Confrontation

I hate confrontation of any kind. I fear the worst. Believe the worst and that I will be on the bottom once it is over. I feel so powerless and victimized by it. Because I do poorly at setting and holding a boundary, I learned that it is better for me to just take the bullying and to keep the peace, at any price! However, that price comes at a very high cost to my sense of well-being, my health: emotional, spiritual, physical and mental. It is a beat down for me.

Bullying is not about “might makes right;” it is really might makes fright. Creating a sense of fear to control someone else to do their bidding as that is their best way they believe to get compliance, exact compliance. Growing in a place where survival is the focus, it continues on into adulthood in how to cope. We learn that peace at any price thing out of fear. I shrink to being a little kid again under those bullying dictates. No power, no difference, no chance.

When I have been in a situation where I feel like a ping pong ball between two other people, it is a frustrating position to be in. I have decided awhile back that I am taking me out of that no-win equation the best I can. Both sides apparently do not like that and have indicated that loud and clear. That price has cost me a lot and dearly.

Being conditioned with PTSD early in life, being in a current situation of bullying has reactivated that PTSD. I dip back into that deep kind of survival and fear.

In my family, which parent was the loudest or more dramatic, won. In Eric Berne’s book, “Games People Play” from the 1970s, listed a lot of games people play. My parents’ favorite? Courtroom. Courtroom is when the two main players demand the bit players to choose sides. Whoever got the most to take their side, won. Because we were comprised of five people, someone always won, no ties. After getting caught up in that, someway, somehow, I figured out how to cope with that. I went to my room, not voting or siding with anyone.

This time, now that I am processing the dynamics, there is familiarity. Not playing has its price, too. This can turn the tables to making the bullying person uncomfortable. How can the person who is affirming a boundary not get caught up in being a bully back? How can we not raise our voice decibel by decibel to get the other person to hear us without becoming more overbearing or us shutting down? How do we keep our integrity and sanity? How do we know if when we stand up for ourselves that the other person won’t escalate into violence?

I realize from the bully perspective, it is about control and perceived loss of power and place. They do not see that when that kind of behavior occurs, it is showing us and the others around them what is really going on. No trust, no integrity, no peace, no compassion or empathy, no willingness to resolve anything except the “my way or the highway” process. By wanting to control their external world, it is showing us how out of control they are in their internal world and that fear has a hold of them in a tight grip.

No perfect answers here. Could be more suppositions. Maybe, just maybe, it is a sign to become more proactive to make other plans.