Posted by HyperFocus on October 1, 2008, at 2:42:53
In reply to Bullying » HyperFocus, posted by Dinah on September 23, 2008, at 9:29:12
Thanks for replying Dinah. I also was an only child before 12, so I guess I wasn't prepared to deal with bullying. And when I entered high scholl my family was in a lot of conflict. It's pretty easy to form a profile of somebody who would be traumatised by bullying.
I don't know how you would directly address bullying as school policy, but maybe you could focus on the self-esteem of a child. Identify kids who might be 'at risk' for self-esteem problems. It's so much more than physical bullying. I wanted so badly to play the piano. I had the perfect hands - long fingers and supple wrists. But instead kids would tease me about my skinny arms. Maybe if a teacher or someone had encouraged me to go out and do the things I was good instead of retreating into a shell, things would have been different.
I know what you say about living is true. Because of my condition I value moments of encumbered living - just walking out the door and going to the library without can be enjoyable for itself. And I know I'm not too old to do things I want to do. It's just so damn hard sometimes.
> I so totally understand. Only in recent years have people started to figure out the very high costs of bullying. When I was young, it was passed off as kids being kids. Or kids being vicious. It's not true. The attitude of adults has a huge impact on the amount of bullying.
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> In some ways my self esteem is fine and appropriate. But in the areas my self esteem may possibly be irrationally poor (and I won't quite admit it is), bullying and not parenting is the culprit. Eleven or twelve is when it started with me too. And I was hypersensitive. Plus as an only child for nearly all of my life at that point, I looked at life more as an adult than as a kid. The behavior of the other kids was incomprehensible to me. I *knew* better than to act like that.
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> Revenge fantasies filled my days. So I don't condone what revenge killers do in any way. But I do understand the rage and impotence and total lack of ability to escape, and loss of perspective, that underlies some of it. If you stick an animal in a cage, torment it daily, and not give it any real understanding that one day the cage will open, is it any surprise if the animal turns desperate and dangerous?
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> I have made a study of bullying, as an adult. I toyed with the idea of going back to school in education and finding a job in administration where I could manage to work bullying into the curriculum. When I went to interview schools for my son, I asked on every visit what their bullying policy was. If they didn't know what I meant or weren't able to answer me at once, I didn't consider them. Not coincidentally, my son goes to the school that had put the greatest thought their policies and teachings about bullying.
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> > I wanted to be a scientist. A computer programmer. A writer. A musician.
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> Thirty isn't so very old you know. You can still follow your dreams. They may have changed a bit, so take a good look at them. But there's no reason why at thirty you can't follow them.
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> I was profoundly struck by, of all things, an economic theory I learned many years ago. Sunk cost theory. Wikipedia uses the example of a movie ticket.
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> "Economists argue that sunk costs are not taken into account when making rational decisions. In the case of the movie ticket, the ticket buyer can choose between the following two end results:
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> 1. Having paid the price of the ticket and having suffered watching a movie that he does not want to see, or;
> 2. Having paid the price of the ticket and having used the time to do something more fun.
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> In either case, the ticket-buyer has "paid the price of the ticket" so that part of the decision should cancel itself out. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether he wants to see the movie at all, regardless of the price, just as if he were to go to a free movie. The economist will suggest that since the second option involves suffering in only one way (spent money), while the first involves suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), option two is obviously preferable."
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> But that old cliche, today is the first day of the rest of your life, is based on sound economic principles. Given that your life up till now can't be changed, what should you do now? What choices at this moment will bring the greatest happiness to you in the future?
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> Grieving lost time is certainly appropriate. Being angry at it is certainly appropriate.
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> Your anger ties you to your abusers in a way. I'm not suggesting you should let it go exactly if you aren't ready to do that. But maybe you can consider it impetus to confound your abusers. Don't give them the satisfaction of allowing them to continue to abuse you any longer. Revenge isn't the best revenge, really. Laying them down and moving on with your life, or at least shifting them around so they're an aide rather than a hindrance and moving on in your life, is the best revenge. If you can focus the anger on succeeding now, and not letting them steal one more day of your life. Or if you can lay aside the anger and start concentrating on *you*. Well... Isn't happiness and fulfillment for you the very last thing they'd want?
poster:HyperFocus
thread:853578
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080929/msgs/855041.html