Deborah Mitchell Counselling

If you find yourself in the position of being bullied as an adult, here are some ideas that might be useful to help you navigate, and ultimately thrive and grow from, this very difficult experience. The following are some strategies you might want to try to help yourself if you are being bullied:

1. Take a stand. People who bully find their strength and power in fear. If you show fear or let your shame dictate your next moves and cower, this gives more fodder for the bully’s fire. By speaking up either directly, using calm and assertivetechniques, or to a superior who can help (if you feel like you would benefit from more support), you are letting the bully know that they chose the wrong target.
2. Document everything. Save emails, screenshot messages on social media, and write down incidents that occur. This will help you if the bullying persists and you need more support down the line.
3. Use your social support. Don’t stay quiet and carry this burden in silence. If you don’t talk about it, you may be reinforcing your belief that there is something wrong or shameful about you. Talking about it not only enables you to receive emotional support, but it can help you gain perspective and step out of the shame spiral. Take a deep breath and reach out to people whom you trust and can rely on. These people can offer you reassurance and advice and remind you that this bullying incident is just one small facet of your life.
4. 4. Validate your experience. Because adult bullying is sneakier and often encourages you to “get in your head,” you may find yourself diminishing or not fully acknowledging the extreme hurt of the situation. Try asking yourself this question—if a friend came to you with this exact problem, how would you respond? Turn that empathy Validate the awfulness of what it feels like to be bullied. You’re not making it up; your feelings are justified and reflect that you are going through something real and hard.
5. Set clear boundaries. Physical boundariesare those concrete boundaries where you decide how often and in what circumstance you will have contact with the bully. Unfriend or block the bully on social media if you can. Decide what events you will participate in, and how. Emotional boundaries are not receiving the emotional baggage the bully is wanting to offload onto you. I think of it as a game of volleyball — when the bully tosses the ball over the net (whether that is their anger, insecurity, or shame) ask yourself, is this mine to hold?Are these feelings stemming from something within me- or are they being evoked by the bully’s behaviours? If the answer is these feelings are not mine — volley that ball back over the net. Send those feelings back into the hands of the person doing the bullying. Life quickly becomes exhausting when we hold emotional baggage that is not ours to claim.
6. Practice compassion. Hurt people hurt people. Sadly, people who bully often have had their share of traumaand earlier difficulties leading to the development of a fragile ego and the need to rise up by pushing others down. Looking at it from this angle, while not condoning their behaviour in any way, helps to minimize any intimidation you might feel from the bully. Maybe even try imagining them as a little child.This can help evoke feelings of compassion towards an injured human who is still hurting. Looking at it from this angle, we can feel both quite sad for the bully while being liberated from their perceived power at the same time.
7. Depersonalize. I heard beautiful words recently from Bonnie Duran on the Ten Percent Happierpodcast hosted by Dan Harris. In it, she said the words “nothing is personal, nothing is permanent, and nothing is perfect.” I think we can use these words to reassure ourselves if we ever find ourselves in the midst of a bullying episode. While it is often difficult to depersonalize, it is an important reminder that the bullying behaviour is not about you.It’s about some unresolved difficulties on the part of the person doing the bullying. It’s really not personal. But more than that, ‘it’s not about you’ reminds us that in this life, nothing is ever uniquely about us- even the things that feel deeply personal. Everything that happens to us- for us- reflects nature: human nature or the nature of this world. The bullying phenomenon is timeless. This power dynamic is written about in some of our oldest stories (read: Cain/Able or Jacob/Esau). Unfortunately, it’s how humans have been treating each other for generations and generations. It’s a painful part of the nature of things, and not your story alone. There is something deeply comforting when we frame it in this way. And why has it existed for years and years and years? Because adult bullying is indeed a thing.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/leah-katz-phd