep regret and apologizing to the victim.
At this point, I would like to remind especially the younger bullies to remember that you can never know who you are bullying.
For my part I can easily believe that if my bullies in elementary school and junior high had realized their own actions at the time, they would have avoided very embarrassing situations in their adult life. When I was in elementary school, seven girls began bullying me with one of them, the so-called leader, getting the others on her side. The bullying was psychological violence and in the end stoning in the school yard. I had to change schools because of them. The long torment led me to consider suicide at the age of 12. I went and sat on the train tracks at our town station, coloring the pages of my diary black.
Now as an adult, this so-called leader bully is a priest, another is a teacher, one is a nurse, so they are completely normal people with normal jobs. It's amusing that one of them stated that their child is a fan of mine who, based on an interview about how I was tormented in elementary school, had complained and asked the mother was she aware of this since she went to the same school with me. What do you think the mother answered. One of them also sent me a message, through a third party, asking me to stop giving interviews about the bullying now that I was a public figure, because she now has kids as well and it doesn't feel nice to dig up the past.
So you youngster, think whether bullying is really so important right now that you want to return to dwell on your own actions later. The one you are bullying may sometime in the future be, for example, your boss, which has actually also happened to me. After the job interview, my teenage bully began crying and apologizing profusely.
The boys in my junior high felt me up under my clothes against my will behind the locked door of the soldering room. I had chosen woodwork because I was afraid of the girls sewing and knitting group. I preferred choosing woodwork since I got along much better with boys exactly because I had just suffered from bullying by girls in elementary school. Well, I was häväisty on that day in that soldering room that smelled of metal, and I never mentioned it to anyone because I was ashamed. Now that I brought it to light in an interview for the Finnish ELLE magazine, those boys probably feel embarassed now by their teenage stunt and my bullying which they continued all through junior high.
A reminder to bullies: "what goes around comes around". Today these boys are fathers, businessmen and employed adult citizens. For example, one of my five junior high bullies is a childrens' psychiatrist.
So your own behavioral choices have great meaning in the big picture. You can be cured of the bully syndrome if you wake up and notice your own behavior early enough. Who among us wants to dig up the past, especially our own mistakes.
So think carefully how you treat others today, since like I said, you can never know if your victim will one day be your boss, co-worker, your child's idol, or a public figure who speaks openly about their own life and being bullied. Bullying can be best dealt with only by the bully themself, by choosing their own behavior and stopping the submission of others.
People who have found happiness rarely succumb to this syndrome. I think the bully syndrome is like any other psychiatric disease. It needs to be understood, because it's not ok to judge or put down those with mental disorders, since they can't help themselves until they get some help. By thinking this way, I've finally begun to be empowered and am feeling a whole lot better. I've begun to understand that it's a matter of a sick mind, not so much an evil person. I believe in the good in every human being and therefore, with this thought process, I can still stick to that belief. I want to believe that deep down inside people are good.
I think the bully syndrome is a very strong disease which drives even a good person to the path of destruction and ruins their own life for a long time. This disease is cunning and takes over an innocent mind, affecting it deeper day after day by tying its twists to each thought, distorting the truth and giving twisted pleasure when sowing evil. So in the end, the one being persecuted isn't the one being bullied but rather the one suffering from the bully syndrome.
Today I still want to remind you all that I am grateful for my past and all that I've experienced. I wouldn't be who I am today without all that I went through all the way from elementary school into my thirties.
Today I am strong and I wanted to write a column about this subject, mainly to make people think about bullies and offer understanding for the victims. The bully syndrome has become a chronic disease and the only way I believe I can have an effect on it is to plant an idea in the mind of each and every bully so that they would decide to stop their disgusting behavior before they are forced to face the consequences. Your own head makes the choices about your own behavior, no one else.
I wish a speedy recovery for them all and a brighter future. May the force be with you.
I hope the victims of the bully syndrome got some strength for their daily challenges from this text. A tip: Don't bother fighting back, pay no mind, and focus on getting your own happiness back! You are entitled to your own happiness.