Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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I feel as hough my decent up bringing has turned me into a target throughout my whole life for bullying. My mother is an angel and my dad is a quiet honorable man who looked after his family. I learned by watching them how to be kind and trusting of others. I think these beautiful tools are not meant for this world of today.
I'm tall and baby faced. Two things that don't work well in the construction trades. I never wanted to hurt anybody and I always tried to get along with people. Unfortunately life is full of jerks. I have had many say to me, if I was your size I would be a bully. I was just the opposite looking out for the little guy. This stratedgy didn't work well for me. I find that I spend far too much time wondering if I should have been more of an aggressive ass like the rest of them. I feel like a coward inside for not defending myself when I could have. I guess I was a serious minded husband and a new father with responsibilities that I took very seriously. They new this and toyed with my brain to see if I would snap. I have experienced so many instances where I have had responsibilty to my family hold me back from being able to just lash out.
Today is a new day, or at least it has been since I became chronically injured. I will never let somebody walk all over me because I am free of responsibility. I harbour so much resentment at the people that SH*T on me that i actually dream of a confrontation even after all this time. It's probably silly male thinking but it eats me up inside.
I have changed and I will choose to fight , because I can live with it. Sorry if this offends but I've been on the recieving end too long with my hands tied and my self worth battered.
I'm tall and baby faced. Two things that don't work well in the construction trades. I never wanted to hurt anybody and I always tried to get along with people. Unfortunately life is full of jerks. I have had many say to me, if I was your size I would be a bully. I was just the opposite looking out for the little guy. This stratedgy didn't work well for me. I find that I spend far too much time wondering if I should have been more of an aggressive ass like the rest of them. I feel like a coward inside for not defending myself when I could have. I guess I was a serious minded husband and a new father with responsibilities that I took very seriously. They new this and toyed with my brain to see if I would snap. I have experienced so many instances where I have had responsibilty to my family hold me back from being able to just lash out.
Today is a new day, or at least it has been since I became chronically injured. I will never let somebody walk all over me because I am free of responsibility. I harbour so much resentment at the people that SH*T on me that i actually dream of a confrontation even after all this time. It's probably silly male thinking but it eats me up inside.
I have changed and I will choose to fight , because I can live with it. Sorry if this offends but I've been on the recieving end too long with my hands tied and my self worth battered.
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Hey all, i know its been quite awhile since i posted on here. Its been a summer all right. Its been something else........... You know how they say not to open the can of worms? Well a few months ago i decided to find out what my due date would have been for my first baby, the one conceived by r***. My baby would have been due on March 4th of 2006. They would be 20 years old. I was R**** on June...
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My day...today...misplaced my debit card...didn't realize it until I got to the register after shopping to a full cart. Used a different debit card and pulled apart everything looking for missing debit card before I left parking lot. Got home, dropped keys. So now I have a missing debit card, missing keys. A full cartload to unload and put away. I got everything put away.Dumped purse for a...
Watching my sons grow from small children to big men was quite an education for me. Continually re-learning their own strength as they grew forced them to learn things about gentleness that small people never even have to consider. You don't get big over night. They had to study this constantly over the course of many years. I believe this is why ALL the big people of both genders that I have known are quite gentle by nature. Big people seem to attract to me like babies to a sincere heart. . .
Is the bullying connected to your PTSD. I'm gonna cross an elephant with a rhinoceros: El-if-i-know. . . You have all the inside data. Let's explore it together, shall we?
Gentle support while you sort, uncom.
Yeah I can see all buff puff Guito yelling crap at you and any other meek, mild mannered person on the job. But poor old Guito has serious self-esteem issues not to mention probably a 2 inch you know what from taking too many steroids. He is jealous of you because you have your shit together and he doesn't.
Don't change. ok. You are a good person. Stay a good person. You have nothing to prove to Guito or any other vinegar bag. God loves you just the way you are. If you do anything, have empathy for these small minded two inchers. You and I are much better and bigger people than they are. Stay meek my friend.
It surprised me that he chose me, because he and I had no real history. He was totally doing it for the other guys, to impress them somehow. It had nothing really to do with me.
I took it for 3 weeks or so, and then I heard that if you punch a bully it shocks them. It turned out to be true. Next time he touched me I punched him in the face, and he went down like a sack of potatoes. I won that round.
Hours later as I left school he was waiting for me with an audience. I thought for sure it was rematch time. No. Instead, he put out his hand and shook mine in front of all the guys to make peace. No one tried to bully me again, not him, not anyone.
I don't know what's in the minds of bullies, but from that episode I found out it's really all about them. They're pretty stupid, actually, not complex at all, and just speaking for me in my experience, not worth a lot of my energy. The worried anticipation before punching him in the face was worse than that moment or any that followed. To me it seemed like bullies mostly bluff.
I'm glad I just went on my way and wasn't tempted to become the next bully at my school after settling scores with him. I didn't. It just seemed to me that bullying was too stupid, shallow, and phony of a way to spend time and energy.
...Some situations are better to walk away from?
You're injured, now, apparently in a way that's going to cause long-term issues.
So...you need a trade that is not going to tear up your body and your mind.
A really nice guy was telling me about learning data cabling. You don't need a degree, just tech training...often you get to do installations in air-conditioned buildings, with nicer sorts of people.
The construction trades ( at least here ) seem to be what guys from really dysfunctional backgrounds end up doing? So, maybe it's the culture of the work you have been doing? Hypermasculine, mean guys tend to end up doing it?
Working with ugly, mean people...been there, done that. It totally changes the tenor of a whole job for me. I think finding a career where you aren't treated like crap is very important.
