The No-Blame Game

A while ago, I was dealing with  a bully coworker. I didn't know what to do, because all of my attempts to stand up to bullies in the past have not gone so well. I was surfing the Net, looking for any smidgen of advice I could find. I came across this website, which offers pretty helpful advice in fighting back workplace bullies. One of the tips that really resonated with me concerned advance preparation. It said something along the lines of "be prepared for your colleagues to say that what's going on is a 'personality conflict' between you and the bully."

I had suspected that was going to happen. People never want to admit that one party really is to blame. 

You hear over and over again from people to not "play the blame game." This infamous Blame Game. Tell me really, though, how often have you seen people play this?
I wonder if we sometimes suffer from the reverse problem--not that we blame too much but that we shy away from blame. We play the no-blame game. We're afraid to put blame where blame is due.

Why do we do this?

I think there are two reasons. The first is that we're afraid of danger (for lack of a better word). Every party is always both wrong, both right, so we can heave a sigh of relief and go on our merry way. Because if one party was wrong, we would have to deal with an uncomfortable imbalance in our world. That imbalance is unsettling to us, and we don't want it to exist.

The second reason is we secretly believe we're more "enlightened" thinking blame is always evenly dispersed. It's mature...isn't it?...to disperse blame evenly. To see both as guilty. Only a childish brat would think one side was right and the other was wrong. You're a wiser, more sophisticated person for always believing blame belongs to both sides.

This needs to change. We need to get real that some people intentionally harm others, either out of a lack of awareness, a lack of empathy, or a genuine desire to cause harm. And in response to that harm, it is appropriate--even necessary--for a victim to rise up. Victims should respond assertively and appropriately according to the situation. And they often do. The larger problem is not the victims' response.

Bystanders need to change their response to how they handle these situations. When they see the unmistakable signs of one person abusing another, they need to do a few different things. The first is that we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable

There is room for not picking sides while simultaneously holding a guilty party accountable. The trick is to focus on words, actions and intentions. Is either person name-calling, insulting, intimidating, belittling, or embarrassing the other party? These actions are never acceptable. Hold them accountable. What's their intention behind the action? Do they have a genuine problem, or do they just want a power trip? Look out for "reacting" vs. "seeking out." Reacting to a problem (in an acceptable way) is fine. Constantly seeking out a reason to pick on someone is not.

Parents need to be open to the idea of guilty parties. It's not as simple as "both parties are equally to blame all the time." Sometimes there's a guilty party. Sometimes there's not.  When there's a guilty party, that person needs to be held accountable. Finding this person is the first step to attaining equilibrium.

Expecting to Be Teased

Something must have happened to my brain after my siblings used me as a receptacle for their own insecure feelings. All the teasing and torturing impacted my life in countless ways. One of the ways I have not yet

touched on is the expectation I held throughout most of my childhood and adolescence that teasing was inevitable. Wherever I went, whoever I was with, I simply expected to be teased. 

This is one of those things you don't notice until you reflect on it. Growing up, it never struck me as odd that I was the constant target of teasing. Heck, the teasing itself never seemed abnormal at all. It didn't feel good, but it felt...habitual. Like I deserved it. I grew up "laughing off" the snide comments that were constantly aimed at me, so in my relations with my peers I did the same. 

I remember one incident where one of my older sisters and her friend were making fun of me over something I wrote. It was a poem or a letter or something they thought was stupid, and they quoted the thing to me in annoying, mimicking voices. What did I do? Did I get defensive and tell them to shove it? Nope. I grinned sheepishly and laughed with them. In my head I thought that because they were older, they must be right. It had been a stupid thing to write. I deserved to be made fun of for writing something that stupid. 

As I got older, I had more encounters with insufferably disrespectful people. We all do, but the difference between me and most people I meet was that my reactions to these rude people were way different from most people's. Often, I had no idea that someone had treated me disrespectfully. 

In college, my friend Rachel and I once had to meet with someone to discuss housing options. The person we met with seemed nice enough, and we had a short, pleasant conversation with her about our housing plans for the next school year. Or so I thought. As soon as we got outside, Rachel muttered something about that "bitchy housing lady..." I didn't say anything out loud, but I remember thinking, "Oh, you thought THAT was bitchy?!" One comment she had made to us had seemed a little off, but it didn't strike me as being that big of a deal. 

