Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Bullying

[Kathleen Lowry (kathleenlowrylpcclmft]

As they say “Denial” is not a river in Egypt. :) we’re invested in our coping 
mechanisms. 

> On Aug 6, 2022, at 11:08 AM, Darien Payne <darien [at] cruzio.com> wrote:
> 
> Observing my small flock of chickens, it seemed to me that we humans have 
> much in common with them.
> One dominant chicken would bully/terrorize others just because she could. The 
> hesitant and meekest hens were bullied most and reacted the most fearfully 
> just being close to the “alpha” hen. Occasionally one of the other hens would 
> come to the aid of the bullied one, and briefly attack the bully. Bullying 
> seemed to be about claiming status, and what reduced it was standing up to it.
> 
> I have seen similar behavior in human groups, in graduate school, in 
> workplaces, and in voluntary associations. Sometimes we don’t recognize the 
> bullying behavior at first. It might start by charismatic and popular person. 
> Sometimes I have been so astounded by it I haven’t been able to react in the 
> moment, but only after contemplating what happened.
> 
> What I have seen work best to counter group bullying (as adults) is 
> practicing compassionate communication principles. But it took much coaching 
> for all to see the destructive patterns, which returned shortly after the 
> coaching ended. It seems to take a few confident and observant individuals to 
> calmly describe what they observe, and persist in insisting the bullying 
> behavior stop. 
> 
> Perhaps the “enablers” are aligning with the bully to align with what the 
> perceive as the higher status individual.
> 
> D. Payne
> 
>> On Aug 6, 2022, at 6:58 AM, Kathleen Lowry <kathleenlowrylpcclmft [at] 
>> gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> As a therapist I often am helping the “victim” themselves understand they 
>> feel bad because they allow themselves to be bullied.
>> As a parent at a small public charter school, talking to the parents of the 
>> bully didn’t work, asking a group of parents of “victims” to talk to the 
>> parents didn’t work, the school intervention didn’t work. What finally 
>> worked was teaching my daughter to shove me up against a wall -she never 
>> actually had to do it to the bully-and the bullying stopped. My daughter 
>> needed permission and skills to change her energy I guess. 
>> 
>>>> On Aug 6, 2022, at 8:40 AM, Diana Leafe Christian <diana [at] ic.org> 
>>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello Alan and all,
>>> 
>>> I appreciate these observations as they're what I've observed too. It's 
>>> common for enablers — usually conflict-averse, fairly insecure people 
>>> (usually women rather than men) — attempt to minimize, discount, or deflect 
>>> attention away from  bullying behaviors by implying that there's something 
>>> wrong with you if you want to address the serious issue of bullying. This 
>>> minimizing and deflection helps keeps the bullying in place in the 
>>> community. It doesn't get addressed at all but continues on, year after 
>>> year. The way I see it, there are two equivalent factors to bullying in 
>>> community: one is the bullying behavior and the other, equally harmful 
>>> factor, are those who offer New Agey, pop-psychology, or 
>>> communities-movement platitudes to induce us to ignore it. Pure 
>>> manipulation, and, as Alan says, it's gaslighting:
>>> 
>>>    "Everybody has a bad day sometime."
>>>    "How can you say that? Don't you have any compassion? He's not a bad 
>>> person!"
>>>    "Give him a break; we're all only human."
>>>    "Why are you trying to stir up trouble? Why are you trying to create 
>>> community conflict?"
>>>    "Why can't we all just get along?"
>>> 
>>> I also totally agree with Alan that bullies tend to target meeker community 
>>> members, mostly women. I think it's not quite misogyny, however, as most of 
>>> the community bullies I've seen or been told about by other community 
>>> members are women, who. And they also target other women in the community, 
>>> especially those who may be empaths or what some mental health 
>>> professionals call "highly sensitive people."
>>> 
>>> I  these issues in my article series too: gen-us.net/DLC.
>>> 
>>> Alan, I'm glad you addressed this in your book — it's such a needed topic, 
>>> and for many, a community taboo topic.  I just looked up your book on 
>>> Amazon and plan to buy it.
>>> 
>>> We can't get too much good information about what works well when we live 
>>> in community!
>>> 
>>> Diana Leafe Christian
>>> 
>>>> On Aug 6, 2022, at 8:45 AM, Alan O'Hashi via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
>>>> cohousing.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Susan: Bullying stifles participation. We have three/four bullies at our 
>>>> place. They gaslight their social malady as "initiative." Initiative is 
>>>> one thing, but when it evolves into self-interest and hubris because they 
>>>> don't get their way, that's when it becomes bullying. The problem at my 
>>>> place, is the bullies have cronies who are enablers, "Oh, It's not about 
>>>> So-and-So. Let's get back to the issue." My bullies tend to gang up on the 
>>>> same people, who are the meeker community members - mostly women - so 
>>>> misogyny also is at play. One person was so adamant about getting in the 
>>>> last word on an issue, that on the night of the community meeting, they 
>>>> wrote a terse and whiney email threatening not to follow the policy if it 
>>>> was adopted.
>>>> 
>>>> I devote a few chapters of my book to bullying behavior, causes and 
>>>> accountability:https://smile.amazon.com/True-Stories-Aging-Do-Gooder-cohousing-ebook/dp/B08P4WRRG1/
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Alan O
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Alan O'Hashi 
>>>> Donate and get "Beyond Heart Mountain"books and DVDs
>>>> www.beyondheartmountain.com
>>>> www.bouldercomedia.com..303-910-5782....307-316-2113.. 
>>>> 
>>>> On Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 04:16:16 AM MDT, <cohousing-l-request [at] 
>>>> cohousing.org> wrote:  
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>> 
>>>> 1. Bullying (Sue Donaldson)
>>>> 2. Re: Bullying (Kathleen Lowry)
>>>> 3. Diversity Training Package (Crystal Farmer)
>>>> 4. Re: Bullying (Diana Carroll)
>>>> 5. Re: Bullying (Kathleen Lowry)
>>>> 6. Why communications software is important (Sharon Villines)
>>>> 
>>>> 
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