RenaRFs great diary prompted me to write about my own experiences with bullying. I don’t mean to steal Rena’s thunder, coat-tail on her Rec List fame, or diminish from her experiences in any way. High school can be a minefield for a lot of us, but poor Rena and her family withstood a frontal assault, and I’m very glad that she survived.
I’d like to talk about what can become of childhood bullies once they mature. While many leave bullying behind as they enter adulthood, others never grow out of it and remain stuck in a perpetual state of childhood. Knowing that their behavior would not be tolerated in the adult world and would cause them to be shunned, they seek to disguise their deviance underneath layers of legitimacy, becoming more sophisticated, more devious, and, sometimes, just as dangerous as the bullies that tormented us as children.
These are the adult bullies, people with a spoiled child’s personality housed in a grown-up’s body. An adult bully can be anyone in your life: a parent, spouse, sibling, co-worker, or friend. Despite the role he may play in your life, the goal of the adult bully is the same: to involve you in a zero-sum game in which he takes all the control and attention, and you get none of it. He has to put you down so he can build himself up. Like the vampire in the horror movies, he is the predator and you are prey. Although it’s your emotional well-being he wants, rather than your blood, he seeks to drain you until you have nothing left to give.
I was once friends with such a person (of course, vampires really don't have friends, just sources of nourishment). Let's call him "Jon." Jon and I became business partners in a way, as well. We both liked to travel and we liked to eat, so we decided to team up and write travel books from the single adult male's perspective. With his photography and art skills, and my writing, researching, and page layout abilities, we felt we had an ideal team. We would travel around the world and report back on what we found. It sounded ideal, a perfect way to trade in my corporate lifestyle for one of adventure, to earn a living at what I was good at and truly loved to do.
Trouble is, early on, I knew that something wasn't right with the relationship. Jon had a quick temper and tended to become cruel and accusatory when angered. I saw this for myself when he went off on me, for something completely uncalled for. Although he later apologized (the last apology I ever got from him, by the way), I never believed that he meant it. It turned out that Jon was testing me, to see how much abuse I would accept and excuse before he went full-metal vampire on me. Jon was showing his fangs, giving me the full-on Christopher-Lee-as-Count-Dracula look, with the wild bloodshot eyes and the gore dripping from the gaping mouth. Only I couldn't fully understand what I was seeing then, and I didn't put it together until much later. In the meantime, I was setting myself up for a lot of hurt and disappointment.
After a lot of self-study and therapy, I finally understood what had happened and made the break from Jon. Only then did I realize just how much my "friendship" with him had cost me. I learned that abuse is not always delivered with a weapon or with a closed fist. Abuse can be of the emotional variety, and it can cause pain and leave scars, too, just as plf515 said.
I'd now like to summarize what I learned.
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What's it like to deal with a vampire? Why has s/he chosen to target me?
You’re different.
Some people never grow out of the notion that the different are to be persecuted. Healthy adults know that individuals are to be respected, that everyone has strengths, feelings, and a need to fit in and be appreciated. Adult bullies never accept this, although outwardly, they claim to do so. This is just the social veneer they use to hide the rot within. Adult bullies are adept at wearing masks: they can play the dutiful son (or daughter), the supportive friend, or the devoted spouse when others are around to observe and appreciate, but, like the vampire, the monster surfaces when you’re both alone.
Maybe a workplace bully has targeted you because you’re good at your job, or have values that you won’t compromise, and the bully feels threatened. Maybe your parent or sibling does not approve of your lifestyle. Maybe you simply happen to be kind. There is no difference between kindness and weakness in the mind of the bully, and the sole purpose of the weak is to be exploited. If you also happen to have comparatively little experience in dealing with people or care a little too much about what others think of you, so much the better.
When we were out in public, Jon would study people. Sometimes, he’d simply pick out random folks whom he found unattractive or odd so he could mock them. More often, he’d take note of their body language, their mannerisms, and the way they held themselves when they walked or sat. Most of us don’t scrutinize others like that. It’s too obtrusive. What Jon was doing was evaluating them, as a hyena would a herd of antelope, seeing who was the weakest, who would go down the easiest, who would give him what he wanted while putting up the least resistance. Jon was honing his craft, practicing, picking out the type of person who he felt he could dominate.
