Your comments about being bullied are similar to mine. It's happened to me a fair amount. Maybe because I'm pretty happy-go-lucky, or something. I don't know, but like you, these days, I have little patience for ugliness. Rage is not healthy for dogs... Speaking of dogs, one wild-ass dog got in my garden space early this morning and trashed a fledgling tree...
I might have to check that movie out. Brendan Fraser is quite talented. As a young actor in the 90s he was in a lot of classic comedies. Then he became a big star with The Mummy. But then something happened. He got targeted by Hollywood execs. Perhaps he didn't play the game. I recall reading an interview long ago about why he fell off the map for such a long time. Because he was bullied himself.
Brilliant movie. Americans, culturally, and there are exceptions, like Israelis are bullies but actually more often cowardly, and perhaps that is why they have gotten on so well. Verbal bullies and physical cowards.
I feel you girl, patience runs dry as time goes by. There’s no more time for fools. And the rage…
No. Let go. Of everything.
You are bigger than your house, you are bigger than your town, you are bigger than your country, you are bigger than this blue planet, and you can see all of it from above and it all seems small and futile and you are weightless and you cannot stop laughing. I love this image, you are so golden, you are free. Good vibes beat bullies.
To also add that whenever there is any bullying on facebook/youtube against another targeted individual - I will always step in and support - can't stand to see my fellow TIs picked on!
Although I can go overboard! I won't apologise for this though! Just to let another know that they are not alone! I hope others will do the same for me.
What an honest post, written from the heart for all of us! Ditto!
I quote ""
"""I catch myself assuming that I am being attacked or disbelieved. I struggle to speak and get angry if I have to repeat myself or am interrupted mid sentence. Walk away from me while I am trying to say something and I feel a wave of fury which prevents me from wanting to communicate with that person again."""
Yes I could have written that paragraph for you! I have never found the time to sit down and give an honest appraisal of how I deal with things etc!
The highs and the lows of life, on which we all surf the waves, but yet somehow we can never imagine others going through such predicaments, we are not alone!
I hate bullies, being targeted means that many attempt to bully through torture or their gas lighting..BUT we all have regrets, words that fall from our mouths with ease!
I really enjoyed reading your post, though I feel so sorry for all that you have been through!
Please don't beat yourself up! To err is to be human! Best wishes Fiona
I didn't watch the film yet but can really relate to the hindsights of remorse. I'm reading Mani scriptures now. Part of the Gnostic Collections. Manicheaism - and he's a truly wonderful spiritual teacher - he talks about those pictures that come so strongly and make us so sad. He defies them. He says that if you don't allow those memory demons into your head - the experience that is trying to be born in you - that you can't hear because of the hell you're going through again - is what should be stiven for. Not the guilt. I really like that. Those haunting powerful memories of wrongs committed to others...its really all part of learning to be human
Dear Frances, I haven't watched it yet but I will eventually. Will it flare up old stuff in me as well?
There are striking similarities in what triggers you and myself. Having now at least 2/3 of my life behind me has helped settle my temperament although, putting it mildly, I'm still far from passing the litmus test for a permanent zen state of mind :- )
Being in the company of a friend who was a lost soul with a good heart 50 years or so ago gave me a platform from which to express my anti bully rage. He was s shit magnet for Friday night drunks in bar settings. When trouble ensued, that became my moment to step in to deliver instant karma justice. Knocking down and often out those who bullied my buddy gave me the same exhilaration as hitting one out of the park in baseball.
In time I realized the dynamic for what it was and stopped frequenting trouble locations and confrontations. But the memory carries a forever benchmark recollection and an internal fire that flares at the prompt of bully behavior.
That movie was so raw and sad I cried. It also made me mad because he didn't have to be in that position. He chose his path but maybe if someone had helped him sooner it would be different. It takes just one person to make a difference. Also, some people just do not have the mental will power to change no matter what probably because they are too broken. In the animal kingdom, the weak ones are bullied and pecked to death. We are humans and smarter but when you know that some people train their children to be sociopaths to rid them of compassion in order to be able to commit atrocities against others, you know evil. Animals are surviving and not evil and maybe that applies to some people but we have a conscious choice between good and evil.
We all can make a difference at any and every moment for good. It sometimes hurts my being. We all suffer in this life and I'd rather suffer than become an evil sociopath.
I was bullied in middle school and I do remember bullying a couple kids in my life and it brings hot shame upon me still when I remember. However, in HS, I turned into a swan and was popular at a new school, but I always hated cliques and always sat and befriended the kids who people wouldn't because of what happened to me. People become better people when they go through hardships. I prefer broken people because they are the best people and I tell them they are special and worthy and not to let people take advantage of their kindness. It happens with their husbands, people at work, and friends.
