How Do I Deal With Bullies as an Adult?

In my line of work, I hear a lot of stories about people being bullied during their childhood and teen years.  I consider it an honour to help people heal from past bullying along with the long-lasting effects it has played in their lives.

However, our experience of being bullied often doesn’t stop when we grow older: people often come to therapy in order to deal with being on the receiving end of bullies in their adult lives. Adult bullies come in the form of bosses, coworkers, significant others and family members. 

In short, we all need to learn to deal with bullies at some point in our lives.  Ideally, we would be taught this at a young age so that we would be equipped to deal with bullies as adults. But in case you didn’t learn the skills when you were younger, I will share these with you now so you can put an end to being bullied once and for all.

What is Adult Bullying?

I like how bullying is defined from the following article, Adult Bullying Is a Thing, Too:

Curiously, while adult bullying is fairly common (some studies say it’s as common as childhood bullying), it doesn’t make its way into our conversations as frequently as childhood and adolescent bullying. Furthermore, there are more online resources when it comes to childhood bullying. While there is research on adult bullying that mostly focuses on bullying in the workplace and higher education, it’s not something that we often talk about. Why isn’t adult bullying more a part of our casual conversations?

Because adult bullying is often sneakier and more masked, the person being bullied carries shame and self-doubt—wondering if it’s all “in their head” and they are misinterpreting what is happening. Furthermore, the person getting bullied may likely be worried about real-life outcomes that can have long-ranging and devastating effects — loss of their job, relationships, or reputation. Because of this, adult bullying feels taboo and carries more weight.

How do I Know if I am Being Bullied?

Here are five common tactics bullies use to extort undue influence and power from Preston Ni, with references from his books: How to Handle Aggressive, Intimidating, and Controlling People and How to Communicate Effectively and Handle Difficult People. A bully may utilize one or more of the following methods to inflict harm, while deriving pleasure from the suffering of the victim.

1. Physical bullying. This refers to the use of physical intimidation, threat, harassment, and/or harm. Examples of physical bullying include physical attack, simulated violence (such as raising a fist as if to strike, or throwing objects near a person), extortion, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment at work, personal space violation, physical space entrapment, physical size domination, and numerical domination (ganging up on a victim).

2. Tangible/material bullying. Using one’s formal power (i.e. title or position) or material leverage (i.e. financial, informational, or legal) as forms of intimidation, threat, harassment, and/or harm. In these scenarios, the bully uses his or her advantage in stature and/or resources to dominate and control the victim.

3. Verbal bullying. Threats; shaming; hostile teasing; insults; constant negative judgment and criticism; or racist, sexist, or homophobic language.

4. Passive-aggressive or covert bullying. This is a less frequently mentioned form of bullying, but in some ways it’s the most insidious. With many bullies, you can see them coming because they are quick to make their intimidating presence known. A passive-aggressive or covert bully, however, behaves appropriately on the surface, but takes you down with subtlety.

Examples of passive-aggressive and covert bullying include negative gossip, negative joking at someone’s expense, sarcasm, condescending eye contact, facial expression or gestures, mimicking to ridicule, deliberately causing embarrassment and insecurity, the invisible treatment, social exclusion, professional isolation, and deliberately sabotaging someone’s well-being, happiness, and success.

5. Cyberbullying. Many types of tangible, verbal, and passive-aggressive behavior mentioned above can be conveyed online via social media, texting, video, email, on-line discussion, and other digital formats. Identity theft is also a form of cyberbullying.

Top Tips for Handling a Bully

Here are some great tips on handling a bully from this article:

Separate yourself from the bully

As an adult, you have a lot more control over the situation than you did when you were a kid. You may not be able to “tell the teacher,” but you also can choose how you spend your time. You’re not necessarily stuck with them as you might have been in a school situation. If you aren’t looking for any kind of confrontation, Gil recommends some simple “avoidance strategies”:

Avoidance strategies can be as simple as upping the privacy on your social media, ensuring you’re not alone around the bully, or devising an escape plan should the bully try to corner you. While the passive approach may not be the most popular one, it may be the only course of action for some people who feel that they cannot address the bullying directly.

