People seem to want the bullies to win.

[MaryHappyWin]

Mental Health Issue - People seem to want the bullies to win.
This is a mental health issue that is getting me down.
I think it is bad thing that most people support the bully.
I was bullied at school, and also in adult life. I always thought the people who bullied me would feel guilty. That they would ask for my forgiveness. The reality is they all still hate me, and feel they are in the right for bullying me.

But what really hurt me, was that I thought my friends would stick by me.
In reality most of my friends turned to the side of the bullies.

The most horrifying thing I have discovered is that;
Most people seem to support the bully over the victim.
Most people seem to be either the bully or they support the bully.
Loads of women boast of fancying bullies, as if it is something to be proud of.
While most of the men seem to be either bullies or people who want the bully to win.

When you look at Hollywood movies you would think most people want the victim to win.
But in reality the horrifying discovery for me is that most people WANT the bully to win, and the victim to lose.
They want the bully to get the top jobs, and the victim to lose and be humiliated,
Most people hate the victims of bullying more than the bully.
I remember going on a jobs course and one tutor said that people do not care about what qualifications you get, they just care that there is not a weirdo working for them.
Most people seem to support the bully, bullying the weirdo.
In reality, in the real World. The bully is supported by the majority. In the same way a town of racists support the racist over their victim. A town of homophobes support the homophobe over the gay victim.
When you try and get a job as a weirdo, people seem to hate you.,
As a weirdo, this is tough.
And no matter what I do people see me as weird. No matter how normal or quiet, or loud it does not make any difference.
I was once told by one bully, that I was so normal that I was weird. What chance do I have? Even when I behave normally people think I am a weird.
I do not walk around dressed as a town crier, or talk in klingon, or dress in pink, or purple clothes, or dress as a cosplay character. I do not deliberately behave weirdly, but It makes no difference. The bullies hate me and see me as weird.
When I look back at school, I remember three times when I fought back against a bully and other kids gathered round and shouted in support of my bully.
They just automatically supported the bully. I remember the guy who bullied me just jumped on me and pushed me against a wall. So I pushed him back, then some horrible school girl came over and made fun of the way I was pushing back.
This sort of thing had a profound impact on me. It made me think most people support the bully.
And people would refuse to sit by me., Looking at me like I was a disease.
Women would shiver, men would call me insults.

In my view it is creepy, warped, twisted, depraved, nasty, cruel, evil, narcissistic, trite and selfish to support the bully.

The thing is though it does not change in adult life.
People want the bully to win.
They support the bully, they care for the bully, they empathise with the bully.
Even if they punish the bully, they feel guilty about punishing the bully. But not guilty about hating the victim of the bullying.
I have never used prostitutes. But I saw a TV show about prostitutes. And one horrifying thing stood out for me. One of the prostitutes said they wanted a tough nasty pimp rather than nice pimp, because the nasty -pimp would make them work harder and earn more money. This seems to be the case for most adults in all lines of work.
People seem to want tough nasty men to win.
The bad guys win, because weak minded people want the bad guy to win.
When I was growing up into adulthood I found out people bullied me because they saw me as creepy, a mong, a weirdo.
I always had the childish idea that people would grow up and change. But no people do not change. The people who bullied me at school because they saw me as creepy, weird or a mong. They still hate me, with more contempt, hatred, passion and fury than I could ever imagine. If I fight back they hate me. If I try to make friends with them, they hate me. It is ruthless, relentless, and remorseless hatred.
The majority of people are on the side of evil when it comes to bullying.
You get cocky bad boy men wanting the bully to win. You get smug pro bully women wanting the bully to win, and thinking it makes them profound to support people being bullied by their man.

The majority of people want the bully to win. They see bullies as required to get rid of wierdoes and freaks. Even when the bully is punished, they are welcomed back into the fold. While the freaks or wierdoes are kept out.
I would love it if that changed. But it won’t.
The vast majority of people are either bullies, or support the bullies.
It seems that the bad guys always win in the end.
Thanks for reading.

That was a hard read, OP, and I want to say something cheerful but I don’t think you’re wrong.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Nietzsche’s concept of master/slave morality? To over simplify, he describes a might-is-right, survival-of-the-fittest impulse in humans and then contrasts it with the basic Christian ideas of elevating compassion and kindness over winning, treating the weakest members of society with dignity instead of just trampling on them.