I can't change what I did before but I could make a difference later. I know I must have because when I became a teacher, a child in my class whose mom recalled how thankful she was when I was kind to her... just one time and she never forgot even though I did not remember. I think God showed me for encouragement. It was Jesus that gave me the direction.
My father was a pretty harsh presence in my life and very controlling, that said, he did one of the best acts of parenting I've ever heard of that changed my life and eventually helped define my personal and professional life.
When I was about ten years of age, I joined a group of boys who were bullying a kid in our class, Bill. Every day after school we would taunt and chase Bill across the playground to the fence of his backyard, which he would vault like an Olympian. Luckily, he was faster than any of us and we never caught him. Rather than dealing with the situation, the teachers would let Bill out the door ahead of us to give him a head start.
Usually my father did not get home until just before dinner, but one day when I came home from school his car was in the driveway.
"How come you're home so early?" I asked as I came through the door.
"Don't take your coat off, " he coolly replied, as he picked up his car keys. "Get in the car."
"Where are we going," I asked as he backed the car out the driveway.
"I understand you have been bullying another boy in your school," he replied. "We're going to meet him and his family and you are going to apologize and stop that behavior."
I felt like an ant.
A slug.
We got to the home and there was Bill, his mother, father and his little sister. I mumbled an apology.
"Look Bill and his family in the eye. Speak up and apologize for your behavior and promise not to do it again," my father said in a firm, steady tone.
I did and felt terrible.
Embarrassed.
Wrong and humbled.
Bill and his parents and sister graciously accepted my apology.
I never bullied again. While Bill and I didn't become friends we were friendly toward each other.
A couple decades later, after my parents' ugly divorce, I distanced myself from my family for a period of years to pull free of the dark drama that defined much of my family. I saw my father a few times shortly before he died and was in a state of dementia. If there is one thing I wish I could do it would be to thank him for that long ago intervention and explain how it completely changed my life and made me an advocate of the bullied.
Interesting! Your reply resonates with me on so many levels! I am sorry about your dad! I am sure he knew how his behaviour helped you, yout life is proof of this! good to read your post!
All part of reality repair and addressing all suffering reports. We're all so comprehensively manipulated. My patience is also gone. I tell myself constantly, "it doesn't matter what I want." Or "I'll never be happy" (as things stand.) My only hope really is the singularity it seems. The bank is the ultimate bully.
It once did and often, but this article gave me such a time to reflect on the fact that all of any form of regular bullying has almost zero effect on me now. I don't even resent the bully. When you know your heart and intentions are true, good, reflective, grounded, you are anchored. I'm not completely immune but after the last six years everything has changed and for the better from a personal growth perspective. I still have much to work on. I cannot witness bullying of others. I cannot stand and be silent. Unfortunately that meant losing my relationship with a sister I love. Anger and rage feeds her soul. She demands a sick kind of loyalty to witness her demoralizing attacks on the innocent and demands you not only be silent about it but fake that you are on her team. Other sisters just say it is the price to pay to have a relationship with her. Too high a price for me.
The Whale was originally a play written by American playwright Samuel D. Hunter. He had his first play on Broadway this past season entitled Little Bear Ridge Road. His plays tend to capture snapshots of small town, working class America. One of my favorites!
I have known a saying for years " nowt queer as folk". I don't mean that to your heartbreak episode, just that humans at peace react differently than when stressed and even without those parameters, we can be unpredictable. That advert I saw a few years ago where the lad was watching from outside a glass box , himself harassing a girl , and pleading with himself to stop but going unheard. Strong stuff and it works. I'm thinking I stopped TV in 2014/5 . Was it 2010 that the Mindspace document was dated? When I first found out about behavioural science and applied psychology, I was angry about it. I had a fair bit of discussion with my uncle about it. He lived in Laos and did a lot of charitable work for amputees - victims of left over ordnance from the Vietnam war. He said to me that if applied psychology could be used to stop child trafficking and slavery, he was all for it. That woke me up!! I guess applied psychology is like the concept of magic. There are white and black. If the government is using it to achieve it's own aims it is like black magic and if it is for better living and standards , then that's a good thing, right ? It's like digital ID - not really a bad thing but it can be used for bad things. Firstly, we'd need people with integrity, in control of it. When you look at what money does to people though, that is highly unlikely. I think no greater demonstration of this is UK premiership football. When England players are under 21 , we win often. When they get overpaid by their clubs and play for the 1st team, they've lost the ability to work as a team and the lack of results is plain to see. I don't think any one person can or should fix the world's problems but there should definitely be a kind of "common sense police" unit, that oversee all development and weigh up the pros and cons of any new tech, independent of the developers - so much of the tech we have has come in from silencing dissenters and preventing honest discourse.
I’ve enjoyed your writings since I started Substack. 💕
I haven't seen it. I like Fraser, though.
