'The victim is never responsible'

[PrettyCandles]

I know that this is accepted truth. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that I was responsible. If I had been different, or behaved differently, I would not have been bullied. So how can I not bear some of the responsibility for being bullied?

You don't know that you wouldn't have been bullied if you had behaved differently or been different. There is never any excuse for bullying. I honestly don't see how it could possibly be your fault if you were bullied.

I don't think it's the victim's fault. And I talk as someone who was bullied for 5 years. Often I was in a situation where nothing I said or did would have made any difference whatsoever. The kids were mean bullies and I was the chosen victim of the hour.

I look back and feel sad for my teenage self but I don't wish I'd been different or changed. I honestly believe it wouldn't have made any difference.

However I have learned to live with what happened and draw a line under it.

I think you need to look at why you feel responsible for other children's behaviour?
Are you punishing yourself again by saying it was your fault? Or are you trying to take control of what happened by saying you could have controlled it better?

Hope you work through this ok.

But if I had carried myself differently, I would not have been mocked for my posture. If I had washed more often, or differently, I would not have been mocked for BO. If I had not responded angrily or with discomfort, if I had not cared about the silly teases to which I was subjected, if I had not provided the bullies with ammunition and wonderful feedback, then I would not have presented them with an easy target.

And then maybe they would not have bothered with me.

And then maybe I would not have been so alone, because people are afraid to associate with victims, yet those who do have friends are picked on much less.

Prettycandles the personal differences between you and your bully are no justification for them to bully you.

You were going around your daily business minding your own. They forced their behaviour onto you, that is not your fault.

Yes, I think I do want to take control of what happened, and understanding it better may help.

But the only way I could have stopped it would have been by changing what I was doing - so surely I bear some responsibility for not doing that?

I accept that I am not responsible for another person's viciousness, but I am responsible for my own actions, I need to make my own choices, not accept the ones forced upon me by the bullies.

But surely we don't accept now that bullies are wholly responsible for their actions - there is always a reason for it, some deep-seated resentment that meanst they can avoid taking responsibility

No you are not responsible for being bullied but you are responsible for the choices you make in life

so if it was something as simple as not smelling then yes you could have made the choice to wash more

some children exude victimhood or do not have the sense of self to exude confidence, shrug it off, minimalise it - whose responsibility is that I wonder? the parents?

to me it seems like a catch 22 - we don't blame anyone, there is no true evil in children, there are shades of grey

it is an interesting theoretical discussion, but one I am sure hurts to consider

"some children exude victimhood or do not have the sense of self to exude confidence, shrug it off, minimalise it"

True.

Plenty of girls going through puberty have problems with posture as their bodies change, or have episodes of BO as their hormones change and they learn to look after themselves. So, why pick on me?

Maybe I exuded victimhood. And I think victimhood is sel-perpetuating.

they picked on you because they did

there is no more reason than that

they picked on you and got some satisfaction from your response - and every child responds in some way, how are you as the victim to know how you should react particularly in that hormonal, self-aware stage of pubescence?

the thing is there's taking responsibility for your own actions and taking responsibility for others' - the first is fair enough, the latter is where guilt and feeling you could have done something different to stop it come in - and this is so totally bogus as to not even be worth examining.

I agree that victimhood is self-perpetuating

one of the more vital things to teach pubescents IMO is that they have choices only over their own actions - they have the choice to rise to it or walk away - that they have the choice to pretend a level of confidence they don't feel

that they can accept that something is not fair that they can deal with that and that it won't break them

You were the victim and weren't responsible for their actions. It might be worth looking into counselling to help you talk through how you feel about it and how to go forward. I was bullied horrifically throughout school and I'm so over it now. You can be too. I'll also say that you won't have been their only victim. The "friends" of a bully are often only friendly with them to avoid being bullied themselves.

Activate, why 'bogus'? Please explain a bit more.

I have recently had a course of CBT, which is why I feel able to revisit these thoughts and not be overwhelmed by them. But there's so much more thinking and understanding to do! I feel that I have barely dipped the tip of my toe into it.

You'll get there in the end. You'll regain your self esteem and confidence and realise that those bullies probably had massive self esteem issues themselves, and could only reinforce their self worth by ridiculing someone else.

In my view there is an action and a reaction

the act of bullying is an action

the response is the reaction

the guilt belongs with the act, the responsibility for the act belongs with the person perpetrating it - theirs is the choice to do it or not

nobody is capable of choosing someone else's actions for them, so if you think you can choose someone else's reaction for them you imagine yourself to have far too much power for a human being.

Can your wishes affect my actions? I think not. Your wishes can affect your own choices only.

But bullies do have exactly that power: they choose their victim's reaction, and her actions. Perhaps not the first time, but they train the victim to be a victim. Without support, the victim learns to believe that they are what the bully tells them they are.

Wishes cannot affect another's actions. Actions affect another person's actions.

which turns a victim into a puppet? And by extrapolation a bully into a planned and intelligent programmer of other's psyche

I don't believe that sorry

I think that a perpetual victim has lost a sense of self and the ability to choose - the crux is why has that happened where has that gone and why was it so fragile in the first place?

I apologise I am taking this as a theoretical debate only and am aware that this is a personal dialogue to you - I find it difficult to cross that bridge.

I have never been bullied - I have had instances in my childhood where people have been mean, wantonly cruel or physically violent towards me - sharp instances that stick out in my mind for being unusual - but I have never perceived myself as being bullied.

I am not the type for self-analysis, although I am the type who takes on guilt (catholic background), I also have a crap memory but a great big huge ego - perhaps these are the building blocks to not being bullied? I don't know

I was wondering whether you had ever been bullied. (Tone of voice here is curious, not sarcastic.). Because you keep describing situations very accurately, but then saying that they are implausible!

