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Do you ever have to deal with any bullies in your life? i have one with whom i have to interact with on a daily basis and it is not easy, this person is petulant and boorish, thinks he is without fault, never shows appreciation, never a thank you
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I’m sure his children must be terrified of him but i am not, he yearns for kovod but never gives any to those he deems are beneath him. I don’t know why I’m telling you this i think its just sad.
Daven for him.
usually they are like that to give themselves the illusion of importance. Good for you for not falling victim.
That “holier than thou” attitude was pretty common in my high school.
There were girls who wouldn’t even acknowledge other girls, as though they were beneath them.
You were “lucky” if you were deemed “worthy” of being spoken to.
I also had a supervisor like that. She didn’t get along with anyone and was eventually demoted to a non-supervisory position. It was really gehenom to work with her.
I am actually going through this right now, with someone to whom I have been a REALLY good and supportive friend over the years. It’s very painful, but she refuses to recognize that she committed a terrible avlah of loshon hara against someone very close to me, and has turned it around on the other person, who truly is innocent of any wrongdoing. Though there are typically “other sides to the story,” in this case there truly is only one side. This person publicly embarrassed the other person and later on maliciously lied about that person on top of the original humiliation, to people who would take the liar at her word.
What is truly bizarre – this person cannot understand why I am so angry about her behavior, and wants to know why I don’t want to be friends with her anymore. I tried to give her an understanding of what hurt and damage she caused, but she refuses to see it and put the onus on me for being upset with her. If anyone here knows me at all by now, I HATE being in machlokess with anyone. I even told this friend that we should try to just move forward and put this chapter behind us, to which she agreed, conditional to my never mentioning the incident again, and then she went and dredged it up pubblicly AGAIN, after I already agreed and let the issue drop.
Any eitzos, beside dropping this friendship, which already seems to be a moot point? Is there any way to repair such a machlokess? The irony is that the person whom she maligned is a rodef sholom, and an extremely gentle and kind baal chessed.
I have had this problem and when I speak to other people it seems that it doesn’t bother them as much. It seems to me that we both have fathers that are like that and maybe that makes us too sensitive to it. My way of handling it is to be terse and finish communications quickly so at to limit contact with the offending individual. That’s not necessarily the best way though.
i make it a point to say hi and be friendly to people who try to bully and snub me…confuses them
insecurity
Oomis, it’s hard to give an eitzah since I don’t know the specifics, but is there mutual acquaintance, such as a rov, who can try to make sholom?
be pleasant, eventually the bully will have to change for the better. either he will reciprocate or he will stay away from you to avoid your friendliness
Member
Oomis, it’s hard to give an eitzah since I don’t know the specifics, but is there mutual acquaintance, such as a rov, who can try to make sholom? “
Not really. It makes me sad because I have been a very good friend, but she hurt me irreparably, by hurting someone very close to me. She is playing the victim, though, as though she is the injured party.
Why did I bring this up? Because from time to time I see people in the CR, posting things that might be terribly hurtful to another poster. Perhaps they think it is funny, perhaps they think the person deserves some mussar, perhaps they mean nothing at all by it. Onaas devarim, and especially when done on a public site, is as bad as embarrassing someone face to face in public. If I have learned anything from my recent upsetting experience, it is that we really DO have to think twice before we hit the “Send” button.
Oomis, I feel like a broken record, but I again love what you just said…there is so much wisdom in your posts!
When I was in Yeshhiva from the 5th grade till the 11th grade, I was the MOST picked on student, I was being bullied, teased, hurt, pushed, and everytime I complained, instead of being on MY side, the teachers, rebbeim would snitched on the kids, and they would hurt me MORE.
In the 6th grade, I have more gun publications, than Siddurim, I was already cutting myself on the wrist, and I did NOT hide it, but they did not care.
When I became depressed, they sent me to see a Dr. and when the Dr. asked me, why am I depressed, I showed him my marks on my wrist, and then I took off my shirt and i showed him EVERY mark on my body, who did it, when it was done, why it was done.
