There Is No Need or Reason to Feel Sorry for a Bully - it IS Their Fault.

Before my therapy session this week, I knew I wanted to talk about my low self esteem, over the last week it seemed to have hit an all time low. A couple of hours before the session, I started researching about poor self esteem, so that I might get a clearer understanding of why I am the way I am, and came across an article that completely changed my outlook and possibly reinforced my views on certain things, namely - bullies.

We have all been led to believe that the root cause of why a bully is a bully, is because a bully suffers from poor self esteem. They supposedly feel badly about themselves, so they need to bring others down to make themselves feel (somehow) better, and they offload their pain and anguish onto others, to ease their own misery.

However, it never washed with me. It never seemed to make any sense. It was just an excuse, a poor one at that.

I always felt that, "well, I had a terrible upbringing, but I could never and would never cause another person any intentional ill feeling or malice.". No matter how much I've suffered, I would never kick others down to bring myself up - so how could someone else do that, who can supposedly relate to the same feelings and experiences as me? They couldn't.

I always felt, (and I've assumed that my opinion has stubbornly stayed this way because of perhaps, bitterness, down to the experiences I've had at the hands of bullies in the past) that a bully is a bully because a bully is just a nasty person without a conscience, who views themselves as above everyone else. If they knew right from wrong - if they felt bad when doing something bad .....and good when doing something good...they wouldn't and couldn't hurt people, simple as. I've tried so hard to grasp the "no self esteem" concept, but I just can't, it pains me to do so. And having read this article a couple of days ago, I feel that my feelings and instincts were justified.

This comes from: www.self-confidence.co.uk... self-esteem/

Firstly people with genuinely low self-esteem, a poor self image and low confidence, have been insensitively lumped together with bullies, narcissists, criminals and child abusers. No, really!

Research has found that people with genuine low self esteem tend to treat themselves badly, not other people. Stopping people being bullies by trying to lift their self esteem may be like trying to get an obese person to lose weight by feeding them lots more cake.

In the 1980’s there was a movement to raise self esteem in schools, in the belief that this would stop bullies bullying and prevent future crime in society. But peer reviewed research has shown schools trying to raise self esteem don’t prevent bullies bullying (2) (because low self esteem wasn’t causing them to bully).

Artificially and ineffectively focusing on lifting self esteem doesn’t raise academic performance either. The methods schools attempted to raise self esteem may have even damaged the sense of self worth in those suffering genuine low self esteem.

Low self esteem is not to blame for nearly as many problems as has traditionally been thought. It was also assumed that self esteem could never be too high.

It is now clear that too high self esteem or 'High Self Esteem Disorder' is often more of a problem. (This is NOT merely a 'disguised' form of low self-esteem, as commonly thought). So, if you are the victim of a bully then you can rest assured you don't have to feel sorry for them.

Hundreds of pieces of reliable research now show that bullies and many criminals are much more likely to suffer from unrealistically high self esteem and impulse control problems than low self esteem. An exaggerated sense of entitlement - expecting much from many situations - is more likely to lead to frustration and aggressive, antisocial, or even criminal behaviour. If self esteem can be too low it can also be too high. It was a crazy and unwarranted assumption that all human behaviour could be explained a way by low self esteem.

And here we have the characteristics of someone who genuinely suffers from low self esteem:

1.Social withdrawal
2.Anxiety and emotional turmoil
3.Lack of social skills and self confidence. Depression and/or bouts of sadness
4.Less social conformity
5.Eating disorders
6.Inability to accept compliments
7.An Inability to see yourself 'squarely' - to be fair to yourself
8.Accentuating the negative
9.Exaggerated concern over what you imagine other people think
10.Self neglect
11.Treating yourself badly but NOT other people
12.Worrying whether you have treated others badly
13.Reluctance to take on challenges
14.Reluctance to put yourself first or anywhere.
15.Reluctance to trust your own opinion
16.Expecting little out of life for yourself

I doubt a bully could relate to many (if not all) of those points.

I'm going to read some more into this, because I want (and need) to understand more about why bullies are the way they are. What are your views? Have you been the victim of bullying? Did you feel sorry for your bully? Do you think we have any reason to feel sorry for bullies?

Thanks for reading!

Kate

I think you have already stated why bullies are the way they are

They (bullies) have no conscious and the majority are narcissistic IMO (everybody has problems so the troubled upbringing as an excuse is exactly that, an excuse, not a reason and it's an ugly one at that). My youngest boy is in kindergarten and he has been getting bullied. He is now learning how to throw an elbow to the nose. I don't tolerate bullying one bit because I was bullied and it wreaked havoc on my self esteem. My nephew was also getting bullied.

The school systems handle the bullying situations poorly and sometimes make it worse. Self defense is the best defense in these situations. My kids know how to throw blows and only as a defense.