You’re locked in a game of "Let’s Pretend."
Have you ever tried to play with a bratty, spoiled child who tried to control you, and then threw a fit when she didn’t get her way? Suppose she says, "Let’s play Cops and Robbers. I’m the cop and you’re the robber. This is my gun, these are my handcuffs, and this is the jail cell where I’m gonna put you."
Suppose you reply, "That’s not a gun, that’s a mixing spoon; those aren’t handcuffs, that’s a Slinky; and that’s not a jail cell, that’s a closet, and I’m not going in there, and I don’t want to play Cops and Robbers, anyway."
Now, watch as the brat goes into hysterics: "You will do what I tell you to do! You will act the way I want you to act! You will say what I want you to say!"
In Jon’s game of "Let’s Pretend," I had to play a sad sack who kept bringing misery on myself due to my poor attitude and lifestyle choices. I was simply too stupid to know how to live properly. Therefore, Jon made it his mission to intrude into my life and act as an angry parent tasked with controlling and correcting a stubborn, mistake-prone child. If I tried to deviate from that role, he just wouldn't hear me.
Boundaries didn’t matter to Jon, as they would to a healthy adult. He made my business into his business, acting as my untrained, unpaid, and unwanted family counselor, psychiatrist, and oncologist, but his aim was to hurt rather than help. For instance, when I got sick, Jon claimed that life had sent the illness my way because I had never truly felt pain. That was the type of talk I’d expect to hear from a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and not from someone who claimed to be my best friend.
On another occasion, when I arrived late to help him cover a booth at a new-age fair for a mutual friend, the first thing Jon said to me was "There you go, sabotaging yourself again." Jon’s reasoning was that someone at the fair had discovered the cure for cancer, but every medical professional, every insurance company executive, and every drug company employee was working in tandem to suppress this discovery and keep everyone dependent on expensive, ineffective drugs. My late arrival was proof that I didn’t care enough about myself to take advantage of this. Never mind that such a discovery would never escape the media’s attention, that a collusion of this magnitude would be impossible, and that there are over 100 diseases with different pathologies that fall under the definition of cancer, making a one-shot cure unlikely to be discovered in the near future – especially by someone who grew medicinal herbs as a hobby.
I don’t know if Jon truly believed this contrived and stupid scenario that seemed straight out of a bad science-fiction thriller. I do know that he brought it up to unnerve me, to cause me discomfort for his enjoyment. That’s how bullies roll. They turn personal interactions adversarial whenever it suits them, casting you as the perpetual straight man who keeps getting the pie in the face or the bucket of water over the head, just so they can keep laughing at your discomfort.
Even inconsequential things that healthy adults would accept or simply overlook would give Jon an opportunity to find fault. In these exchanges, Jon often let his mask slip to betray his lack of self-awareness. For instance, he would regularly criticize my eating habits: what I chose to eat or drink, or how often I chose to eat. Yet, he was overweight and I was not. Sometimes, he would criticize me for not speaking or writing clearly, yet his own grammar and spelling skills were embarrassingly bad. He prided himself on his ability to sniff out bargains and save money, yet when I mentioned I had done the same, he chastised me for not loving myself because I didn’t pay full price for my items, or didn’t select items that he felt were of sufficient quality.
You don’t matter. You are just an object.
Besides a food source, what you are is a mirror, before which the bully can primp and admire her reflection. (I know that vampires can't see themselves in mirrors, so I'll switch terms again here.) When you look in a mirror, it reflects your image back to you. You glower, your image glowers back. You make a silly face, your image reflects that face. You slouch your shoulders and stick out your gut, or puff out your chest and flex your biceps in a classic bodybuilder’s pose, and your image in the mirror does the same.
Just as you can control your reflection in the mirror for your amusement, the bully gets off on controlling your reaction to her. She will say hurtful things just to enjoy the shocked or pained expression on your face.
When I shared with Jon the pain and horror of watching my mother take her last breaths, Jon told me about watching his pet hamster die when he was a child. Jon wasn’t comparing my mother to a 5-dollar hamster because he was an insensitive boob who didn't know better. He was deliberately trying to offend me, to cause me even more pain, so he could get off on it. That was his version of the double-biceps pose before the mirror.
