I read your blog. So sorry you had to go through all that :(

Keep being Strong.

I am sorry this happened to you my friend.

Sometimes people just don't realize how the way the treat someone can have an effect but it is their issue, not yours. I think all of us have some event that really effected us and is hard to let go of. That's the hardest thing to do.

Remember that it's not your fault. Holding on to resentment from the past can hold you back or even destroy you. Don't let it. Rise above the people who made you feel this way.

Thanks JenPay and kc260 for reading my blog! And thank you for the support. Will certainly stay strong and not let those bullies bring me down.

Yeah!

Some people have to be the "loudest voice in the room" and belittle others so that no one can actually see their carefully constructed defense mechanism. This is all an illusion however. You are way better than these losers so don't let them convince otherwise.

Good luck!

I am so sorry for you, overcomeb. That absolutely sucks. You should never have had to go through that. You have my sympathy. People are so heartless. YOu are way better than your old boss and your old coworkers. I know it's hard. I struggle to "let go" of my old issues too, but we have to let it go. Not for their sake, but for ours. May God bless you and keep you.

Thank you JaneWilliams for your sympathy and response. I really appreciate it. I've had so much anger towards my boss and the bully, but I have been dealing with it and working towards letting go. I try to focus on future potential and enjoying the life I do have now (which is far better than it was back then).

Thanks again. All of your responses are greatly appreciated.

I have just come out of a similar situation as well and have been having a lot of problems with my anger that has resulted from this this. My manager, who was the owner of the company, was really difficult to work with- on about 450 different occasions, he insulted me, made me feel embarrassed or humiliated, was rude to me, said things that made me feel uncomfortable, made me feel like I was zero (the above made up the bulk of the 450 incidents), had regular rages where he flew completely out of control, insulted clients behind their backs, swore at me screamed at me in out of control ways (that was thing that was the worst), just plain screamed around me or in his own room (still really horrible- like being shocked), said sexual things that made me feel extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable (this is a big deal in western cultures, as everyone needs to be equal), and generally was an absolute nightmare to deal with. I also suspect a number of other things that were really horrible (I had weird feelings) but not evidence. He used to have regular out of control rages, where one time he nearly punched me. Another time he transferred his rage about a client onto me and nearly got me hit by a car, then swore at me for not following me (that was actually positive- it was the day I decided the problem was him, not me). I felt pretty trapped in the job, as I needed his reference and he said things that sounded like he would wreck my reputation if I didn't do what he wanted. My nickname for him was "the devil" and I used it behind his back about a hundred times (the desks were like this hellish red-black and there were red paintings everywhere).

I've never been bullied before, and I felt really trapped in this position. I was really tough at the time, but fell apart after I left, and didn't work for nearly a year afterwards. I had immense problems with rage and wanting to make him suffer severely.

Next post:

So this is the bit that might be relevant to you...

I've been wondering what to do with (and trying to transform) the mess that this caused for a long time. I hurt myself with this anger, resentment and grudges a million times more than it hurts him. It makes me a bad person as it brings me down to his level (being so dark), but this anger hits me randomly, like the way panic attacks hit randomly. Fortunately it happens less and less over time but they are still too strong for my liking.

I like the religious view that life is a series of tests created to make you into the best person you can be- that each suffering is like a field being prepared for harvest, and that you don't become your best self if you're not tested. But I know first hand how hard it can be to actually make that transition from the mess you were (fragile, weakened) during and after the bullying finished into who you can and should become as a result of the experience.

I've been reading a lot about it and I can see issues like narcissism, narcissistic injury, dependence in me, and those are major factors into why this is still causing problems in me. Ultimately, I need to change myself so that it can't hurt me.

But it does make me very angry about how bad, horrible, scum-bag some people are, and how they "should be" better people. But I have little control over them, and trying to control that little bit over him (e.g. trying to make him feel extremely guilty) I have is exhausting (as well as toxic to me, because I still keep going over it just by interacting with him- I doubt he's changed that much). Oh, and I bet you he treats his latest report much, much better than me- it was just me that all this toxicity was directed. I guess I feel I have a lot to be angry about.

But the solution is that I need to transform myself so that this can't hurt me- set up strong boundaries, not let people like that into my life, support and protect myself, turn this into the story where 'I slayed the dragon' (by transforming it) rather than the story where the dragon disabled me, remove narcissistic injury (e.g. that other people "should" act certain ways and I should punish them for hurting me), make myself the bigger person (the 1000 times bigger person), even spiritually transcend to the point where Im such a big person I can forgive and feel pity for them (and they are very likely a real life sociopath).

