Dear James:

You wrote: “they want to migrate to my country to work”- don’t help them (bullies) in their efforts to migrate to your country. You suffered from their bullying in their country. It would be insane (wouldn’t it?) to help bring them to you now. They bullied you before, they are nice to you now (for immigration purposes), they are likely to bully you again once they no longer need you.

You wrote: “And you are right, I won’t need them and they won’t really have direct power over me”- you had to sit near them in medical school because of the alphabetic order. You don’t have to sit with them now. Don’t invite them to have access to you now or in the future.

You wrote: “I guess i’m having some form of PTSD where I feel like I need a solution in cause I re-experience that traumatic experience where I’m in a situation where I need to depend on bullies to survive and I have no escape”. – part of the PTSD symptomology is feeling as if you are still in danger although in real life, the danger is no longer there. I understand. This is why I suggested competent psychotherapy, so to heal from the trauma (the T in pTsd) and place the trauma in the past.

And again, don’t bring the past to you by helping the bullies immigrate and live close to you.

Regarding you “feeling guilty about cutting off the few good people who are unfortunately, close to the baddies”- that is the problem: if you help the “few good people” immigrate, let’s say, they may help “the baddies” immigrate as well and that is against your well being. Your job is to promote your own well being and no job is more important than that.

Another note, about the “few good people”- if they are friends with “the baddies”- what does that mean? Do they participate in the gossiping, in bullying people some of the time? What do they have in common with the bullies… Or are they bullies themselves, only… not as bad as the bullies in comparison.

You wrote: “How can they hurt me? By spreading negative word about me to others – e.g. don’t trust him, he had no friends at med school, no one likes him, he’s incompetent, etc.”

Who will be saying that? Fellow doctors you work with I a hospital setting? Supervisors? Patients? Janitors working there? A band of bullies barging into the hospital to spread the word…?

The bullies are at the stage of trying to immigrate to the country where you live. Don’t help them in any way. Put a distance of place and time between you and the bullies. Place the bullying in the past. Attend competent psychotherapy if that is what is needed to place them in the past.

You wrote: “I am often asked why i go alone or don’t have a group of friends and that this is very unusual for a guy my age…” Who are the people asking that? Who are the people in your daily life presently who negatively criticize you?

anita