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The Bully - acceptable or not?
By Roger Kingston of Baby Osteopath
Standing up to a Bully At the age of 46 and being a strapping six footer I would have though that the days of being bullied were over with the exception of the tax man and bank manager. So to find myself loosing weight, being frightened of my own shadow and feeling worthless because of the actions of another not involving violence but one of ignorant disrespect. Imagine my background, English public school, where a bully was classified as someone older and physically larger than you and that it was of a physical violent nature. The concept of psychological or humiliation or even disrespect as being bullying was laughed at. Yet the resident school psychopath was a year younger than me - big problem he couldn’t be classified as a bully yet he had the whole school terrified of him. Those younger hero worshipped him because he was clever enough to terrorise those older than him. Many years later on meeting up with old school friends the topic of conversation usually turned to this individual very quickly. His supposed friends admitted that their friendship was based on fear and self preservation, the old saying of keep your friends close and your enemies closer. They had all gladly lost contact with him since leaving school and had recently started to reconnect with one another on Facebook. One commented that he had seen “MrX” recently! The replies followed in quick succession all asking “where is he?”, “what is he doing?”, “what did he say?”, “has he changed much?”. All really saying “does he live anywhere near me and how do I avoid him?” So recently I found myself facing all those old feelings that I had experienced years ago and hoped I would never face again. I now consider my gut feelings about someone to be a very accurate indicator and the 2 occasions I had come across this character I had felt sick. In a voluntary capacity, with my children’s sports club, I became an assistant coach. The senior coach was a very experienced and respected individual, though quiet and gentle, the second assistant turned out to be my nemesis. On the very first session with our new cohort he took immediate control and effectively pushed both myself and the coach to the sidelines. We both were so horrified and upset that we literally froze. Within weeks we both became surplus to requirement and had to go looking for a role for ourselves to maintain our own dignity. I found a niche within the group where I could ignore him and hope to ride out a bad situation but the head coach tried to confront him and was abused verbally in front of the children and their parents. With this the coach walked away and resigned, forced out after 30 years of exemplary service to the club.I was asked by the coach to stay on and try to keep the group together. Faced with having been sidelined and humiliated, my elderly friend reduced to tears, I should have confronted this bully and “had it out with him”, that is what a gentleman would have done and only a coward would have walked away. Oh how my “old school” and the traditions of old England screwed with my brain. But walk away I did without confronting him, though I did have a quiet word with the club chairman who promised to look into it. Suffice it to say nothing was done, the bully had had the same effect upon a whole club and those in charge were too scared to confront an unpleasant situation. No one wanted to deal with unpleasantness and frankly I understand it. So I continued, ignoring the said individual, hoping the situation would rectify. As others became aware that the coach was no longer there questions were asked and I discovered a deep anger amongst many of the parents and many asked me to “deal with it”. So the coward, too scared to stand up for what was right made himself ill with worry and self loathing. Surely as a gentleman you should stand up and be counted and to confront a situation that was just plain wrong. But as the fear and self doubt confronted me I became sicker and only then did I start to ask for advice from my friends. Firstly I had 3 options: 1: I could ignore the situation and pretend it was not happening.
2: I could walk away and wash my hands of the situation.
3: I could confront the issue directly. Also the whole concept of being bullied in any form, physical, verbal, disrespectful behavior, intimidation is now totally unacceptable in modern civilised society. The concept of who can be bully has also changed dramatically and that a teenager can now bully a parent. Its more about what is considered acceptable behavior. The concept of cowardice has also changed and being shot at dawn is not really an option anymore. No one has the right to intimidate or deliberately belittle another human being. Why should the victim, even a big six footer, have to respond and confront such behavior? For too long has society’s unwritten laws of male behavior ruined the lives of the victim and thankfully these days society and in particular sporting clubs and organisations have rules about respect. In studying the rules of my club I found a clause relating to a grievance officer as being someone I could go to. On talking to him I found that the club had clearly documented minimal standards of expected behavior between coaches and a clear line of command and respect of office. Also that my feeling of being at my limit was not uncommon and was considered by the club to be unacceptable consequence of what had transpired. An investigation would be undertaken with my identity being kept anonymous and appropriate action taken if need be but from what I had described it was totally unacceptable. So I find myself feeling somewhat numb I am certain I have taken the intelligent course of action. I find it hard to deal with the fact that I haven’t confronted him directly. But why provoke a bully into further action? Why risk a violent encounter? Why open yourself to consequences? I shall struggle with this issue for some time now. I hope that sense will prevail and that he is told that his behavior is unacceptable and he be asked to leave. Should any of this fail I shall take option 2 and withdraw from the situation and go to a place where my expected standards are observed. A difficult one! |
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