Bullies: I know who You Are

You don’t like yourself, even though this is not obvious to you. You think that it’s others who don’t come up to the mark, who are inadequate. This is called projection and is a common psychological phenomenon used by humans to protect their sense of self. We ‘project’ what we don’t like about ourselves onto others, like a movie projector. Your sense of self (what we call ego strength) is very fragile and you are easily offended because your anxiety about being found out is very close to the surface.

You’re not aware of your deep-seated anger, your resentment. It drives much of what you do and has shaped your personality. You may overtly display your anger towards others although this is more common in young people. As an adult you have learned that this meets with disapproval from others and can get you in hot water. However, you may still try and run cyclists off the road or display your aggression inappropriately on the sports field. Hurting others helps release your anger and makes you feel better.

Mostly, though, you are much more subtle at putting people down with the well-placed cutting phrase, dismissive guesture, reputation eroding gossip, passive-aggressive behaviour, and manipulation. Many of you like to control others, which may be quite overt or very subtle. You may even quietly suggest that others like what you like, insist that your partner wears what you want, and for them to behave in particular ways. You force them into an image of yourself: it makes you feel better about yourself.

As well as often being a good manipulator one of your other skills is working out who are vulnerable people and singling them out. Even more astounding is your ability to work out what sorts of things will hurt each person you find to pick on. You’ve learned these skills over a long period of time, maybe from childhood.

You have very little empathy towards others. You don’t feel what others feel and therefore don’t really care if someone is sad, intimidated, hurting. You think you do but this is an act to yourself and the outside world-its what you think should be felt but you don’t really know the emotion at all. You think that people get what they deserve and that’s your rationale for bullying, intimidating and controlling others. If they can’t fight back then why should you worry? Survival of the fittest is your mantra.

One way of catching you out is to criticize you in some small way and watch your reaction. You often have more than your fair share of narcissism. Criticism strikes at the heart of how you feel about yourself. Your ego is so fragile that any criticism reminds you of how much you despise yourself.

You may eventually obtain insight into your behaviour and then change. This may be brought about as you come to understand that you behaviour is hurting yourself as much as others. You may work out that it is more rewarding to be nice to people, although it can be a hard road learning these skills. It can take years for you to heal yourself. Along the way it has probably taken a lot of brave people to stand up to you, to expose you and refuse to allow you to undermine them. People who have a stronger sense of self, an ability to like themselves, to be satisfied with who they are. You yearn to be like them but don’t consciously know this. Instead you avoid them until you can ignore them no longer.

There are not many aging bullies, which gives some support for the capacity of humans to learn.