Originally posted by kimish
I think you have already stated why bullies are the way they are

The have no conscious and the majority are narcissistic IMO. My youngest boy is in kindergarten and he has been getting bullied. He is now learning how to throw an elbow to the nose. I don't tolerate bullying one bit because the school systems handle it poorly and sometimes make it worse. Self defense is the best defense in these situations.

Absolutely, my mother has narcissistic personality disorder and is a bully. I tried so hard to figure out why she is the way she is - found out so much about her childhood and upbringing and there's nothing to justify it. "Exagerrated sense of entitlement" certainly rings true with her.

IMHO those are the types of people that need medicated. They live a false sense of reality, to an extent.

reply to post by KatieVA

I always felt that, "well, I had a terrible upbringing, but I could never and would never cause another person any intentional ill feeling or malice.". No matter how much I've suffered, I would never kick others down to bring myself up - so how could someone else do that, who can supposedly relate to the same feelings and experiences as me? They couldn't.

to become a bully, there have to be specific conditioning and inputs. no bully made him/herself, they are a product of certain impressions and experiences.
to become a bully, you have to be bullied first.
its like input -> output. no one is born as a bully. bullies have to become aware, that they are not responsible to change their behavior.

reply to post by icepack


I strongly disagree with "bullies have to be bullied first". That is not always the case, sometimes it is but through my life experiences bullies are just "born" that way (please note I use *born* in quotations) I know of many, many bullies that have never been bullied by peers or family. The majority of the bullies I know of have always been held on a high pedestal through their family and peers, mainly through their peers.

I agree with the rest of what you say though.

Originally posted by icepack
reply to post by KatieVA

 

I always felt that, "well, I had a terrible upbringing, but I could never and would never cause another person any intentional ill feeling or malice.". No matter how much I've suffered, I would never kick others down to bring myself up - so how could someone else do that, who can supposedly relate to the same feelings and experiences as me? They couldn't.

to become a bully, there have to be specific conditioning and inputs. no bully made him/herself, they are a product of certain impressions and experiences.
to become a bully, you have to be bullied first.
its like input -> output. no one is born as a bully. bullies have to become aware, that they are not responsible to change their behavior.

But that was my point...take my mother for instance...she had a wonderful childhood, was given everything she ever wanted, was popular in school...never bullied! I'm trying to understand because I'd like to think there is a reason for their behaviour and that we can justify it, but I'm more inclined to think that they're just born that way.

my theory goes like this: 14 generation ago one man/woman had very bad luck and a miserable life, was angry and frustrated. to compensate this human let it all off to their 12 children. all these children were "infected" and did to their children like they experienced. and so on, till this day when this anger violence "virus" gets a therapy.

Congratulations on educating yourself on this subject, and from what I have read you will be feeling great about yourself in no time at all.

Learn to love yourself, and do as you would be done by..

Good luck & keep up the good work!

Originally posted by Ozvaldo
Congratulations on educating yourself on this subject, and from what I have read you will be feeling great about yourself in no time at all.

Learn to love yourself, and do as you would be done by..

Good luck & keep up the good work!

edit on 24-11-2011 by Ozvaldo because: (no reason given)

Thanks, that's really kind of you. It's really helping me by trying to work out why people are the way they are. If I can understand then perhaps it might give me some peace from everything, eventually!

Honestly, you are already on the right track and are doing the right thing. I have great confidence that you will be just fine. In fact, I think you already know that now ;-)

Originally posted by Ozvaldo
Honestly, you are already on the right track and are doing the right thing. I have great confidence that you will be just fine. In fact, I think you already know that now ;-)

Thank you, I'm getting there...but feel that I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg! I have plenty of hope though

Another thought...perhaps it's all just part of nature, survival of the fittest maybe?

Some people will bully their way into getting what they feel they're entitled to...and feel that they can trample down others to get what they want...others are more compassionate and think of other's feelings before their own and don't hold that same sense of entitlement...so to look at that in more animalistic terms, the bully would survive and the other person wouldn't.

So perhaps nature it what it all boils down to?

I remember being bullied by a much larger boy in grade school. Until I was in high school, this guy never left me alone. Bullies (as I see them) always look for someone who is smaller and weaker than they are. They don't pick on someone who has the same physical stature or abilities they do. In the end, my bully ended up getting a dose of his own "medicine", when I beat the crap out of him in 9th grade (I'm a gal). Funny, after that happened, we became the best of friends......and he never laid a hand on me again.

I think that indeed bullies feel self entitled- that the world owes 'em a living (so to speak) and that until someone takes 'em down a peg or 2, they will keep this pattern of behavior up even throughout their adult years. While I don't feel fighting is ever right, in my case it made all the difference.

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the USA!!