These are bullish times for adult bullies
My bully radar developed fairly early in life. In junior high, I got caught in the crosshairs of Roderick. He would routinely tease me, then took it a step further. I remember the day, during a class trip to the opera, when he stood next to me, positioned one arm in front of me and one behind me, then smacked me in the chest and the back so hard it made feathers fly out of my down jacket.
I tried moving away from him, but he followed. Then I tried rolling my eyes, as if I didn’t care. After the third or fourth assault, I started to tear up. An observant classmate watched the entire episode and went to find his father, a parent chaperone on the trip. Mr. Esclamado came to my rescue, positioning himself between me and Roderick for the rest of the trip.
Roderick was always getting into trouble. He didn’t return to school the following year, and I’ve always wondered what happened to him. He taught me to stay on the lookout for bullies and sparked my instinct to support those who become their targets.
Most children outgrow bullying behavior, learn how to manage aggressive behavior and engage with peers. But when those lessons aren’t learned, it’s generally because those people have what Bill Eddy calls “high-conflict personalities.”
Meet the adult bully. These are the people who blame others for everything and never look within. They think in all or nothing terms: win or lose, friend or foe, hero or villain. They have extreme emotional reactions that can range from aggressive talk to physically hurting their targets.
I bring this up now because these are bullish times for adult bullies.
Weak social relationships, disconnected families and reliance on technology have given bullies an advantage in recent decades.
A scroll through social media shows how our ability to relate to one another has declined. It’s hard to read some of the things people are bold enough to write online. We are living in a moment when everything is a polarizing topic. As the presidential election draws nearer, this will only get worse.
You’ve likely run into someone who fits the description of an adult bully. These are people we encounter at work, in our communities or families.
Eddy, a therapist, co-founder of High Conflict Institute and author of “Our New World of Adult Bullies,” estimates adult bullies make up 5 to 10% of the population.
He was surprised so many of them have found support groups online. “In the past they would have felt isolated by their families and communities,” he said. “Now they find each other and reinforce their negative thinking and bad behavior and try to impress each other.”
“Seeing so many images of bullying in the news, in movies and on social media, may be entertaining at one level, but it’s training at another level and increases the likelihood people with bullying tendencies will copy this behavior,” Eddy said. “Especially for young people, it starts seeming like the new normal. For people who are potential bullies, it gives them permission.”
They may look different but bullies have the same personality traits and predictable patterns of behaviors. They don’t or won’t stop themselves from trying to intimidate people, so it is up to others to take them down.
“Bullies catch us by surprise. Most people can be rational most of the time and we think they made a mistake,” said Eddy. “It also takes a lot of energy to challenge a difficult person, so there is a fair amount of wishful thinking that the person will stop so we don’t have to deal with them.”
Bullies trigger our primitive responses, leaving us unsure why we react to them the way we do.
They rally supporters to spread lies until the false information they’re sharing seems true and seek out advocates to defend their bad behavior.
Bullies always play the victim and desperately want to be leaders. It’s useless to tell a bully they are a bully.
Eddy says to stop them we cannot tolerate their behavior. We should avoid them entirely or set boundaries if we can’t remove them from our lives. The worst thing a bully can feel is a loss of power. So if we can’t rid the world of bullies, we can at least expose them.
Eddy suggests we might even practice having empathy for them. I’m not there just yet, but unlike bullies, I am open to changing.
Nedra Rhone is a lifestyle columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