I've had more experiences like this. One time I was at a bar with a group of friends, and our server comes over to get our drink orders. When it's my turn to request a drink, I quickly give my order and then sit there, waiting for him to move on to the next person. I had forgotten that (at least at my age) servers look at ID before serving alcoholic drinks. My server motions for me to take out my driver's license, and then shouts "Come on! Come on!" as he's waving his hand. When he leaves to go back into the kitchen, my friend turns to me and says, "Ugh, that guy was so rude to you." 

I hadn't even noticed. In fact, I was giggling as he was waving and shouting at me. His reaction, of course, was right. How could I have been so stupid as to have forgotten to take out my ID? As usual, I was denying any defensive messages inside of me, and agreeing with the message of the bully. The child inside of me who laughed off embarrassment and thought her powerful older siblings were always right had made an appearance. And she thought she deserved to be teased. 

I ask myself if there's anything someone can do that would make me think they deserve to be teased for it. I can't think of anything. I don't tease people. Ever. Knowing how painful it is to be on the receiving end has made me extra aware of others' feelings and of not hurting them. Even in cases where people have made a serious goof-up somewhere, I correct as gently as possible. I never make fun of them for it. 

There is one very special case where I think someone deserves to be teased. And that's right after they've teased someone else. My philosophy is The Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. If someone disobeys this rule, if they think they can taunt others for the thrill it brings them, they deserve to be on the receiving end of the same treatment.

It's funny how sometimes the bullied are accused of being "too sensitive." In my experience, bullying made me DE-sensitized to things I shouldn't have been. I've come to realize that we're all sensitive, and we all don't like being teased. In all situations, (well....with a few exceptions, as mentioned above) we deserve to be treated respectfully. And in my own life, I know I need to work on replacing my teasing expectation with a different one: expecting to be treated with respect.    

Revictimization

It is important to not stereotype survivors of abuse. Bad things can happen to anyone. However, a common finding in research on female survivors of childhood sexual abuse is that those who undergo sexual victimization at a young age are two to three times more likely than their non-victimized peers to experience a sexual assault in adulthood (Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992). This is a phenomenon that researchers have called "revictimization," and is both perplexing and troublesome. 

Why does it happen?

Like in nearly all research surrounding abuse, there are no concrete answers. But, there are a few theories:

1. Under-developed boundaries: There are two predictors that can greatly increase a survivor's chances of being revictimized. These are 1) The younger the victim was at the time of the abuse, the more likely she will endure revictimization. 2) The more severe the abuse, the greater her chances are of revictimization. A possible explanation for these two factors is that the individual's ability to develop good boundaries has been severely compromised. When we are young, we are very vulnerable. We accept the world as it is presented to us. When a loved one abuses us, we accept it as normal. The more severely we are violated, the more damage is being done to our boundaries. 

2. Inaccurate "Danger Cue" Reading: In one study, some researchers found that those who reported revictimization were not as good as their non-victimized peers at identifying people who broke what they labeled "social contracts." In other words, they couldn't identify people who would likely do them harm. Another study presented its participants with a hypothetical dangerous situation. Those who had been victimized as children reported that they would leave after the situation became physical, while those who had never been victimized reported they would leave well before then. It has also been noted that the "cue-reading" works both ways. Those set out to victimize others are good at "reading" who will likely be a victim, and who will not. 

3. Coping Mechanisms and Adjustment Issues: I've mentioned in a previous post that survivors of sexual abuse have been robbed of their body-ownership. Because they have been treated so cruelly by others, they believe that their bodies are simply available to whoever wants them. Researchers have found that survivors of childhood sexual abuse are likely to engage in much higher amounts of consensual sex than those who have not been victimized. They are also more likely to self-medicate with alcohol. These both can make survivors more vulnerable to attacks. Also, the usage of coping mechanisms like denial, self-blame, and distancing from social relationships can increase a survivor's vulnerability. These can all decrease a survivor's sense of self-worth and her motivation and ability to protect herself.  

I think it's not just survivors of sexual abuse who can face revictimization. I went through emotional abuse as a child, and throughout my growing-up years I was constantly being pushed around. I believe that there are parallels between revictimization of both sexual abuse and other types of abuse, and they are worth studying.