Commentary from April 14, 2017
This week’s strip is about bullying. It’s amazing how people, through the miracle of cognitive dissonance, conveniently forget the horrible things they’ve said or done or see them in a way that highlights a perceived weakness of the victim. And if you’re the victim, who had been in these threatening situations loathing every moment of it, who suffered through it all, there is simply no justice in it. We live in an era where you can deny your own faults and actions, dismiss them as jokes or locker room talk.
Regardless, these things can cause real and long-lasting harm. They cause victims to live a life that has a baseline level of paranoia, a lack of trust, and an active avoidance of situations that remind them of the original event. What makes this even worse is the denial of cupability when these things are brought up. They try to gaslight the victim by making those past frightening events into something less threatening, and then blame the victim for exaggerating the situation. This is a double-victimization.
All of this applies especially so to survivors of sexual assault. Originally the strip was going to be specifically about that but in the writing stage the dialogue got more generalized so it became about bullying in general. That’s why this particular character appears in the strip, but I still want to talk about the connections between sexual assault and mental health in future strips.
Regardless, these things can cause real and long-lasting harm. They cause victims to live a life that has a baseline level of paranoia, a lack of trust, and an active avoidance of situations that remind them of the original event. What makes this even worse is the denial of cupability when these things are brought up. They try to gaslight the victim by making those past frightening events into something less threatening, and then blame the victim for exaggerating the situation. This is a double-victimization.
All of this applies especially so to survivors of sexual assault. Originally the strip was going to be specifically about that but in the writing stage the dialogue got more generalized so it became about bullying in general. That’s why this particular character appears in the strip, but I still want to talk about the connections between sexual assault and mental health in future strips.
That’s why I ultimately burned all my bridges.
it’s not called “social MURDER” for no reason…
Every damn day when I was in high school. I mostly got the “it’s just a joke” and “You have no sense of humor”. Where is that life erase button? Or at least something to erase bad memories.
I hate “joke” argument. I hear it from every person when I say I don’t like what they are talking about me. My grandma, shop assistant, sometimes other family members [they call it “teasing”, even with people strange for me]…And later they make me into unfunny one, because I defend myself :/.
Microaggressions, bullying, and gaslighting. All popular abuse tactics, especially against the mentally ill.
<3
good comic. difficult to read, but that’s always the game with the *really* great art, is it not?
Got this treatment from my father all during my childhood and even into adulthood. Psychopaths suck.
My dad is a chronic complainer. Nothing anyone ever does is good enough to suit him. If he can’t readily find something wrong in the room he’s in, he wanders around the house looking for things to complain about.
The last couple of years I lived there I started deliberately putting things out of place so that I would have some idea what he would complain about next. It gave me a measure of control.
Glen, You described my mum. She will use insults and later will defend it as “hard love tactic” and later forgets about it. Or skip defending and straight forgets about it.
It is gaslighting, as well as the “Just Joking” justification, which has been used by every bully across the centuries. It’s even mentioned in the Bible (Proverbs 26: 18-19 Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”) These nasty little psychological tricks have made the lives of countless victims an absolute living hell.
TL,DR: Bullies suck.
I have no words for this. People don’t know the harm they do.
They know EXACTLY the harm they’re doing. They’re doing it on purpose. Their excuses are nothing more than a way to avoid consequences, but it’s bullshit. They know they’re causing harm, they’re doing it to cause harm, do not ever let them convince you otherwise.
Source: I used to be one of them.
The thing is…they really believe that they weren’t doing anything bad. Because they just passed a boring few minutes in study hall getting a rise out of the girl in the front row who nobody liked, no big deal, everybody does it, less likely to get you in trouble than picking your nose, amirite? The idea that they and their 47 classmates in homeroom and the library and study hall and the lunchroom and the halls and the bus line and on the sidewalk when you tried walking home instead were slowly driving you to the edge of suicide–oh, that’s just silly talk. It was all so long ago.
Some days I feel like looking up the addresses of the people who did the worst things and sending them the bill for the treatments I had to undergo so that my PTSD wouldn’t render me completely unable to live. But they would have no clue what I was talking about. It was just a little fun. Most of them don’t even remember my name, I’m sure.
