Self-Care Includes Recognizing the Adult Bullies Around You

Part of self-care means monitoring how you are being treated by those around you. To make sure that you aren't feeling silenced or mistreated in some

Part of self-care means monitoring how you are being treated by those around you. To make sure that you aren’t feeling silenced or mistreated in some way.

People are not always welcoming to change, especially in the initial stages.

When you are in the process of making a change within your family, your community, or within yourself you might experience people trying to go beyond ‘persuasion’ and closer to ‘adult bullying’.

Adult bullying is when someone regularly makes you feel belittled, intimidated, threatened, humiliated, or de-energized.

Ironically, adult bullying can occur in spaces/times where there is activism and/or social change.

(American Historic Examples: Vietnam War, Slavery, Jim Crow South, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Civil Rights Era, Womens Right Era, Gay Rights, AIDS, Japanese Concentration camps, MOVE bombing……)

In times like these, people are often told that they are either “with everyone else or against everyone else.” Groupthink is enforced with vengeance. This can, has, and still does happen on the political left, the political right, and all spaces in between.

It can happen within:

Faith groups
Social justice/movement groups
The workplace
Long time friend groups
Parenting groups
Social media spaces
Casual meetup groups
Leadership groups
Relationships

People in the middle, the gray areas, or who disagree a bit may become targets of adult bullying. Typically, whenever there is an intent to silence a person or position, there might be bullying.