Disclaimer: For those of you who know me and my work around healing from abuse, please note that this blog is not about clinically abusive people (aka narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths). This series on adult bullies is about the other type of difficult people. The average garden-variety type of folks we run into out in the world.
The Different Types of Adult Bullies
This is the second post in a series on adult bullying. If you missed the first one on the topic, you can read it here at The Bitter Bully.
Who are these accusing adult bullies? They are individuals who, for some reason, need you to play the role of scapegoat. The accusing bully doesn’t know the real you. They know their distorted, constructed version of you. The accusing bully has created a false image in their head and since what we think is what we feel, they feel like you deserve their scrutiny. They might snap, be annoyed, and you have no idea why.
Now, we know not everyone is going to think we are fabulous. We sometimes just do not gel with certain personality types and that’s perfectly normal. The accusing bully doesn’t have an actual aversion to you.  They have an aversion to how they see you. That’s the crazy-making part of being the target of an accusing bully.
When this happened to me, I found myself on the receiving end of someone saying that I was going to respond to conflict in a way that is not at all how I handle myself or disagreements. I thought this individual knew me well too so I was taken aback by their perceptions. It caused me to do some immediate soul searching. How do I carry myself in the world that I am perceived in such an incorrect way by this person? Was it incorrect or do I not know myself very well? Am I the type who would react the way this person expected me to? As you can see, the accusing bully can really challenge your views of yourself. At least for those of us who take the time to be self-reflective; in an effort to always be growing as individuals.
After spending time rattling around in my own thoughts, I asked a couple of people who knew me even better than the individual who was accusatory about my responses to conflict. Those closest to me confirmed that I didn’t have some false view of my conflict resolution skills. These conversations helped cement the idea that the accusing bully had their perceptions that had nothing to do with the real me.
Why do some people adopt a distorted view of us and do so on purpose? Yes, I do think the accusing bully chooses to paint an inaccurate picture of our character.
This is especially true if they should know better but still go ahead and scapegoat us. Watching this in my own life and with some of the clients I have worked with as a therapist, I believe that the accusing bully has a need to misunderstand us. Our role as scapegoat somehow works for them. Maybe they want to continue in their own unhealthy behaviors and if we can take some of the responsibility, then less ownership lands on their lap. Perhaps the accusing bully projects their own areas of growth onto us, rather than addressing their limitations. In the case of my accusing bully, I honestly believe that rather than taking a hard look at their own issues of conflict resolution, they projected outward and onto me. Luckily, I was able to catch this tactic and not allow their words to have a lasting impact on my view of myself.
What is the best way to address an accusing bully? You might try pointing out that you don’t see yourself in the way the bully is accusing. It is possible that you are going to get push back and a level of denial from them. If you are not able to openly discuss that you feel scapegoated, you may need to consider distancing yourself from the person. It is very difficult to have any level of authentic relationship with someone who feels the need to create a falsehood about you and then treats you differently because of the lies they have told themselves.
Keep dreaming big!
Shannon