The Dr. arranged a meeting with my father, rebbe, rosh yeshiva and his father and told him that if the abuse does NOT stop, he will go on, and any blood spilled will be on YOUR hands.
The Dr. was dismissed, and I still got it bad, and those rebbe’s and rosh yeshiva now also, are saying they are experts.
They stole my life, they drove me to kill myself, they NEVER hugged me, invited me to their homes, etc…
be pleasant, eventually the bully will have to change for the better. either he will reciprocate or he will stay away from you to avoid your friendliness
mewho: Normal people such as yourself don’t realize that that’s the worst advice to give someone who is dealing with a bully.
Be nice, and a bully will think you’re an easy target for bullying, intimidation and critism, and they will love the “power” they have over you. And they will hurt you over and over and over. They need this “supply”, otherwise how will they feel important if they have nobody to control? Bullies look for friendly nice people, who will be friendly and nice even when treated badly.
This applies mostly to adults. Children usually bully others because they have a hard life or going through a hardship in their life. It’s important to find out why and how to help such a child. Not so an adult. Adults who bully have usually had a hard childhood and they had to learn coping skills, hence the bullying. But by then it’s ingrained in them and usually too late to change them.
The way I deal with a co-worker who is a bully is: I keep away from him when I can. When I do need to speak to him, I speak to him with confidence and with authority and in a detached way. Detachment is always important when dealing with such people. This shows them they have no power of you.
RABBI AL
I’m so sorry for that pain that you endured.
It’s inexcusable.
I asked rabbi goldwasser how to respond to this supervisor who was maltreating me.
I also thought to try to be nicer to her. Rabbi Goldwasser advised against it and suggested I keep my distance as much as possible.
RABBI AL -“The Dr. was dismissed, and I still got it bad, and those rebbe’s and rosh yeshiva now also, are saying they are experts.”
I wish you could post their names here, but YWN would never allow it. I know two molesters who are Menhalim but would never try to post their names because since YWN can’t confirm it -they are scared of LH. I’m not saying YWN is wrong, but as a community we haven’t even come close to exposing what’s going on with our children. We haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg.
But please tell us what neighborhood this happenned in.
Wow, Rabbi Al, that’s really terrible. I’m curious how old (approximately) you are now and how you have coped with the awful experiences you had, as this is not an isolated incident and education (and everything related to it) is SO important and some teachers are SO bad.
Some of the posts here are painful to read.
RABBI AL–
If you are not already seeing a therapist, please consider doing so.
Thank you, Aurora. Very kind of you to say so. How are things going with you?
Rabbi AL – – OY.
As to the rest, I have come to the conclusion that while we cannot always control how people act to us, we absolutely control how we respond. Discretion IS the better part of valor, most of the time.
A doctor would have been a mandated reporter and would have had to call the police if he saw evidence of abuse. Or suicide, if that was the intent of the cutting.
Workplace bullying is a hugely important issue that affects the lives of millions of people. My uncle suffered from it a lot at one of his previous jobs. Only recently have people began to take this issue seriously (see the Wikipedia entry). In a recent survey of those who had experienced workplace bullying, among those who managed to escape the bullying, most of them had done so through switching jobs or transferring jobs within the company. A small proportion, about 10%, managed to get their bullies fired or otherwise punished. Bullies make others’ lives miserable but mainly enjoy impunity. As a society, we need to stop tolerating this.
Rabbi Al, I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through. May Hashem give you complete healing, and end all bullying of people of all age groups.