My brother has a baby face and a gentle manner...is the size of a refrigerator, nobody messes with him.
My guy though? Maybe it's the UK, but he gets in brawls regularly, men pick fights with him. I don't get it.
I'm legally female, if a little mentally different. Only once did a guy pick a fight with me.
...I flashed my boobs at him.
...this caused a great deal of confusion.
I like how you said this a lot.. 'Today is a new day, or at least it has been since I became chronically injured. I will never let somebody walk all over me because I am free of responsibility'
I try hard at it myself. Welcome to the group ;)
My sister was 7 when she thought it was fun to start hurting me. I was 2. She was a bully at home, school, and everywhere. She is one of the two reasons I have PTSD.
The other is my big tough manly construction worker dad. Narcissist, bully, and a-hole whose idea of parenting was screaming, "What'd you do wrong now?"
Bullying is potentially a cumulative trauma, but being injured and stuck with chronic consequences? Definitely, in my experience. I'm partially disabled (I refuse to give in and say wholly, grr), from physical injuries unrelated to anything but gravity.
Honestly? My hubby's a tall guy with a choirboy face, and I love him for his gentleness, and the fact he is *quiet* when he stands for a principle. He often worries he's not "macho" enough. I remind him my dad was a great picture of bar-fighting, beer-swilling, fist-swinging, insult-flinging macho-ness, and that tends to remind him why he's *not* that way. Does he get teased even as an adult? Yep. Does he care? Mostly not. Ironically, because we met and married fairly young, he saw my family (his was much as you describe yours) and what that "machismo" did to others, when he was still in his early 20s, and it was a heck of a wake-up call.
Yeah, by 50 you'd hope they'd clue in....
*sigh*
Supportive vibes. I don't know how much is programming by society or what, but I sometimes look around me at humans and wonder how they even *made* it to 50. *headscratch*
Betcha I'd have more girlfriends if the gender confusion was strictly a guy thing. The meanest bullies in my life have cleavage of their own and love to flaunt it while they beat us up for noticing.
Ironically, they are even meaner now that I am "not working." These days I am just a bum with a toilet cleaning hobby. . . Sigh. . .
Still. . . I can't seem to let go of that dream of a world where we can all just live and let live with love, tolerance and respect.
One local blogger took on my story (WARNING: profane !):
http://twitterroach.com/2015/03/twitter-roach-podcast-003-dogs-are-more-important-than-sick-people/
In essence, he faulted me for being ... too nice ... or naive ... or something.
But I wasn't raised in the jungle, don't have an OUNCE of bully in me, and .... as somebody who was bullied in his youth ... have worked very hard NOT to do what they do.
TRIGGER WARNING:
Early on, LOTS of people told me ways that I could kill the barking dogs and get away with it.
Never. Not me. I love dogs, and am neither violent nor a criminal.
Lots of people have made it a practice to tell me all the things I did wrong, but ... I am who I am -- a fair, kind, generous, reasonable, decent, and civilized man.
As a result, everything was taken away from me.
Nine times out of ten, I still believe that being a truly decent person pays handsome rewards.
In the case of many of us, here, I think WE can see the potential for tremendous downside in BEING a kind and decent person ... in a pretty savage world.
I've often said ... this life ... and my story, in particular ... are "Lord of the Flies," and ... in the end ... I was Piggy.
[If you don't remember the story, look it up. I think it will resonate with you.]
I wish you peace, health, and strength.....
Bullies think in terms of a very vicious world, I guess? Where it's " Get them before they get you," rather than my world of " let's help each other, then things are better for you, me and all those around us?".
I ALSO behave the way I do out of enlightened self-interest; I want us to live in a world where we hold together and lift each other up. I want a culture of goodwill and mutual aid. I want that for all human creatures. I understand that is the work of centuries, but I believe in reincarnation anyway, so I am willing to take the long, long, long view.
I know that taking one's problems out on others is merely a temporary sop to one's own hurt. My dad, as far as I can tell from a distance, runs around feeling sorry for himself?
Well, he is a sorry person, I guess someone should feel sorry for him? ( for newbies, he's the reason I have many alters. Don't feel sorry for him )
Not sure what to practically do with bullies, honestly? I get away from them.
As Her Arfness said, women do bully; They tend to do it through third parties. Isolate, spread malicious rumors, goad the target into lashing out, then play victim...that's more typical of women bullies? But bullies of any gender can use any means.
As far a cyber bullying goes, I imagine my name has been smeared all over the place but what I don't know doesn't hurt me.I don't go out of my way to find it. I think that words said in any format other than to my face don't really hold much strength.
Thanks to everybody and peace to all.
The football team had two co-captains, Doug and Joe.
Doug was a very tall, very muscular man with a LONG upper body and short, fast legs.
Famous for removing beer bottle tops (not twist-off) with his molars.
Joe was like a Greek God -- handsome, well proportioned, wavy blonde hair.
Joe's sister and I were in several classes together. We even did homework together.
Doug would _incessantly_ tease me for wearing thick eyeglasses. I took it. What else do you do -- the guy was a fearsome gorilla ??
One day, Joe saw Doug thumping my chest and laying into me. Joe SLAMMED Doug against the wall, and said "Cut it out ! He's a really good guy !!!"
And that was that.
Doug ... may well have been a textbook thug, but ... if you didn't know him ... Joe looked like your textbook arrogant jock bully.
I was never so glad to have been so wrong in my life.
I need to find Joe, and just send him a 33 year overdue thanks ;-)