Mean People Suck!

I got bullied considerably while I was in school. It was sufficient that I often dreaded going...

These days we would describe my way of being as "being neurodivergent;" back then it was described as simply being weird.

The Human Experience is a strange one sometimes, because even though we somehow want to be "special" and stand out, we're deeply suspicious of - and often have malicious intent towards - anybody who doesn't fit within the parameters of the "herd."

Not entirely sure how that's supposed to work, but it seems like there's a lot of pressure to get it to work.

Now, the kids who were kind of rough on me when I was in grade school seemed to me to be pretty mean.

I'm sure there were lots of people who would say we should feel compassion and that we don't know what sort of rough life they have been through and all that good stuff but when you're on the receiving end of verbal and physical abuse it's kind of difficult to drop into your heart and just say that somebody "means well" after they've stuck your head down a toilet.

I was never a "fighter" or a hothead so mostly I kept myself out of trouble by other means... and one of my eventual tactics to deal with difficult people and mean people was the way that I learned how to give these people "exactly enough rope to hang themselves."

Maybe it's a bit Machiavellian of me to wish for somebody to (metaphorically) "hang themselves" on their own words rather than be directly punched in the nose but that's just part of how my personality works.

I spent a great many years learning how to become rather Zen-like with most things, and I spent a great many years learning about Nonviolent Communication as a preferred way to problem solve, in this case primarily when I was having to deal with some rather large egos in the IT industry!

So I became rather good at approaching these situations in a non-confrontational manner and - metaphorically speaking - giving people just enough factual information about the effects of their behavior that they didn't get angry and start tuning me out.... but it still worked in the way that it was as if I held up a mirror to them and then I would walk away and let them digest what they had just seen in that mirror.

Maybe that sounds like a very passive approach but it was one that often managed to get through to people who were used to communicate by fighting rather than by having to use their minds instead of their fists or their violent words.

Changing someone's paradigm can be a very powerful tool!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Friday!

How about you? How do you deal with mean people? Were you ever bullied in school? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2023.09.22 01:34 PDT
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