You see, "which turns a victim into a puppet? And by extrapolation a bully into a planned and intelligent programmer of other's psyche" is exactly what being a victim feels like.

There's a difference between 'being bullied', and 'being a victim'. With the second, the bully has succeeded. And, yes, I think your last paragraph is also very true, and is probably what makes the difference between 'being bullied', ie being subjected to mean, wantonly cruel acts, and 'being a victim'.

And I think, also, that thisis exactlywhy my father was unable to help me. He has the same self-belief that you have, and, while he wanted to protect and help me, he just could not understand why I crumbled so easily. His reactions would have been so different to mine.

I'm not upset that for you this is a theoretical issue - how could I wish what I went through on another? I'm glad that a) you did not turn into a victim, and b) that you are able to recognise this and offer it to another to try and help them.

I dont have much experience of being bullied at school but over the years and especially when me and DW were working in the City we came across what I would call 'bullies' in business life.

The City and big business generally attracts these particular types. The type I am thinking of specialises is looking for a certain type of person to interact with to further their own peronal selfish ends.

That personality type they look for is the type they can bully and manipulate. It is not their victims fault - but the bullying type I am thinking of can only operate by seeking out people they can control.

It can look like the victims fault because they are the type that bullies always look for. It can perhaps even feel to the victim like they are at fault - in fact the bully type I have seen in action specialises in making victims feel that way. I've been in enough job appraisals/interviews to know how these types make people feel inadequate and at fault.

It would take very complex psychological analysis and training to make someone who is a bully victim into a totally different person. It isnt a matter of just teaching a person how to stand up to bullies.

Can I just add to say that Bullies just pick a target and that is that.

I was the subject of bullying at work, thankfully the manager who did this did not have any direct reporting lines to me, but when I left the organisation I was advised by Senior Management that he was trying to get me to report to him.

But I now realise that he was very threatened by my presence, because I was good at what I did.

It was horrific, I have always been a confident person and still am. Anyhow, randomly some third party saw me at a conference recently and recounted to me that my bully had tried to block my career on four separate occasions that he knew of. This third party did not even know me that well, but he knew what had been going on and wanted to let me know that he should have done something about it from a professional perspective. These four occasions were early on at my tenure at the firm, and I did not even know about them but my work had stood out to some of the Senior Management.

In a way it gave me comfort to realise that the bully must have been really insecure, but just hearing about him and what he is up to made me really upset for an evening. I got home and cried.

Just realising that the bully still had a negative effect on me got me down. I was such a positive force. I did some investigating,down the "is it me" route and found he had always picked someone to bully.

I never personally saw myself as a victim. I've been blessed with having such a fantastic husband that I could always confide in him. But I will never forget just how debilitating bullying is. It has made me more aware of the signs of bullying, and made me realise that I will never work for an organisation that condones it. To stop bullying you need Senior Management to approach and be authentic and not accept it.

I've been over this ground myself in the past - coincidentally during my phase of reading self-help books.

Not to denigrate all gurus of this genre, but I did come across this attitude of being responsible for everything that happens to you - I actually remember one literally claiming it was her own fault she was bullied as a child.

You have to take a lot of this pontificating with a pinch of salt, and remember that a child can never be blamed for the bad treatment it receives at the hands of others.

If anything, I'd say, in my case, I had a sarcastic, undemonstrative father which probably wrong-footed me socially, so may have been what marked me out (that and the fact I had a birthmark on the side of my face which kids said looked like poo ). I don't see how any of that could be a child's fault, but have wasted time and energy over the years looking for the root of that rejection, which I now know was nothing to do with anything I could have done.

Exactly whatswrongwithyou. I notice that many companies send some employees on assertiveness courses, but do not actually tackle the bully.
Ofcourse you were not at fault, nothing was wrong with you.

Bullies can often been quite random in why they bully. Ever heard of someone being bullied over their accent? I mean how utterly sad, you can't do much about your accent.

What about being bulled about your sexual orientation?

What about people being bullied at work, in this economic climate, they may want to leave but will not have many employment options elsewhere?

When I was a child I didn't think of myself as a victim. I would probably have denied that I was being bullied, because it was very rarely physical. I even struggled to explain what had happened to upset me so.

Yet I know that other people considered me to be being bullied. Apparently there were occasions when I was sent on an errand, and while I was out of the classroom the Headmistress would come and talk to the class and tell them to treat me more kindly. (Shit I'm crying at the memory. Why?) I didn't know about this until we had left school, and ex-classmates told me. I wondered why they would tell me such a thing, even whether they were fabricating it.

It was only as an adult that I realised I had been a victim, thinking as a victim, responding as a victim. And that others considered me a victim.

I don't think it is all that complex to change a victim's self-perception. I don't think it requires much analysis, either. What it requires is accepting that the victim has a distorted self-image, and needs support and guidance to change it, because they don't know how to do it themselves.

"the victim has a distorted self-image, and needs support and guidance to change it"

I absolutely agree with this.

So I understand that you are / have received counselling regarding this - has it started you on the road to changing your self-image at all? I know that any change of this nature is not immediate, it takes ongoing work and constant work - is your work succesful?

ds has been badly bullied.

The decision to bully him was always only the bully's. They are possessed of free will. Ds did not force them into their actions. They knew what they were doing was wrong. How can it be anyone's fault but there's?

They picked on ds because he is different and because they can make him cry. That was their choice.

That said, I can see the characteristics that make ds their target of choice and have tried to help him change some of them. However, this in no way makes him responsible for what they have done, it may simply make life easier for him in the future.