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I think my friend (spouse, sibling, parent, boss) might be a vampire! How can I know for sure?
Trust your gut.
Have you ever noticed that you're always nervous around a certain person? Or, have you noticed, after you’re been around this person, that you feel exhausted and drained? That’s your survival instinct kicking in, telling you to get away. All beings have this instinct, but we humans, with our big, evolved brains, tend to overthink things and miss the big picture. If you want more cerebral proof, here’s a handy list of common bully traits. If there’s someone in your life who acts like this toward you, do whatever you can to break contact.
Tell her no.
If you suspect someone of being a bully, run this simple test: deny her when she asks you for something. It doesn’t have to be something big. Don’t justify your decision. Just like the title of that classic Zombies song from the sixties, tell her no, and then stand back and watch her behavior. A healthy adult may be disappointed at first, but will eventually respect your space and back off. A bully, on the other hand, will plead, wheedle, and cajole. Stand your ground and watch her fly into a rage. Note that I didn’t say anger. Anger is a justified emotion, slow to develop and slow to dissipate. Rage, on the other hand, is a contrived reaction. It can be turned off and on like a garden hose, and its purpose is to manipulate.
The vampire just showed you her fangs. Do yourself a favor and get out of there.
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I know I'm in a relationship with a vampire, but I can't leave! How can I survive?
If you have to stay in a relationship with a vampire (divorce would be messy or hard on the kids, you need the job, etc.), you're going to have to learn some survival skills before you're drained dry. Look at the following as your cross or your strand of garlic cloves.
You didn’t ask for this.
I am not an angel. I said and did things during my "friendship" with Jon that I regret. If life came with a rewind button, I’d have gladly used it. Still, that does not justify abuse. When healthy adults make mistakes in a relationship or have disputes, they treat each other as equals and work it out for mutual benefit. One does not treat the other like a criminal to be punished or tortured whenever the mood strikes. Remember, this was never about you; it is about him and his inability to relate to you as a fellow human being. He had a need to control and feed off you, and you had the misfortune to be in his sights. The hyena doesn’t hunt down the obnoxious antelope, just the one he can catch. Don’t be his mirror, or his blank screen that he can project his faults against. That’s what he wants.
Don’t expect him to admit to any wrongdoing.
The vampire sees himself as an exemplary being who is beyond criticism and you as a mere object, something less than human. To him as an overgrown child, you’re nothing more than a teddy bear to kick the stuffing out of and then toss in a corner. It may be hard to accept the notion that you mean so little to a bully, but the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can put him behind you.
I wasted a lot of my life in trying to get Jon to understand the effect he was having on me. He either denied any wrongdoing (he was lying!) or, failing that, he’d try to overpower me with rage or take the discussion into unrelated tangents. I knew that I was beginning to reach Jon when he’d offer half-assed excuses for his behavior, such as "I grew up in a dysfunctional family" or "Someone else made me mad and I took it out on you." My favorite lame excuse was, "I did that, and then I stopped and asked myself ‘Why?’", as if he didn’t want to be abusive, but had no control over his behavior! (We call people who can't control their behavior sociopaths, boys and girls.) Do you see what’s missing here? A sincere apology and a promise to make things better. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any acknowledgment of wrongdoing or understanding. Just as you would think it absurd to apologize to your teddy bear, so does the bully think it absurd to apologize to you. If you have to stay involved with a bully, accept the fact that you'll always be second-rate as far as he's concerned.
Watch what you say.
The bully is looking for any means to make herself look good at your expense. She will often act as a pal, a confidant, to get you to open up, to spill some intimate detail about yourself that she can use against you later. She, of course, is notoriously stingy about sharing details about her own life, but she wants you to tell her everything about yours. Don’t go there. She’s being nosy because she wants another reason to scold or ridicule you, or to compare you unfavorably with herself or with others. I made this mistake several times with Jon, telling him about my problems and feelings out of friendship, only to find out later that he’d twisted my words around to reflect poorly on me and shared them with someone else behind my back, or thrown them back in my face as the subject of another unsolicited lecture or bout of criticism.