Your comments about being bullied are similar to mine. It's happened to me a fair amount. Maybe because I'm pretty happy-go-lucky, or something. I don't know, but like you, these days, I have little patience for ugliness. Rage is not healthy for dogs... Speaking of dogs, one wild-ass dog got in my garden space early this morning and trashed a fledgling tree...
Now I'm gonna have to kick his ass.
I might have to check that movie out. Brendan Fraser is quite talented. As a young actor in the 90s he was in a lot of classic comedies. Then he became a big star with The Mummy. But then something happened. He got targeted by Hollywood execs. Perhaps he didn't play the game. I recall reading an interview long ago about why he fell off the map for such a long time. Because he was bullied himself.
Brilliant movie. Americans, culturally, and there are exceptions, like Israelis are bullies but actually more often cowardly, and perhaps that is why they have gotten on so well. Verbal bullies and physical cowards.
I feel you girl, patience runs dry as time goes by. There’s no more time for fools. And the rage…
No. Let go. Of everything.
You are bigger than your house, you are bigger than your town, you are bigger than your country, you are bigger than this blue planet, and you can see all of it from above and it all seems small and futile and you are weightless and you cannot stop laughing. I love this image, you are so golden, you are free. Good vibes beat bullies.
can't get it here in Canada
To also add that whenever there is any bullying on facebook/youtube against another targeted individual - I will always step in and support - can't stand to see my fellow TIs picked on!
Although I can go overboard! I won't apologise for this though! Just to let another know that they are not alone! I hope others will do the same for me.
What an honest post, written from the heart for all of us! Ditto!
I quote ""
"""I catch myself assuming that I am being attacked or disbelieved. I struggle to speak and get angry if I have to repeat myself or am interrupted mid sentence. Walk away from me while I am trying to say something and I feel a wave of fury which prevents me from wanting to communicate with that person again."""
Yes I could have written that paragraph for you! I have never found the time to sit down and give an honest appraisal of how I deal with things etc!
The highs and the lows of life, on which we all surf the waves, but yet somehow we can never imagine others going through such predicaments, we are not alone!
I hate bullies, being targeted means that many attempt to bully through torture or their gas lighting..BUT we all have regrets, words that fall from our mouths with ease!
I really enjoyed reading your post, though I feel so sorry for all that you have been through!
Please don't beat yourself up! To err is to be human! Best wishes Fiona
I didn't watch the film yet but can really relate to the hindsights of remorse. I'm reading Mani scriptures now. Part of the Gnostic Collections. Manicheaism - and he's a truly wonderful spiritual teacher - he talks about those pictures that come so strongly and make us so sad. He defies them. He says that if you don't allow those memory demons into your head - the experience that is trying to be born in you - that you can't hear because of the hell you're going through again - is what should be stiven for. Not the guilt. I really like that. Those haunting powerful memories of wrongs committed to others...its really all part of learning to be human
Dear Frances, I haven't watched it yet but I will eventually. Will it flare up old stuff in me as well?
There are striking similarities in what triggers you and myself. Having now at least 2/3 of my life behind me has helped settle my temperament although, putting it mildly, I'm still far from passing the litmus test for a permanent zen state of mind :- )
Being in the company of a friend who was a lost soul with a good heart 50 years or so ago gave me a platform from which to express my anti bully rage. He was s shit magnet for Friday night drunks in bar settings. When trouble ensued, that became my moment to step in to deliver instant karma justice. Knocking down and often out those who bullied my buddy gave me the same exhilaration as hitting one out of the park in baseball.
In time I realized the dynamic for what it was and stopped frequenting trouble locations and confrontations. But the memory carries a forever benchmark recollection and an internal fire that flares at the prompt of bully behavior.
Thanks for the thoughtful post Frances.
That movie was so raw and sad I cried. It also made me mad because he didn't have to be in that position. He chose his path but maybe if someone had helped him sooner it would be different. It takes just one person to make a difference. Also, some people just do not have the mental will power to change no matter what probably because they are too broken. In the animal kingdom, the weak ones are bullied and pecked to death. We are humans and smarter but when you know that some people train their children to be sociopaths to rid them of compassion in order to be able to commit atrocities against others, you know evil. Animals are surviving and not evil and maybe that applies to some people but we have a conscious choice between good and evil.
We all can make a difference at any and every moment for good. It sometimes hurts my being. We all suffer in this life and I'd rather suffer than become an evil sociopath.
I was bullied in middle school and I do remember bullying a couple kids in my life and it brings hot shame upon me still when I remember. However, in HS, I turned into a swan and was popular at a new school, but I always hated cliques and always sat and befriended the kids who people wouldn't because of what happened to me. People become better people when they go through hardships. I prefer broken people because they are the best people and I tell them they are special and worthy and not to let people take advantage of their kindness. It happens with their husbands, people at work, and friends.
