Dear Purple:

You are welcome and no, you are not bothering me at all. You are welcome to share about your painful experiences as much as you want to share.

“Could you please (offer) your thoughts about this?“- yes:

“I struggled with low-self-esteem and had insecurities regarding my looks“- I did too. I wonder where your personal low self-esteem and insecurities originated. Maybe if we talked some about that, what happened at the workplace 7 years ago will hurt a bit less, or it may not resurface again.

“and my colleagues deliberately picked on my insecurities repeatedly to hurt me more“- this is the.. job description of a bully: to attack where it hurts.

“they interrogated me like a criminal… These interrogation sessions were traumatic and dehumanizing to say the least. This forced me to reveal all info about him“- as you revealed more and more info about your then boyfriend, your interrogating bullies experienced more and more success, and were encouraged to achieve even more success. It’s like a mountain lion chasing a deer. The deer slows down=> the mountain lion is encouraged and increases its pace, running even faster toward the deer.

“I finally lashed out at one of them, say X… I immediately apologized sincerely to them… after apologizing a couple of times more.. Though they said that they accepted my apologies, they still bullied me“- the male deer turns around and pokes (lashing out at) the mountain lion with its antlers. At this point, the lion, hurt and scared of getting more hurt, may turn around and away from the deer.. but alas, the deer apologizes repeatedly, so the lion thinks: deer is sorry, deer will not poke me again, so better complete the chase and feast on this deer.

“During my last days in that Project, I tried one last time to have a conversation with X to get some closure. I shared that I had insecurities and that their repeated verbal attacks on my insecurities has traumatized me. To which X replied, ‘I too have insecurities, you were mean to me too’, referring to the one time I lashed out at him. I apologized again to him, but he said that I deserved all the bullying“- the deer, wounded from multiple attacks, but alive, and soon to be safe, tries to get some closure with the mountain lion, so it approaches the lion for an honest conversation, telling the lion: it traumatized me when you inflicted these wounds on me, to which the lion replies: you poked me that one time and it hurt! The deer then apologizes for that one time, and the lion attacks the deer yet again…  because that’s what lions do.

“Now, I completely agree that I was in the wrong to have made a mean comment about him, but I feel that he was being very unfair in equating the magnitude of effects of a one-time occurrence (to which apologies were already issued multiple times), to the magnitude of effects of repetitive harassment, and saying that I deserved it“- yes, it was unfair of him, of course it was unfair, but you can’t reason with a bully because a bully (be it a primary bully or a secondary bully, like X) doesn’t care about fairness and honesty. To acknowledge your mistakes and wrongdoings in the context of interacting with people who are interested in honesty and betterment is the right thing to do. It is the wrong thing to do (wrong to you) when interacting with bullies.

anita