Also, never justify your actions to a bully. That’s like exposing your jugular vein to the vampire. Trying to appease the bully just gets you more of the same treatment, so be true to yourself and don’t let the bully influence you.
Pay no attention to "crazy talk".
Crazy talk is just what it sounds like: talk designed to drive you crazy. Jon’s wild claim at the new-age fair is a good example. Jon was a master of crazy talk and used it on me often. He liked to create scenarios in which I was supposed to have "sinned" and then castigate me for it.
Another tactic of his was to be deliberately contrary. For example, he’d tell me I was selfish one day, and too nice the next. Or, he’d call me weak ("pussy" was his favorite pejorative) one day, and stubborn the next. When I’d call him on these discrepancies and ask how I could do a complete 180 in such a short amount of time, he’d reply that I would "overcompensate." In other words, I was never normal or acceptable in his eyes. I was always short of a standard that he would never define. After all, if I were normal or acceptable, Jon would have no reason to be controlling or critical, and that just couldn’t be. That’s like expecting the vampire to stop drinking blood.
When you hear crazy talk, don’t blow it off like I did, but don’t take the bait, either. Back away and don’t get involved. Never let a bully, with his abnormal outlook on life and human relations, define what "normal" should mean for you.
Don’t let the bully isolate you.
In the movies, the vampire always seeks to isolate his victim, because it's easier to attack someone when s/he's alone. Jon tried to do the same to me. He knew he could more easily get to me if he could separate me from familiar, stabilizing people who would look out for me and call Jon out on his bullshit, even if I couldn't see it. For instance, Jon told me that my former college roommate, a man whom I'd known for a quarter-century and regarded as a brother, wasn't really my friend. (Of course, Jon had never met the man, but that didn't hold him back.) He also told me that I had a "disposable" family, and that a woman whom I'd grown very fond of and who intimated that she was interested in a relationship, really "wasn't into me."
If I had listened to Jon, I would have destroyed every positive relationship I had. Turns out that I did do some damage, and once I regained the true sense of myself, I felt I had to apologize to the people I had hurt or disappointed.
When the vampire tries the same with you, that's your cue to back away. Otherwise, you'll end up as dinner, and you'll have alienated anyone who could have helped you.
When the bully starts being nice, look out!
Like the vampire, who knows how to fake empathy and kindness when the stranded travelers show up at the castle door, the bully can also fake these qualities whenever it suits his purpose. In most cases, he wants something from you or is setting you up for something, and once he gets what he’s after, he reverts to his abusive behavior. When I finally decided to walk away from Jon, I cut it off cold. I stopped returning his calls and responding to his e-mails. Suddenly, the tone of Jon’s e-mails became cordial. He’d give me compliments, tell me how much he missed hanging out with me, or thank me for things I’d done. He meant none of it. He was trying to lure me back into his life so he could continue feeding off me. By this time, however, I understood enough about his behavior to be able to interpret "I miss you" or "You were so good at that" as "Please let me back in – I need to feed again" and did not take the bait.
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Where can I get more ammunition to protect myself against vampires?
Here are some websites that may help you to detect, deal with, and hopefully remove any vampire(s) from your life.
How to Recognize a Narcissist
This does not refer to the Muhammad Ali-type of narcissist, someone who loudly and publicly claims himself to be "The Greatest," and then goes out and backs it up. This refers to the malignant narcissist (read: adult bully or emotional vampire) who seeks to build himself up at your expense. Once you learn the secrets within, you're well on your way to becoming vampire-proof.
Narcissists Suck
This website was started by a woman who took the name of a fictitious vampire huntress. Full of research as well as personal accounts, it's an invaluable resource for those seeking to come to terms with being bullied and provided some of the inspiration for this diary. I wish I'd known about this website during the early days of my involvement with Jon. It would have helped save me a lot of pain.
Sanctuary for the Abused
Here's a collection of lame excuses from bullies who can't or won't take responsibility for their behavior. Although some of these excuses sound amusing, don't let anyone get caught trying to use them to justify their behavior toward you.
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Well, that’s all I have to say. Thanks for being patient while I rambled. And, please remember to be good to each other as well as to yourself. We’re all in this life together.