I think, in shrugging off our Christian heritage and active religion, we are left without the moral compass that balances out the primal instincts. Not that religion was without problems- it’s just that we’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water, so to speak.

It’s confusing because we seem to pay lip service to decency, but I agree with you that it doesn’t hold. There always seems to be a fashionable group of “victims” (I’d say that currently it is LGBT and BAME) that give people the sense that they are good people while they continue to discriminate against other groups like disabled, aged, special needs, women, ethnic minorities etc and act in selfish ways.

In the last five years, the Brexit vote and Trump’s election has brought opinions out of the woodwork that were previously unspeakable.

However, despite all that, I don’t believe everyone thinks the same way. There are people capable of thinking beyond their basest instincts. Finding them isn’t always easy.

Do you have any real life support?

thelegohooverer sums it up quite well, our society is being encouraged to be more and more me me me - reminds me of the Thatcher years. Lots of “othering” going on all the time.
However there are still good people around so try to focus on positive human behaviour. In the first wave of the pandemic in our town there were loads of people pulling together to help each other out, I was amazed and delighted. We also have lots of local charities which do fabulous work.
You can follow a group called “positive news” on fb which is inspiring and acts as an antidote to all the depressing news.

Maybe think about volunteering at a local charity?

@thelegohooverer

That was a hard read, OP, and I want to say something cheerful but I don’t think you’re wrong.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Nietzsche’s concept of master/slave morality? To over simplify, he describes a might-is-right, survival-of-the-fittest impulse in humans and then contrasts it with the basic Christian ideas of elevating compassion and kindness over winning, treating the weakest members of society with dignity instead of just trampling on them.

I think, in shrugging off our Christian heritage and active religion, we are left without the moral compass that balances out the primal instincts. Not that religion was without problems- it’s just that we’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water, so to speak.

It’s confusing because we seem to pay lip service to decency, but I agree with you that it doesn’t hold. There always seems to be a fashionable group of “victims” (I’d say that currently it is LGBT and BAME) that give people the sense that they are good people while they continue to discriminate against other groups like disabled, aged, special needs, women, ethnic minorities etc and act in selfish ways.

In the last five years, the Brexit vote and Trump’s election has brought opinions out of the woodwork that were previously unspeakable.

However, despite all that, I don’t believe everyone thinks the same way. There are people capable of thinking beyond their basest instincts. Finding them isn’t always easy.

Do you have any real life support?

This is the best message I have read on MN for a very long time.

OP, you are not wrong. We do have a choice to not act like that but it's hard and you need lots of resilience. Very interesting topic. But sad too.

Bullies are incredibly sensitive to feeling wronged so when you stand up to them, it causes massive friction.

I have noticed though, that if you stop being too accommodating people treat you with more respect. Go figure. I really want to read up on the Nietzsche’s concept of master/slave morality now.

However, despite all that, I don’t believe everyone thinks the same way. There are people capable of thinking beyond their basest instincts. Finding them isn’t always easy.

I'd say that MSM and social media appeal to our primitive brains, they foster our basic /primitive emotions but we haven't really got a way to work these out of our systems as it all happens in a virtual space.

Bullying can be utterly horrific, it sounds as though you're hurting terribly. I am so sorry. Women who find bullies attractive usually have a sexual disorder called hybristophilia, it helped me greatly to know about it when a male relative and his wife were harassing me. Horrible people have said awful things and behaved cruelly. Obviously for whatever reason there has been nobody to challenge their behaviour and to help you not to internalise it. Lots of the bullies were probably scared of each other and so competed. I had something similar, for a long time I was called Hound and Rat and ostracised by my siblings with tacit parental approval. I capitalise the insults as they were used in place of my first name. I am in my forties and still trying to recover from it. They also physically and sexually abusive.

I am not telling you this to be self indulgent but to reassure you that people deserve better than to be living under other's mistakes. Take time. Remember that they treated you terribly and if they have had any personal growth they may remember it with great shame, or even blanked it out. You need some intensive, long term therapy and support to help you to understand and make sense of what happened to you. I believe that you are a person with great potential, well done for telling your story.

Challenging bullies is tough, it can involve implementing whole new systems. Not everyone has the strength or support needed to do this, whilst knowing that huge wrongs are being done.

Hold on OP. You and your whole personhood can recover from this. Please believe me that you are worth fighting for. It has got me through so far. They will not destroy me.

Sorry, that was longer than I expected. Hope some of it helps though.