I can't change what I did before but I could make a difference later. I know I must have because when I became a teacher, a child in my class whose mom recalled how thankful she was when I was kind to her... just one time and she never forgot even though I did not remember. I think God showed me for encouragement. It was Jesus that gave me the direction.
Thanks for this, Frances.
My father was a pretty harsh presence in my life and very controlling, that said, he did one of the best acts of parenting I've ever heard of that changed my life and eventually helped define my personal and professional life.
When I was about ten years of age, I joined a group of boys who were bullying a kid in our class, Bill. Every day after school we would taunt and chase Bill across the playground to the fence of his backyard, which he would vault like an Olympian. Luckily, he was faster than any of us and we never caught him. Rather than dealing with the situation, the teachers would let Bill out the door ahead of us to give him a head start.
Usually my father did not get home until just before dinner, but one day when I came home from school his car was in the driveway.
"How come you're home so early?" I asked as I came through the door.
"Don't take your coat off, " he coolly replied, as he picked up his car keys. "Get in the car."
"Where are we going," I asked as he backed the car out the driveway.
"I understand you have been bullying another boy in your school," he replied. "We're going to meet him and his family and you are going to apologize and stop that behavior."
I felt like an ant.
A slug.
We got to the home and there was Bill, his mother, father and his little sister. I mumbled an apology.
"Look Bill and his family in the eye. Speak up and apologize for your behavior and promise not to do it again," my father said in a firm, steady tone.
I did and felt terrible.
Embarrassed.
Wrong and humbled.
Bill and his parents and sister graciously accepted my apology.
I never bullied again. While Bill and I didn't become friends we were friendly toward each other.
A couple decades later, after my parents' ugly divorce, I distanced myself from my family for a period of years to pull free of the dark drama that defined much of my family. I saw my father a few times shortly before he died and was in a state of dementia. If there is one thing I wish I could do it would be to thank him for that long ago intervention and explain how it completely changed my life and made me an advocate of the bullied.
Interesting! Your reply resonates with me on so many levels! I am sorry about your dad! I am sure he knew how his behaviour helped you, yout life is proof of this! good to read your post!
Thanks, Fiona.
All part of reality repair and addressing all suffering reports. We're all so comprehensively manipulated. My patience is also gone. I tell myself constantly, "it doesn't matter what I want." Or "I'll never be happy" (as things stand.) My only hope really is the singularity it seems. The bank is the ultimate bully.
It once did and often, but this article gave me such a time to reflect on the fact that all of any form of regular bullying has almost zero effect on me now. I don't even resent the bully. When you know your heart and intentions are true, good, reflective, grounded, you are anchored. I'm not completely immune but after the last six years everything has changed and for the better from a personal growth perspective. I still have much to work on. I cannot witness bullying of others. I cannot stand and be silent. Unfortunately that meant losing my relationship with a sister I love. Anger and rage feeds her soul. She demands a sick kind of loyalty to witness her demoralizing attacks on the innocent and demands you not only be silent about it but fake that you are on her team. Other sisters just say it is the price to pay to have a relationship with her. Too high a price for me.
The Whale was originally a play written by American playwright Samuel D. Hunter. He had his first play on Broadway this past season entitled Little Bear Ridge Road. His plays tend to capture snapshots of small town, working class America. One of my favorites!
I have known a saying for years " nowt queer as folk". I don't mean that to your heartbreak episode, just that humans at peace react differently than when stressed and even without those parameters, we can be unpredictable. That advert I saw a few years ago where the lad was watching from outside a glass box , himself harassing a girl , and pleading with himself to stop but going unheard. Strong stuff and it works. I'm thinking I stopped TV in 2014/5 . Was it 2010 that the Mindspace document was dated? When I first found out about behavioural science and applied psychology, I was angry about it. I had a fair bit of discussion with my uncle about it. He lived in Laos and did a lot of charitable work for amputees - victims of left over ordnance from the Vietnam war. He said to me that if applied psychology could be used to stop child trafficking and slavery, he was all for it. That woke me up!! I guess applied psychology is like the concept of magic. There are white and black. If the government is using it to achieve it's own aims it is like black magic and if it is for better living and standards , then that's a good thing, right ? It's like digital ID - not really a bad thing but it can be used for bad things. Firstly, we'd need people with integrity, in control of it. When you look at what money does to people though, that is highly unlikely. I think no greater demonstration of this is UK premiership football. When England players are under 21 , we win often. When they get overpaid by their clubs and play for the 1st team, they've lost the ability to work as a team and the lack of results is plain to see. I don't think any one person can or should fix the world's problems but there should definitely be a kind of "common sense police" unit, that oversee all development and weigh up the pros and cons of any new tech, independent of the developers - so much of the tech we have has come in from silencing dissenters and preventing honest discourse.