"People will stop bullying you, when you just ignore th

Post Reply New Topic

...is horrible advice that doesn't work. I don't understand why everybody thinks this is the way to go. All it ever did was make myself look like a doormat for people.

I was bullied, pushed around and assaulted for years. Ignoring people does not make them go away. They say the abuses make you stronger. Whatever. I'd rather had not went through it.

The only way to truly deal with bullies, or really anyone else who f***s things up for you is to find some way to get away from them, put some distance between them and yourself. I should know this, as I had to deal with living with my father's wife and her family for two years, and they absolutely drove me up the f*****g wall. I found that after going back to my old home town for a month and getting away from them, I started functioning better, almost like I did back when they weren't in the picture. That's when I realized that to be truly successful and get somewhere in my life, I had to maintain that distance, so I packed my bags and moved back to my old hometown. Now, I have a full-time job, and I'm in a much better overall mental state than I used to be. I still occasionally have thoughts about how much I hated my father's wife, but I don't brood on it the same way I used to.

I am in my early 40s. I still have effects of irrational anger, and flashbacks from the torture.

Deal with it immediately, or the torture will change you.

It does work. But you're taking it in the wrong way.

People stop bullying you when you stop caring, and believe me, it does work.

You have to actually stop caring, not just pretend you don't care. They can tell.

Not everyone has an ON/OFF switch when it comes to caring.
If you tell someone long enough they are stupid they WILL eventually believe it.

Exactly. It really does work. I can't stress that enough. That's how I got them to stop. The only point in my life I was picked on, was in 4th grade. At first I didn't get it, but then it dawned on me, and they stopped when I stopped making it fun for them.

Actually you can fake it if you're good. You can also practice taking it.

There are other ways of dealing with it too, but they will fail if you do them wrong.

I talked about it at length in my 2nd post here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf238010-0-255.html
Bottom line is: Don't react.

I can't stand the ''ignore it'' advice. In my opinion it's complete and utter rubbish and can't imagine whoever came up with it. I haven't been bullied much but they did see it as a sign of weakness so they just carried on. It encouraged them! Children need to be taught that they must never ever let themselves be treated in such a manner. Assertiveness and really standing up for myself and not accepting such crap weren't encouraged so I had to learn it myself by trial and error (and still learning). But I guess it's easier as an adult to deal with a passive kid…

And besides, it's not exactly a proactive approach. It doesn't teach you the social skills to tackle this problem better, yet it's the most passive and ''easy'' solution to it, just not doing a thing and letting the issue fester on. No wonder this problem keeps on feeding itself as isolated and humiliated/bullied people usually aren't the most popular and therefore not really trained in social skills, confidence and so on so it's probably basically a vicious circle. It's also bad for self esteem because you just let yourself be their doormat, at least, that was bad for me. Power to the people who stand up for themselves

it never worked for me, they just chanted at me, same with the "keep away from them then" they just follow you around.
I think people just tell you to ignore or keep away because they just don't care about it and expect you to be able to deal with it yourself without their help.
All it does is make you feel worthless and wonder if you are only put on this earth to be bullied I know that's how I felt over the years.

Not if they believe that your opinion is worthless.

Personally, I'm a fan of "People will stop bullying you when you break their nose".

Telling my bullies to f**k off helped a lot.

I was lucky because I A) became too big to bully effectively and B) went from a primary school with 500 people to a high school with 2500 which diffused the amount of a**holes. we also had a social order that was more divided my ethnicity than popularity so there was little incentive to acquire social value by picking on someone else.

Same here. I am 6'1. Always alone. I work alone too. If I didn't, I'd find myself being buillied (not punched, or slapped), with insults, and even slandered.

I don't think I stated anywhere that it is easy. But it is possible. There's a few times in my life where I've done that and it worked like a charm. You shift the power from them back to yourself.

People stop bullying you when you fight back.

only if you win

Yes.

Ignoring their insults is one thing, but a bloody beat-down is the only way to convince a bully to leave you alone.

Then again, bullies may have friends; and those friends may want to beat you down in retaliation.