However, this brings the second issue- if I don't stop this nightmarish person, he will learn that he can harm others and get away with it. Emotionally, I am very angry about his behaviour and want to cause him maximum harm, like a small child would. However, the adult in me says that he will harm me more (he is still a referee- his revenge makes me even angrier). The adult in me also says that if I could harm him a lot without him harming me, this makes me a very bad person, even if he deserves it. It is right to stop people from harming others, but it is wrong to act on childish emotions that make you a bad person from then for the rest of your life. I know that he wouldn't hesitate to harm me (he's done it so many times already and I do believe that he is a genuine sociopath with a number of psychopathic elements), but makes my conscience tarnished and ugly (not clean) for the rest of my life. So I choose to do nothing. But he says or does things that are subtle hints at further harm in the future. So the anger. I choose not to be the one who punishes him and stops him from hurting others (even though someone needs to do it)- I choose to let that go, as much as I want it. I am religious and I believe that God will judge him harshly (as well as judging me for not getting a grip on myself and letting this anger continue). So I guess the solution for me is changing myself so this situation cannot affect me at all. Cutting him out of my life and future forever.

I know I haven't talked much about your specific incidents (which sound horrible- your manager was scum too), but I hope my thought process in how I tried to overcome this issue (and am succeeding at! even if quite slowly) can help you.

Also, I don't have CFS and Fibromyalgia anymore- I haven't had that for quite some time, so definitely not angry about that. I never told him about my history with that so that plays no role in this story.

Also, one more thing- how can you become a person who is very unlikely to be bullied in the future? (and a good person- definitely not a thug who scares others into not bullying)

CFSandFibro, thank you so much for your in depth post and wow I am so sorry to hear your manager put you through all that. He sounds very similar to my boss with the uncontrolled anger, the insults, and even making inappropriate remarks sexually (I actually intend to post more about him). I don't think my boss is a sociopath (like the bully I described in my blog), but rather I think he was very opportunistic and insecure, which explains why he had to cut me down and yell at me in front of others to make himself look like the big boss man.

Like you, I hold grudges and have vengeful thoughts for both my bully and my boss. But I have made some headway. My solution is as follows. Like you, I recognize that my boss had the problem. He was young and too immature for the role. So I try not to take what he did personally, but rather as his way of compensating for his insecurities, and apparent temper problem. Second, I realize I still have a lot of potential to succeed, and thus intend to use my own skills and knowledge to do as well as I possibly can. This is probably the most important because it allows me to use the bullying as incentive to learn, grow and achieve. Success is the best revenge. While it's an old cliche, I'm still believing it to be true.

Finally, to answer your last question about how not to be bullied, well here are a few things I can think of:

* be strong and assertive
* respect yourself and present yourself in a manner (dress, act, work) that commands respect
* sharpen your ability to identify rude, infringing, or disrespectful behavior by others and quickly address them so they do not occur again

Here is another link from my blog entitled "Lessons Learned" that addresses my lessons from my unfortunate experience with that company. While it's based on my experience I'm hoping others can also take something away from it.

https://wbs10.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/lessons-learned/

Again thanks for your post and hope you are able to resolve the anger you have towards your boss. Do keep us posted.

Hi overcomebullying,
Sorry for not signing in a bit earlier- I don't sign into dailystrength frequently like I used to a couple of years ago when I was getting through the fibro (Daily Strength is a wonderful website and was very much, a daily strength and a major help), and I had a very hectic month on top of that :P

Thanks so much for your reply, and I read your blog post as well. They both sound very wise and you give very good advice. I particularly like what you said that success is the best revenge (although I feel a bit uncomfortable with the word revenge for the religious reasons that I wrote in my previous post). After the whole experience, I felt very afraid as well as very very angry, like I didn't want to stick my head out or stand out in any way for fear of any more incidents. But in my life away from that manager (which is most of it), staying hidden and lying low is like letting the side effects of the bullying continue. It's true that it was a very frightening experience and it was a good life warning that there are some really mean people out there who have no issues with harming others, but that means that we just have to put up much better boundaries and get on with what success means to us with the awareness that we need to stay out of and manage these situations carefully.