Rabbi Al, i’m so sorry. there are no words.
as a general rule, BH, those stories dont happen anymore in the average yeshiva, both in town and out of town, but unfortunately, there are definitely still stories in current chassidish yeshivos. i do not mean to slight the chassidish system in general; i have friends and family in a wide range including chassidish, yeshivish, heimish, modern orthodox.
as to dealing with difficult ppl/bullies, we all encounter some manner of ppl like this, and it is important to be honest with ourselves about how we’d like to react. it really depends for different ppl. for some ppl, the best thing is to stay as far away from them as possible and to have as little contact as possible. for some, this is not always possible as in the case of family. for some ppl, they are able to interact and not be terribly bothered by it. some ppl are passive aggressive and pretend to smile but are extremely angry inside. that is not helpful. if deciding to confront someone, it is important to think long and hard about what the outcome might be and what we hope to accomplish, because oftentimes ppl regret it. but if there’s any hope of making changes, as in the case of family, then sometimes it’s worth communicating.
on the other hand, because i counsel all sorts of ppl, i’ve encountered the bully perspective as well. though of them really are mean spirited ppl, and some may have serious diagnosis like personality disorders, some are just socially inept, and many many ppl just dont see how they are perceived by others. some might be horrified to hear how they are perceived by others. in some cases, it’s a matter of “kamayim hapanim lapanim”, where there’s some perceived slight, and they think they are reacting in kind. i do believe that in some cases, relationships can be repaired by open communication. i also know cases, personally and professionally, where someone turned up the charm, so to speak, and were able to change the relationship, and it really did turn things around.
and as oomis noted, it is our responsibility to be concerned with our own actions. when we have a difficult person in our life, or a one time difficult encounter, it is a test from Hashem about how we react. the difficult individual is just the messenger. at the end of the day, we want to stay as far away from macklokes as possible.
and in the case of bullies in kids, it’s important to attack it from both angles, absolutely to deal with the bully and his/her issues, but also to counsel the victim, both to deal with it, but also to empower them. i would role play with them how they’d like to see themselves responding to said bully, teaching them to communicate firmly, assertively and respectfully. healthy communication skills is something that all kids should learn.
phdmom -“both to deal with it, but also to empower them. i would role play with them how they’d like to see themselves responding to said bully, teaching them to communicate firmly, assertively and respectfully. healthy communication skills is something that all kids should learn.”
I was bullied as a kid and as a teenager and noone ever cared -so I wanted to make sure my son didn’t have to go through the same thing. When he started getting bullied in the latter part of elementary school my wife (now ex) felt we should do nice things for his class and they would respond in kind. I think we made a Chanukah party for his class, I’m not sure right now because it’s been a few years. He was popular for a short while, but the bullying restarted. So we decided to send him to Karate, even though this was against the “Rules”. (A lot of things are against the rules like Karate, internet, movies, TV. And a lot are Ok like being bullied by Rebbeyim, classmates. Also Chutzpa is tolerated in lots of places. And I could go on.)
Doc Mom -While I agree with assertiveness, it’s not going to work a lot of the time with Kid bullies because kids don’t hesitate to get violent, esp. when they are the bullying type. See Rabbi Al’s post.
So actually the Karate worked out nicely. He learned self-confidence and even though he was smaller than others he learned how to defend himself from their violence.
Nowadays, noone would try to start up with him – he grew up to be a big and broad guy – bigger than me (I’m just avg. height).
Teddy Roosevelt said – “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Health, I’m glad the karate worked out for your son; that was a good idea, and definitely one of the avenues. there are many suggestions, techniques etc that might work for some, but not all victims of bullying. i dont disagree with anything you said. bullys come in all different sizes too, as do victims.
phdmom-but with s/o you can’t avoid, passive-aggressive is easier
I haven’t an idea how to react to an adult bully. But the only method of dealing with bullies in school involves severe consequences, with the only two options I know as using police/court, or expelling the bully. Bear in mind that it is considerably easier for the school disciplinary system to deal with the victim who fights back than with the bully who is really to blame.
There is moderate improvement in schools addressing bullying, but this is no consolation for those victims who still get bullied, and then revictimized by the school.
Just read about it Goq. I must say, I’m pretty confused what to think…
For the lawyers who are in the CR – How do I go about getting an order of protection against a cyber bully who is slandering me?
oomis, slander is a civil issue not a criminal issue. And cyber bullying is only criminal if it involves children and even then only in a few jurisdictions.
