Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2014-02-08 03:39 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-02-08 03:39 pm
[ SECRET POST #2594 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2594 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 094 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Bullying
A lot of my elementary school bullying was part bullying, part me just lashing out violently. This was the kind of anti-authority, anti-tattletale place that resulted in most of this going completely under the radar. Most of my violence was directed at people - boys, really - who were violent right back, so most of that I wouldn't even call bullying, just kids fighting. I fought a lot (grade school Fight Club FTW), and most of it was fun. Along with this was a lot of teasing and ribbing and jabbing at sensitive topics with a pointy stick, and most of that took it in stride as bonding-slash-character building. Even though I was a tiny little girl among groups of larger boys, more often than not I was the "alpha dog" or one in charge, or pretty close to the top of the social hierarchy.
The problem was that at time, I couldn't always tell who actually took in stride and who was pretending to. Looking back, I realize that some of the kids I was a dick to weren't dicks right back at me, and were often rather timid. Because I was quiet at times, I often assumed they were just the quiet types, too, but now I'm pretty sure that for a lot of them, I was the stereotypical schoolyard bully. And even later when I knew that not everyone took insults to their person as an intellectual challenge of wits, but that many people took them personally and seriously...it still didn't occur to me that some of those people were the ones I was insulting or making fun of. I took most insults as a challenge to be met, not a criticism to internalize, and it wasn't until much later that I realized that for most girls - and possibly people in general - it was the other way around.
In middle school I mellowed out. I would like to say it's because I grew up, but in reality it's because there wasn't much hanging out in the schoolyard and fighting - my social groups largely hung out in a "sit/stand around, chill and shoot the breeze" kind of way. Lot less aggression led to the fact our conversation were directly/obviously challenges of wit, little to no personal insults that weren't basically Yo Mamma jokes, and no reason to fight physically. Unfortunately, I was a rather oblivious human being and a little less confrontational, so I ignored most bullying around (I did step in, but not until late in my time at middle school).
High school was...well, a lot of attempts at bullying. Much of it went right over my head, but I got a lot of it directly, too. Some of it had to do with me being bisexual, but surprisingly little, in the end. A lot of it was just my personality - while it was less violent, I was back to be much more confrontational, as much as I was in elementary school if not more so. I also was apathetic about my appearance (didn't wear make-up, mostly just focused on my clothes being presentable and school appropriate, lots of baggy clothing), and that led to a lot of passive-aggressive bullying and some cyber-bullying (not much, as this was after I left MySpace but before I got onto Facebook). A later problem was that people tried to start a lot of strange rumors about me (four separate pregnancy rumors in one year). The only reason none of these gained any traction was because I was already blooming into my troll-ish personality, and people knew I sometimes said ridiculous or stupid shit just to mess with them, so a lot of people assumed that if I didn't start a rumor, then I was probably encouraging it. I occasionally did, but not nearly as much as people assumed (however, this was not an assumption I fought hard to correct). I only got into a physical confrontation once, an assault that was barely half of one.
And a lot of the confrontational problems were...not racially charged, but racially aligned. The more open bullying and disagreements or outright fighting were with other non-white girls, and those were more harrowing. The catch was that because it was more open, we could talk about, so it was much easier to just eventually either resolve the problem or at least mutually agree to leave each other alone. White girls, on the other hand, bought much more deeply into the cultural "nice girl" complex, which means no one would ever admit there was a problem in the first place, so it was extremely difficult for anyone to ever "settle" anything, whether it be by actually resolving the initial problem to just agreeing to a proverbial armistice.
To this day, one girl who I got along with just fine suddenly hated me, and I have no idea what provoked it. The fact that I don't know why still bothers me, even over half a decade later.
Honestly, though, most of that bullying tapered off halfway through high school. Mostly, by then people knew not to mess with me - not because of physical violence, but because I was good at messing with them right back, usually on-the-spot. And, most of the really, really immature people who descended into bullying in the first place were held back, or were in lower-level classes while I was going more and more into Honors and AP classes.
Re: Bullying
When I was a bully, I think I was looking for a reaction a lot, and definitely some of the people who bullied me were doing so out of the hopes of getting a rise out of me. So if the bullying is not too severe, then ignore the bullying. There will be a period of the bullying suddenly and sharply increasing, but often, if you can withstand that, then the bullying dies down because you become "boring".
If it's at school and ignoring them does not work, then start by telling a shared teacher or disciplinary dean about the problem. If they do nothing, go above their heads - take it to the principle, a district head, or even a PTA/community meeting. Kick up a fuss about the fact there is a bullying problem in your environment and no one is addressing it. (Hell, even threatening to do this can get a teacher or principal's attention - sad but true). If you know other victims, find them and try to organize to address a teacher, dean, or principal all at once.
If it's a workplace environment, similar situation - start with a supervisor, then boss and/or owner, and work your way up. Kick up a fuss. This kind of negative attention is the last thing anyone wants. If it's cyberbullying in an office environment, take the problem to HR or tech support, and parse it as a severe misuse of company materials/property that is creating a hostile and unproductive work environment - that kind of phrasing gets people's attention (sometimes, anyway).
In both cases (but especially if it's a workplace environment), do NOT threaten to go to the newspapers or media, at least not at the first few levels. That's likely to get you expelled or fired, so that if/when you do go to the media, you end up looking like you're bitter over being forced to leave instead of having legitimate concerns about the environment you were in.