I did some reading on the workplace bullying institute (I think the founder of that had similar experiences) and a number of books about bullying, and a lot of them say that bullies often tend to target certain types of people, especially people who are very nice and don't stand up for themselves (if you're too nice, some people think it makes them look bad), people who are very capable and are professionally threatening to someone else (or to their self-esteem- this was surprising to read), people who 'react' strongly and are 'fun' to torment until they have a big reaction, and also, unfortunately minorities (although I don't know why- maybe it is having less power because they are not in the majority). The last one especially is a societal problem- I like the idea of having a number of causes that you contribute to over your life, so hopefully someone will take this as a cause. There were characteristics of different types of bullies, and actually, you need to also watch out for people with too high self esteem, as they might aggressively defend their self esteem if they feel like they might be taken down a notch.

I find it really hard to deal wih people with temper problems who are really explosive, but I randomly came across this book: http://www.amazon.com/Explosive-Child-Understanding-Frustrated-Chronically/dp/0062270451/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463166442&sr=8-1&keywords=the+explosive+child which surprised me a lot, because it says that some people have 'difficult personalities' from a very young age, and may have serious issues with changing them. I know that some children also have sociopathic and psychopathic personalities, where other people become more like this as they get older (maybe they learn they can get what they want through bullying). My issue was thinking that I had to be the person who fixed them and made sure that they never did it again to others (teach them a lesson), but doing that brings so much toxicity into your life, is dangerous and draining (from ongoing reprisals) and is just a waste of your life. It was like Attila the Hun sweeping over Europe and ruining everything and everyone he crossed- whether you want to risk everything fighting it or whether you just want to stay far away (and maybe do something from a distance).

Reading your and my posts, I think we are both kind of coming to the same realisation- that we need to set goals relating to the bullying situation and try and reach them e.g. 15 goals like becoming less upset by it every day, having strong abilities to identify people who might behave like that, respecting yourself, being your own strongest supporter in moving forward out of it.

From my last post, it was also a big realisation that you need to manage certain characteristics really carefully- e.g. if you're a really nice person, making it clear that you will stand up for yourself; presenting yourself in a non-threatening way; not drawing attention to yourself with bullies that are at work; making yourself look like someone who would be too much trouble to bully; other things.

I'm really glad that we had this conversation- your posts really helped me and I hope that mine were useful to you as well.

Also, to say one extra thing- the workplace bullying institute says to never go to HR or the person above your manager if you're being bullied, because the victim loses on 95% of cases (although the 5% that win go on the news), and especially if the bully is more senior than you (which they usually are).

They say the best thing you can possibly do in cases of workplace bullying is make sure you have good references and change companies. This opened my eyes incredibly- yes, we live in a democracy, but workplaces are no democracy (even if they seem like it)- they are a feudal system where might is right and power gets what it wants the great majority of the time. On the surface, it might look like they are collaborative, but HR's role is ultimately to protect their bosses from liability (or else), even if most people in HR are very, very nice.

However, it is extremely important to always document every single incident of bullying in detail, and even tape record it if you can (I wish I had done that, as there had been no-one else around). This means that if you have to take legal action or if you get accused of anything, you have backup.

Fibro, thanks again for the great insight and good to see you on DS again. My life is also hectic and thus it's hard to be on here on a more consistent basis.

I agree, religious or not, that revenge is not the best word to use. I think redemption is a much better word since it's more about personal empowerment rather than negative indulgence. As far as laying low, I think that can be a good idea if you are doing it out of sound judgement and common sense to avoid unnecessary conflict as opposed to retreating into submission due to fear of reprisal.

Workplace Bullying Institute is a great site. The reasons for bullying you pointed out are excellent if unfortunately taken as counter intuitive. For example, any time I've gotten bullied my first response was thinking there was something wrong with me as opposed to recognizing in the bully either an apparent insecurity or a desire to satisfy a personal need (tormenting the victim/feeding own narcissism).

As for those with temper problems or who are psycho/sociopaths, I've learned, although it took me a while, that there are somethings you can't control and, as you indicated, would most likely be more detrimental than rewarding since such people either don't want help (former) or can't be helped (latter).

The last post you sent I found very relevant and explains why my company took no action against my bully. This is precisely why you can not always depend on company's harassment policy and instead must have keen survival instincts and quickly stand up to and address any harassment.

Thank you for all of your insight. I am also glad that you have found my posts helpful!