Thank you for the information. I thought cyber bullying is now a federal crime when committed against ANYONE, child or adult. I spoke to a lawyer who advised us to not do anything at this time, as no overt threat of physical harm has been made. But the person is trashing us on the internet and to whomever she speaks. Every word out of her mouth is a sick lie, but people who DON’T know us (or her very well, either) have unknowingly been giving chizuk to her to encourage her sick fantasies. And this is solely because I don’t want to be friends with her anymore, because she has hurt family members of mine by slandering them a year ago.
She called my rabbi up, and after all the ranting and raving to him against me, asked him to please convince me to “be friends” with her again. If I am such a horrible person as she described to him, why on earth would she WANT to be friends with someone like me?????? May no one here EVER know a nightmare such as this.
Profoundly emotionally disturbed people can sometimes be unpredictable, and for that reason my lawyer does not yet want us to go through legal channels, as he feels it will escalate her actions, and that right now she is just blowing smoke.
the worst is when the adults bully the kids…
no one believes the kid and they are left defenseless
TAOM
Thank you for explaining it. I’m also being slightly cyber-bullied by an adult. Not as much as oomis, I feel terrible for her. It’s just that someone is after me, cannot fathom why… cannot go into details…
personally I think adult bully’s bully people because they are bullys? I think?
LittleFroggie: ONE SIMPLE solution GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA
Little Froggie, if anything is threatened in social media, report the person to Terms of Service (TOS) for abuse, if only to have it on record that the person is cyber bullying you. I did so with one particularly nasty series of messages that were sent to my son about me. Honestly, if you would read what this person had the lack of a censor chip to say, you would plotz. I am sorry that you are going through even a little bit of this.
BLOCK THIS PERSON from being able to contact you in any way on-line.
Oomis, I will daven for things to get better, also for you LF and everyone….
So sad
Shoppping, I really APPRECIATE what you wrote. I think tefila, at this point, is the ONLY thing that can potentially help.
The best thing to do about a bully is to be amused by anything the bully does. The only way it works is if you actually convince yourself that the bully is amusing. If a bully realizes he’s just entertaining you, he’ll stop.
Rebyidd23, there is NOTHING amusing about what this person has done to my reputation and me and the expressions she hs used in describing my family and me. “Chazzers who spit in the face of chessed” is one of the nicer expressions. Most people know she is profoundly emotionally ill, R”L, but many do NOT and are giving her encouragement, and she has posted all over Facebook.
I didn’t know at first, because I rarely go to Facebook, but some of my friends saw her posts and ranting and raving. I largely ignored it – and then she went and messaged my SON with the worst possible kind of hateful rambling. If you think one should try to be amused, think of how even one person believing such tripe could potentially impact on your children’s shidduchim, if you are in that parsha.
Of course there’s nothing amusing. You just have to pretend that you’re amused, that what the bully is doing doesn’t matter, that the fact that they think they can get at you is ludicrous. If it would actually be amusing, you would be laughing over it. But pretending amusement can help to make bullies stop.
But pretending amusement can help to make bullies stop. “
Not in my case, RY. When someone is mentally ill, they don’t respond in a normal, expected way. One definition of insanity is when one does the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. This person has been trying to get me to respond to her e-mails and FB posts and she has been writing increasingly nasty and bizarre lies about me, while EXPECTING that I will respond (I haven’t in a year).
She called my Rov to trash me to him (he was blown away by her vehemence, but he and his Rebbetzin know me too well to ever believe such sick hotzaas shem ra, BH. After a lengthy vicious attack on me, she then asked him to please talk to me because she “wants us to be friends again.” Why on earth would anyone want to be friends with someone whom she has described in the most disgusting of terms?
I can’t laugh about this or pretend it away. And if I actually were to chalilah run into her, I couldn’t pretend amusement, because she is the type who can become violent, especially if she perceives that one laughs at her.
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