I met a few of my tschool ormentors when I was in my 20s. They wanted to reminisce with me about “The fun we had” when I made it clear that they had pretty solidly wrecked my childhood I was told, (We were just kids having fun, we had a great time” I had been good in class, and another one tried to tell me I was the kid who”wrote all the answers on my arm” since nobody really STUDIED. These were the same people who beat me up because I liked to READ.
I was beaten so badly I had to quit school in eighth grade. I was beaten literally every day if I wasn’t fast enough.
One of ’em tried to introduce me to his girlfriend as the smartest girl in his old school. And I just looked at him and thought, “You and your power to rewrite reality to make you look good can go to hell. May you remember this moment when you have children in school and hate yourself.”
How i remember them talking: I shoot babies
How they remember talking: I shoot puppies
Not helping your case random floating voice boxes. Both versions are assholes. That isn’t even depression tainting it that’s you were a complete asshole then and now you are still an asshole and refuse to acknowledge you’re own assholery which in my personal opinion makes you even more insane than the joker because at least he knows he’s crazy you can’t recognize your own shitty behavior. “Just because my son stabbed you and stole your money doesn’t make him a bad person.” Yes, yes it really does. Denial doesn’t change the facts.
Yes yes yes… And even quite small children can do this. Parents do this to their children as well.
I did use to wonder if my bullies understood at all how it felt. Some arseholes even knew a thing or two about my difficult situation at home and would shout what they knew at me, sneering. They also bullied some other kids who for example had terminal illness in the family! What the hell?!
I don’t know how some people claim that being bullied made them “strong”. Maybe it’s just me but it made me terrified of most social situations, walking past groups of people etc, and only well into adulthood I started growing free of the non-stop anxiety. It’s not the bullying but the healing process that makes one stronger, but it’s not obvious that you get to heal.
People with total recall find it difficult to maintain relationships because they remember every hurtful thing that everyone has ever done to them in complete detail. I suspect that’s why most people’s memories are imperfect. It’s very difficult to forgive when you can’t forget.
I dunno. My memory is ridiculously good. But my default is forgiveness… partly because crazy amounts of empathy and pretty intimate knowledge of my own fuckups. I don’t forget, but I can… accept, and understand. Maybe it’s not 100% forgiveness.
Of course, the folks I do not forgive? Can die in a fire. It takes work to get there with me, and confirmation.
I also remember all the good times. And… I spotted when my friends, in grief, started gaslighting me, saying I’d become “too negative”… and they had chosen not to tell me for months. What they *may* have meant was “stop talking about politics on facebook, because reality sucks and being reminded of it is more than we can bear.” Despite much communication being in text form, they couldn’t give any actual examples. I know they’re mouring the pending loss of one’s mother to cancer. The woman hates me, and has given up on treatment (the prognosis was horrible anyway) and none of them are dealing with it. Also, they let slip a couple times that they felt offended when they’d share their pain, and I’d share mine, like I was trying to 1-up them. Instead of sharing, backing each other up, and moving on to more pleasant things. Like… they were good friends if they didn’t have any problems of their own. But if they did? They weren’t going to talk anything out to keep stuff from festering… and I wasn’t allowed to continue to give updates on my own fight because their pain was more important.
I’d have died without them in my life, once. I hope they grow out of this shit. I doubt it. I think they’re probably going to hurt and lash out and avoid getting help… because they’ve been doing that for years.
Sometimes, remembering (well, most things. I do not remember all things, not all at once.) gives a greater context… so you know when to let go.
“You’ll look back on this and laugh.”
That’s what the bully told me in high school, over 30 years ago.
I didn’t laugh about it then. I’m not laughing about it now. Four years of psychological torment was enough to break me to the point where I honestly feel that I have nothing of worth to contribute to society — and that feeling has persisted to this day. The damage is irreparable.
OH my god…………this is so perfect to read as I’m contemplating attending my first high school reunion (Didn’t even consider the first one, briefly considered the second but soon decided I couldn’t face it.) While I have no significant other or anything, I invited a friend to come with me who I FULLY plan to introduce as a friend I brought “just in case y’all still sucked and I needed someone cool to talk to!” And while thinking that I imagined after XX years then yes, they’re probably not going to remember it as ‘we all sucked! It’s true!’ but I think it’s easier to forget/gloss over/etc on the giving end. It doesn’t continue to affect your life. It continued to affect mine…