You can also ask your boss to move your desk, or be taken off of their project. Generally speaking, if an opportunity arises for you to get away from them, take it. It won’t work every time, but if nothing else, it’s a start.

Stop playing the victim

This tactic is an oldie, but a goodie: stop playing their victim. The bully singled you out because they see you as weak and vulnerable. As Gil explains, they look for someone with some kind of trait that they can exploit:

Bullies might go after the “short” girl, “fat” guy, “ugly” kid, etc. because they feel they can target the person in the area where they are the most insecure. Some bullies will target someone who they perceive to be an “alpha” (e.g. the popular girl, the good-looking guy, etc.) to boost their ego. This strategy serves a social purpose in that the bully is trying to establish power so nobody else will try to push them around.

Bullies are looking for people that are willing to submit to their power play. If you make it look like the bully’s actions and words don’t affect you, it ruins it for them. Try to keep your ego in check and let it all roll over you. For example:

• If someone keeps making jokes at your expense, laugh along with them.
• If someone makes sarcastic, fake compliments, thank them.
• When someone says something rude, pretend that you didn’t hear them.
• If someone harps on the same mistake or accident you made, tell them that you don’t care about that anymore.
• Keep your cool if you do anything embarrassing so you don’t give them any fuel.

When you stop being a victim, each of the bully’s attempts becomes embarrassing for them, not you. Remember, most bullies just want to get a rise out of you so they feel like they have control. The less subtle and more aggressive they are, the easier they are to deal with. Label them as a bully in your mind and consciously avoid their bait. They might be aggressive, but they’re probably lazy as well, so they’ll eventually lose interest and look for a “weaker” target.

Take a stand

For some bullies, a little more force might be needed. If a bully keeps pushing you despite your other efforts, you need to push back. Not physically, of course, but verbally. If there’s one thing that bullies hate more than someone shrugging off their flak, it’s someone standing up to them. Gil suggests the best way to do that is to point out their behavior:

Assuming the bully is nonviolent and unlikely to find some other way to harm you, confronting them by pointing out that their behavior is bullying is sometimes a good start. Avoid provoking them but, at the same time, question their motives and what purpose going after someone who has done them no wrong serves them. This shows that you’re not afraid to call them out and, if necessary, put them on the defensive.

Tell someone who can help

Despite your best efforts, some bullies just won’t go down easily. When things have gone too far and you can’t seem to get them off of your back, it’s time to send in the big guns. As Gil explains, your safety should be your number one concern. Don’t let your pride prevent you from getting the help and protection you deserve, especially, as Gil notes, if things are escalating to dangerous levels:

It goes without saying that any perceived physical threat should be handled with the assistance of local law enforcement or other community resource. Some bullies are dangerous and may need legal interventions (e.g. restraining order, police report, etc.) to reduce the risk of harm.

This goes for bullies in the workplace too. You do not have to tolerate a toxic work environment, so reach out to the people who are specifically there to help in these situations:

If the bullying happens on the job, many human resource departments have policies to address workplace bullying as well. The most obvious way to deal with a bully is to take a stand against them but this isn’t always feasible (in the traditional sense) if the bully is your manager at work. Again, contacting HR after documenting the instances of bullying and following company policies to address the situation is key (I’ve found that using the term “hostile work environment” will often get HR to pursue your complaint fairly quickly… at least here in the U.S.).

So if you find yourself with a bully as an adult, know that you have several tools and strategies that can help: you don’t have to sit there and take it.

Or check out my blog posts on healthy relationships

 

How to end Toxic Relationship Patterns and Attract the Fabulous Partner you Deserve

 

Healthy Relationships Podcasts