Hello Anita,

I’m very sorry for the delayed response. I had been having quite a few flashbacks to the incidents which happened back then and was too disoriented to reply back. My low self-esteem and insecurities existed since my childhood, due to being bullied and made an outcast at a young age at school (I’m completely over these incidents btw). But, these issues became severe and new issues were created, when I was subjected to workplace-bullying. Until before joining my job, though I had my insecurities and low self-esteem, I was pretty confident in that I was a decent human being and I never had any doubts about my character and values. But, the bullies made me question my own sanity and my own character. One question which was always in my head – “Am I the bad person here?”.
I think the reason these incidents from 7 years ago are resurfacing again, is because I never got any proper closure. Everybody was pointing fingers at me, so I never had anyone who listened to or understood my side of the story. Also the confidence displayed by my bullies, about being justified in hurting me, about being so sure and convinced that I was the bad person and deserved it, was what made me question my own reality and become smaller in front of them, to the point that I slowly started disappearing even in my own conscious. My perspective disappeared and their perspective took over my conscious. They had a statement which they repeated often, almost like a signature after bullying me, “Does it hurt? That’s how I felt back then”. That confident gaze of theirs, the tone in which they spoke, everything stuck inside my head and my critical brain played it in an unending loop, and now, that’s happening again.
There was another bully Y, who was set out to demonify me in front of everyone I was close to, or getting close to. He wanted to prove to everyone that I was “That kind of person”, though I still don’t know what “kind of person” he wanted to prove me as. He manipulated and created situations where I felt cornered and pressurized to reveal my intentions about people and things. I remember one incident when he demonized me in front of others. There was a colleague(who was not a part of my team) who became my acquaintance through some small talk about breakups( at this point I had broken up with my then bf). She offered me to tag along with her and her friends to speak and vent about our exes, for which I was reluctant to go initially, but my Manager convinced me to go and become more “social”. Bully Y saw that and wanted to prove to her about my “true nature” so he came up with a scheme. I had a good talk with her and her friends and later in the day, all the bullies started questioning me about what we talked about our bfs. I told them that it was just a usual talk where everyone shared their sad experiences. They asked me what I talked about and I said that I didn’t talk much about myself, as the other ladies had much more serious and painful issues with their bfs. The bullies then started twisting my words trying to frame me as someone who felt superior to other ladies because I didn’t have serious problems with my ex-bf(which was entirely the opposite of what I felt about the other ladies btw).
I sensed something wrong and pinged my other female teammate A(the one who recorded me) and asked her if the others are plotting something, and if I needed to be careful about what to say, to which she said no. Though she was also in it together with them, which she later confessed about. I started feeling cornered and anxious again and started loosing my cool and rationality. Now this is where they start manipulating the whole situation and matters start getting worse. They start pressuring me to talk about the other ladies’ stories, and I start feeling that chill down my spine thinking, “It has started again.. they are ganging up on me again.. they are upto something.. I feel cornered and am loosing my rationality.. I am all alone in this again”. I first refuse to talk about any of them and say, “If you are so curious about them, go ask them yourself”. The mini-bullies back-off and I feel relieved for a second. But, the main bully now stands up signalling to someone(I later realize that this person was the lady who invited me to have a chat with her and her friends) and says, “Why are you being so stubborn? It’s not like they can hear us”. Now, I didn’t know that the Lady was sitting right next to my cubicle, and the main bully’s pressure got the best out of me. I shared snippets of their stories with the bullies. I know I was in the wrong for sharing their stories, and I should’ve stood my ground, but I was manipulated and pressured by my bullies into sharing with them. At this point, someone else from my team(I think it was my manager, my memory is not clear about this) asks me what I feel about my ex after listening to their stories and I say, “I now think that my ex was an angel”. I didn’t say this with any negative intention towards the other ladies, I just shared what I felt about my ex, and that too upon being questioned. That Lady has been listening to the whole conversation all the while, and is now angered by my statement about my ex(understandable from her perspective). The main bully gleefully gets up and says, “So your alliance has fallen apart so fast?”. From this point, I became the bad one who felt “superior” to others and gossiped about other colleagues, and my bullies became the “good guys” who revealed about my “true-nature” to others.
I apologize to that Lady immediately and try to explain her that it was never my intention to feel superior to her or to offend her, and she refuses to take my apology. The next day, I take her aside and explain the whole situation about how bully Y plotted all this due some grudges against me and apologize to her again, and this time, she does accept it. Later she goes to bully Y and tells him everything which I told her earlier. Turns out she was also in cahoots with him from the starting. She and the other bullies then come to me and throw their signature dialogue, “Does it hurt?”, smiling gleefully at my tears.
Bully X also played a huge part in eroding my self-esteem as most of the times he was the one who always said, “Does it hurt? That’s how I felt back then”, with a confident, justified gaze and tone. They all loved using false-equivalnces in order to justify their actions towards me, and I was left all confused, hurt and blaming myself for every incident. Bully X’s image of being “the guy who is always right” added to my confusion. If he’s right, then I must be wrong, isn’t it? Also, Whenever they made me out to be the bad guy, I tried defending myself saying, “I am not that kind of person”. To which they always replied, “So are you saying that “I” am that kind of person?”, with the same confidence in their gaze and tone. I now think that they were projecting onto me because they didn’t like admitting that they were the ones in the wrong here.