Hellion, I hear you. This advice is not meant to criticize you or to defend those who bully and behave badly either. It is just a tool, designed to acknowledge how bad people "can" be and how to learn to better respond to these indiviudals. This advice can be hard to achieve when a person is struggling with PTSD or other psychological challenges resulting from being a victim of this kind of toxic behavior in others.

When an individual finally developes PTSD or what is called complex PTSD, they have been "hurt/injured" so badly psychologically that when they experience these challenges they often respond "before" making a conscious decision about responding. Unfortunately, what many do not understand is that this "injury" leaves the individual often very disappointed or even ashamed of how they respond before they think to respond better. Or, even when a person experiences these intrusions from others they can get triggered so severely they are in a great deal of pain or become incapacitated in some way either by a visual flashback or an emotional one that can be just as severe. And the key word here is "intrusive" which so many do not understand, not unless they have first hand experience of how debilitating it can be.

When people read about PTSD and look at the symptoms and see "avoidance or isolates", they really don't understand that an individual does this because they are often avoiding the pain they endure "if" they are triggered. Unless someone experiences it first hand, they don't realize how much work it really is to function and try to interact with others in a normal way.

However, there are other challenges that individuals have as well where they do not easily pick up on the nuiances of bad manerisms of others and can be very literal or sensitive where their brain fails to present the necessary chemical responses that regulate their emotions normally.

We are just really beginning to understand these different challenges and have been trying to find ways to address individuals that struggle where they can learn how to do what others seem to already be capable of doing without much thought. As we are learning we also try to create more awareness so that when someone witnesses, for example, an autistic child have a rage/temper tantrum they are doing so because their brain is not producing the chemicals that help an individual actually stay under control when they are stressed or struggling in some way.