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Originally Posted by theeviloneisyou
It's been like this my entire life. I was bullied for my weight and learning disability, my mother physically and verbally abused me, my father was never there for me at all, and I've had friends and relatives ****-talk me and ghost me out of nowhere. While working in education, I was subjected to verbal abuse by students and apathy at best by the administrators. In fact, the principal at the last school I worked at told me, a college educated adult that I would be better off working at Burger King.
I don't get it. I've made mistakes in my life to be sure, but I don't deserve this. All the abuse and mistreatment I've gotten in my life weighs on me constantly. It seems like I can't go a day without remembering some terrible thing someone did or said to me. I want to move on with my life and forward to a better future, but to do that I have to come to terms with my past, and I'm not sure how to.
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I too was emotionally and physically bullied/abused by my mother, as well as by other kids in childhood. Less so as an adult because I did a lot of therapy and some assertiveness training.
I think there are two issues here. One is what people did and said to you, and how to process that. The other is not allowing anyone to bully you in the future - and I do believe that we can act in a way to make it less likely.
Stoicism (the philosophy, which has nothing to do with the modern meaning of the word) is helping me a lot to NOT judge myself by how others treat or have have treated me. The Stoics point out that people are often quite lousy - jealous, petty, and cruel. They behave the way they do because of THEM, not because of you. They see someone vulnerable and they abuse that person. It's not the victim's fault. It's the abuser's fault. However, the Stoics say that such people act that way because they can't tell right from wrong (a deficiency within the bully). The best way to deal with such abuse as an adult is not to react in emotion but wait until you are calm (no longer angry or upset). Write out your feelings if you need to. Then respond the next day or whenever you feel able to. In the case of that principal who said you should work at Burger King, the remark is clearly unprofessional, rude, and uncivil. I might make a formal complaint about such a comment. At the very least I would tell them that is an inappropriate thing to say and that if that person expects professional respect, they should keep their comments professional.
To find out how to prevent future bullying, especially in the workplace, I recommend a guy called Dan O'Connor (the Wizard of Words) on Youtube. He has a lot of great responses. One thing he says is that it's always a valid response to leave the situation and delay responding.
Honestly as I get older (now 55) I have grown in my ability to confront bullies. Sometimes all you need to say is "I don't appreciate your unkind remark. There's no need for you to act uncivil." If they argue, simply repeat yourself, and if they keep talking just stare at them calmly and/or walk away.
I think you're on the right track with realizing NOBODY deserves that kind of treatment, and as long as you realize that you will stop feeling like it is personal. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this - like by imagining what I would say if I witnessed someone saying that to a third party.
The world is sadly full of jerks. I do recommend reading about stoicism as it is helping me a lot. As a Stoic, you behave with virtue but do not have expectations of others' behaviour, but always remember how someone behaves says more about them than you.