How to Handle Bullying

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People who bully are notorious for targeting those they perceive as “different,” weak, or flawed.

Bullies often lack empathy, showing traits like narcissism and arrogance.

Stay calm and detach emotionally during bullying; this undermines their control tactics.

Share bullying experiences with trusted individuals; keeping them secret fosters shame.

Bullies want you to recognize how powerful they are. Caring people want you to see how powerful you truly are.

Many bullies have an “empathy-deficient disorder" (they are not capable of real empathy) and often show narcissistic, sociopathic, or psychopathic traits. They can be grandiose and arrogant while belittling others’ accomplishments or personal qualities. An ongoing theme in my book, The Genius of Empathy, is valuing your own needs and setting limits with destructive or otherwise hurtful or negligent people.

People who bully are notorious for targeting those they perceive as “different,” weak, or flawed, or unable to stick up for themselves. What do they want? Mainly, to have power over people (since deep down they feel powerless), which they get by denigrating and dehumanizing others.

What Motivates Bullying?

A few factors include fear of people’s differences, unresolved trauma, low self-esteem, a fragile ego, insecurity, and poor parental role modeling. Many bullies get pleasure from being cruel or seeking revenge. Unconsciously, someone who bullies can feel that if they make you wrong, inferior, or "weird," their hatred, anger, and poor treatment of you is justified. Denying your worth and getting their friends to scapegoat you (mob mentality) gives them control over you. Understanding this dynamic never justifies bullying behavior. It simply explains what motivates it and deadens their empathy. In psychiatric circles, this defense mechanism to manage fear and trauma is known as depersonalization, where someone makes another unrelatable or inhuman. To protect your empathy and peace of mind, practice the following seven strategies with bullies.

Tips to Cope With People Who Bully

Tell someone you can trust about the bullying behavior rather than keeping it secret because you’re ashamed. Inform your parents, spouse, good friend, school counselor, or human resources at work who can offer support.

Stop expecting the bully to have empathy for you—most don’t.

Give up trying to figure the bully out. Accept that they are wounded and can do real harm.

Do not react emotionally to the bully’s tactics. They feel powerful by dominating others whom they perceive as weaker. Stay calm. Leave the situation as soon as possible.

If your relative is an emotional bully, sit next to someone else at a family dinner and have minimal contact if they won’t stop.

If the bully is your boss, you may need to discreetly look for a new job.

In instances of physical abuse and bullying, contact law enforcement and secure legal assistance to get a restraining order. Your resolve and refusal to cower helps to undermine a bully’s game.

Take time to have empathy for yourself and the hurt that being bullied has caused you. Assure yourself that you are committed to healing and to practicing self-love. Now and in the future, feel gratitude for the new you who is prepared to never again give your power away to anyone.

How to Handle Bullying

Take our How Well Do You Understand Bullying?

Find a therapist to support kids or teens

Committee on the Biological and Psychosocial Effects of Peer Victimization: Lessons for Bullying Prevention; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Law and Justice; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Health and Medicine Division; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Rivara F, Le Menestrel S, editors. Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2016 Sep 14. 4, Consequences of Bullying Behavior. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/

Catherine Bradshaw, PhD, (2015) Translating Research to Practice in Bullying Prevention, American Psychologist, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0039114.pdf

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