Are You Being Bullied?

What is a bully? Someone who gets his or her own way by being threatening and scary. In a love relationship it’s a person who tries to control his or partner with verbal or emotional abuse. If you have the misfortune of being in love with one you should be aware of a few facts about them.

Fact#1  Bullies are really softies who are deathly afraid of being hurt so they scare the crap out of people they perceive as having power over them. The person who generates the most fear for them is the person he or she is in love with.

Fact#2  Bullies usually fall apart when the ‘victim’ of their bullying decides to leave them.

Fact#3  Bullies lose their power to scare and control you when you see how scared and weak they feel inside.

Fact#4  Besides ‘losing’ the person they are scaring to feel better about themselves, the next scariest thing for a bully is to meet a bigger bully.

Fact#5  Bullies are bullies because they’ve learned how to bully either by being bullied or watching someone they looked up to bully.

Fact#6   Sometimes bullies stop being bullies and learn how to be more loving. Unfortunately most of the time they have to suffer the loss of a ‘victim’ they are in love with before this has a chance of happening. Until this happens they stay pretty defensive and unresponsive to any kind of help. In fact they will go from one victim to another if they can.

Fact#7  Bullies are bullies in part because a victim is enabling them to bully. If the victim of bullying finds the self-esteem to stop accepting the bullying, the bullying tends to stop.

It’s all in the self-esteem. As a ‘victim’ of love relationship bullying you probably don’t even realize how powerful you are in your love relationship. On the surface it looks like you are the one with all the fears, and rightfully so given what you are being subjected to. But think about the psychological fact that your bully has found a way to get away from his or her own feelings of anxiety, fear and discomfort with love and himself/herself, by putting all those feelings into you. Neat trick!

It’s a simple formula. If I scare you a lot you won’t scare me. I can’t begin to tell you how many people are practicing this defensive move in their love lives. This is the bully’s big secret. They bully because they are afraid.

As a victim of his or her bullying, your reactions would change substantially if you could recognize your bully’s fear. It naturally makes you less scared to be aware of a scary person’s fear. You as the victim of bullying are secretly ‘stronger’ than the bully for the simple fact that you can bear the burden of fear. It’s easier to be angry and scary than it is to be scared.

There is often a pretty dramatic change that comes over a love relationship when the victim of bullying outgrows his or her ‘role’ as the victim of bullying. When you can get to a point where you don’t want it any more and start planning your exit, you can’t but notice how uncomfortable your bully will feel about himself/herself. It’s very hard for a bully to not be scary.

Remember, if you want to do something loving for your bully, stop letting him or her bully you. It’s the only way they’ll get a chance to grow into a more loving person.

Comments? Welcome. Dr.J.